Sustainability and Resiliency Committee - Regular Meeting

Well, we're going to call the meeting to order. Today is Monday, February 23rd, 10 o'clock. This is the meeting of the Sustainability and Resiliency Committee. Madam Clerk, if you could please call the roll.

Chair Daniel Deitch.

Here.

Committee Member Tiffany Kanaga. Here. Committee Member Noah Hickey.

Here.

Terry Halequan.

Outstanding. So everybody received the agenda package. Any changes, any additions, deletions? No. We haven't seen none. Vice Mayor, if you want to provide a liaison report. I know you don't have your notes with you, but there were some exciting activities at the last meeting.

Yes, so at the last commission meeting, we had three items on the agenda that were recommended by this committee, and all items passed unanimously. Let's see, I think first up was the Every Bottle Back program, which, just to update Noah, this committee has been working on getting this program going for quite a while is to put better labeling on the recycle bins in the residential district to improve our level of recycling and reduce the contamination level. So we did approve to have a letter of support. I don't know if our manager has an update on the status of that.

Yeah, we've sent out the letter of support already. We did that last week. and we're taking a look at including several of the items that you were able to get the commission to pass, Vice Mayor, with regard to the procurement. And we have been trying to work with Miami-Dade County on a few different stuff, but that's going to take a while, unfortunately, especially as it comes to the beach renourishment and whatnot. The Vice Mayor's been very adamant with regards to the sand and the breach re-nourishment. We have gotten a report from one of the developers who's done that, who's tested out the sand. We have been going around trying to get quotes to do an independent analysis, but some of the initial quotes that have come back have been about $40,000. So we're trying to see if there's others out there without going to that kind of expense. The report matches what they were supposed to do and we've started collecting direct contacts with Army Corps of Engineers through the assistance of our neighboring municipalities so that we can reach out and see how we can kind of start partnering with them a little bit more and seeing how the federal government hopefully can pay. for some of that beach re-nourishment. Andre's been working with the county and our vendor for the raking services and what the county does and does not do and how we can supplement that, which the vice mayor has been leading the charge on as well to try to ensure that we save as much dollars as we can, but making sure that the beach is protected appropriately. There's Legislatively, I think overall we're kind of on par with everything that was discussed. Chief Resilience Officer is one area. It's a little difficult.

Yeah, that was turned down. Yeah. How many times? Every time.

So I'm trying to look for... something that may essentially fill the gap for the town. Some of these can be, the positions can be very high when it comes to hiring someone to do it full time. So sometimes a hybrid approach might be better for the town, at least maybe as a baby step, almost like a proof of concept, right? Sometimes it's easier to prove, oh wow, look how much we were able to save and we were able to do, and then maybe that's something we bring in full time as opposed to just nothing. So we're exploring a couple different vendors who would be interested in providing some of those type of services for us as a consulting, as well as looking at our neighboring cities. My only concern with neighboring cities or even the county is we won't be the priority, right? It was like, yeah, we'll help, but then, you know, unless there's like a big project that we're involved with they're not thinking about us on a day-to-day basis right where at least with a consultant you know you're going to have x amount of hours per month that you can kind of throttle up or throttle down so We're exploring all of these issues, and I believe, Andre, correct me if I'm wrong, some of the educational components that the vice mayor and the committee has asked for, and I'm looking at your legislative list here, the rain barrel workshop and other stuff, I believe we've had some type of movement on that. Yes. And I think... I thought I saw the workshop coming together if it hadn't already happened.

It hasn't happened yet, but we're trying to put stuff together.

That's actually something that could be pitched to the Community Relations Board, maybe. Together? Yeah, because they've been jumping on a lot of the Youth Council initiatives. It would be good if they... worked on the sustainable initiatives as well.

I mean, the rain dollar workshop is very easy. The county provides those services. All we need to do is provide the venue.

And I apologize. I know I kind of jumped into another item that you all, but it kind of just flows took a considerable amount of time to discuss it and to go through it at the last commission meeting.

All right. And we also had on the agenda was about the contracts for vendors for town events. And that's being worked on through the town attorney. There are some bumps on there. I was supposed to meet with the Resort Expo staff to go over it. The concern is how much it may raise the cost of our events. and how much we can actually accomplish. But I can tell you yesterday at the Parks and Rec event, all the metals we were handing out had plastic coverings. I'm with you on not having the packaging with plastics. I think there's a lot of area that needs to be done internally.

Even educationally for our own staff.

Yes. I see it in the Park and Recs events specifically and the other town events. It depends on the vendor because some vendors will really do their best but they just don't have the cooperation of the community. It just takes one person to throw something in the wrong bin. You'll have everyone doing it in the right bin and all of a sudden

We can talk tactics, but again, that comes back to the role of a Chief Resilience Officer that really coordinates all of these activities. I know the Vice Mayor knows this, but several years ago, when this committee was abolished, the story was, well, it cuts across every function of the town, both committees, boards, and the administration, so we don't need a specific committee. But obviously there's value in having a committee and having a dedicated person that can be the coordinator for all of it. So that becomes the free line. But we'll talk about that later. Anything else from... No, no.

I was happy to be able to restart this committee and I was really happy with the dedication of this committee because it's true initially it was supposed to be quarterly and I'm happy it's been monthly even though... We've had difficulty with members staying, but we've managed, so thank you for that.

Speaking of that, Noah, if you want to give an order, just introduce yourself.

raised in Surfside my whole life, friends with the other Deitches, the little Deitch kids. So yeah, I grew up, I went to Bay Harbor Elementary here, Novelist Middle School in Beach High. You've probably seen me at the beach, I'm at the beach all the time. And yeah, I love Surfside, so I was super excited to be on the committee and help you guys in any way I can. So thank you guys for having me. Well, welcome. Thank you.

There are no members of the public that... We're going to forego that, and we can have a motion to approve the meeting minutes.

I make a motion to approve the January meeting minutes. Do I second? Second.

Well done. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, very fast. All right, so our first discussion item, we have raised this at past meetings, and I'm so excited that we have the brain trust of the Reef Line, the volunteer, to come and share their story and identify ways that SORS have the potential to partner with them. So without further ado, and if you want to join us at the table, whatever, it's pretty informal, but I just wanted to make sure that we had enough seats for the members.

Who controls it? It's like alcohol. It should be with the keyboard.

With the keyboard?

Yes, just with the arrows.

You want to do it?

Yeah, let's do it.

Just the arrows one way or the other. And if you would, introduce yourselves, and then the floor is yours.

I'm Ximena Caminos. I'm the founder and artistic director of WeFlying. I moved to Miami Beach in 2012. to help develop what's called the Faina District in Miami, and I run all the arts program, and I did all the cultural master plans for the Faina District, also for the Underline in Miami, that's when I met Brandy, and I think, and Colleen as well, I think that it was back in 2019 that the idea of Reefland was born out of a conversation with Colleen, who's now our Director of Science, so we're very happy to be here.

Good morning, I'm Brandy Reddick, Executive Director for ReefLine. A little bit about my background, I served for 13 years as the curator for the Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places program. And prior to joining the Reef Line, I was seven years overseeing the cultural affairs program for the city of Miami Beach and joined Ximena and the Reef Line in 2023 after the Reef Line received a $5 million general obligation bond grant from the city of Miami Beach. And the Reef Line essentially became a reality after that. So we installed our first installation in October and we're happy to be here today.

My name is Colin Ford. I'm a marine biologist and director of science for the Reef Line. I'm also co-founder of Coral Morphologic, which is a hybrid art science platform. And co-founder and I operate the Coral City Camera, if you're familiar with it. It's an underwater live streaming camera at the Port of Miami that people from around the world enjoy. And I also am operating the Miami Native Coral Lab, where we are growing corals. currently 2,200 soft corals that will be out planted on that first installation off of South Beach and very happy to be here and try and help you guys figure out a vision for a reef line and surf site.

So from my perspective, it checks a lot of boxes. So you probably didn't see the agenda, but we've identified our priorities as a committee in two important ones. One is intra-governmental cooperation, so looking for ways that we can partner with other units of government as well as nonprofits. and also building resiliency, coastal resiliency, because while we benefit from beach renourishment, as I mentioned yesterday, we were last renourished to a significant extent in 2020, and if you were to walk the beach today, you might question what work was done, because the erosion has been quite aggressive. Living in a coastal community where the average elevation is six and a half feet, and we've got the ocean on one side and the bay on the other, Everything that we can do to build our coastal resiliency will yield so many benefits to our community, both for the built infrastructure, built environment, and for the community at large.

was sort of in response to a bee tree nourishment that had smothered the near shore habitat. And so the reef line is in fact a direct response and sort of bringing back the habitat that was lost while creating the ecotourism at the same time. The bee tree nourishment was about 20, it was 25 years ago. So it's been a long time, but obviously this is an issue that will continue being an issue. And so, of course, we're also interested in looking at the ways in which a reef line could be a way to mitigate, to reduce the cost of future sand reef airstrip and protecting the shoreline.

Okay, so I'll explain what reef line is and why it's so unique. So reef line is growing infrastructure. It is civic infrastructure. We're sitting on top of a hybrid reef permit. That's how we got our structures. It was a hybrid reef permit that Durham issued back in the day as a response to what Colleen was saying, which was recognizing the loss. So they declared an area that was ideal for reef to be deployed to reef structural loss, and then that structural loss creates other types of losses. So what we did is we combined art and science. We thought, why not in an art mine city like Miami Beach, wouldn't public art also be underwater and create a one-of-a-kind world attraction for ecotourists? And we positioned the city as a city that is, you know, dealing creatively with a problem. We created what's called a new typology, because this is cultural-ecological infrastructure. We use art as a catalyst. We're scientifically informed. Ecology is part of our material. And it takes a village to make it, because it does take cross-disciplinary collaboration from all these agencies. So basically, here is our five pillars. For us, a little bit to what the vice mayor was saying. Ocean literacy is critical. So educating the people. In the end, ReFly will not solve the world's problems, but it does show a very beautiful and creative and compelling way to tell a better story and to educate people. So it's a showcase. It's a blueprint of a solution that can be scalable. So, well, also influencing policy is a dream of ours because they're in love with what we're doing. They see that our structures are successful, so we build a relationship with them. and they're open to us proposing new materials. Sometimes the laws here are a little outdated, and even the materials we can use, there are so many better materials we could use, but we're stuck with which was written. So we're also working in trying to advance those new policies. So this is communities at the heart of brief time, but this is what it takes to really make it, all these elements, from science to tourism, government elected officials, philanthropists, schools, universities, we work with UN, with FIU, with Harvard, with all of them, Nova Southeastern, we collaborate with all the universities, and we really, this is like a Swiss clock, and we need all of these practitioners on all hands on deck to make a project like this happen. So like Florida, we all know, you know, it's a canary in the coal mine where like ground zero sea level rise. The loss has been enormous. We're sitting on the third largest reef system in the world. And the one that's still here, the fringe reef in Miami Beach, is the only one alive to continental platform. So we have all the problems. But we also have in our hands all the solutions. So we could really show the world, not just Surfside or Miami Beach, how to heal the relationship between a city and the ocean that sustains it, in part. So this is Miami Beach back in the day, and that's all the sand that they managed to de-float and sink the reef under. So becoming the blueprint is important. There's a lot of facts. This is Nature magazine. So this $1.8 billion is a real fact, and then there's a retirement investment of $10 million per kilometer per year in South Florida. So all of this literature is available. And we knew that what we were doing was complex, so we had to, and also we don't want to just be underwater. For example, what Colleen is doing, the Miami Coral Native Coral Lab, or even his lab at Coral Morphologic, there are such important anchors on land to be able not just to cross polynines between the underwater and the land, but you really, to have other opportunities to teach and fundraise, which fundraising is super important as well. So we called Shoheiji Nematsu from MoMA. This is a fiscal prize winning architectural firm. With him I designed all the master plan for Faena. So I worked with him for around six years and I really like how their cultural analysts and how creative they are. So we designed a master plan, understanding we were designing a legacy, a legacy project and a landmark for the city. If you think about New York, you might think about the Statue of Liberty, you think of, or the High Line, you think of Paris, you might think about the Eiffel Tower. What do you think about when you think about South Florida, right? We want people to think about a creative process, a civic collaborative process like Reef Line. We want that to be our flag. So those were the existing conditions under the Sound Refinishment Project, and those are our proposed conditions. This is a little bit of the analysis. It's fun to watch, you know, like on-land signage and then floating signage because you want the swimmers to be safe, and the water signage with mile markers, all inspired in nature's masterful design. And that's where we're at. So the first squares that you see down there in South Beach, those are the Nova Southeastern Experimental Reef. Those were deployed very early on, and they pioneered this whole hybrid reef project. area where we're at. And then those two little dots there is where our cars are at. And then we analyzed, well, we want to be, ideally, this is a master plan, so it's a seven mile long, hopefully. And what we wanted to do is to connect and deploy in front of public parks, so we have there's beach access, incredibly in south, you know, in Miami, only 80% of the children that are over there, like on the other side of Miami, have been to the beach, unbelievably. That's a real fact. So these are our studies, and also being in front of the lifeguard stations for safety, and these are our phases. Phase one, phase two, the heart of the volcano, phase three, the Magnolia Star, and the Nauvoo Arts Award, which is a beautiful award we did to also amplify our voices and bring our message to the world. And then, concrete coral, as Brandy said, that will be thrown in October. These structures are thriving. We started them with coral lobes, which are devices to outplant faster. Colin is actually breeding our corals on top of those little things in his lab, and then you go down and plug them. It's really fun. This is what our permit looks like. All those things on the right are the GPS points. There's only a 5-inch margin of mistake in how this is, or wiggle room, on how these were deployed. So Leandro wanted a perfect grid underwater. And in part, we chose this installation that was actually Colin's idea to give it an afterlife because he thought it had the perfect morphology of a reef. That these cars were like those ancient reef heads. So we thought, why not? Because a lot of people have white cars, you know? And actually, the shape of the cars is fantastic. And they've proven so. So you'll see. So we went ahead and tested them in the Sustain Tank in the University of Miami with Professor Brian House. You can test like a category five hurricane in this tank. And we made the models to size, to weight, to the tank. We tested them for stability. We work a lot with marine engineers. Everything we do in matching work. The Army Corps is the last one to sign our permits and sign off. So this is what the cars look like on land. And this is how they look like when they're going down. They're attached to that plinth. Each of these cars weighs approximately 16 tons, so they won't go anywhere. And this was very exciting to watch, to see all these cars going down. And as soon as they were going down, you see, look, this is a fun video. So the two heroes are the guys you're going to see now, which are down there, talking to the barge through a yellow umbilical cord. placing these cars that they move, you know, the tires and the crane move. So it's a very dangerous thing that they do. They're placing the weave. And it took us, I think, four days, Brandy?

Yeah. Over two weeks. Yeah. Four days within two weeks because you have to have the perfect weather conditions to deploy.

Yeah. So these are our commercial divers. And this is the cars already two weeks in. You see they're starting to get a little fussy. and those are the coral logs, and this was a month ago. They are already colonized. This is like an underwater garden. They go through many phases. They won't be like this all the time. Then they'll change, but what's been incredibly successful is the amount of life they've been recruiting. I'll let Colin explain this. This is not AI. This is real, and it's just incredible how many people. If we went there now, you would see There's actually a lot of tour operators from Surfside coming to Reefland. We have our own partnership with Tigers Paradise. There's people there all the time. So the dolphins and rainbow swim club, they swim there every day. The community adopted Reefland, which is our biggest pride. And the schools were part of a big educational program as well. So Heart of Volcanoes. is what's coming next, hopefully, if all stars align in 2026. As Brandy mentioned, we have a $5 million grant from the city. We promised that we were going, we deployed in time and in budget, despite having had, and I shared this with Daniel, when we received the grant, the citizens of Miami Beach voted 65% yes to give us the cultural geo bond. But that was in 2022. And then one day we get a call from the city manager that tells us, you know the word in your contract, in your grant contract says that the funds are from Miami Beach institutions, but you guys are underwater. So we think we are not a Miami Beach institution. So we're going to have an interlocal agreement signed with the city of Miami, which took a year of lawyers, and it really delayed us. So in 2022, we received $5 million, but we could only start spending the most at the beginning of 2025. So we had a lot of inflation stuck into our bond, which was a problem. Despite that, we deployed in budget, which was a miracle. And it was a miracle because we managed to identify the right people to do this. This is a very difficult thing to do. And it's a very complex thing to do. One of the difficulties is complexity. So we found the right fabricators that work with the DOT Because no one could do it. Everyone failed. They tried, they tried, they tried. Everyone got it wrong. And they would find the right guy. And then the same with the barge. Yes, we can do it. No, they couldn't do it. But it was a process. These are stability analysis that we do so that the shapes, they stay in place. And this is what we love, that each of these installations, they become a symbol for the city. So the Miami Reef Star would be a symbol for Miami. As you fly, you know. I love to quote Colin, he always says that corals are the first real estate developers of the ocean and they create the underwater cities. So we love the idea of flying into a city and being able to see cities from space and from the plane you see them. So you will be able to see the stars as you fly in. So we like the idea of creating symbols for each city that we're at. And these are symbols of resiliency and creativity, of co-creation with nature, right? So this is Colleen in our lab with Dr. Sylvia Earle. Maybe you guys know her. She's like Time magazine hero of the planet. She spent more time underwater than on land. They call her her royal deepness. And she planted our first coral. So this is our coral palette. These are the babies that we're growing. This is a purple candelabra. This is a coral bouquet. And that's Sylvia out planting our first corals with... with Rescue Reef, with University of Miami and Professor .

She's 90 years old here. She's . Yeah, this was in October during art week in December.

Do you want to talk about this, Pauline?

Certainly. When there's just sand on the bottom, there's no complexity. There's no habitat. Fish want to feel safe. literally within hours of putting the cars underwater, the fish were already finding their homes there. And we've been going out on a monthly basis and really seeing a dramatic increase in the numbers of fish that we're seeing and the species that we're seeing. And then now we're at the point where sponges and other benthic invertebrates are attaching to the cars. And so it's like an evolution taking place in real time. And, of course, this is good for nature. The people that are going out and scuba diving and snorkeling are getting to be immersed in our local ecology, which, you know, in running the Coral City Camera, our slogan is civic pride through biodiversity. And it's really important that we teach the younger generation that's growing up that what we have here in our backyard is really, no other kids have this in their school district. that this is something that you should care about. And if you care about it, then you're going to be engaged. You want to make sure that the water's not polluted, that this game day is healthy. And so the fact that it sort of really tied everything together, the science, the education, the community engagement, and really, I think, the impact that it's had on changing people's perception of what Miami Beach can do or what it is. It's not just nightlife and party. We have something to offer the whole community. Whether it's your first time in the water snorkeling or if you're a scientist coming to do research, we embrace it all.

So we'll let Randy speak about this, but I'll just comment on something. You know, it all starts at home and it all starts at school. There's an incredible app. It's called Recyclepedia. Are you familiar with Recyclepedia? Okay, so we work a lot with them and with Dreaming Green in trying to get into those schools. to be able to educate the young ones from a very early age about how to protect our precious. So do you want to speak about that, Mandy?

Yes, so like Amanda mentioned earlier, 80% of the children in Miami-Dade County have not been to the beach, much less gotten in the ocean. So you can only protect what you love. And so we're committed to educating children across our county. We've partnered with Dream and Green and are currently serving 10,000 students across 125 Title I schools. And we also work with Breakthrough Miami, which takes exceptional students from Miami-Dade County, particularly seventh grade, which is their learning science division, and we go and speak to these schools. In fact, we have one coming up in March where we're meeting with the Breakthrough Miami children, and that's incredibly fascinating. And one thing we've realized with WeFind, and we're actually looking at this as phase four, is an on-ground marine learning center. So as part of our master plan with Shohei Shigematsu and OMA, that was one of the things that was identified as an absolute need for refining. And we are collaborating with the city of Miami Beach and are looking at a property at 76th Street that we will hopefully be able to occupy and have this area's first marine learning center.

I wonder if there is something that both cities could collaborate on as well. The Marine Learning Center. Because it's almost in Surfside.

So this is the building that might have required an ocean house.

Yeah, it's called the Bessie Harris House. There's a house out there. You know it? So the city bought that house, and they have it. And the commissioners are pushing us. They want us to move the Marine Learning Center there. We were thinking about Loomis Park, but we actually think... It's better to be up north.

That's a great use for the location because I've heard a controversy about what the city is going to do with that house.

Oh, okay.

And this is the first idea I've heard that really makes sense.

It makes sense, right? So we're thinking, well, if we have the marine learning center there, maybe instead of deploying our next space north of the cars, we just deploy it there. it makes sense because we need to start like developing this time often people said you know so they understand so the marine learning center is on land and on water so once a month the diverse paradise we have a dive boat out there and we take people out with you and or ourselves we teach them about coral gardening and then we everywhere we go this that we're doing here with you We invite people if we are in New York or if we are in Greece, because sometimes we have to travel. We always host a little salon where we tell people about what we do, where we're at, why we do it. So we go around the world. There's a lecture at Harvard. Harvard Labs, because it's very pioneering. It's very original. There's nothing like it in the world. There are some people that put a sculpture, and then coral grows. It's very different to what we're doing. So we're the first, which gave us 13.6 billion single media impressions, which is twice the world population in recognition in media, which makes us very happy. So even like, I don't know, Vietnam, Times of India. We don't do PR there, but it's just they fall in love with it. and they come you know they come people are very excited about it so these are our partnerships we try to be i like to say we want to be that girl that dances with everyone at the party we want to be friends with all these institutions with all these schools i personally you know me brandy and pauline have something in common which is the arts and we believe in the power of the arts and how are bringing people together because sometimes numbers and data and science are overwhelming. But the art taps into the public sentiment. The arts have the power to connect people, to tell the story from an emotional point of view, and to heal also. You know, arts have an incredible healing power. So what we did, we really didn't know exactly what you guys had in mind. We knew you were interested and liked the idea. So we did developed the concept further. When we developed ReFlying, we didn't consider ReFlying as a barrier. We didn't consider ReFlying as a tidal energy reduction or coastal resiliency because we are South Beach where there's a great wave and the surfers want to surf, so we didn't want to disrupt that. We actually made an agreement with Surfrider. The truth is that reef line can become that if you build bigger structures closer to shore. So we thought that was an interesting thing to explore because we also witnessed firsthand what's going on with the erosion. And if we're making this incredible effort to deploy these structures, which is expensive, why not make them more structurally sound in order to mitigate tidal erosion? So we went ahead and analyzed that, because that's something we are also interested in developing. And this is a little bit the eco-tourism, which is exciting. So we will share with you. Some other thoughts that we've been developing with our partners, which go from, these are very exciting, so we like to say from art deco to art eco. These are smaller versions. These are sea tiles. So these are designed to maximize micro-habitat. So these can be, they're beautiful, we designed them with OMA. this can be deployed on our bases in the reef line, but also on seawalls, because these are very, these are very profitable, and these are easy to put in and put out, and they are a permeable, like a flexible skin for an existing seawall, that right now they're like dead surfaces, that repel energy, you know, like when a surface is porous and it's impalatable, it's more friendly, but it also helps with erosion. So those are the barrier modules. So with OMA, we designed two things for reef mining. We designed, these are the tiles that are so spectacular. And this is how they interlock. We also designed mine habitat modules, which are not necessarily a huge hybrid reef, they're very intense habitats. And then we designed these systems. So these barrier modules are very affordable because you don't need a giant train on a barge. You can deploy them, push them, and they interlock. And they are there to, if you see here, they can protect the art as well. So it's like a two-layered reef line. One is more infrastructure and engineering. It's the one that is there to somehow be a barrier. And then you have the actual art. So they really work together. These are the OMA, Hydro Coastal Defense. And of course, you can design them in very fun ways, but they always have to be, we're speaking about scale, durability, affordability. It's important that these are not very expensive, because if not, it's too expensive. So these are cast. And these are our, we try to work, as I said at the beginning, with the best material. So the best we found is the second one in the list that's called . It's an incredible carbon capture, almost like eco-concrete, that is made in France. And we're trying to bring it here. Then you have the ocean here that's here in Florida. And then the semi-marine grade concrete is good, too. These are very low carbon emission, but concrete is the second most emissions, like polluting elements in the planet. So being able to work with something different is also important. So material science is important to us. This was our fabricating methods. We had to go old school. We tried to do all the, like, innovation, it didn't work. We just had to make these cars how anyone in, like, if we were really building a bridge. So this is about us. This is a little bit about the people that work with us, Brandy and Colin, Jorge, who's our master planner, Professor Dio Hidman at Rosenthal School, and Tavos Chaparro, who's our construction engineer. And then that's Sean Kearns, the one in the blue shirt. He owns that barge. He's our partner when it comes to deployment. So this is Reflame in a nutshell. I mean, we could go on and on, right? And then we made a logo for you guys.

Thank you for sharing your story. You're welcome. So you're here because we first introduced what is going on in Miami Beach to the committee. The committee was interested in doing it. Like Miami Beach and like Bell Harbor, as I mentioned, Surfside is designated by the Florida legislature as a tourist-based economy, which has certain privileges and also certain responsibilities. And your project is... really hits the sweet spot of opportunity. So both in terms of a funding source, and I know that we use every bit of our tourist tax dollars. However, we have another project that we'll soon be contributing. So we've got a big change in our tax base, and it gives us the opportunity and the financial strength to dream big. And that's really what this is. So I wanted... Again, the brain trust from Reflon to present to this committee And then perhaps also to start to bring in our other committees and boards. I spoke to, I don't know what her role is, but a representative of the tourist board about this and seemed to be very excited. So that may be what happened.

I had gone with the representatives from the tourist board to U of M. We met with Dr. Andrew Baker and he gave us a tour. And we were actually, I think we were working with him on putting a reef in Surfside. But it's stalled somehow. So if there's a way to move forward with that, I know we actually allocated small amount of money, perhaps might need more. I love the idea of combining art. with the reef line, and I was, I cover at Basel, so I was there when the cars were on the beach, and then I saw Carlos' stars there, so it's wonderful to see it actually in the water.

I think art is a real game changer, because you can do a hybrid reef, and it's of course incredibly functional, but when you have the art, that's what captures the imagination.

So there was interest in our resort export to put a reef, and I know Dr. Baker was talking about having the reef, because most of them are in the exclusion zone, and he was talking about moving it. So that... Inside the swimboats, you mean? Inside the swimboats, you know, right at the edge of the exclusion zone. So that was something... That's for us as I deal.

In Miami, we're outside, and, you know, it's less safe because it's a longer swim. So for us, being excited swimming buoys, like the field thruster, you know, it would be fantastic. That's where we're interested. We're working in Miami to push the buoys out, actually, with the city. And we're also working with the city. The city just granted another civic organization, which is Urban Paradise Hill, and we're working together with Mission Blue to declare the area a marine protected area. Because right now, Miami Beach fans like shark fishing from the beach. But it's kind of crazy when you see all these swimmers near the jetty, and you see pure fishermen there. And then you feel like it's impossible to coexist. You know, the boats, the reef, the art, the fishermen. There's a, what do you call that ordinance that the Fisher Islands put in place? It's like a consistent ordinance.

Yeah, Fisher Island was able to get vessel exclusion zones because they have seagrass and so it's like a manatee protected area. I know something that we would be interested in looking at bringing reef line to Surfside is the deployment at South Beach was done through the artificial reef program. But there is a nuance where if you build a living breakwater, Because an artificial reef isn't technically designed to absorb storm energy, but there's a lot of interest from the Army Corps to develop structures that are going to protect the shoreline, protect the sand, and prevent that erosion. can you do it in a way that one promotes biodiversity and then where we come in is can you then also add the creative element that is going to not just protect our shoreline but actually be a destination for tourism and locals to use as well. And that's where also potentially you may be able to find funding coming from federal dollars that are going towards coastal protection to build structures that accomplish all of these goals.

much better than the law.

Much better than the law.

I'm also thinking, we... are now part of the biophilic cities program. So there seems to be a nexus with that. I also thinking about access to the beach. Years ago Surfside was the first in the state to install diverter dunes. So in our dunes we have breaks for people to pass. But that's also dangerous with storm surge. So we partnered with the Youth Environmental Alliance to build diverter dunes at those cut throughs low mounds of sand with sea grass to knock down wave energy when the waves are coming in, but channels to allow the water to recede. Years ago, there was a group from an elementary school in Miami Gardens that volunteered to help build what we've ever done in front of a surf club. The vast majority of those students had never been to the beach before, and they're just 10 miles away. So the benefits are not just for Surfside. It allows Surfside to be a model, much like Miami Beach is doing.

And this has always been a big part of Reefline's mission, is getting to a coral reef is a luxury for many. You need a boat, you need equipment, and so by starting Reefline at Lummis Park, By positioning them in these places where the public can now just swim out directly, I think helps open a whole world to a community that might not otherwise have access to it. That's really important because it builds that civic pride and may change the course of somebody's life who engages and decides that they want to protect the ocean or go into a STEM field.

I know you're probably much more familiar with how they're funding and how they operate. Could we tap into that as an additional potential funding source?

I'll be really honest, it's just not enough. Well, great, not enough. A little bit. When I say a little bit, it's a little bit. The City of Miami Beach, their cultural affairs grants range from $15,000 to $20,000. And the county is a little bit more. And we apply for those. But it's more like in the $30,000 to $40,000 range for organizational support.

There is another potential revenue stream that we're analyzing, which is becoming a public benefit. So I don't know if in Surfside you have that percentage of that goes to public art.

We negotiate proffers with developers.

I don't know what the number is, but it's tens of millions of dollars in public benefits associated with the recent... Because you see in Miami Beach all this public art and the public art that Brandy used to oversee, the huge installations of public art. Those are taxes that developers pay that go to the 2%, right? to public arts in Miami Beach and Miami. So those pockets are deeper. And we're speaking actually a man that's opening in mid-beach is trying to make Reflame become their public benefit. Because sometimes a developer comes and tells you, I want two more floors. And the city might consider it if they build a new garden or something like that. So Reflame could potentially also become a public benefit for development.

There's certainly a benefit to any hotels that are on the beach, there's absolutely a direct benefit.

So the hotels right now, Ritz Carlton, Saina, the One Hotel, and the Andaz in Miami Beach are all building like reclaimed packages for the tourists. but they blast it internationally, and we booked a room, there's a refund, but we're helping them do that.

We have a surf club in Grand Beach, so that's a benefit for them if they just have it right in the backyard.

Well, because they have something else to offer, you know, otherwise, like a... a chair on the sand, but now they, you know, and you can even stream live with an installed, like, a Coral City camera, and you could even stream, like, that camera at the third side. Like, the Coral City camera that Colin made is the longest living live YouTube channel in history. And during COVID, it exploded, because everybody was trapped, so they watched the Coral City camera. It was soothing.

Well, I guess my thought is where we're at is Can we set an audacious goal and then figure out the steps that we need to do? And Tiffany, I broke your name in my earlier discussion because your fund rate is an acumen, right? And sometimes there's only so much public funding available, but we have an engaged citizenry that may be interested in supporting this as well. It's extensive and it's an all hands on deck. How do we make this happen? So first, I want to gauge the interest. I mentioned we have a municipal election in three weeks, and all five elected officials are on the ballot. So our windows, they're trunking every two years, and things get weird a couple months before the election. But we're having, and I think, We're at a point of great opportunity with a new commission, and if you look at the candidates, it's like inside baseball discussions, but I think that we'll end up with more people on the commission that understand not only the cultural value, but the economic value of these sorts, of this kind of initiative specifically.

the name of your surf site, it's built into the name. It's associated with the ocean and going to the ocean. And I couldn't think of a better way to sort of really stand out as a, you know, there's lots of coastal towns and cities and having your own cultural destination underwater as a coral reef is really like a, that adds a tremendous value and recognition globally

If we were able to do it, what I was speaking with Daniel last night that we spoke briefly, is to maximize impact and to maximize investment to get the most bang out of our buck, because it is an expensive thing. Each of our deployments, and we can share the budgets, are like between a million and a half and two million dollars. because it's a lot, it's just so complex. So the way that we've learned that there can be savings is if you stack the developments back to back. And so you build more, you deploy them together, because the biggest costs are there in fabrication and in deployment. Those are the two biggest buckets. In the whole budget, they will take maybe almost two-thirds of the budget, you know? So if you can stack them, it's better. So what I would do, if you ask me, like, if we were to do this together, what I would prefer is to be able to have a window of time where, and we would put a budget together where we would develop a master plan for Surfside, and we would identify what would be the best places, how much reef, where, with whom, blah, blah, blah, like a general master plan, not too complex, like to understand how much do we need in funding and how much time also do we need? So to understand a little bit the topology and the marine ecology down there. And then with that we can make a budget. Reefland, for example, seven miles of reef land with more or less budgeted at $48 million of which we already raised eight. So how many miles does Surfside have?

We're at one mile.

One. So what's 48 divided seven? Seven. Well, that's what I said yesterday, 10. I think with 10 billion dollars, we could make a recline for Southside. That doesn't include inflation and those things, but ballpark number, I think we could do it at a really nice scale. Could we do it more and with more signage and more financing? Yes, but I think we could do something really good. This is a ballpark out of the top of my mind, but I think it's not too much. I think it's a logical number. And that would be reef line. If we wanted to become and deploy that second barrier, which I think is a very interesting thing, it would be more, but those are not that expensive because they're easier to fabricate. They're cast concrete. And then they would be deployed when we deploy the arc. So you have a layer of arc and a second layer a little bit further away of the barrier. And that's where Colleen is saying that there's so much state funding for that. We actually, we are doing the due diligence ourselves. We're speaking to a state representative because we are interested in that because we want to protect our art as well and ourselves.

i've seen usually have like uh large rocks or something at a certain level where even um marine vessels can't cross in right so it looks yeah it almost looks like a protective barrier for swimmers but it has a lot to do with protecting the beaches and also you know what makes it a hybrid

the corals, we will transplant those corals, which will accelerate not only the biodiversity, but the corals themselves are also going to be absorbing that storm surge and wave energy. So it's a faster return on your investment by planting the living infrastructure on the hardscape.

And then I would love, as a symbol of the city collaboration, that potentially this marine learning center on 76, it belongs to both cities. swim and even scuba in that pool. We want to bring part of Colin's lab so you could really witness and see how the corals eat and learn. It's like a tourism visitor center but also for the community. A lot of people don't really know what's there. It's incredible.

And I want to add a little bit on to how we're exploring funding models in addition to it being like a public benefit when a developer comes in. Is this having that great for us? It's also looking at your resort tax revenue. So how other cities develop a dedicated revenue It's like dedicate a percentage of resort tax revenue to a project like ReFly. So for instance, like one-fifth of your resort tax revenue could go dedicated to ReFly. And that fund accumulates, you know, probably half a million, a million dollars a year until you have enough money to properly build ReFly. So that's more like a town legislation you could put in place to help fund.

I saw that you mentioned the carbon absorption slightly, and are there, I'm assuming you guys have reports and studies that show the effectiveness of that? In a sense, even the impact of the mitigation of erosion and stuff, because obviously economically and the biodiversity, there's a ton of benefits, but I'm curious, even the addition of extra barrier, how much that would impact the erosion? Is there a chance that in 10 years there's just no corals on these and then these are concrete structures in the ocean?

So in the Miami Native Coral Lab, we're working to amplify and spawn really resilient corals. So like at the Port of Miami where we have the camera, we have this population of corals that I studied with Noah at the University of Miami. And we've done genetics and we've looked at the, we're learning that in fact the corals that are, we call them the urban corals, So we use those as our mother colonies. So we're doing everything we can to accelerate the evolution of the corals to prolong their longevity and make sure that they're going to thrive. We're not just putting something out that's going to die next time it gets bleached. Unfortunately, every time we have a big bleaching event, like in 2023, The strong ones are the survivors, and it also helps us sort of identify where we can find the tough core. So that's part of the science that we're working and we're pushing. I mean, really, it's at the forefront of, and this is, again, I think, where Miami has now is at the global stage where People are looking to Miami for these types of solutions that are natural, but also utilizing technology of quality science and material sciences is one of the things that I think Miami is leading.

Are these like modular blocks that you can then replace the corals if that happens? So the coral lock is a simple screw mechanism.

So actually, it's one, you know, we'll be able to help attach corals, which is something that we plan to do with, you know, school kids that are, some of the schools have scuba clubs, like Beach High has a scuba club, Mass Academy.

We can email you these materials if you want to go through them. That would be great. We come up with the most creative ways to fundraise.

Just a question, because I think obviously as the acting town manager, I just think of timeline and funding. That's basically all. If we were to break this down a little bit where we could do either a master plan or some type of design, just that component, what do you think would be the overall cost to put something like that together? Because a lot of the grant funding, especially at the state level, will require that you have design and master plan before they consider construction, right? So they don't look at it as a... 10 million dollar project that's all inclusive they're going to look at it as well you know we'll give you 500 000 for your design um criterias and then once you get that and you can show that you have all of the design then you can ask for construction and they won't they won't talk one without the other i think it might be yeah this is

out of the top of my head, but somewhere between 200,000 and a little bit more, depending on the surveys that we need to do, BENTIC surveys. If the master plan, if we really want to do it well, we would have to do a BENTIC survey and go down there and see everything, see whether it's not, really analyze it and do a thorough master plan. Those are costly. So we would engage Cummings Cedarburg as well, our main engineering firm. They, we work with them because they are the ones that make all the marine engineering for Miami Beach. And then we would engage OMA, which is the Office of Metropolitan Architecture. Same master planners, I don't know how much we spend, 160?

Yes, about 160.

Yeah, in OMA, yeah, I don't know. But let's say 200 up, between 200 and 300, or 180 and 300, depending on. Also, how much area we're surveying. Do we want the whole mile? Do we focus in an area? Is it three separate areas?

And then my last question, have you all which is meant for coastal projects? No.

Typically they're on the other side because it's for the navigable waterway. So we've worked with them for seawall improvements. But my experience is that they're not dealing with the ocean side.

Yeah, I'm just wondering, because we have their deadline for grants, and they do it in two phases. They do the design, and then they'll do construction. Their grant application deadline is March 30th, and I'm wondering if we can at least think if the committee and the commission thinks about the master plan line, if maybe that is part of For me, I'd rather ask and be told no than we should have asked that. We were thinking about doing something, right?

I haven't looked in a bit, but historically our fine commissioner is Spencer Crowley. He works with Neeson.

But it's a small community. We would have to pick up the phone call and talk to him about the project.

Spencer has been our lawyer for a long time. Neeson is our lawyer pro bono and one of our ambassadors. The agency that we work with the most

I'll take it as an action item to call Spencer and just confirm whether funding might be available on the ocean side.

We do often, with the tiles and everything, so if there are intercoastal sea walls, water walls, living sea walls, sort of smaller scale but still creating habitat creatively, we also...

you know are in a position to help on the other side of the city so just two two quick things if i may propose one of the issues that we have on surfside on the intercoastal side is we constantly have commercial motors using our seawall to unload and pick up clients which is not what it's used for And so part of it is I would like to maybe even further build up a little bit of the rock and the coral that we have in front of those areas, which are open to the public park, right? They're passive parks, but they're open to it, which is why they're being used and abused. So some of that interlocking, If I'm not mistaken, right, that might be an area where, you know, if 1 project doesn't fit, maybe another 1 might. Right. But. Before, so what I would probably propose is that's 1, but number 2, more towards this side of what we're actually talking about today. Before we reach out to our commissioner with a fine grant. If maybe we can. like and ranges of what costs could be because when we do make the phone call which i would appreciate the help with then it's a lot better to say hey here's the idea that we want to go through this is where we want to go even if you can't do all of it you know just on design side we get that you might have concerns on this but overall it protects that we're looking and maybe that's something they'd be willing to consider but having a little bit more substantial that he can look at and then potentially they can take a look out of yeah it's worth you applying and then do the presentation we'll figure it out or you know I just like for people to see things before just a phone call, so if they need.

We can break it down.

Yeah, of what a master plan might even look like, because even if it doesn't work for that, we can further discuss of what that might look like and how our process might be to move forward to look forward, even just other grants, and work with people on different grants and stuff. I don't know if that's the will of the committee, no heavy commitment on anybody's side.

If you could share the locations of the parks or the city halls that the city is sort of... I can provide you a map and highlight some of them.

I'd like to also, if it's possible, have the presentation shared with the Resort Tax Board at their next meeting. Absolutely. Because they initially started working with U of M, so I'd like to see their thoughts on how we can have a combined effort.

Do you want just the presentation, or do you want the brain trust?

Well, it would be wonderful to ask you back, because it's another committee like this, and then we still would have the commission at some point. At that point, it would be a new commission.

Do you mind me asking how the resort tax is currently structured now?

So it's collected in two manners. One through the hotel occupancy that they have, and then the other is through our food and beverage sales within the restaurants and all. So there's a certain amount that both the hotel and various restaurants would provide. We've seen occupancy rates going down. However, because of the increase in rates, it's kind of remained flat or neutral. So we're kind of okay there. However, food and beverage has continued to go up. But we are not like Miami-Dade.

we were securing about $300,000 in funding through those two sources. Now we're over $5 million. Yeah. Wow.

That's incredible.

However, a lot of that, so we're able to use those dollars for operations that benefit tourists. So what I mentioned earlier, a lot of that money is being allocated to operating the community center and other... And the various beast of horses that we have and stuff like that.

So... So we would definitely have to work with you all and kind of find the right structure that we can present to the commission if we're going to do that.

Do you have here in Surfside someone like the Boucher brothers that run and operate the beach? No.

complicated here because we really had none until the hotels came on board. So the hotels provide their own chair service and recently the town began providing service behind our community center for the residents. We try to keep the beach commercial free because we've been known for having just a beautiful beach that's commercial free. In fact, our residents voted in not to allow any storage on the beach because initially when we first allowed beach furniture operators, they were storing everything on the beach and It got out of hand, and that was an issue. And fortunately, the residents, so they have to really remove it every day.

My next question, if you don't mind, do you have development tax?

reset depending essentially every year and a half two years with what may or may not come from the Commission and where overall everybody is sometimes those proffers vary greatly it's probably worth exploring in fees but in order to impose that via state statute there is a lot that goes into it you need to have an impact fee study and over the last few years the state has become more restrictive on how you're able to do that and it would probably have to do an amendment to the comprehensive plan as well not impossible but not something that you

But Tiffany, can I put you on the spot? Yeah. Because I shared the story of Ruth K. Broad. Yeah. So there was an interest in significant improvements to the recreational facilities at the school. School board didn't have the capacity or interest to fund it. So Tiffany.

So I met with the principal and said, I know how to fundraise money. And I'm not talking big sales. I'm talking a lot of money. What would it cost? to fix our condemned playgrounds. Condemned, literally, because we're not going outside. The yard or whatever, the field, was also condemned. They weren't going outside. I'm like, what are we talking? $500,000, $1,000,000. She's like, well, it'll probably be $1,000,000. I'm like, done. Let's go. Guess what? We raised it. So, same thing here, except I had the vehicle of raising the money through the PTA. They were able to accept private dollars. Clearly, we have a lot of wealth moving into this area. Indian Creek alone, if they want to go scuba diving on this reef, I mean, they can walk there, you know? So a million dollars is, you know, easy to get, probably for one person, I won't say easy, but one person who loves scuba diving, they're right there. They're literally right here. Like, so... And then they don't have to get on a boat. They don't have to go. They can literally go right here. So how does it work in Surfside to get private donations? If they say, this is going to cost $10 million. Okay, we decided we're going to figure out $5 million. The town will figure out $5 million. We need $5 million from private donations. I'll go, I'll do it, but how do we get that money for this project?

So there's a few different ways that we can take a look at that. And I'm not sure if Surfside has, typically a lot of municipalities lately have been creating their own 501c3s. okay um and through that they've done it through the knight foundation to help monitor and operate the 501c3 so it gives another layer of separation um you want to ensure that you're not commending the funds that's a big big issue um so If we don't have a 501c3, one thing that we can do is explore with the Knight Foundation what that might look like. It's usually, they charge a very nominal fee for maintaining the account.

Yeah, the Knight Foundation, I think it's like 3%. But we are a 501c3.

Well, yes. The question then would be, do we raise the money and just let them maintain it on our behalf? Or do you want a separation, right? The other aspect is taking a look at what the resort tax board could do in that aspect.

And then it's just having the... We receive the grant, but the city has the funds, and then we do advancement requests, and then the city gives us the funds. Correct. But it's our grant money.

Right, and so if we have the funds as part of any of our regular revenue streams, that's a grant process that we can do, but we don't. So if we're going to do fundraising and someone's going to give money, we just and then we can essentially open up either an escrow account where the funds are encumbered and they cannot be used except for XYZ, right? And so there's just a few different things that we would have to do at the commission level to ensure that that is a policy, financial policy, that's allowed and accepted. The fastest and I think the easiest way is, and they're already a partner with Reef Line, which is the Knight Foundation, just, or not the Knight Foundation, it's...

Are you speaking about the Miami Foundation?

The Miami Foundation. Right, but they're almost interchangeable in some of their projects. The Miami Foundation, not the Knight Foundation, are the ones that have, I think, at least a dozen different municipality 501c30s. And they just essentially charge to maintain the account.

We partnered with them during the Champlain because of all the donations for it. So maybe that's the best way to involve people.

And again, I'm not sure if the town already has one created from back then and it's just been used. But we can look into it. That's the most simplest way because then it's not even the town essentially receiving that money. It's that 50123, which makes it more tax deductible, easier to track for all your donors. And then we just put in an application for the funds. They transfer it to us and then we can use it for whatever project.

Because that's something, I mean, I obviously love this idea, but there's other ideas that we have as well that I could raise, that we, not I, we, whatever.

Go get the money.

That we could raise money for. So if we wanted to do the master plan for Surfside on how to make it more sustainable and resilient, let's go big. You know, like we're raising this much, which will allow us to do this, this, and this. Reef line is one part of it. But there's other parts to it too.

I'll look into it if we already have one. And if not, I'll reach out to the Miami Foundation to get whatever those documents are and present it to the vice mayor. So that, see if that's something that I believe she would be more than willing to propose to the commission. And again, there's no actual cost to the pound. I mean, if it is, it's very nominal.

so it seems like we have some action items which is good um so our ask of you is is the framework for the master plan i don't know if you could share that with our acting town manager if you could start to think about funding pathways so both publicly sourced or privately sourced dollars publicly sourced dollars tourist tax revenue and then a presentation to the tourist board But I'll look to your guidance whether we should try to address it sooner or wait until after the election. The problem is there's typically a delay with appointing new people. Sometimes, depending on the interpretation, there may be carryover. So somebody remains on a board or committee until they're replaced.

Some boards are specifically allowed for that. Others are based on interpretation. You're right, Mayor. What I would... I don't know what your availability is. We have a resort tax board meeting on Monday at 6 p.m. I believe the agenda is already out, but I can see if maybe we can...

It's not out yet, but it's going to be posted today. But it can be amended afterwards.

I think it's better to try to get the... maybe not as detailed as today, because we're a little bit more focused on even the benefits of it, but I think more for there, you can probably shorten it a little bit.

I think we can do it on the screen, right? They don't have to physically be here.

We could probably work that out to have it as a team.

I think if we can do it online, we can do it. We can do it online.

we can put that as a presentation on the agenda, please. And we'll coordinate to have it for you via Teams or Zoom so that you can participate. And I think that helps keep because we're not just talking about the infrastructure project, we're talking about an economic driver, right? So I think that helps overall.

I think it's beneficial to show to the current board because they were the ones who first were interested in putting a reef in Surfside and, you know, toward University of Miami. And it's difficult with the uncertainty of the election, but I do think that it's worth letting them, you know, it's something that they started, so I'd like them to at least see this and see how it can work for us. I see your pendant.

We love turtles. I don't know if you saw it. We love turtles. And we do have beaching and turtle season here. Does any of this impact or hurt their migration?

No, not at all.

Okay, and the state has various

long process in and of itself, and sea turtles is one of the things that they're very concerned about.

So just because there's also a nexus with our youth council as the champions for the biophilic cities and their interest in general, if this is added to the agenda, if they could be notified that there'll be a presentation, probably should have, well, they're all in school now, but at 6 o'clock they may be able to participate. Just let them know that there'll be a presentation on the Reef Line project at the tourist board.

Don't they have another meeting also next week?

Yes, they have their meeting on Wednesday, so March 4th.

It's more for their situational awareness and the courtesy of letting them know.

Okay.

And we can always share the link so that they can see the presentation itself.

Oh, that's good. I can share that too.

So I guess the conversation will continue. But in terms of the time frame for your next, I mean, you identified the deployments that are already in the queue. So are you thinking 2028, 2027, 2029? For Surfside? Yes.

I mean, normally to do a new whole permitted area will take us at least minimum working, but we will not be able to deploy. If we started today, maybe in two years we would be deploying.

Yeah. I prefer to set an audacious goal and then work deliberately towards it. Well, the difference is you actually implement your audacious goals.

But we have to take a leap of faith. Yeah.

Thank you very, very much for your time.

It's a pleasure to be here.

It's nice to meet you.

We can share the digital version. It's actually interesting to see how we fundraise. Thank you. So those are 3D printed also? Yes. But they would be cast. Only the models are 3D printed. It's so much more expensive to 3D print. So thank you. We know where to find you. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you for having us. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Good to see you. You too. Bye-bye. And if you could share the funding plan with me, the copy.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

or the support, and I think that this really could be a transformational opportunity for us.

Ten million is a lot, but let me tell you, I work in this world, right? The money that is here, they believe in this. It's not a lot.

The only thing that I would throw out more from an administrative side, not from Google, We have expenditure thresholds that may delay or complicate the project, right? And so doing as much as we can for, A, private funding. But B, education is going to be really, really important. If we have a project that's $2 million, then we need a unanimous vote from the commission. And then if the project is this fiscal year would be $3.6 million, then not only do I need a unanimous vote from the commission, I also need 60% of the voters to approve the project. So we need to ensure really not only on the benefits not only for the benefits of the of the beach but also unique opportunity beautiful makes us stand out um protects and look it gives us all of these additional park amenities you know water park amenities right because now you're starting you're starting to play towards everyone not only from the environmental side but we're now protecting our beach as well. And it's something new to do as well, right? So we're starting that way. We can have, you know, hopefully as near as unanimous support from the community as well. Um, as we, as we approach, I'm not worried about the overall cost of the master plan side. The implementation is going to be costly. She already told you off the bat, just the art piece is going to be about $7 million. You know, that's even if it's, From the way I understand these rules to be, it doesn't matter where the funding comes from. If it's an expenditure, the check comes out of the town, we're going to have to meet those thresholds, right? So it might, if we have a 501c3, for example, and that goes in and they approve the project and the check comes out of them directly, maybe it's just a permitting from state, county, and then us as well. That might help. but that's going to be something completely new that we're going to have to see how that whole process goes. So I'm just throwing it out there not to diminish anybody's thoughts of can we get this done, but more of it's a little bit more complicated than just we found the funding, let's go forward.

No comment on the constraints.

Let me ask you a question. I love the art concept, but it's making it more expensive. just to have the reef part, like that other barrier with the things that were stacked up. What do they call it?

Technical term is groins. Groins.

I mean, the cars, you can't tell they're cars anymore. So if we're paying extra money for the art piece, do we just do the less expensive way and get a coral reef for a whole mile?

But then you're missing out on the public art. Exactly.

I think that you need the groins to help with the wave breaks, but you need the art for the ecotourism.

It's that simple. I do hear you, but I also know Miami Beach has a huge art budget. So that's why they're getting this money to do the art piece of it. We don't have a large art budget.

Not just Surfside, but you raised the concept of Indian Creek. We have one of the wealthiest art collectors that lives on Indian Creek. They have new residents that are coming in that may want a legacy. Their name attached to it, to a legacy. I think we need to... We can name it after them. I mean, my wife and I, we bought a star. We're so enthusiastic about what this project is in Miami Beach.

I love the whale heart.

If we can make it a turtle.

I love the turtles, I'm sorry about the turtles. But I thought that would be really cool, especially if it's hollowed out where you can have marine life going in and out. That would be cool. Remember her jump went from seven million on the public art side if you add the second barrier up to ten is kind of the range that she gave by I Wouldn't be surprised if it gets a little bit closer to 11 but I don't think that was a well It's a three million dollar price tag if you just do What the true cost of just doing that our limit would be I we would have to kind of talk to people about it.

I think we try to aim for it all, but I think Miami Beach is in a very unique situation with a huge art budget.

And I get what you're saying too Yeah, like a hairy turtle or something. I don't know, maybe there's a way they can kind of think about that more. I think the star one works better. Yeah, that's kind of cool.

But it interropes with their story, right? Because it's part of the connection. We live in a heavily built-out environment, and cars are a part of our daily life, and we're leveraging that. Yeah, that's cool.

The other question that we should ask them is, what are they doing even further north of us?

Nothing.

And so maybe the question is can we get some additional multi um jurisdiction right where we have us ball harbor and then you even have the hall over and all of that with the county so could we can we tap into a little bit of that um but i don't want to kill a good project for a perfect project years ago there was a consortium that was focused on connecting miami beach to fort lauderdale with the beach path

And so there is an incredible opportunity to get other units of government on board. I mean, Bell Harbor also levies their own tourist tax. So they have an annuity each year. So it seems, well, let's, I mean, if we can, let's put the framework together, have a conversation, so, you know, sort of tease the tourist board, but be ready to just... Not a self-launch, but just... present the concept so that we can start to build some excitement. Okay. The next item is yours, which is...

This looks very similar to yours.

Yes, and I was warned.

It's much different. You told me to submit it. You said, Tiffany, this one you submit.

And you did it. Thank you.

I know. You did it too.

It's not part of the minutes because there is no sunshine violation.

No, it was discussed here. No, it was during the meeting.

It was discussed there. It's in the meeting minutes. Tiffany, this one's yours. I didn't do it in January, so he was thinking I wasn't going to do it.

But I saw it as something, right? Okay. Two components. One is the legislative priorities, so I'll let you discuss that, unless it also gets into the initiatives that we identified. The vice mayor was kind enough to bring it to the commission. I think there was support for everything but the chief resilience officer. Pretty much. And I just, you know, we invited the acting town manager just to provide an update on the initiatives.

Okay.

I'll let you...

Okay. I mean, obviously, you see what the initiatives are here. Can we just go back to the Chief Resilience Officer for a second? I feel bad that I didn't know it was going to be presented at the initiative and maybe even told us it was going to be.

It was the very last item. I just made it in there.

So, I mean, again, I think if we want to be, like, you know, just dealing with Surfside where we are today. You're looking at it like, Oh, recycling and blah, blah. And that's all lovely. Like composting. That's all great. But if we're gonna talk about big projects like this, like really thinking about how are we gonna make Surfside a leading coastal community and sustainability and resiliency, we need a person. Like we need a person who's gonna be coordinating all this. I'll go out and ask people for money, but I'm not gonna do the day to day work. I'm just not going to. So we're not gonna get money if there's not really like a person who's kind of making sure this stuff gets done. And I think it's just very short-sighted to look at this position as, you know, where we are today. This position is going to get us to where we want to be. So, anyway.

March 17th. Vote like your life depends on it.

Trust me. And I'm talking to the candidates to see who supports it. I'm a chief resiliency officer.

We had an incredible one. And for a variety of reasons, the job requirements or the job expectations became misaligned with the chief resilience officer in the truest sense. Well, COVID happened. Yeah, so the focus shifted, which was necessary. I'm not casting aspersions, but that role has been unfulfilled ever since. And it is talked about at the commission how important these elements are But it's it's not enough to rely on volunteers that really needs to be in a yesterday function I don't disagree.

There's there's a lot that goes into it not only ensuring and working with our very different requests and new expectations that staff just operates the way they've always worked, right? So they have to think differently as well as helping to ensure what's going on on the various infrastructure projects, what are the grants, doing the presentation, all of those things, right? The Commission can get behind it. I would love to be able to fund it and we can push that out there and try to get the Only thing is it all depends on where the community and where the commission, you know, their, their tolerance. Right. And when I say tolerance is because you're probably looking at a high salary, um, because you're not going to want someone who's just right out of college. Um, you want someone who has some like established, so at least mid career. Right. Um, so you're, you're talking towards the higher ends of, of this, especially when you're comparing to, Who are the CROs around us? Miami Beach, Miami Dade, Miami. You now have CROs even on inland type of municipalities. It's not just the coastals. So the market for a CRO is continuing to grow. I think it gives us an opportunity to find someone really good, too, who now wants to be the director, right? That might be chasing a bit of the title. but that's not a position where suddenly, okay, two years in, we've kind of accomplished what we wanted, goodbye, right? That's like, there's going to be times where work is going to be really high, and they're going to feel like they're drowning, and there's going to be times where, depending on the funding, work can be somewhat low, and we have to be willing to kind of accept that this is an investment in the long term, right? Not a short-term investment. I don't disagree, but it really just comes down to where the commission wants to do on the budget wise. And we can definitely make things happen as long as it's supported.

Because I look at all these items here, they're all going to just limp along and I, you know, maybe the rain barrel thing will happen. I don't know, but it's kind of like, I feel like this Committee has great ideas that could really help the town significantly.

And these are the prioritized items. The list is much longer. Right.

But if we had somebody who is here meeting with the different departments, stuff could get done. I just think stuff could get done.

I would venture to say, and I mean this with all due respect, the the timeline or the time frames if we had a cro sounds very reasonable because that's their full time right is to do all of these um but these are just small components of what andre does and what our parks does and there's a slew of other things that they have to kind of move forward with as well so sometimes a three-month window yeah, that sounds fine, but when you start adding the capacity issues that we kind of have, then that's not necessarily realistic, right? So I agree, the rain barrel, for example, it's not really us, it's the county. So county, tell us when you can do it, and we'll give you the spot, right? I prefer to do it at the community center over here, but we got 96th Street Park as well, and we can just kind of do it, right? And so... If that is the amount that it takes, then that's pretty easy to do. In some of the other ones, like for example, the lead certification, I just came into knowledge that there was an ordinance that passed that requires a report in March. No one's been following that. And with the amount of turnover we've had at the time, none of us knew like, oh, We had to do X, Y, Z, right? So we're trying to figure out exactly what are those reports that we need to provide, but I'm not going to have something for March 10th. I'm going to have to report that, or my manager's report. So that's, again, having someone who can consistently be there to make sure these things don't fall off, because you're absolutely right. some of the most important things like the dune. We've gotten the bids back.

Hold that thought just because we're at the end of the meeting. If we can have a motion to extend the meeting about more than 15 minutes.

Second. So moved. So moved. Make the motion to extend the meeting. There it is. I second the motion. Aye. He can't

at least this uh we're verifying the bids for the dunes um the range in pricing um is a million dollar range right um the lowest was around i think it was about just a little bit over two and a half um all the way up to about three and a half um and so my concern right now which is why i haven't pushed meeting right now is because that two and a half seems way too low. Um, and so we want to verify that they've supplied all the financial documentation that they can actually do the job, right? Just cause you've got a little bit, does it mean that that is viable? So we're doing that, but that's going to be going in front of the commission now on March 10th. So that's definitely moving forward. I think some of these are really important. Um, and, and I'll double double check to see exactly where we are with them and, and, um, as to where we think from a staffing perspective is, hey, this seems fairly easy. This is where we are with this or whatnot. That way you can have where we are. But yeah, I think it is important that we just find sustainable, which is why I mentioned for the CRO, I've already been told no on the CRO. However, I haven't been told no on a potential consultant, right? So there was somebody that worked for the county for a long time. worked with ball harbor on their beach renourishing project um and then there's also i know very well um she she was the um basar is the new title that she had at the company she's now with a private firm and they do this stuff all the time so you know we i think there's a stop gap if we don't have the full commitment for the position and i think there's a way to do a stop gap i 100 support iran She's great. And I ran into her in Tallahassee and she was like, I need to talk to you about Surfside. I'm like, why? She goes, I have a lot of ideas.

What else do you want? Just like the item that I, yeah.

I just asked for an update. So I'm going to have a conversation with Jason and Liz in 30 minutes. Yes, in 30 minutes. You did send the letter out to?

Yes. Okay. I was told that it went out, yes, last week.

So... any update on getting Surfside's house in order in terms of training staff so that we can align this external funding source, the labeling, but also making sure that our staff understand They need to look inside the recycling cart before they dump it. If there is more than a de minimis amount of trash in the recycling cart, that photos are taken, tags are left, there's a knock on the door, right? Some way to, so that we can meet people where they are, provide timely and specific feedback on why they're not in compliance with our recycling program.

Yes, and I've been talking to our solid waste manager and also in-house as far as our trash inside town hall is concerned. One of the things that you may have seen in the containers, I've been, you know, having our constituent, he needs to take out all those plastic bags that I explained to him. plastic bags are not recyclable. So we have to understand where we're going with this. And as far as the Solid Waste Managers Concert, well, let me go back to town events. One of the things I was explaining also to them is you have the clear container, the clear bags, however, those are not recyclable either. So you'll have to dump them out. And I'm explaining to him why. And with a solid waste manager is getting the crew on the outside to understand because they're still complaining that they're still getting commingled stuff. And how, you know, different ways. Sometimes you're saying, one of the things you're saying is that they'll sometimes don't see this until they're at the dump. dumping the recycled um and that's when they'll you know they'll see when they do the audits that some of these are actually commingled um one of the things that we're looking at also at is as far as a recycled truck is concerned is we're getting a new truck so we're trying to say we can dedicate one of those trucks just for recycling and the way they clean the truck either need two trucks for example cleaning the truck prior to picking up the service. So the conversation is going on and we're trying to put some information.

Just a suggestion. Now the waste management has opened their new recycling facility. Perhaps there could be a field trip of our solid waste staff to go to the facility so that they can understand, they can see what happens once they dump the load at the facility How it is processed and why certain materials are not beneficial.

Can you arrange some kind of little bonus for them, the ones that go, as an incentive? They all should go. But, you know, because it would be after work, they would go to the facility.

Put them on the school bus.

Seriously.

Take everybody out there and take them out to dinner and make it into a team building event as well.

That's what I mean. Give them something. Give them lunch, give them something. It would be overtime.

So this is another example. The new lounge chairs for the town by the beach, amazing, right? I don't know if you know what happened when they went to the beach, they left the coverings on it, like the paper and the, And the foam-wrappy stuff that... I didn't see that. And so what's happening now? All this stuff is now blowing down the beach. Like, the paper, okay, fine, biodegradable. But the foam-y stuff, like, hello, plastic fishermen, like, you're basically making their job harder because we are polluting the beach with these. It's literally flying everywhere. So, like, for the staff to understand, you've got to unwrap the chairs when you buy them and put it in the garbage or whatever, but... It's just like, I'm like, how did this not, why did this, why did they get to the beach to then blow down the beach? I mean, I'm like picking this stuff up. I just happened to have a family member in town for four days. I wanted to go to the beach every day. So I'm literally picking this stuff up in the dunes. It's like the foamy stuff you're stuffing in. And I'm like, how does that happen?

I'll have a conversation with the person right now.

It's probably all off now, but I went to the guys. I was like, maybe tonight when you bring them in, just unwrap them all. They're like... But the next day they came out and they were still, I don't know. But it's not that, they have to be told, clearly. But if they were trained, maybe they wouldn't have to be told. Like, this makes no sense. So anyway, it's just like things like that. I think if they value our beach and to not have plastics, they have to understand the importance of it. Everybody who works for Surfside does anything Anything we drop on the floor and surface go in the water anything anywhere in this town It's going down the drain going to the bay going so if the town under the workers understand that this is just a really important priority to keep our Waters clean hopefully they'll be able to spot stuff like Just it was like that was just like a yep, okay Why am I surprised Okay.

Our next meeting is March 19th. Mr. Manager, what does that mean for us? Should we plan to attend? It's a day after the swearing-in. Does this committee survive?

I would have to go by the code. I would just, if I were you, I would just plan on attending until told to or not.

Through the change so far, it should be good. That's what I was told by the town clerk.

Okay.

But we will inform you that we all can make that time.

It's too soon where commission would really take action.

But it depends on a number of factors. Some committees sunset at the end of the term. Others continue and. The new commission needs to make appointments, but the tourist board, that survives. Plenty and zoning, that survives.

This one is a little bit less clear. So I work remote Mondays and Fridays, which is why I'm able to make this. I'll put a little meeting on my calendar, but... would honestly be nearly impossible for me to make just to be frank so like i was happy this meeting was on monday but like in general i wasn't sure what the times are going to be but that's kind of my like work schedule because i do work like full-time so so we need to move

I work full time. I'm giving you a hard time. It's not easy because there's so many meetings. So long ago, we decided that Thursdays at 12 was the optimal time.

I personally had a conflict last Thursday, which is why we were able to change it to today. So I guess it sounds like if Noah is on this committee, we probably need to look at changing our standing meetings at some point. We're going to change it to Saturday?

Can we do it on Saturday?

No, we cannot do it on Saturday. Through the chair, so then that should be something that maybe we come back to after the election and just revisit the timing of the meeting. For now, I think we could change the date if he can't attend.

What days do you work tomorrow? Monday and Friday. So those days I can put some time on my calendar and they're pretty much fine with me. An hour and a half to it. That's totally okay. I can do the 20th. I don't know.

Yeah, because Monday we have... I can't do noon. I can do any time on the 20th.

4 o'clock on the 20th?

Let me see.

It's fine. Every day is a fucking nightmare.

We could put that down for now, for the 20th.

4 o'clock? Just because if Patrick isn't coming and he can't make it, we can't have a meeting anyway, so. Okay, so we're saying Friday the 20th at 4 o'clock? Yeah.

Why are you... Because I've got meetings before and after, so I have to move the one after.

I'm missing a meeting right now.

Really?

I know.

What's the latest we can do a meeting? Is it 4 o'clock pretty much? We can't do a 5 o'clock meeting, right? Because then I'd be able to go during the week if that's easier for you guys. I can be in Surfside by 5 o'clock. It's just hard for me to get there before. If that's easier for you guys. I just want to make you guys...

Through the chair on Friday, probably 4 p.m. Is pushing it?

Yeah. What about the 19th at 5 o'clock?

I don't know. So then we also have community relations at 4 on the 19th because you guys have the same day.

Is there meeting an hour typically?

Yeah, it's around an hour and a half-ish. I mean, I'm open on the 19th. Okay.

So there's 20th at 4, the 19th at 5.

The problem is, we're at the end of our work day, but so isn't the town staff.

What about Monday morning? What about the 16th or the 23rd in the morning?

Nope. The 16th, what's the other one? Or the 23rd. 23rd actually works for me. Yeah.

Okay. Can we do that? March 23rd instead?

Yeah, 10 o'clock?

That's great. Okay.

All right. Well, thank you, everybody. I think this was a productive meeting. Welcome to your inaugural. Maybe you brought us good luck. If we could have a motion to adjourn.

All right.

On to the next meeting.