Resident Services Board - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress.

Hello. Hello.

How are you getting yourself long time no see?

Yes. I forgot I had disconnected my camera. Here we go. How are you? It's been a while.

I'm doing good. Yeah, always busy. Good. How are you?

Good. Hey, Faraheem. How are you?

Not bad.

It's been so long, Faraheem got a beard already.

Yeah, that's right. Okay, so let me open the meeting since we have three at 631. We call to order. So roll call. Francois.

Yes.

Faraheem, present. Yes. And myself. Do we have Susan? No. And we don't have Jose. I'm just going to give him a minute and see. I believe Susan was going to be on. Let's give her a minute and see if she comes on.

Hold on.

Hi, guys.

Good to see you all.

Is that Lily? Yeah, it's me. Hi. Hi. I'm trying to get my camera to work. Johnny installed a new camera and I'm having some technical difficulties. So give me a second.

No problem. I forgot I had disconnected mine. I had to go run for it.

I'm at the Freedom Tower. I can show you. Oh, I can't show you. I can't show you. I don't know why it's blurred. But anyway.

There you are. We see you, but we can't hear you now.

You can't hear me.

No, no, no. I was talking to Lily.

We can hear you.

Okay, so we're going to go ahead and start then. So call to order. I took the roll call. Can we get approval of the December minutes? It's been a while. Can I get a second on the minutes?

I submitted them, so I believe I cannot second them, right?

I'll be second. I'll be second.

Got it. Okay, so we'll go right into it. Update it on the 5K.

Oh, I think that was Jose's idea.

No clue. No idea. I know he originally came up with it. Lily, do you know anything about it?

I don't know anything about it. No.

I didn't put that on the agenda. I feel like it might have been either Vice Mayor or Jose. It's old.

Yeah, Jose was the original person, but I never... Well, Jose was the original person, and then Goran was in the process of working with Normandy Isle to run through their neighborhood and ending at the bandshell. So that's where it was left off.

I know they've been working on some stuff, but I don't know a whole lot of details about it. I also know the vice mayor was having conversations with Miami Beach about maybe doing a joint 5K with them. But that's as far as my knowledge. I don't know what the agenda is.

Do you know if Goran is supposed to be meeting us? Let me text him. Thank you.

So this is Frank. I was on a meeting with him, with Gorin and the beach, about multiple issues a couple of weeks ago, and one of them was a 5K run. And the way it left off was that the commissioner over there directed their special events staff to prepare some kind of an item to go before the commission to have a 5K four times a year. And that, so I don't know where that went from their side, but from our side, when I discuss it with Gorin subsequent to that meeting, is that maybe for us, we could join them in one of them during the year. instead of all four and he thought that was a good idea and he would talk to them over there and that's where it was i haven't heard anything since yeah because four is worth a lot yeah that is a lot thank you frank i appreciate it and the big cost with that is the police yes you've got what all those traffic lights and uh you just can't I mean, the price just jumps up huge. When we did the race before when I was here, we did it on Treasure Island. We didn't go on the causeway. And we went around South Treasure, you know, around the loop a couple of times, and it was in-house. Once you get on that causeway, you're going to have a permit from FDOT to have to do it. It's a whole different animal. It has more of a pizzazz to it than running around in the neighborhood. That's true. It'll cost.

That's how he's hopping on right now.

Awesome. Thank you. That's very ambitious, I think. Let's give Goran a moment.

My daughter ran in the lifetime run on Sunday, was it? Yeah, it was Sunday morning. That was 13 half marathon. It was the 13 mile.

Oh, wow.

And she did it in two hours and 15 minutes. It was pretty good.

That's great. That's amazing. Lily, how are you? While we wait for Goran.

I'm good. Yes. I got engaged. We haven't had a meeting. Congratulations. Thank you.

Yay.

This is very exciting.

We can't take you away, though. No, no.

I think we got the vice mayor. I see him.

Give him a second. Hey, guys.

Hi, how are you?

Doing great. How is everyone?

Good, good.

So, Frank, I filled this in a little bit on the 5K. That's where we're at. You said you guys spoke with Miami Beach, and they were thinking about having it four times a year, but we are only one. Obviously, I think four is very ambitious and definitely not.

It is. I'm going to go tomorrow. I'm going tomorrow before the Miami Beach Commission, and I'm going to speak about partnership in general. And I'm going to suggest that, you know, although Miami Beach would like to do this quarterly, that We don't really have the funding or the resources for marketing and promotions and all that stuff to be able to keep up with them for quarterly. But, you know, happy to join in once. And, I mean, if they're willing to pick up the cost and have us, you know, be invited to it quarterly, then sure, we can do that. But I'm going to set that expectation.

That's great. Thank you, Goran. Okay, so next on here is the bike rodeo. canine CPR, and pet adoption events. That's all one light item.

Hold on, let me text her. Whose is that? That must have been Jessica. Oh, yes.

That sounds like Jessica. And I guess she would be the next one as well. What was the next one? Police, department, crime watch, outreach, and upcoming meetings.

Yeah, I don't know about that one, but the first one, her and I have been talking about bringing back events that they used to do. Bringing back what? You broke up. I'm waiting for her to text me back to see if she's hopping on.

No, you said you were talking about bringing back something. You broke up. Yes, yes.

The agenda item is a dog event, right? Oh, yeah. One of them, yes.

Bike rodeo, canine CPR class, and adoption.

Yeah, so we were talking about doing the pet adoption in cohesion with... Not the bike rodeo. There's another event. I don't know.

With the canine CPR, probably. That would make sense.

No, I think that was separate.

Poop free? Do the pet adoption with poop free?

No, totally separate. Her and I, it's like, I don't know how to describe it. It's like a critter event that they used to do years and years ago.

Critter event? Yeah.

Yeah. It was like a dogs and critter event, and it was adoptions of all kinds of exotic animals and stuff.

I don't remember that one.

The chief brought it up recently, and it was his idea, but I don't know. Maybe this is a different canine adoption thing. She's not responding to me, though. Okay.

Okay, we can move on and see if she replies. So the crime watch, I know Jose had also bought that up. Commissioner, do you happen to know if Jose is available? Because he hasn't replied to us.

I have not heard from him. I will send him a text.

Thanks. Appreciate it. Okay, so I guess we'll go to new business discussion, the community garden and stewardship initiative. Is that Francois?

Yes, it's not exactly new. I brought it up, but I think I have a better understanding of the objective of where I wanted to take this. And so mostly four objectives that I'm trying to establish. And one is, the primary one is education, just education, educating the residents and the youth, because we don't really have many projects for youth, I think. And so I think gardening would be a great way to draw youth interest into the community. And developing and improving the community, meaning shared spaces, green spaces, talking about sustainability, which the village espouses a lot. So this would talk to that. And then... And then also practicing the Florida landscaping principles, which advocates for less use of water and starting to establish perhaps the realization that landscape is not just a beautification type of project. It really has to do with infrastructure. And I'm quite sure that there's grant money available for that. for improving the infrastructure of the village. Right. And so, so that's the direction. And I'm focused on that since I'm in my years approaching retirement, I'd like to focus on that in the foreseeable future and build with other residents that are maybe have similar interests. And I'm working with the, with the University of Florida and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Service. So I'm attending their master gardener program, which is a volunteer program. Now I'm doing it through Broward County only because it's closer, the Davie campus is closer to my home. But we visited Homestead last Saturday. We visited the Tropical Research and Education Center. And I'm learning all about soil structure, botany, plants, taxonomy.

Nice.

So it's very, very informative and educational for me. It's a wonderful program.

Have you tried reaching out to the Miami Beach Gardens? They have more than one garden. Their program is very successful. So that might be something we can maybe mirror.

Yeah, well, so they were a guest at one of our meetings last year. Two people.

I forget their... No, they were from a program, right? They were from the actual Miami Beach.

This is a residence, right? So they established a not-for-profit that... But I think one of them was... Both of them are employees with Miami Beach, correct?

I thought they were their own little company.

This is called...

Unless I'm thinking a different one.

I kept the... I forget the names. I forget the names right now, though, to recall.

Because Miami Beach has the, there's one right there on, now I can't remember the name of the street.

The program he has called Ready, Set, Grow.

No, these are neighborhood gardens. And you get it, well, when they originally started, you would apply to be, to have your little plot of land inside the garden. And now they've become like little communities within the garden itself. There's one right here where the Novato is.

Okay. Yeah. So that's a good program, of course, no doubt. And I know we're limited with space. So the best way I anticipate, or if you see this, is not really a community garden because of the space, but a demonstration garden, perhaps. where you could really show the residents the potential of practicing good gardening principles and conserving water and composting, harvesting rainwater, a lot of things like that. disease and pest control. It incorporates disease and pest control, disease of plants and also plants, pests in the home, in the home and in the garden environment. So it's all encompassing.

Okay. I know we had discussed in the past and we actually couldn't find a piece of land to use a few years back for a community garden because we wanted to do a community garden like the one to Miami Beach. And we couldn't find a piece of land. Now we do have that park right here on North Treasure that we were speaking, maybe we could get a little piece of land there to do a community garden like that. Because it doesn't have to be big. It's just a small plot of land to start.

Correct. A raised bed or something like that. And so that's why I adopted the idea of a demonstration garden more where you could get the community involved with building this and showing residents what they can do in their own homes and how they can get involved with creating like a green, a green stewardship committee, um, And then for the village itself too, because the village has a lot of green space. And Frank, I've always spoken in the past meetings where I see a lot of space that is just open and not much happening there. And I see every space as an opportunity to make it more beautiful and make it livable and beautiful to drive through and look at, whether it's attracting visitors

butterflies or other types of birds as well it's all part of the environment so thank you Francois um Goran I have a question for you I've got a couple questions uh the park next door north treasure it's still we're still waiting on the title uh yes Frank what's the latest on that

The latest is that it has not been deeded over. And for all three parcels, he's held up on them. And we had the last thing at the commission meeting where they approved the deed restriction. And I'm not sure where it's at. It's with the attorneys to convey it. As far as I know, he's satisfied with the deed restriction. And we're going forward. But I understand that it may come up again at another commission meeting from Tony, from the attorney's office, with something in connection with that piece of land and TDRs. I don't know the specifics, but I know there's some discussion going on. But We did, you know, you did. The commissioner approved that deed restriction on the height. So I think that was the only thing that he was looking for. You know, I can check with, you know, our attorney and see where it's at. But as far as I know, it's between the attorneys.

So I'm sorry, I've been a little disconnected because I started a new job in November. So have they come back to us asking for more to give us the deeds to the property?

No, there was an issue about that property comes with transfer development rights that we get. Commissioner Schiavone wanted to capitalize on as many as we could get to help build City Hall and the community center. Right. The owner of, well, the one, Andy, who was deeding it over to us, was concerned that if we rezoned it in some way to get additional height for the TDRs, then it would block the view if somebody went to build there, say another commission came and said, we want to build on this and we want to go over four stories, it would block the view of what he's planning on building on the property for Presidente. So that was the issue. And he wanted a deed restriction of not going above four floors and the commission approved that deed restriction at the last meeting okay there is a discussion is there another way to capitalize on those TDRs besides doing a spot zoning of a RM70 right in the middle of the residential neighborhood so that's being discussed and I understand that is going to be coming back to the commission But I don't think that should stop the deeding it over because we gave the deed restriction that we would not go above four stories. So I don't know where it is, but that's the crux of the issue.

Everything takes forever, right? Yep.

Wow. We know what Shakespeare said.

Wow. Here we thought we'd have a part quickly. No, nothing's quick. Nothing. Okay. I saw that this is for Goran or for Frank, I'm not sure either, that you guys were looking for a group of people to help with the opening of the community center.

That one's actually for me. Oh, okay. Yes. The commission directed me to form an ad hoc committee. So I'll plan the grand opening ceremony for the new community center. So we have seven new committee members. Nice. Yeah. And I worked on an event proposal and our first meeting was, is this upcoming Wednesday, March 11th, to start discussing ideas for the event. Of course, you guys are my original event critiques, so I definitely want feedback from you guys and any ideas you guys have around what you want to see at the event.

Yeah, we've kind of been offline for two months. No worries. Anybody have any questions about that?

Are you inviting guest speakers or are there any guest speakers? So I actually don't know yet.

In my event proposal, there's an entire program where we would have some speakers ideally, but I don't know what exactly that's going to look like. Yeah. Sounds dumb.

And you said that your first meeting is March 11th? Yeah.

Well, that's Wednesday. It's a Wednesday, isn't it? Yeah.

When is the opening? Do you have an approximation? No. No approximation yet?

We're looking at maybe end of July. Around that time. Sometime in the summer. Depending on when the building gets finished.

yeah inspections are done so probably like more like october sorry everything's for thanks forever everything thanks forever i hope not but i hope not too i hope not too for sure july would be great so the kids can get at least a little bit out of the in the summer does anybody else have anything because the other two items are either new jose or offers a pralanka we don't have either

Jessica said she had a complex last minute with a meeting.

She couldn't get out.

Okay. Thank you. Sorry, that was too much.

Sorry. Vice Mayor. And I don't know about the dance, if we continue or not. Do you hear me?

Yeah, we hear you.

Yeah, okay. So we had good feedback on that. But I don't know. if we want to continue on this. I think we should, if you ask me.

Well, what were the, do we have data on the attendance numbers for each of the events and what are the costs to continue? I'd like to see that.

Okay. I don't know because I haven't been on any of the dance events. But I saw that there were like maybe 10, 15 people, and it costs like $150 for each. We do once in a week. So $150, $200 for each week, and we had like 15 people attending, roughly.

Okay, if you can just see I get to pull together the all the attendance figures for each of the classes and just forward that to Lily, along with the costs to continue. And then Lily just follow up with me once you have that information I'd like to see a breakdown and see how that compares to the other fitness programs and other programming we have in the village and you know I just want to make sure we're being as cost effective as we can right now.

Okay. Yeah, the budget is tight. Speaking of the budget, Lily, what's your next event?

Spring Blank, which I actually wanted to show you guys. I just finished up the fire today. I'll just show you guys.

I'll show you my screen.

So many things I didn't I can't see it. That's fine. Can you guys see that?

Yes, now we can.

So this is the flyer for Spring Fling. Super cute. Yeah, we're super excited. So I'll start promoting that here soon. And then the other thing I wanted to talk to you guys about, well, actually before I jump to this, so Frank and I are trying to figure out another possible location for this event. Because with the Easter egg hunt, it is one of my most attended events.

Oh, yeah.

And Vogel Park is going to be really tight for that many kids.

And I don't love the idea.

I mean, since I started working here, I've always spread out the Easter icons. So it was divided by age groups, like one to three, four to six. So the older kids don't trample the babies.

Yeah.

And I just, I can't do that in Vogel Park. So we're trying to come up with different solutions and see if we can come up with a different location. So that I can split it for Easter egg hunts. If not, I'm just going to have to fence off the park and it'll be a smaller area for the animals that we're used to. But it should just be this year.

Yeah, I mean, there really is nowhere else. Where else is there? That's a great question. Yeah, there isn't. I mean, whatever that area is behind the dog park that I can't remember what it's called now for some reason. But that's just a small. And there's no parking over there either. Yeah, it's for one year. It's growing pains.

And then the other thing I wanted to talk to you guys about was the Society Sisters Memorial Scholarship. So I should probably start promoting this soon because we're already in March. If we want to keep the same deadline of July 1st, which I think we should. So I'm fine with just promoting the same flyer we had last year as long as you guys are. And we'll just keep the same too. If you guys are okay with that. I was double checking my budget. And I have 5,500. I remember we used the 500 for something else. Do you guys remember what we used that extra 500 for?

I think we gave it to the Optimist Club. You're right. We did give it to the Optimist Club.

We had a lot of great candidates. We decided to give it to the other one that did not win.

Oh, to the third one. Because we had three, right? Of one group.

Right.

Oh yes, you're right. The Optimist Club must have been something else because we did give them the music.

We were going to give them and then the money came from somewhere else. I think Vice Mayor made it.

Yeah, I raised and gave them like $2,000 or $3,000. Good job. I gave them a couple grand and then I got the $500 I just took out for my commission budget last year for that scholarship.

Okay. So you want to keep this the same? Francois and Farim?

Yes.

Well, if we keep it the same, I will have that extra $500.

$500 left.

Do we want to keep it because the same thing happens as last year? Do we want to increase one of these scholarships, the middle school award?

I say leave it the way it is. You guys? I say leave it. And if we have a third, because last year we only had three. Now that I recall, we only had three of the, it was the older kids, I believe, of the high schoolers. So we gave it to the third one, the $500. And if not, let's, yeah.

I was going to say, I agree with your line of thinking here, Lydia.

I think we leave it as is, especially because we haven't identified where the money would come from.

I mean, if we have another situation where we have three outstanding people that are nominated, I'm happy to contribute again for my commission budget, but let's keep it the way it is for now.

No, but Sam said that it's not... It's budgeted. Yeah, yeah, it's budgeted in my... No, I know.

I know, but the third one was not budgeted.

Don't you have enough in there, Lily? Did you say 5,500? Yeah.

The one that it got added from last year.

Oh, I see what you're saying. Oh, okay. So you're talking about just restructuring it potentially. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I mean, that's up to the board.

I say leave it as is and let's keep that extra 500 in case we have the same situation. And then if we don't, we'll cross that bridge then.

Agreed. Good to me.

Let's not reinvent the wheel. Plus you're shorthanded, so you don't need more work. Anything else for us, Lily? I just launched texting.

So if you guys haven't signed up to get North Bay Village text, you should. Finally. You can find it on any of our social media pages and or the newsletter that got sent out this past Friday. So I'm very excited about that. And we actually just hired a new communications and event coordinator for me. So she will be starting on Friday. So you guys will hopefully get to meet my next friend. Her name is Christina. And she seems like a great candidate and perfect for this role. So we're all really excited. Yeah.

Awesome. I'm glad you got somebody. I'm sure it's been rough and you miss Julie. I do.

And I see you all the time. You guys are really happy for her. Yeah.

But don't get any ideas. Anybody else have any questions or updates? Nope. Nothing. Julie, do you need anything from us? I mean, Julie. Lily, I'm sorry. I just talked about Julius. I called her Julie.

No, that's okay. No, the only feedback I really need was about the scholarship. And then, of course, I'll keep you guys updated with the community center and any other things that are happening.

If you could send me a copy of the scholarship, I'll post it on the website. I'm sorry, on the Facebook group. And I'll start pushing it out on my end.

I would appreciate it.

You have my email, right?

Okay.

Awesome. I just want to start thinking of ideas for the community center grand opening.

What kind of ideas? Huh? What kind of ideas are you looking for?

Anything that you would want to see at the event.

On the opening ceremony. Okay.

Yeah, or any recreational activities that you want to see at the community center.

That's going to be my next question. Is there like a listing of what you guys are thinking for the community center?

I have made my own preliminary list that has two quotations, but ultimately they'll be the ones that decide based on proposals that we receive.

Right.

Similar to the dance classes in business.

Okay. Anybody else? We have any public comment? No. Okay. We'll adjourn at 7.04. See everybody next month. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye. Nice to see you. Bye.