Resort Tax Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, we're ready, right?

Take a breath, okay.

Good evening, everyone, and thank you for coming tonight. Thank you to our commission liaison, Vice Mayor Tina Paul, Frank Trigueros, our tourism director. Cynthia and Eliana, and also Genesis. Tonight might be our last meeting. We're not sure. It's at least the last meeting before elections. So before starting the meeting, I just wanted to thank you, especially Genesis, for guiding us through these two years. I know at the beginning it was hard to follow up, but I think we've been learning. And I really appreciate your guidance. And also, I wanted to thank Frank, because it's really a pleasure to work with you. You make this easier for us, and you're always reachable. So I think it's, for me at least, I can say, and for all of us, it's really a pleasure to work with you. Tina, you know, always also talking on the commission for us. I know we have your back there. And hopefully we can keep working together. But anyways, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you for these two years. Wow. And recognize the time that we all of us take to be here. Sometimes it looks like it's easy and it's always fun. It's not always, but we do it with all our heart because we love our town. Once I'm done, let's start with the agenda and order of business. Can I say something?

Madam Chair, I have to call the roll. Vice Chair Martinez?

Here.

Board Member Callaway?

Here.

Board Member Sauer-Sauer? Here. Chair, you have a quorum.

I just want to pick up what you just said. I really think that the past two years, the parties and the level of the parties, the caliber, the quality, the classiness, we've taken it up a notch, like many, many notches. And we've had some amazing providers that are also residents that have stepped up and done amazing things. I think they deserve recognition also. Sarah Liss, Sheru, you know, who's the guy that does the?

Javier.

Javier, he's done amazing. Like, it's really been nice to watch, especially with Javier, to watch him grow from this sort of farmer's market that started out as a couple of booths to putting on these full-blown, incredible events. So I hope that whoever sits up here with the next commission, whether hopefully it'll be us, if not, I hope that they take this ball and go with it and not try to go backwards. You know, I remember when we started, some of the parties were literally like inflatable bouncy houses in parking lots with pizza. And that was it. And to be honest, that was fun because it was all we knew. But we didn't know how good it could be. And I think it's been really great. So thank you to everyone and all the Parks and Rec staff and the youth council that volunteers every time, you know, including my son. But his friends, they all go there and they sit there and they say hello. And it's really nice to have them interacting with residents. I hope that's also something that can continue because I think it really bridges the community in a way that hired people can't do. So that's it. Thanks.

Nothing to add, but I echo all the same things. I thank you guys so much for your guidance, and it's been lovely for me. You're in eight months. It's been really nice. Thank you.

Okay, so now let's move. Thank you, Eliana and Cynthia. Let's move to agenda and order of business. We want to make a change and move seven discussion items. Item 7H. which is reef line presentation at the beginning before 7A. Because that's going to be a presentation over Zoom meeting.

The new 7A.

The new 7A, yes. I think that will be the only item.

Okay, I'll make a motion to move 7H to 7A. Do you want to just flip it? Okay.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Okay, so now let's go to item number three, Town Commission Liaison Report. Madam Tina Paul.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just also want to say that it's been an honor and really great experience working with this board as your liaison. And on the March 10th will be our last commission meeting of this commission. And prior to that meeting at 6 o'clock, we have an awards ceremony for all the boards and committees. And I really feel, you know, this is my fourth term. And I feel like closest with the boards and committees because I serve as liaison to three different boards. And I'm just really impressed with all the people who have served. on each of the boards. Each board really brings a lot to the community. We reinstated sustainability board. The community relations board is new. They had a great event yesterday. And your events were fantastic. This board really did elevate, not just elevate the events we had, but also introduced new events. that were cultural. And so these are really good programs that I do hope to see continue with whatever happens in March. As far as update, you have the reef line coming up. I had recommended that this board look at that because we had a presentation at the Sustainability and Resiliency Board. I know Chair Martinez and I had met with, and Frank met with U of M way back in terms of doing some kind of reef here in surf sites. So this project aligns with what this committee was trying to do, and it would be ecotourism. So I felt it was important for you to see this presentation. Again, we don't know where things are going to go, and it's a project that requires significant investment. But I think it's important to see that to at least try to pass that vision on in terms of something that would be good for Surfside.

Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. No public comments? Approval of minutes? Any comment on the minutes?

Yes, through the chair. I did have a few minor corrections. Let's just get this pulled up. Let's see. There was a typo just basically on page four. It was a letter left off on under one, a call to order. It was absent chair Diana Gonzalez. It's missing this E. Then also under number two, I think it's supposed to read Javier Valmana will be Coming late, but it's missing a letter as well. And then under number three, where it says, Vice Mayor Paul shared with the Sustainability Committee the similar project that the Resort Tax Board is doing. It should read, is working on instead of doing, because nothing has really moved forward. It's still an idea that you're trying to work on. Okay. So I'm requesting those changes.

No, it's fine. Can I walk away from the table and throw out a banana peel? Or does it cause a recess if I do that?

It will be a recess.

All right.

You can go ahead and do it for her. Yeah.

Yeah. OK. I want to get out. Going on with the agenda, in item

I think we have to approve the changes.

Are you done?

I'm sorry. No, yes, I'm done. But I think you have to approve the minutes.

Yes, I have one change also. In item 7C, Patel Topia 2026, Vice Chair Martinez agreed to state that there is a growing youth community. She too also, so there we should remove the age. She has also suggested to have a rough. I think that's the only change I have.

If we're going to be that specific, when I talk about the high school band, I said the Miami Beach, what's it called? The Rock Ensemble. So it's not just like a random high school band. It's the Miami Beach Rock Ensemble. It's like a very well-known, famous.

I want to check what you said specifically, but yeah, I can add that.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

So we need to make a motion. To approve with the changes? I'll make a motion to approve with the changes.

I'll second the motion.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

Moving to number six, resort tax collection and vacancies report with Fran Triggers.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. The report that I have for you this month will look at the month of December. And you'll notice it's a partial report. I noticed there were a lot of outstanding payments still missing for the restaurants for December. So it wouldn't have been an accurate picture of the collection so far. We were a little behind in the hotels as well, but we did get a payment in. So we have all the big hotels. And I do want to point out that the 4.5% is an increase. So my apologies for the red there. That should have been green. So that is a 4.5 year over year. And we are also 20% from 2023. Additionally, I had a meeting with some of the finance team from Miami Beach just to learn a little bit about their collection process and see how they follow up with the businesses and what kind of process they follow. And we did get a lot of good insight from that conversation. And following up with our finance team, I have since learned that they do hope to automate the process and to move forward with something that is software-based, that isn't so manual. So I think they do have a plan to improve the collection process and hopefully not get as far behind as they have been.

OK, thank you. Item number 7A then will be?

The reef line.

The reef line, yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We'll just ask IT to help bring them in. And I believe if any of you have questions for the team via Zoom, you may need to step up to the podium. So I'll stand up there during the presentation. But just remember, if you want to go back and forth, you'll have to do it from the podium.

Thank you.

Brief line presentation.

Yes, a little bit more volume.

If I may, through the chair, they were here at the Sustainability Committee meeting, and they presented there, and They're pretty much going to do the same presentation, but they couldn't be here tonight. But I thought it was worth this board seeing. Yes, yes. They've done the reef. You'll see. They've done the reef line project in Miami Beach. One second.

Hold on.

I can't hear you.

We can't hear we're gonna get the sound turned up and if it's possible for them to see us No No Yeah, we hear you

But they don't see us.

Yeah, unfortunately, yes, we're not able to see you.

Amazing.

Thank you so much. We're such an honor to join you all tonight. And as Vice Mayor Paul just said, we were invited to present last week to the Resiliency Committee, and they recommended that we speak with the Resort Tax Board tonight, and we're so happy to be here. I'm Brandi Reddick, the Executive Director for ReefLine, and we're also joined by Ximena Caminos, who is our Founder and Artistic Director. as well as Tim Ho from the Office of Metropolitan Architecture, OMA, who are our master planners for the reef line. And I'm going to do a share screen now. And I am going to need, it's saying host has disabled attendee screen share. So if we could get the screen share enabled.

First of all, thank you. Even you can see us. Thank you for coming tonight, even if it's a Zoom, and they're going to, I think, fix that right now.

Okay. It looks like it's working. Give me just a minute. All right. Are you able to see the screen share now? Yes. Wonderful, wonderful. So I'm going to be doing the main presentation and Jimena is going to jump in and add commentary as needed. Just a little bit about the Reef Line. For those that don't know, we were founded in Miami Beach. The Reef Line was formed in around 2018, and in 2019, the Reef Line received a grant from the Knight Foundation through the Knight's Arts Challenge that really allowed the Reef Line to get started and begin its permitting processes. Then in 2022, the then-Mayor Dan Gelber from the City of Miami Beach called Ximena at the reef line and said, would you be interested in becoming part of the general obligation bond that we're getting ready to put on the ballot for the City of Miami Beach? And so Jimena and the Reef Line team campaigned along with the other Yes to Arts organizations, and the Reef Line received $5 million as part of the $159 million general obligation bond grant that was passed by 65% of the citizens of Miami Beach voted yes to tax themselves to build the reef line. And that's how we got to where we are today. We just deployed phase one in October of 2022. And the reef line, what makes this so unique is that it's really a new typology. It is a new type of civic infrastructure that combines art, science, ecology, and it's all based in collaboration. The Reef Line has five pillars that we always focus on. Number one, art is a catalyst. So that's what makes the Reef Line very unique is that our language always involves artists. We're very ingrained in the community and close, Close disciplinary collaboration is key for the Reef Line. So for the Reef Line to happen, it takes all of these partners. And this is everything from tourism boards. We work very closely with the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. They've been our partner from the onset of the project. as well as the Miami Beach Visitors and Convention Authority. And this involves many other agencies. We work closely with Miami-Dade County, the state of Florida, as well as federal agencies. And of course, our local community and local ocean advocates and marine engineers. And it takes a village to make something as grand as the reef line. And why South Florida? So South Florida, as we all know, is the hotbed for sea level rise. We have hurricanes and we have saltwater intrusion. But South Florida may be the place with problems, but we can also be the place with solutions. And just a little bit about Florida's ocean economy, Florida's blue economy, which is a major economic driving force for Florida. So marine and coastal tourism alone accounts for about $35.6 billion into the state of Florida and creates 430,000 jobs. So Florida's total GSP reached 1.7 trillion in 2024, making it the fourth largest state economy of the US. And a lot of this is based on our blue economy. And this is just a little, Refund has done a economic impact study. And we wanted to show you, because we know it's very important for a tourism board, especially for a town like Surfside, where a lot of your revenue comes from tourist tax dollars. So we wanted to show you our breakdown of studies that we did back in 2024-25 that show how their spending is broke down for people that visit South Florida to specifically dive and snorkel. And also to show you this, this was Miami Beach in 1981. And Florida, as we all know, has the third largest reef track in the world. And what happened to Miami Beach in the early 2000s is that the city created a sand nourishment project. which expanded our beaches, but at the same time smothered the reef head off the coast of Miami Beach. A small portion of our reef line has come back. It's called the Neon Reef and it's thriving. And so reef line was built exactly where this original reef, exactly where the natural reef was at one time. And what ReefLine does is we really want to become the blueprint for other cities. Something like the ReefLine has never been done, and we're really creating the blueprint as we go along. We're learning that there are not many laws in place for the ocean, and we're creating the footprint of how you combine art, science, and technology. and build blue infrastructure. And we took this from actually an article in the Science Magazine that coral reefs provide over 1.8 billion in flood protection annually in the United States. Just a little bit about our phases for the Reef Line. As I mentioned, we just completed phase one in October of 2025, and we're currently permitting for phase two, which is the Heart of Okeanos, which we'll be deploying later this year. And as mentioned, when we were in the Resiliency Board Committee, phase two and phase three, which are the STARS, and then the Blue Arts Award, will be coming in 2027, and we will most likely be deploying these on the northern part of Miami Beach around 74th Street. so you see here this is concrete coral this is about three months after we deployed so the marine life we've seen has been incredible the growth on the cars has just been beyond our expectation and the interesting thing about the cars being underwater like this is this like a garden it constantly changes so of course when we put the cars in at first they were beautiful concrete sculptures They then got kind of a greenish color moss over them, and now they have this beautiful red algae. And this is what you see they look like before. It was very difficult to fabricate these cars because they're by an internationally renowned artist named Leandro Ulrich. And it was very important to all of us that the works existed as sculptures on their own before they were deployed. And you can see here how beautiful they are. We had molds fabricated up in upstate New York by the company that did Little Island. and then the molds were shipped on to south florida where a company named all crete based in homestead did the cement pouring for us for structures this size we required a large facility and all crate actually does a lot of work for the florida department of transportation so their facility was able to handle the large quantity of concrete and pouring each of these cars weighs about 30 000 pounds So we needed quite a large facility to produce the work. And talking a little bit about cultural and ecotourism advantage, we think about other cities in the world, like Paris has the Eiffel Tower, New York has the Statue of Liberty, but what does South Florida have? And when we look at creating the refund, this is what we think about. So when people fly over Miami Beach, fly over Surfside, landing in our airports here in South Florida, they'll be able to see a a beautiful blueprint in the ocean floor and here's just a little video And this shows our engagement. We have hundreds, thousands of people visiting Refine. A little bit of our fabrication process. And this was the deployment and opening of phase one. This video just shows a little bit about the community engagement and education that Reef Line brings. And also talking a little bit about economic activity and divers and snorkelers visiting the site. We currently have a partnership with Divers Paradise where we have dives going out on Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, and every other Saturdays. And these are art and science dives where the boat captain and staff talk about reef line. They talk about the science behind reef line and invite people to go out and dive and snorkel at the site. which is a huge driver for ecotourism. And here you see these are some activations we did during Miami Art Week this past December. And we have these beautiful pink buoys that we put out on the site for people to lounge on. And we also have a collaboration with BMW and SEPA boards where they created an electronic stand-up paddleboard customized for the reef line. And these are our coral outplanting adventures that we're doing currently in collaboration with University of Miami through their Rescue a Reef program. We outplanted the first stony corals with Dr. Sylvia Earle in December of 2025. And our second outplanting took place in February of 2026. We currently have about 40 stony corals outplanted. And they're kind of in the testing phase now. And University of Miami is conducting the marine studies and the corals are thriving at the site, which is such amazing news. And this just shows a little bit more of community engagement in the out planning. And one thing we really love about Reef On It at the core of our programming is education and ocean justice. We are currently serving 10,000 students in 125 public schools throughout Miami-Dade County through a nonprofit organization called Dream and Green, where students are competing for our Green Schools Challenge, and they are studying coral bleaching through the reef line. We also have a floating marine learning center where we go out once a month with free dives for the community and that people experience firsthand coral gardening. And it's a way for the public to access reef line. And another thing we really love about Reef Line is it's easily accessible from shore. We're about 850 feet offshore, just past the swim buoys and about 20 feet of water. So the majority of people visiting Reef Line actually swim or paddleboard out. And we also have in conjunction with our underwater on-land education as well. So each of the cars and concrete coral is studded with 100 coral locks for a total of 2,200 coral locks on the cars. And we're growing these Florida native corals at our Reefline Coral Lab, which is in Alapata. And here you see Colin Ford, our director of science with Dr. Sylvia Earle. And Sylvia Earle is... one of the best-known marine biologists, and has caught her deepness because she's gone further underwater than anyone else and has lived her life more underwater than on land. And here you'll see our coral palette. These are the eight Florida native coral species that we will be out planning on refining. And here's just some images from our first planning with Dr. Sylvia Earle. We also have, or will eventually have as part of our Miami Beach Reef Line and would hope, you know, if we have the opportunity to work with the town of Sursa, an underwater camera. This is Coral City Camera. And the beautiful thing about this is it allows the underwater world to be streamed into our classrooms. And throughout hotels or any public institution, currently about 80% of the children in Miami-Dade County have never been to the beach, much less swam in the ocean. And this is a tool that provides open access to refine and to study and observe marine life on a 24-7 basis. And these are just some images that have taken at the current Coral City Camera, which is just off the Port of Miami. And one thing we talked to the resiliency committee about is a reef line master plan for the town of Surfside. And this is for many reasons. When we did the reef line in Miami Beach, which is seven miles long, we worked with OMA to do a very comprehensive master plan. And this includes everything from where underwater installations should be located, are they near public parks, making sure they're near existing lifeguard stands. It also includes things for signage, education, and outreach, and about the longevity of the reef line. And you'll just see here kind of some reef line solutions we have, marine habitat sculptures, also hybrid reef systems and barrier modules, which actually help protect the reef. And you'll see here reef tiles. I'll just talk about this briefly. This is something we also spoke with the Resiliency Committee about. We're developing in collaboration with OMA reef tiles, which can be adhered to existing or new sea walls, and they help absorb wave energy and also promote marine life. And these are the marine habitat sculptures. and barrier modules also designed by OMA, just a few example of those. And the wonderful thing about the barrier modules, they differ a little bit from the artist design hybrid reef sculptures in that these are designed to be easily deployable, easily manufactured and cost efficient and serve as true blue infrastructure. And I also wanted to touch a little bit on our media reach. For the first phase of the refund, we reached 13.6 billion single media impressions. We had covers in the New York Times, Financial Times, the cover of the Miami Herald, and we are gearing up now. We have a special coming out on the CBS Sunday morning show, which should premiere in the next few weeks. So we're very excited about that. And Refine really garnered more international attention than we ever anticipated. We've been in the times of India. We've been in many European countries. European publications, just things we never even thought about. It's something that kind of organically just spread around the world. And this is a little bit about our partnerships, our current partnerships, and also ties back into the many collaborations that have to take place in order for something like Refond to become a reality. And a little bit about Ximena, our founder and artistic director. Our team. Thank you. This is actually, I love this image. This was right before we deployed the last few cars. We're on the barge with our barge operator, John Kearns, and the true heroes that make this happen, which are the underwater divers. When we were deploying, the underwater divers had to go in and make sure all of the cars were perfectly lined up because we had a five-inch tolerance. to create the three perfect line of cars and they did an amazing job so we welcome any questions you may have and look forward to your thoughts

No, I can come up. Oh, hi. Hi, my name is Eliana. I'm just one of the board members. I had a couple questions. This sounds great. I mean, it's beautiful. But from a science standpoint, my question was, is this for a coral reef? Is this different? I know in other places, they'll sink a ship or cars or anything to kind of make a new reef. Does this is this better, worse, same? Or is this just art? Same thing, but art?

I can reply to that. Hi, I'm Ximena. Hi. This is better. This is best practice hybrid reef making. Thinking a ship or, you know, it's a little bit old school and not best practice. Our sculptures, which are art, they do double up as hybrid reef. So they are engineered to be and maximize marine habitats. So there are hybrid reefs that are designed with holes and nooks and crannies for marine life to thrive on them. They're made of special materials. So there are marine grade concrete and geopolymers Also with calcium additive, so the corals adhering themselves to the structures will be able to grow faster and more sturdily. With coral logs, so coral outland is quicker. This is not a coral restoration project, but they do enhance marine life. We have four surveys so far by University of Miami. We're reporting to DERM and to FWC, and it's fascinating how successful the structures are being right now. much more successful than the older structures that weren't as designed or engineered that are in South of Fifth because there's like 19 reefs back there. Randy was speaking about back in the day when that bad sand replenishment project happened that smothered all the reef heads. The DERM declared that area as an area where artificial reefs were needed. And that's how we got the permit because it was a permit that was issued back in the day. And what we did is we reissued that permit because the city recognized the laws. So what we've done is we've made this problem a contemporary engineering problem and we've worked with the best in the world in order to create marine habitat that is hyper-performative in the sense that it maximizes positive impact.

Okay, thank you. And then my second question is, I assume there's a, you're presenting to our board because you want us to approve something or designate funds for this? Is that, I didn't see anything in the presentation specific to Surfside, but I'm assuming that's the next step?

Thank you. So we were actually invited to present. Can you refer to that invitation, Brandy?

Absolutely. So former mayor Daniel Deutsch reached out to us He's been a longtime supporter of Reef Line and has been following us since the onset of the project and really saw a vision for Reef Line and the town of Surfside, as do we. We think it's the natural growth of the coastline to extend to the town of Surfside. He invited us to present at the resiliency committee and we spent a lot of time with them. We spent just about an hour, a little over an hour, talking about what next steps would be. And how we really envision the next step, and this is why we invited Tim Ho from OMA to join us, is we think a master plan would be the logical next step, so we properly develop what a Surfside reef line could look like. So we submitted to Daniel, as well as the city manager, a proposal to begin developing a master plan for the town of Surfside.

And is that funded entirely by Surfside or is there a matching environmental grant that goes with it?

We talked about that as well. And that was something the city manager was going to look into.

When you do with Miami Beach, was that entirely funded by Miami Beach or was there also a grant that matched it?

Great question. So our $5 million general obligation bond is a grant to Refine. The caveat with that is that the general obligation bond only funds capital construction. So everything, education, outreach, choral out planning, all of the other initiatives are funded by fundraising from Refine.

Okay, and is Refine a nonprofit?

Yes, Reef Line is a nonprofit organization, the 501c3.

Okay, great. And then my other last question is the reef tile idea is very interesting. We have a park with a seawall that's on the water, 96th Street Park. I don't know if you talked about that with the Resiliency Committee, but that would be probably a much easier thing to do and a quicker thing is to put those reef tiles on the seawall behind 96th Street Park. I don't know if that was something that you could incorporate into your plan or you knew about that. But that's the first thing I thought of when I saw the reef tiles.

The tiles are designed to maximize micro-habitats because right now the existing seawalls They are not only repelling the ocean's energy, but they're not also friendly to marine life. What we designed are tiles that absorb some of that energy, but also become homes to the little creatures that live there. At the same time, they're designed in a way that you can take them out fairly easily if you need to make a repair because they're retrofitted into and put them back on. Maybe you need a survey or a repair. They're beautiful, first of all, they're beautiful. And then they're affordable, they're scalable, they're cast concrete. We don't believe in 3D printing seawalls or tiles because it's expensive and it's time consuming. This is a much smarter type of solution. What we are really excited about is that we can design a tile for Surfside. Just like Rio de Janeiro has this famous, Copacabana, that everyone knows these beautiful waves, you know, that Burle Marx design back in the day and it's an icon to the city. What we're trying to do with reef line and with the reef tiles is to also bring a specific identity to each place that we go. So we call it marine acupuncture or urban acupuncture because everything we do is site specific, it's not generic. So the tiles that we would propose for Surfside, and this is a conversation, it could be the same tiles that we already have designed, which are spectacular, and they're inspired in the art deco heritage of the area. But we could also design one that is inspired solely for Surfside and Surfside style, which I think makes it more special.

Okay, so that could be a separate project or part of the same thing to do that on the seawall by 96th Street Park?

Yeah. Okay.

Surfside has a turtle sea turtle sort of a logo in town. So maybe you want to see that. Okay, then last question. I'm done. The camera live stream. Is that something we could have up on our town website all the time?

Well, incredibly, this camera live stream is the longest live streaming live live stream in YouTube's history. And it exploded and became very famous during the pandemic because it gave a lot of relief to the anxiety that people were locked in. So absolutely, yes. What we are now, for example, talking to the people in Miami Beach and some hotels are loving this idea. You could actually stream into your hotel rooms or anywhere you want this camera. You could watch it now if you want in the GMCBB and the live camps of Miami Beach where you can see the Eden Rock and South of Fifth. you'll see the underwater camera. It's very exciting to see because, incredibly, most people don't know how many wonderful things are out there it's so alive so colorful and and and it's very important to teach because what brandy was saying we invited oma to be our partners and master planners because for us it's very important to bring the ocean out of the water into the world into the classroom into the hotel room into the airport we want to show people an create a beautiful relationship between the city and the ocean. That is a relationship that helps heal people's relationship with the ocean, and it's educating, not just exciting. It's true, the divers industry, they generate like per capita, a diver would spend around $740 a day, that's real. But we're trying to capture a new audience, not just the ocean lovers, they already know. What we're trying is to really teach people and convert people and show them that there's this new way of exploring the beach, which is not just a lounge chair on the sand. So definitely, yes. I'm sorry for the long answer. The camera should stream live in as many places as possible.

OK. And the sculpture that you would design to drop in the water off the surf side would be unique to Surfside, I guess.

Yes, and this is a conversation. I don't think it should be a sculpture. I think it should be a series of sculptures that would be specific to Surfside. So maybe we have, this is out of the top of my head, but just to give you an idea of what the process would look like, the first thing we would do is we would have a series of meetings with all the leadership and the stakeholders at Surfside, everyone who has a voice into this. Then we would receive all those you know, comments, all that information. And we would also set a series of analysis we need to do what's called a benthic survey. So that mile observed size, we want to go underwater and see, and identify which are the best places, the best distances, and we would design a reef line for Surfside. We would design reef line Surfside, just like the Guggenheim was born in New York, but now there's like five or six Guggenheims in the world, and each one has its own very strong identity. We would love for Surfside to have their own, which is based on Surfside history, on Surfside special features, because we don't believe in repetition, because we are curators and art people, so we like originals. So we would do a very original new concept for ReFlying, of course, with the same pillars that ReFlying has, which is quality, durability, the arts, which is the game changer here. If the arts weren't involved, we wouldn't have our bond, but also we wouldn't have those 13 billion media impressions. The success of ReFlying in part is because art It's a very important tool to open up parks and to touch people. So yes, what we would design for Surfside is a reef line that is site-specific to Surfside, and we would probably propose more than one sculpture. It could be a series, I don't know, but it would be creating you know, the particular specific story of surfside underwater.

Okay, and how long from when you start coming up with this survey until you drop the thing in the water, what is that time frame like, just approximately and approximate cost?

Okay, so basically, you know, a lot of these timelines or project timelines are contingent to permitting. Our experience working with DERM and the Army Corps of Engineers, we are governed by five agencies, five governing agencies, is the minimum length for a new permitted area is around 18 months. That doesn't mean that before we get the actual permit to deploy, we don't start the work. So the way this would be is we first identify what we want to do. start a draft master plan. Once we understand that, we do the Ventix survey. Once we understand that, we say, okay, this is the area we're going to permit. We decide which one that is. Let's say it's from here to here. And then we say, okay, from here to here, this is what we want to do. We would budget that. Each deployment in Reefline, more or less, and this is public record, ranges between a million and a half and $2 million. What we were discussing with Daniel is that if we were to design a whole concept, to value engineer dollars, the best way is to stack deployments so we're not, like, part, incredibly a big part, like two-thirds of the budget will go into fabrication and deployment. So if we stack those processes of fabricating, instead of doing one brief, we do three at a time, instead of deploying one per time, we deploy the three at the same time, those cost, they drop a lot. So in our grant, which is supported by taxpayers, 80 cents of a dollar go underwater. We're very lean, we value engineer our budgets to the nickel. So I would say that this is, from eight to $10 million, I think would be an amazing, like a larger, you know, project than a big recline. If we did just one sculpture, I think it could be between two to two and a half, three max, if it was one. But if we do a series, I think between eight to 10 would be a reasonable amount.

The town's only eight blocks long. Our town is very, very small.

It's a mile, right? Yeah, is it even a mile?

Maybe, yeah, maybe, maximum a mile.

Yeah, I think it's a mile. Yeah, I mean, it depends on the complexity and on the amount of deployments. We could always work together on identifying, OK, this is how much we want of structures and master plan. We can advise, of course. And then this is how much we want to spend. And then we can work with that. We think Surfside has such beautiful beaches, and the water is more clear than in Miami. an incredible reef line there actually because the conditions are perfect.

Okay, we could also work with Bell Harbor. Bell Harbor is the town next door.

I know, yes, I know. We could potentially extend there in the future. We like the idea of growing, no? Because- This is not about the city only, because nature doesn't know boundaries, you know? This is about, you know, the fish, they cross the borders between Miami Beach, Surfside, and Bow Harbor, and the truth is that this is so needed. When you see how much life they're recruiting, it's so exciting. So, you know, we would recommend what we think is best, and then the town will decide if, you know, if they want more or they want less.

All right, thank you very much. It was a very fantastic presentation.

Thank you. We appreciate the opportunity. Is that all?

No, I have one question. Hi, this is Judy Martinez, Vice Chair of the Board. And I have a question regarding the barrier models. How these barrier models are going to affect or how they're going to be deployed in order to affect the waves that come to the shoreline?

So those barrier modules were designed by OMA. We are not currently deploying them in Reflame yet. They are very interesting because what they do is they protect the sculptures and they're much more, you deploy them behind the sculptures and they, They are better at absorbing tidal energy and protecting beach erosion. We have not tested them yet in real life. This is part of the studies that we're doing right now. There's a big concern in South Florida because it's a canary in the coal mine. It's ground zero sea level rise. And everybody's asking, the city is asking us also, the city of Miami Beach, if we could consider deploying these structures in order to protect and to save also. So those are optional. Reefline doesn't need those structures to exist. And those are more, I would say, infrastructure that a city decides if they want or not want. It's separate from the underwater sculpture park. The underwater sculpture park is an ecotourism attraction, you know, that of course enhances marine life and has a positive impact in education, in the marine environment, and in the world, in communications, in positioning, you know. But these other modules, they're real infrastructure that what they do is they help with tidal energy and coastal erosion. Thank you. So that's more like a city size if they want it or not. Okay, thank you. You're welcome.

All right, Brandi and Ximena and team, thank you very much. That was really a fascinating presentation. And as you may know, we're going to be having elections soon. So I'm pretty sure that we're going to be revisiting this topic with new boards and committees in alignment with the commission as well. So thank you again for your time. And we will definitely be in touch to see what comes next.

Wonderful. Thank you.

Thank you. Have a great evening.

Thank you.

All right, Madam Chair, I think we can go back to the agenda.

Madam Chair, if you could please speak into your microphone. I apologize.

Yes, sorry. I'm looking towards my agenda. Okay, so let's move 7B item. Oh, 7A, yes. The music on Hardin Avenue update.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. This is just a quick update. At the last meeting, we were trying to get the musician to start on Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, that didn't work out because of his scheduling. So we've gone back and forth on a few dates, and we are now scheduled to start the music on Friday, March 13th. So not this next Friday, the one after. And then in April, we're going to be doing a Sunday. So that way, we're kind of changing up the days, a Friday and a Sunday. So just look out for information on that, but that'll be starting March 13th.

And which location will be?

I don't know exactly. I have to meet with him and see exactly where he's going to stand, but most likely it's going to be near the Cafe Vert area at 95th Street. Okay.

Thank you. But we're going to look for changing locations.

We will, if it's possible, based on cabling and safety. So we just have to make sure that it's safe.

OK, thank you. Now let's move to item 7B, the NONUS screen recap.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is another quick one. And you were out there on Sunday at the, was this last Sunday, at the film screening for NONUS, which was really wonderful. We were very lucky with the weather. It looked a little ominous for a bit, but it rained very lightly and it stayed away. So I think it was overall really lovely. It was a great turnout. Every seat was filled and the film was very nice.

Yeah, I was surprised the amount of people that went because the weather was really pretty bad. Myself, I was not about not to go. I decided last minute to give it a chance, and it was good. People really like watching the movies on the beach, so I really encourage the people to come to the next two screenings that we have left. Moving then to item 7C, which will be the Miami Jewish Film Festival screening on April 12th.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. So we do have some film options to choose for the screening on April 12th with the Miami Jewish Film Festival. I'm going to play a couple of the trailers. It did also include a documentary that does not have a trailer, but it did include the information in the packet. We met at Grossinger's, so know that that is one option, and I will show you Grossinger's. There you go. Oh, there you go. Very nice. You can tell us more about it, but we're going to watch the trailers. OK, the first film is called Matchmaking 2.

Ha, ha, ha! Listen, it's good that you're taking it easy.

From now on, you and I will go find Shirah Hadan. For my daughter, only a good, serious guy.

I know a good, serious guy. So you'll meet with one girl whose brother is someone else? I won't go out with his brother. I want Shirah. Rute, you've run out of battery. He doesn't pay attention to me. You tell him he doesn't pay attention to me. God help me.

All this time I was there for you, Zorbet. You have to turn her into a girl. Like two assholes. Do you know how good girls are? They have needs. What do we buy? T-shirts, socks. We'll bring a filter and a brush.

For Avon.

For Avon.

So if they know what it is, it's good food. I don't know. I don't know.

You will write everything, all the good and all the bad.

How many people do you have? Don't you worry about the money. I love you at home. Come on, it's dangerous.

What's going on? Come on, put a hat on your head. Peace and mercy.

If I want you to have a wedding, different from a wedding, I'm not against you.

Okay, so that's one option. The next film. Mazel Tov is the next one.

Darío, papá tuvo un infarto. Fue mientras dormía y se enteró. Do you realize that you come every three years with this speech, I want to rebuild the ties? I would have liked to say goodbye to you, but I couldn't. You came and said, you're not a good father, and you left. In the facts you do shit, all, Darío. The family is the mechanism of contagion of all evils. Are you in a sect? I sent you the money. Dad sent me the money.

He comes to die, dad, and it turns out that being good is bad. But you know the times I needed an older brother and I didn't have you?

What do you say? I have a life. I don't know. I go out, I meet people, I snore.

Sometimes I think one thing and say another. You need therapy. I left my bag. Leon Rosemar is called the magic that your father did. I'm your older brother.

I came to the United States to re-compose the bonds.

And you came to reveal relationships, motherfucker? And you came to reveal relationships, motherfucker? And you came to reveal relationships, motherfucker?

And you came to reveal relationships, motherfucker? And you came to reveal relationships, motherfucker?

And you came to reveal relationships, motherfucker?

OK, so those are the two options that we have trailers for. Again, we also have a documentary there is no trailer for. So if you want to discuss, yeah. Based on the synopsis, it's in the packet.

It's in the packet. OK, so we have to vote, right?

Yes.

Okay, so...

I'll go. I like the Mazel Tov because it's also in Spanish, so I think that it'll be great for our audience. It covers everything.

It seems like a happy family film. I agree, and it has an amazing cast, and the director is very well-created as well.

I agree for the Spanish. I like the idea that we can understand it.

Okay, so we have to make a... And personally, I'm going to watch Ghostingers at home, though. I want to see that. Yeah.

We have to make a... Motion.

Oh, I've got to find the name of the movie again. Mazel Tov. Okay, so I make a motion to choose the Mazel Tov movie.

I'll second that motion.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Mazel Tov. Okay, so let's move to item 70, this new Montserrat event recap.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. We will welcome Charlotte to the podium.

This one? Okay. Charlotte, El Sehle 320, 88th Street. I am the creative director at Relief Designs, and we produced your Snow Moon Soiree that was about a month ago, and this is the recap. So we had a... I guess I'll try and shorten this a little bit so that we... move through it a little faster. But basically, this was a new winter marquee event. It was meant to combine music, art, entertainment, sustainability, wellness, into something that is uniquely Surfside. And we did this by having an elevated adults-only white party on Saturday evening, followed by a full day of wellness and family beach programming. despite record breaking cold temperatures and also an accelerated production window. We did get pretty enthusiastic participation and all of the feedback I got was overwhelmingly positive. So first about the white party. Um, we had, I was really actually very thrilled with all of the vendors that we had. They were, um, just, I couldn't have asked for more. I thought they were also professional and did exactly what we asked them to do. Um, we had the, uh, the sand sculpture that was illuminated. It also, the, the buildup to it, I think like, you know, as they were constructing it on the beach, um, added to sort of the anticipation of the event. Um, Elson Torres and his band were phenomenal. We had a, a like remarkable, um, fire performance on the beach. Um, we had the live mermaids. We had the DJ activated in the, um, lifeguards hand, which was a big hit. Um, we had the food was wonderful. And, um, I think people were pretty pleased with the, the Turkish towel giveaway.

Mm-hmm.

These are just more pictures from the event. Relief Designs did all of the decor and the ocean-themed installations, and it was meant to create a very magical sort of coastal dreamscape. So almost all of the decor was handmade or selected, custom-made for Surfside. So, of course, we had a turtle. We also had koi fish that were completely made of paper. We did a manta ray. We had a large jellyfish. We had a bunch of things that were designed specifically for Surfside, and everything was eco-friendly and sustainable to contribute to the visual storytelling. The food was amazing. I was super happy with how everything turned out, including there was a full kosher menu and desserts that were white party themed. Everything that the vendors did was, it was not just food. It was like part of the immersive experience. So they incorporated white wherever they could. It was very coastal themed. People really liked the mobile bar that we wound up having. And they were just wonderful and very professional. We had, oh, let me go back. We had both the signature cocktails. So we had the snow moon spritz But they also did a mocktail option for us. It was called the Surfside Refresher. We had lavender lemonade and Prosecco, and then we added a hot chocolate bar. So for Sunday, We had a range of wellness and family-friendly activities. And we actually did have a record-breaking cold that morning. It was like 35 degrees at the airport. So I was really, I was concerned. Like coming into the pool area, there was like steam rising off the pool and off the ocean. But the sand sculpting workshop reached capacity. Redoes, like everybody was eating the ICs. It was crazy. It was like People were just excited. They were happy to be there. I think maybe the cold made it more unique. I don't know. But we had fire pits that we incorporated. We had more casual food options for people. We had a DJ for part of the event. And we had people show up to surf, which was amazing. The waves were actually incredible. It was not very beginner friendly, but I was really excited that people came. And then the mermaids, people were not really enthusiastic about getting in the pool, even though we raised the temperature to 90 degrees. So they pivoted and they did a fun land-based workout. Then they did storytelling with the kids and photo ops and hair braiding with shells. So I was really happy with how all of the vendors were able to adapt to the situation. Same thing with the yoga and sound bath. The yoga teacher wanted... to make sure everybody was comfortable, so we moved that part inside, but then everybody was able to move out to the beach to watch the moon rise, and they incorporated the sound bath as part of the yoga, and then she brought some of her instruments outside for the moon rise. This is the part that I get most excited about. This is the sustainability impact. So this is actually a 68% increase in the amount of material we were able to compost over the 90th anniversary event. We incorporated everything to make it easier for people to compost. We incorporated signage that said, save the mermaids, compost everything. People, it turns out, really love mermaids. We partnered with Plastic Fishermen for a treasure hunt, and that was amazing. It went really well. People were very enthusiastic, and I was really excited that it definitely did not hinder anything to have such a sustainability-forward approach. So, you know, these are the two biggest factors I think that impacted us and one was the cold. So we did a bunch of things that we made adjustments for and, you know, it's up to the board to think moving forward how you want to work with the timing. how people did like it. So I don't know. If we adapt it more for next year, we can see. It's up to you guys. The other piece was even though the idea had been building for a long time, for lots of different reasons, we had a very accelerated window for production. So the contract was actually three weeks before the event. So that affected vendor. procurement, we had to change the bar. It was tricky with the kosher vendor. So there were different elements to that, but I think that can be corrected next year. This was just, it's in your packet, I think. These are sort of my takeaways of what I thought really worked. and things that I would encourage for next year. So I'm happy to discuss any of those in more detail. And then I know that this was the part I think the board was most interested in. I broke down the budget by day. However, there were a number of elements that were really shared infrastructure. So it made it more cost effective to do it back to back like that, like a day and a half. I don't know, if you wanted to break up the event in the future, you would have to take into consideration that we were using the same, like the compost vendor picked up everything after. They didn't have to come twice. The DJ was the same DJ both days, so we used the same equipment and things like that.

Um, so do you have questions about the budget or did we have any increase or something due to whether, um, additional additional expenses? Yes.

Yes. I mean that, and that, I mean, I did not come and ask for money, more money, but like that came out of what I made from the event.

So I thought talk to the chair.

I thought it was a great event. It was too cold, though, so I would vote for next year to move it by a month, maybe February, March, maybe March, where we still don't have rain and things like that, because that was really cold. It was a great event. I mean, people really liked it, and they did definitely like having an adult party. I think that was a big hit, and then the kids stuff the next day, and the Saturday night, and then the Sunday thing worked really well. The weather, no one can predict, but given... the environmental toll right now. I think we can expect it to get crazy cold in January, so maybe moving it later for...

I think it's hard to tell now, because also this weekend we had a storm. Yesterday it rained, it poured. That could happen if we do it in March, because the weather is really crazy. In February, maybe. Yeah, we did it in February. We did it the first week of the first day.

It was February 1st. I did look at the snow moon next year, if you want to coordinate with the snow moon. I think it's February 20th. Later is better. But... I mean, like you never know, we had some really cold days.

I think a good thing could be to have, like not only for this event, but for in general, it would be to have a contingency. Weather contingency. Yeah, a contingency in the budget that can allow us move forward easily without having to have a meeting or things like that, for example, to get the extra, I don't know, eight heaters or ten heaters that we have to, you know, at last minute put together or things like that. For any of the events, or I don't know if we need more tents or things like that, I think every budget or at least, you know, our main budget should have a contingency plan. line to cover those without putting pressure on the vendors or risking the event or even thinking on canceling, which is kind of hard when you've worked through weeks to get this together. And then it's very hard to commit to the next week.

But they do do that with the fireworks and stuff. There's a cancellation built in because of weather makes it impossible to do. So I don't know. We've never really done a party with this. We haven't really spent so much money on parties before where it was like, oh, my gosh.

I think the thing with this one, just so you know, is that there's like there were I can't even count how many vendors, different vendors we had. And so we had not like different ones had different time periods, but they're almost all non-refundable by the last week. Yeah. So in that week leading up to it. I was like, we're going to lose so much money if we don't move forward. So it made more sense to me to try and adjust to it as long as we didn't reach frostbite. Yeah. So yes.

And something that I enjoy really a lot on Sunday, well, Saturday, I think it was magical. It was a magical night. The fire, the music, the DJ, everything was really, really nice. And also to see, even with the cold, to see all the neighbors dressed up in white for winter, it was nice. It was, I think, completely different. And on Sunday, I like the fire pits by the green area. People really took long naps there. I sit myself there, and I fall asleep by the warm of the air. And I think it's something that we could do not only for events like this, but more often, because in the green area, because sometimes we don't use it. Well, I think this year, through this commission, we've really gave more life to that green area. And it was beautiful.

I would, I mean, maybe even if you don't want to do the snow moon at that time, like whatever you guys decide, it's up to you. But I do think one of the things I thought worked that I heard feedback from, especially from the sand sculpture guy who was talking about people walking the beach from hotels, that this was really an attraction for the time of year when we have a lot of tourists. And see a lot.

Yes. Yes. Yeah, so after the rain yesterday. Yeah.

So I mean, not just the sand sculpture, but like having an event in the winter. So maybe like, I don't know what you want to be like incorporating the fire, the fire pits or the, you know, more fire dancers. No. There was a lot of fun things for that.

I thought that event was really, really well done, especially under the weather constraints. And it's so minimal to even mention it, but the only thing for me was just the food. It was amazing, but it was one line for all of it. It became kind of hard to hold the food, and so if we could maybe just separate, let's say, the appetizer cold thing is like one ticket, and then people could then go get their hot food after, because by the time you sat to eat, everything was cold. And it was very good. So it was just kind of unfortunate.

Yeah, there were definitely some takeaways I had. I think I like the butler service better, doing it more like that. We had constraints also because of the weather and just the placement of everything. A lot of the decor had to shift, but we were going to have bar things over it and move it apart a little bit that would have worked differently. Because there was also wind the other day, which was actually... It was a lot to manage, but it turned out good.

It was beautiful.

But on Sunday also, I think for next year or whatever we're doing, we should have had more, I put it in my notes, but more vegetarian options as vegetarian. There were also, we didn't have a full, this would require more money, but we didn't have a full kosher service. Even though the meat was kosher, there were some people... you know, that were concerned that it wasn't fully kosher certified on Sunday. But that just, that requires more, it requires a bigger budget than what we had. We already had a big budget, but, you know. So.

Can we watch?

I saw a video. Yes, they did an amazing video.

I unfortunately can't log into the Instagram to play it. I tried before the meeting a couple different ways, but we don't have it. But it is on our Instagram, so please check it out. And I just want to say it was an amazing event, so really, really well done, given that it was record abnormal cold. It was not normal. Towels came in handy.

Those blankets came in handy. Yes, we did the blankets. We had the towels. Everybody was wearing them. And then we had blankets available. We could have done, if I had more time, I could have done more. But we had the little cozy cove of a retreat space where people could heat up. You know, I was amazed that the mermaids came out anyway. I thought they would cancel. They were all in, yeah, wearing like the fur. So it was, you know, people were flexible.

Great job, and we'll definitely revisit this event, you know, when we have a new board. We'll definitely talk about next year and what they want to do. Okay. Thank you again.

Thank you. Great job.

Okay, moving forward. Yes, 7E, Plastic, Digiment, Treasure, Hand Recap.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This will be a quick item. Mostly going to watch the video, but we do have Rodrigo here and for the next item as well.

Rodrigo Butori, 9517 Carlisle Avenue.

So the Treasure Hand Recap, it's... part of the Monsore, right? Yes.

We were generously invited to participate on the Snow Monsore. And I must say, I've been hearing all the comments. When we work with the experiences in my industry, we always talked about creating memories, not just experiences. And for me, this is a very, very strong memory. Maybe the weather helped. But the snow, the cold, the way the event was put together, for me, it was just like stroke me. This is the best event I've ever been in Surfside. So congratulations to the board for that. And on Sunday, oh, and that DJ sat on that lifeguard station. I want my birthday to be like that. I'm going to come back for that. That was genius. Anyway, we were invited to participate on Sunday to bring plastic fishermen to the beach, but we wanted to do something different this time, so not a plastic fishing festival and some of the other events that we have planned for this year. So what we decided to do was a different kind of thing. We decided to do a treasure hunt. So what we did, as you'll see in this video, is we hid pieces of plastic around the beach, and then whoever discovered those pieces of plastic, they were gold pieces of plastic, they won prizes. We had a pretty good attendance, and we not only cleaned the beach and cleaned up all the plastic that was there that we placed, but all the plastic that was already at the beach. Yeah. So let's just play here. All right, everybody. Welcome to the treasure hunt. This is a different kind of event that we're organizing today. We're going to be painting some of the plastics that we clean up regularly around the beach and turn them into gold pieces. And then we're going to be spreading them around in our beautiful beach of Surfside and inviting the families and kids to go for a beach clean up. And if they find any of those gold pieces, they're going to win some pretty cool prizes. Let's hide them. Alright, that was it. We had a lot of fun.

Thank you. Thank you. I think it was good to incorporate something that, you know, A partnership we've had for so many years now in Surfside, and it's very emblematic to Surfside into our annual event. I think it was a great idea. And we are very thankful. And it was beautiful also to have you guys on one side and have the people doing the sand sculptures on the other side. So it was like, I don't know, people coming back and forth from both sides. And there was a lot of people from the hotels.

Yeah.

I think it was like the sculpture really brought people from the hotel. Because when we were assigning the people for the sculpture, that you participated, there was a lot of people that were like hotel guests that you can tell.

It was great because they came from the sculpture then to the treasure hunt, the treasure hunt to the surfing thing. So it was like there was like activities all the time.

Even with the weather.

Even with the weather. Yeah, the weather, I think it was gorgeous. It was cold, but it was gorgeous. So yeah.

Thank you.

It was great. Thank you.

Now, any comments? So if not, we just keep with you and do the 7F. It's a surf-siting video.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to set this item up, you may have read the memo. But obviously, Rodrigo, we know him from the plastic fishing events and that wonderful movement. But I thought we would invite him here today to talk a little bit about a video for a more overall campaign for Surfside. This is something like a pilot video that we could do. But as we just saw with this video, he always does such a wonderful job with the videos. They tell such a great story. So I'm always left. you know, kind of wanting to see what that would look like for Surfside, but not just specifically for events, just to talk about our community, our destination. So, yep, that's the idea behind creating one of these videos to potentially expand on for the next fiscal year.

All right. Frank, how do I move it down again? Let's hold screen. All right. Okay. So this is something that myself and Gabriel, who's also a resident here in Surfside, we've been talking a lot about, which is to create a campaign that promotes our town, the diversity, and all the beautiful things that exist in our town, and that sometimes we forget. Sometimes we focus on some things, but we forgot that this Surfside is much more than that. Yeah, and the idea is very simple, like some things that just don't happen everywhere, but in Surfside, they actually do. There are things here that you don't find, you know, in any other place, and they are signature things in Surfside. So a pristine beach, you know, is a Surfside thing. Like you walk around, like you don't find beaches like that in South Florida. It's a very unique thing. The Turtle Walk, that's a Surfside thing. A Michelinki restaurant, that's pretty unique, right? That's also a Surfside thing. What we have with the Surf Club is quite incredible. A noble literature that lived in this town and thrived in this town, Isaac, is a Surfside thing. It's an icon. Block parties are a Surfside thing. meeting our neighbors, you know, as they go into the canals, those sorts of things. So we have so much in Surfside. And the idea is to create a campaign that celebrates every side of Surfside, call them Surfside things, you know, and have this mantra of all these things, these people, these activities, you know, this location, those are Surfside things. So it's a Surfside thing will be our theme for this longstanding campaign. And like Frank was saying, We want to create a video based on that. So examples of what we can do as we create this content campaign, we'll talk about kayaking in the canals and we have the link to Pedaltopia. That's a Surfside thing. The best kosher restaurants in South Florida, that's a Surfside thing. Again, Pedotopia, it's a Surfside thing. I bought streets that are named after legendary riders. That's a Surfside thing. People don't notice the names of the street, but it's brilliant that we have the ABCD and everything, but they're all riders. That's genius. Plastic fishing festivals or plastic fishermen, Surfside things. There are so many things that we can go on and on and on, and that's the intention that we have as a way to celebrate, again, the diversity and all the beautiful things that Surfside has. We wanted to start this with this video and also a manifesto that explains what this stands for and already starts mentioning some of those unique things that Surfside has to offer. So I'm going to read this to you. The intention, again, is to make a video with as many images and colorful as you can imagine through a voiceover. So it goes something like this. Yes, we've got surf in Surfside, but there are many more sides to our town. A pristine beach at the sunrise, That's a Surfside thing. Sea turtles finding their way home? A Surfside thing. The best kosher food in South Florida? Definitely a Surfside thing. Here, diversity is in the slogan. It's heard in dozen languages drifting down the block. It's written in streets named after literary legends. A Nobel Prize winner calling this place home? also a Surfside thing. Colorful kites over the ocean, flip-flops as business wear, block parties that turn neighbors into family, they're all Surfside things. From manatees in the canals to parrots gossiping in the palms, from mission-installed meals to moving under the stars, this isn't just where we live, it's how we live. So let's celebrate all the things, and the big ones, that make this town unique anywhere else. Because loving where you live, that's the most Surfside thing of all. Come visit Surfside.

We have more visitors. We're packed. You can't walk down the block.

Lots of visitors. Too many visitors.

That's a Surfside thing.

No, we are the Surfside board, so. We need resort access.

All right. Fine, but can they pace themselves and walk on the sidewalk and not in the middle of the street?

So, yeah, so that's the video. That's the intention of a manifesto. We can use it as many ways as we can.

I like the idea. I don't like the logo, the orange. It's got a weird color.

This is not the logo. That's not a Surfside thing. What do you mean?

The logo is not a Surfside thing.

Oh, okay. Well, we'll play it accordingly.

But I like the thought and the theme. It's nice.

Yeah, the intention, again, is to start with the video, and then from there we build a logo, we build all this. We want to have 48 pieces of content as we go into a campaign, which will be a social type of campaign with a hashtag. It's a Surfside thing. So therefore, in my opinion, as a marketing person, you have a filter for things and events later on. So are these Surfside things? Great, let's make an event about them. So it becomes easier for us to define who we are by all the things that this town has to offer.

Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing in the tourist department? You don't have anybody working with you anymore? Just you?

No.

Trust me.

It's a Frank thing. It's a Frank thing.

For now, unfortunately. But obviously, the last few years, we've really dedicated a lot of resources towards special events and not so much towards content creation. We did have a great multimedia person a couple of years ago, but we don't anymore. So I think there's been a little bit of a void in terms of content. You know, our competitors are big destinations with big budgets, Harbor and Miami Beach. So I think it's important for us to tell our own story and especially on social media, which is so important nowadays. So, you know, in reading this manifesto, knowing that Rodrigo is a local, I think he's going to, you know, he knows the town and you know what its highlights are. are and what it's really like to live here. So I think it would just be a nice way to potentially showcase. This first video would be a $3,000 fee. We have...

I have a question. Because I know a lot of people in town that work in media and stuff that are going to get upset because there wasn't an RFQ put out for it, RFP or whatever it is.

No, but discretionary stuff for...

content here does not go through rfp or rfq it's a small budget line item so we can't do an rfq every time right but when we had like last time when we wanted to have the parties we had people come and present like for example i mean i don't want to name names or anything but and i like this i think this is great but i do know that there are other people in town who've been harping on we need to do marketing and i have great ideas for videos and they're going to feel like we can reach

out we have a discretionary budget so if they have a great idea i can bring it to the next board there's enough money in there for plenty of videos but i think you know we already know rodrigo so the idea was to do one test video show it to the next board see if they like it so three thousand dollars for one video yeah which is pretty reasonable for uh standard how long of a video it's gonna be a short video it's for social media uh around 60 seconds and 90 seconds so three thousand dollars for a 60 second video actually i'm in the wrong business

I make less than that for documentary. Okay.

Yeah, we usually charge way more than that.

I'm telling you, I should have sold out.

That for me is reasonable for the quotes that I've gotten through the years for this type of video. And knowing, again, the quality that Rodrigo produces, because I think there's no...

But what's it going to... 60 seconds of what?

I mean, you could see the manifesto.

No, I see the manifesto, but how is that?

Are you going to sing it?

I did.

I heard the whole thing.

Excuse me, through the chair.

I just wanted to say that when I looked at the agenda this afternoon, And I really felt, I didn't like the logo that much, but I really felt like it was a great idea. It hit on a lot of, like, I mean, all the points. You know, it covered, like, everything. I don't think you, I can't think of anything that's not in there that's a Surfside thing. So I think, you know, I mean, and I don't have a decision in this. This is up to you all. But I do think I like the idea and I think the price seems reasonable to me. Not that I'm voting on it.

Wouldn't we want to do a larger campaign or like a series of things? Is this just $3,000 for one video?

Yeah, it's a test to see. I mean, a big campaign of this sort will cost tens of thousands of dollars. It's not going to cost $10,000 for a whole campaign. It's going to cost tens of thousands.

So you're talking about making one video, one 60-second video for $3,000 and putting it out there?

Yeah, letting the new board see how they like it.

But with a different logo?

Again, this was just presented as the first thought for it's a Surfside thing, but the line, it's a Surfside thing. That's what we're married to, how it's going to show. We can design. It's part, actually, of the campaign cost, how we design this logo. Again, I'm not here to convince you of anything. All I'm doing here is bringing you an idea that wraps up what it means to live in this town. And I want to contribute as a resident.

But again, I will stop here. Okay, so I do really think we need this big time. We are always in the news for the wrong reasons. And it's a good idea to clean a little bit our image. And that's what this board is about. Not only giving great events, but also taking care of... the way we project ourselves. And I think not only us, but all the residents will be very grateful to have something beautiful, inspiring, and something you feel proud of. I live here, right? And all these things that are in the manifesto, I think that you will feel really very proud to be part of this. So I like the campaign. I think with also frank guidance to the end project of this will be an amazing video. I don't have any doubt. And the price, I work in this business, and believe me, To do a campaign, it's hundreds of thousands of dollars for a year campaign.

I work in the business, too, but I work on the new side.

Yeah, in the wrong part.

Not in the money-making side.

And to the trick, keep in mind, we haven't spent any money on a video like this in, like, three years. So if you think about it, one $3,000 video.

And this is just, as you mentioned, you know, it's... It's just a little opening pilot thing to hopefully do a nice campaign next year for whomever is sitting here. I think it's something good to, even if we're not here, to leave it for the next board, something that already started.

I have a question. Sorry, one more thing. Through the chair?

Go ahead. I'll wait.

Sure. Yeah, I just wanted to say that I think it is important to promote the town and promote the businesses. And that's what I really liked about it was that it encompassed everything, not just our facilities but the businesses. And that's an important aspect because we get our tax base from there as well.

Can I add to that too? What I love about the Surfside thing is exactly that. I've noticed on our social that we talk about certain business here and there, right? But that's how we frame it. We can have, like, those stickers on each one. This business is a Surfside thing. It becomes a source of pride, but also, like, it defines the town by what the town has to offer. And it's the same thing for people. It's the same thing for, like, events. I mean, suddenly, like, you have something that encompasses everything, an umbrella for everything to live under. And that's what I think we don't have right now, which, as a marketing person, I think you will benefit from.

Okay, I have a question. Can we not call it a manifesto? Because I feel like that's sort of an angry. Like a mission statement.

Call it a text.

Vision statement, mantra, credo, philosophy. You're not going to use the word manifesto? No, no, no, no.

I'm just putting what's called a voiceover, right? What's going to be said. And I was even thinking, I mean, as we plan, we're going to talk to Frank. I would love to maybe even have different people saying those lines. So maybe somebody from the kosher restaurant talks about the kosher food. So we have, you know, it's said by the people in town. But again, it's all.

Okay. Can you put the sea turtle in the logo?

stay during the logo yeah but then yeah it could be yeah or even the surf side as we have it right like yeah yeah that's upside there's something that looks more surfside we'll work on the weekend sorry the only question i had was just the one video did we decide that because we're limited by the amount of dollars we can approve or was it just because it was a good way to test it

It was just my thinking because it's a good way to test it and also because the board is kind of in transition. There is plenty of money to do more. I mean, if you want to do a couple.

I just wanted that.

But that was the thinking was to do one and then evaluate.

OK. So I think we have to vote who's going to make a motion. Make a motion.

I would like to make a motion to move forward with the video and test this out. I like the idea.

Who will second?

I will second it, but with the reservations that I expressed about the process. But I'm going to give it a try. But if we turn this into a larger campaign, I do think we need to reach out to have more people present. Not that this isn't great. It's great. But I, you know.

No, great. But my suggestion, again, is if this becomes a Surfside, it's a Surfside campaign, I think everything else has to fit under that Surfside campaign. Otherwise, you're going to have disparate voices, each one saying a different thing.

Sure. But, like, for example, I remember that Sarah List did the Third Thursdays. Like, she came up with the name Third Thursdays. Yeah. And then it was given to every vendor on Earth, like is now doing. But it's a Thursday thing.

It's one thing that we can put under the campaign.

Right, right. It's just that, yeah. Yeah, okay. Because this is his, you know, kind of pitch idea. And just to be clear, Sarah did not come up with their Thursdays. But that was a different person.

All right. A story I heard where she was, but okay.

Okay, so...

The motion was to approve the video campaign, correct? Okay. Board member?

Is it May? You said you have the year.

May? Okay. Board member Callaway?

Yes.

Board member Salazar?

Yes.

Board member Martinez? Yes. Motion carries.

All right. Thank you. It's a surfside thing. Let's do it. Thank you.

Okay, moving on, and I think...

The last one, yeah.

Yes, 7G, 3rd Thursday, a night in the Mediterranean recap.

Yeah, the video is in the little icon, and the presentation should be there.

Hello, Javier Valmana, 8851 Abbott Avenue, Surzai. So I'm here to do a little recap of our last third Thursday of our series, Cruising the Globe. And this past event was a night in the Mediterranean. The first one was a night in the Americas, and the upcoming one in March is a night in Asia. For this one, the countries featured were Israel, Turkey, and Greece. And just to go over a few of the different elements, for food and drink, we partnered up with Cressy, and they provided an Israeli falafel bowl, which is kosher. We also had a Turkish ikli kofte. which I'll show pictures of later on. That came along with the baklava. And we had a vendor provide Greek lamb beef sliders with fries. We also had a drink tap cart with a wine from each different country. So people got to, you know, choose their preference. And for this event, we didn't have a bar. But what we did is that with this vendor, we more than doubled the amount of portions that we usually give out for complimentary. So I think there was plenty, and everyone got to drink a lot. And then for kids' activities, we had a Greek pottery painting activity in partnership with Potter Me. a local business from here in town, and we also had a Turkish henna station. So just to show you some pictures of the event, starting with entertainment, we had belly dancers as one of the main shows, and here you can see some of the pictures. The belly dancers were representing Turkey. For Greece, we had a harp and violinist. And then for Israel, which was kind of like our centerpiece, we had an Israeli singer that sang mostly in Hebrew. And so this is just some of the reference for the food and drink. On the left, you can see the falafel portions, which are little bowls with hummus and some Israeli salad and things like that. On the right, you have the Turkish kofte and baklava. This is our Greek food truck, our tap cart for the wines. I just want to say one of the reasons we introduced the tap cart for this event instead of having both the drink option and the bar is that in order to have the bar with drinks for sale, it becomes very expensive both liquor license-wise and everything. So this way, it made more sense because at the end of the day, we were spending a lot of money just to be able to have a bar while We couldn't really, like, for the complimentary portions, we were more limited because of the budget. And in this case, we just focused all of it towards the complimentary portions. And for reference, usually with a bar, we would give out about 200 portions. For this one, we gave out about 450. So it was better. And then on the far right, you have our little water station. So then as far as the kid activities, we had the henna drawing station, where kids got little henna tattoos. And then the pottery station, which you can't see too well from the photo, but they were painting little vases And then one of the main elements that we've used throughout the series to really bring each theme to life is the core and just kind of the ambiance of the event. We usually either separate into different sections based on the countries. And since this one was Greece, Israel, and Turkey, we try to incorporate elements that just kind of teleport you to those places. So you can kind of see through the pictures. And we try to focus on everything from the decoration of the tables, the tablecloths, to different little photo stations for people to take pictures and create memories of the event and try to create as much of an audience as possible, setting up string lights throughout, flags of each country. For this one, we had for Turkey, for example, area with a rug and a small table for people to sit down and hang out and it was very cozy and kind of what you think of when you think of Turkey. And then for Greece and Israel, we had other elements that represented the culture or what you kind of think of each place. So this is just more reference. We had one thing I forgot to mention is that we had two different areas of entertainment. We had the area for Greece for the Greek performance of the harp and the violin with a Greek background, which was after the performance was used as a photo op. And then for Israel, we had a center stage with obviously the Israeli flag. You can kind of see here. We also gave out, just as an extra, we gave out these gold crowns with leaves. And people really loved those. We ran out instantly. But you can see, I mean, throughout the pictures, you'll see from kids to adults to grandpas wearing them and just fully enjoying them. And one of the other things that we really focus on, as far as decorations, we try to make it so that each Each space in the event is completely in theme. So for example, for this one, we provided the food vendors. As you can see on the top right, both tents, we provided them with different colored tents. All the banners and all the design and all that was done by us just to kind of create a good partnership and make the experience as smooth as possible for them, but also have everything blend in in the event. And then these are just some pictures of people enjoying the event and hanging around. We had an amazing turnout, I think, from at least the events that I've done, even the night in Italy, which is very popular. This one was, I think, one of the busiest, if not the busiest. We had a huge turnout. You can see on the right the Turkish little area. We also try to do as much as possible to take over the entire space and utilize it as much as possible and create good flow. And this is a night in the Mediterranean, Israel, Turkey, and Greece. And our event budget was $30,000 for this one. Oh, also, one thing I want to mention is that we had three different food stations and the drinks bar. For the food alone, we gave out about 1,200 portions of food. So it gives you an idea of pretty much all the food that we're giving out since we're having at least one food portion per country. So we really try to do as much as possible to utilize that budget to the max. And let me see if I can find the video. This is just a short little video that we'll be posting on Instagram. We had a little market, local vendors. And that's it. That was a night in the Mediterranean.

Thank you, Javier.

Thank you so much.

Questions, comments?

You know, I always do. Two things. First of all, it was a great event. Amazing. Your events are great. The budget's great. The only feedback I got was the lines for the food were way, way, way too long. So I don't know if we have to switch to a different... Maybe they have two people being able to do it, but having the custom thing where they're like, and this and this and... It was insane. Like, people were... The lines were so bad that I never even got near it. So we have to figure... And we didn't have the problem at the prior event.

at all. Right. Well, one of the biggest differences... No, not that.

I'm not talking about that one. The event, the last third Thursday, the first one you had, did not have...

It was freezing for that.

Okay, well, it was still packed, but we didn't have the line problem. Even for the steak, it was all just ready-made already. So there needs to be that element to move people faster.

Yeah, for this one, though, the turnout was, I think, definitely greater, and especially, like, everyone came out once. So that definitely affects it. We did have an issue with the Turkish vendor, power-wise, that we kind of, you know, fixed throughout the event. But it wasn't... So they brought a... like two fryers in order to, you know, be able to move quicker. One of them we couldn't get to power on. And because of that, you know, they were left with only one. But even then, like, for example, Cressy, you know, they brought a whole team and, you know, we set them up perfectly and they still had a full line the entire time because it was just...

Maybe we need a third option or a different way to do it.

We did. We had the Greek option or the Greek food truck, and they were also moving very quickly to the point that I feel like since everyone didn't want to wait in line for the other ones, they moved to that one, and that one ran out a lot quicker than the other two, which didn't really run out. So it's kind of just hard to manage because it's, I don't know, 400, 500 people pretty much at peak times, which is 630 to 730, coming mostly all at once. So it's hard to, yeah, it's just hard to not have a line. But, you know, it's something that we can work on, and I can see how we can kind of adjust it.

Yeah, they had the pre-plated, like at the one before that, there was already the pre-plated stuff as opposed to them having to make it each time. And I think that's what slowed it down.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. The other thing was that the food itself that we had for this one made it a little bit more difficult just because, like, for example, one of the ones that we had pre-plated for that one was a Brazilian one, which was, like, small bites and stuff like that. For the steak, they had it... They were cooking it on the spot, but it was an easier process, I guess, because out of one big steak, you can chop it up and divide it better. For this, with the falafels and with the Turkish one, it's stuff that has to be fried in the moment. Otherwise, the quality is not as good. So that was the other element, that because of the type of food that it was, if it was pre-made, I feel like it would lose kind of...

And I wasn't sure if there was a dessert option. I wasn't clear on the dessert.

So the only dessert option really was for the Turkish. It came with a baklava.

Right.

So that was it. For this one, it was a little bit more difficult, mainly because of the budget. We were in the process of partnering with a Greek yogurt. And mainly because of the budget, we just weren't able to do it. And we just had to focus on.

Well, if that becomes a budget thing, I think we could add a little bit more to make sure that there's a thing. Because it wasn't a very kid-friendly dessert.

Yeah. So we always like to have ice cream for the first one. For the night in Italy one, we had gelato, which was very good. For the last one, we had morellias for the night in the Americas, which was very fitting. And then for this one, we were going to partner with a Greek yogurt place that recently opened on Lincoln Road. And it's just for, you know, what happens a lot of the time.

That one with that crazy line?

Probably, yeah, Mika.

That's insane. That line was insane. I was there on Saturday night, South Beach. That line was crazy all night, like hours long.

So we were talking to them, and they were interested, but the problem was that for a lot of these establishments, you know, to do events, it becomes difficult, especially for the amount of portions. I mean, we're asking them for 300 to 400 portions at least.

That would be, they're not even able to service regular people.

Yeah. So well so but we actually talked to them we talked to another one called go Greek and we ended up talking to at the end which it was kind of last minute that we that we realized but we have in town recently open 16 handles which is not Greek yogurt but then what I thought is we can kind of do a twist yogurt. Yeah.

They have a Greek yogurt flavor. They have one of the tart ones.

So we talked to them, and it was kind of last minute. But, you know, it couldn't happen. But, yeah, it is something that we, you know, for future ones, for the next one, we would want to do.

Well, for the next one, I was thinking you could do Moki. Yeah, for the... Because that's ready-made, super fast, no line.

Yeah. It's just, it's hard sometimes, you know, finding the vendors and, you know, businesses to partner with. But, yeah.

Sell it to Costco.

Yeah, well, that's the thing, you know. I just... It's a little hard. But, no, I mean, overall, you know, I think all the food portions were good size.

People really liked it. It was great.

Yeah, and we had a huge turnout.

Yes? I just, thank you. I just wanted to mention that, you know, it was a great event. And so, you know, you're doing a lot of socializing. You have the entertainment there. And by the time I went to, I missed the Greek truck, but by the time I went to the food, I was on the Cressy line. while you're on the line, you're socializing. You're chatting with people who are online with you. So it's a good neighbor thing. And when I got the food, it was really great, and it was hot, and it was wonderful. You know, it was worth the wait, is basically the plan.

I got a lot of people complaining to me about the line. They were just looking for something to complain, but also my older people were not able to wait in the line.

If I can add, it's just a lot of the times, which is I guess what I was trying to say, it's a trade-off because either you have something made on the spot that is good quality, it's fresh, it's hot, or you have something that... With, you know, if it's pre-done or prepared, it can lose that quality, and then you might get complaints about...

Right. Well, maybe we can have both, like one of each.

Yeah, so that's what we did for the Night in the Americas, that we had the Brazilian as an option. That was just... That was great. Yeah, and that one was complimentary for everyone. The thing is that for this one, you know... It was harder budget-wise. It's a lot easier with finding a taco vendor or finding the Brazilian or even steak. For this one, it was more difficult because of the type of food.

One question, and for the next event, what's going to be the food options or how you're going to handle in order not to try to avoid a little bit what happens?

So for the next one, we want to partner up with a kosher sushi. And then we want to have a fried rice option, because we have China, India, and Japan. For India, I'm still working on it. I'm trying to find something. I want India to be kind of like the fast-paced one. Yeah, and that too. And for Japan, if we do kosher sushi, which I think we'll be able to do, it should be pretty fast too because it can kind of be pre-done or it doesn't have to be done exactly on the spot. And so in that sense, I think it'll be a little bit easier. My only thing that I'm trying to work out is that food-wise, obviously sushi tends to be a little bit more expensive. So I'm trying to see how I manage that. And I always like to have a complimentary option that we just give out for anyone, for people that might not be town residents. We weren't able to do that with this one, but I want to see if I do it with the next one, maybe some small bite or something like that. But as far as the food, I'm still working on it. I have the sushi, and I have the Chinese fried rice.

If the sushi is going to blow your budget, we don't have to have sushi.

No, I know, but at the same time, we want to have something for... for Japan that is, I feel like, I don't know, in theme with the country. It also doesn't have to be a lot. And a lot of the times what we do is that obviously we use, we always have to negotiate with the vendors that we partner with to try to bring it down as much as possible. Because when you tell people 400 portions, The amounts I get are double for me.

It doesn't have to necessarily be like a fancy sushi with a fancy fish or whatever, because you have many options of sushi that cannot be that expensive, like a California roll. A California roll, yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

And as you said, it can be pre-made.

Yeah, well one thing that I did I don't I don't know if in this meeting We can talk about it But I didn't want to see it for the next event you might be interested in racing the the budget by a bit only reason I mentioned is because I do have a lot of ideas entertainment-wise and all of that for the next one, which is China, Japan, and India. It's three countries that I have a lot to work with. And the other thing is that it's our last third Thursday. So what I was thinking is kind of having it All of these events, you know have been great entertainment wise and food wise and everything. I think You know, I've been able to really spread the budget as evenly as possible and try to do the most with what I have But since it's the last one I would like to have it be like a signature third Thursday If that's something you're interested in if you want to keep it how these fast couple ones have been we can do it as well So so If you were to race it, I would suggest something between, right now it's $30,000. I would suggest adding between $5,000 and $10,000. It's an option. Why do I say it? Because, for example, for the next one, entertainment-wise for this one, I always like to have as much as possible, if I can fit it within the culture and the budget, something that's very lively. Like for this one, we had the belly dancers, which were great and really interacted with the crowd, and it was great. And for the next one, I have a lot. The reason I say I have a lot to work with is because I already have a Bollywood show for India, which is going to be two dancers and two drummers. And that's going to be great. For China, I want to do a dragon dance.

Beautiful.

But what happens that with like for this one, how I manage the budget is having a singer, which was a solo. If I wanted to have a band, it would have been a lot more expensive. So I was able to have the dancers, which were three, and have the duo with the harp. And kind of the trade-off was having instead of a band, having just a solo performer. For this one, I want to have the Bollywood show, which is four performers. And then separate from them, I want to have the dragon dance, which is also a lot of performers. So that raises the budget a lot.

And then you will be missing the music, right? What's that? So you'll need more for music?

Right. So for entertainment and everything. My idea, I mean, if you want to turn it into a signature, not a signature event, but more of a signature Thursday to kind of end the series as something a little bit above the past two in entertainment and food and everything. If you were to race it, I would focus it mainly on entertainment and kid activities, but I would also add a bit more to food and drinks.

Regarding that, unfortunately, because of work, I haven't been able to make it to any of the third Thursday. For the last one, I'm going to be there. Okay. But so the comment that I'm going to make, because I was not there, I was thinking if I should say it or not, but now that you mentioned, I've heard like the musician – was not really that good or that entertaining. It was not really something that added that much up on the event. I think it's something that really gives a lot of value to the whole thing. It really puts everything together. For my personal opinion, I think if I will agree, maybe not $10,000, but maybe $5,000 if we need for a better music performance. I will agree to that.

So I was at all the events, and they're amazing. You did a great job. The one that was the first one, the Americas one, is that when the first one was the Americas?

It was the first one, yeah.

That was amazing. I mean, everything about that was fantastic, and it was cold. But the weather, the entertainment, it was great. And I know you were able to do that for the right budget, and that had steak and stuff. Yes.

But I think what he is presenting us today with a type of show... No, I'm fine with... I was not in the previous one, but I do understand that, for example, to do the dragon, which is beautiful, and... Yeah, it requires a lot. We just passed the Chinese year celebration, so it would be great to have it. It's more people. It's a different type of... entertainment, same for the Bollywood show will be completely different. So I do understand that sometimes With the amount of money you have, you can create something amazing like the Night of the Americas. But for some others, we might need a little bit of a push. Which we have the money, first of all. And second, we're closing our events with this one. So I think it will be great to have a really

Yeah.

I mean, I'm OK with spending maybe another $5,000. That's the most. But I really want to stress that we can't have a line situation like we had at the last event with the food. And even though sushi is considered Japan, to blow the whole budget so we have sushi. No, of course. Right. The dessert thing was something that I, right, but it's because we have the same amount of money, it's just being allocated differently. I'm okay to make this special and signature and stuff, spending a little bit more money. But there's got to be for the desserts, you know, fast, quick things that are not like, going to take a while. And for Asia, you have Moki. There's Pocky, those things. There's so many Asian candy stores. There's a million things. You could have one of those. But there's got to be that element. People like the entertainment, and they love it. But if they had to wait in line for food all night, they're pissed. Or if they're hungry, they're pissed. It's got to have both, but I'm okay with 5,000 more.

I think one of the ways to manage that, that I think maybe, so for the Night in the Americas, we had four food stations. For this one, we had three. So that was maybe one thing that helped. One of the reasons I was able to do that is because I'm able to, you know, for the countries that we had, which were Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, here in Miami, you have a lot more options. so you're able to negotiate better prices and get better. If this one gives you something that's too high, you can go to another one or use that to go back and forth. The same thing with entertainment for those countries. For example, with the singer, I was very limited to finding an Israeli singer in Miami to sing in Hebrew within our budget. Because I did find others, but the quotes I got were just astronomical. They were people that do bar mitzvahs or weddings, and the quotes were just not something. It's not that it's not out there or that we can't do it. It's just not within this budget.

I think the other thing, by the way, is the dessert was part of the same Greek station. Make the dessert its Turkish station. Yeah, Turkish station. Make the dessert its own station. Because that would take the line. You didn't have to get back on the line to get dessert. So spread the food out more. More stations. Same amount of food, but more stations.

And I did think about that. But the reason we couldn't do it is because of the budget also. Because then we have to have either two vendors or even if it's the same vendor.

But even if you just got for dessert, let's say for dessert, You get someone from Youth Council to sit at the table, and there's all kinds of Asian desserts or something, or candies. That's a cheap, low-budget way to make everybody happy, and it's a separate dessert station, so you don't have to wait in line to get dessert with all the people that are still waiting in line to get food. That was the problem. I'm just trying to help you relieve the bottleneck.

Yeah, no, and just in general, when it comes to the additional funds, the range is mainly what you want to focus on. I bring the option because for this one, what I see, and that's why I left it for last. I think it's going to be the best one just overall because I have the most to work with. In decorations, for China, for Japan, for India, I have a lot to do.

What about Boba? uh yeah boba matcha like that's the easy one for okay okay so we have to move on and do you want five thousand dollars more okay i'll make a motion to give him another five thousand and i'll second it but i want to see the food and not to yeah not sacrificing the food sounds good remember callaway yes

From Marcel Sauer? Yes. Buster Martinez? Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you. Have a good night.

All right, thanks. Good luck with the next one. Thank you. Okay, so moving on. 7I, total recycling container.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is just really quick. It came up at the last commission meeting. I think Commissioner Valdostegui had seen a fish container for recycling from the city of Miami Beach that I believe is at 77th Street. So I reached out to them. They partnered with Clean Miami Beach to develop that. So we're looking into maybe acquiring something similar as an option. I did also include the turtle recycling container that was presented as part of the holiday lighting package because that essentially is kind of like the same thing, except it's not transparent. In an ideal world, we would have a version that is mobile with wheels, so we can take it back and forth. So that's what we're currently looking into with the providers. And this is something that will come back to the new board. I just wanted to put it on your radar.

Okay. Okay, so I love this idea, but not the one in the picture. Not that at all. But also, we have to make sure that people don't put their dog poop in it. Okay?

Not the... That's why I think the clear, the one that Gerardo thought about, which is like open, it was like an open fish or something, which is not here. It's like metal.

It's like a metal structure that's open. So you put like your water bottles in it, but you can see the water bottles. It's not like something enclosed like this. It's by the library, right? Like by the park.

Yeah, it's by the library.

On the path. Uh-huh.

No, we're still talking. They just connected me with a person that did the sculpture, so I haven't gotten it yet, but we're working on it. Okay.

Thank you. Number eight, any new business?

Madam Chair, no new business was added to the agenda.

OK. Any board comment? No. No? No.

A pleasure serving with you.

Next meeting, April 6. So let's write out on our agenda.

Do we stay, or do new people get elected?

We don't know. For now, we stay. For now, we stay?

Says otherwise. OK. All right.

We don't know yet. Okay. That's why we say our goodbyes today. All right. April 6th. Okay.

April 6th is the next meeting?

Yes. At 6 p.m., right? Same time? Yes. Always at 6 p.m. Perfect. Okay. Okay. So thank you so much. We will adjourn the meeting.

Can someone besides the chair make a motion? I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting.

I'll second it.

All those in favor?

Aye. Motion carries. I want to thank Jack for being a lifeguard and saving our lives. Thank you, Jack, for your service.

Good night.