Parks and Recreation Committee - Regular Meeting

Monday, December 15, 2025Official site

The Parks and Recreation Committee discussed updates on school bus services, vending machine reports, and upcoming senior programs. Key topics included addressing electric scooter and bike safety concerns, recapping the successful Winter Wonderland event, and a public comment regarding the condition of the beach walking path.

About this meeting

Government Body
Parks and Recreation Committee
Meeting Type
Parks And Recreation Committee
Location
Surfside, FL
Meeting Date
December 15, 2025

Published excerpts

Only published remarks appear here. The full transcript is not published.

63 sections (from 65 segments)

0:01•Frank MacBride

Welcome to the December 15th meeting of the Parks and Recreation Committee. Would you please call the roll?

0:17•Frank MacBride

Thank you. Let me give everybody a chance to review the minutes. Mm-hmm.

0:27 – 0:38•Frank MacBride

WE SKIP AN ITEM. KEEP ME STRAIGHT, BUDDY. RUDY, WOULD YOU LIKE TO ADD THE ITEM ON THE SCOOTER AND... YES, I WOULD.

2:17•Frank MacBride

He was once called the homeless Santa. All right.

3:41•Frank MacBride

The school system also has that. It's a good system and the parents do use it. Yes, they do.

3:56•Frank MacBride

Did you discuss anything about them putting aid on the bus?

4:19 – 4:40•Frank MacBride

Who brought that up? Mario. Mario is... Tell me the truth. I do. He gets that, the man needs to be hired for life. The school board doesn't do school buses unless you're two miles outside of your home to the school sites. But, hey, he might know.

4:49•Frank MacBride

Actually getting school board to go to Bay Harbor. Okay.

6:34•Frank MacBride

Is it still out for bid? The concession thing?

7:01 – 7:18•Frank MacBride

For years we've been dealing with in and out of people. It's just not enough to make a living off it. How many people are at the pool today? Some days it's packed. Some days there's nobody there. You have to be prepared.

8:35•Frank MacBride

It's still out. The bid is still out. The advertisement to bid.

8:46•Frank MacBride

I could ask them to do that. Yeah. There's something that could be done on social media with Cindy.

18:51 – 19:10•Frank MacBride

Yeah. Mayor Novak, that was in office for 14 years, could certainly talk about the process, and how important it is, and what kind of things does an elected official do in a town that's eight by eight.

19:43 – 19:54•Frank MacBride

Because I believe that if you had, Joe, put in paperwork, I'm going to run, And there was also two others that you would have to invite them all.

20:14 – 20:38•Frank MacBride

I don't know. Well, maybe it's, do you? These brunches are every month. Yes, sir. So maybe it's a little early for that. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. For the elect, you know, let people get their paperwork in and then probably on with it. More because I'm tired of seeing these elections that cost the town a lot of money and having a couple hundred people come out. Exactly. Right.

22:56•Frank MacBride

Let's move the agenda on. Senior programming is not the only thing that we need to talk about at these meetings.

23:14•Frank MacBride

How many people do you have signed up for the trip? We have 17.

23:54 – 24:20•Frank MacBride

No, it was... You know, well-attended, and thank goodness, you know, I wrote to you today. When that man called for a 90% rain chance, I'm saying it can't. It can't rain. And nothing happened. Not a drop. It was sunny. Yeah. A little hot, but we'll take it over rain. Yeah, for sure. No, but it was nice. The activities were nice. You got feedback from the guests. Yeah.

25:36 – 26:18•Frank MacBride

personally kind of bothered me a little bit when you see children getting out of very expensive cars and getting a toy. But it's what we do. Either that or they can, but it's, I think, do we also give, were there leftover toys at all? Food, giveaways. But it was a good event again. Correct. And I like the little bounce house and the little slide, so the little kids could really participate too.

27:07•Frank MacBride

You have no count to say how many people were residents and non-residents. That would be really difficult to do. I knew you were clicking, coming in the gate.

27:33 – 27:44•Frank MacBride

Kids are going to come from all over the town. I know they're great. You know, you had the activity. That was a short time ago you had the other activity. What was before that? Halloween?

28:00 – 28:14•Frank MacBride

No. We got a lot of pushback building that building, but I think it was a great thing. Winter session programming.

29:33•Frank MacBride

I like the idea. Have the parents been asking for that?

30:45•Frank MacBride

So it is, would it be a, you could, if you, could you register for the full session and then make payments or is it?

31:02•Frank MacBride

Which, that's what I asked about money, you know, because I think.

31:08 – 31:27•Frank MacBride

Yeah. Let's see if the system will allow us to make any adjustments to paying 50% and 50%. I mean, you've got to pay the coaches, you've got to pay the safety, you've got to pay our people to be there. I mean, it's good to have a menu.

31:55 – 32:07•Frank MacBride

Is there any scholarships offered by the town if a kid says, I can't, I want to play basketball, but my mom can't do it? Nothing on the way out.

32:46•Frank MacBride

Maybe you give the other side where, yeah, you'd have to come up with a total amount when you register rather than half and half.

33:54 – 34:07•Frank MacBride

Are we comparable in our cost to residents to a Miami Beach park doing the same activity? Or cost? I don't know. For a long time, it's my kids playing baseball and t-ball.

35:40•Frank MacBride

Is there a cap? We're opening up for basketball in January.

35:50•Frank MacBride

So it's a first-come, first-served. So if parents had the extended session already signed up for, they would go on to the next one.

36:04•Frank MacBride

We're not getting in or not getting in to a particular sport.

36:17 – 36:42•Frank MacBride

Well, I'm just saying, I'm saying if I signed up for soccer in the fall, and now it ends, and basketball's starting in January, they want to... You have to sign up for basketball, it's a totally different program. Okay. It just doesn't roll over. So what's... So it's... Ah, I got you. So that really wouldn't take any matter. Okay. Winter camp is...

37:08 – 38:47•Frank MacBride

More carefully on the flyers. 5A, Surfside Safety. I asked Rudy to look into, we have a serious problem in the residential area with children riding the electric bikes, electric scooters. They're not stopping at all at stop signs. They are doing way more than 20 miles an hour in the residential area. They're doing tricks and they're not wearing the approved, under 16 by state law they're supposed to be wearing helmets. They're supposed to be single rider on a scooter. Sometimes it's two. Sometimes it's a parent and a kid with no helmets. So I ask, this is going back to Tim about working togeth

38:51 – 39:11•Frank MacBride

And I still don't understand why Publix allows them to come into the store Adults and children. Why CVS allows them, even though they have signage that says no scooters in here, they're bringing the electric scooters right into CVS. Like dogs. What did you come up with?

40:51 – 41:19•Frank MacBride

Is the registration... process the same as sunny isles uses sunny isles beach because every scooter every e-bike everybody has to be registered they have to go over a safety protocol with that frank i think we would be best or i think it's ideal just to focus on our residents That's what I'm saying. But I want to mirror the system that they have in Sunny Isles Beach.

41:25 – 41:41•Frank MacBride

Oh, absolutely. I still think our police department should be involved. And I hate to say it, but some teachers make an example of a child in the classroom that's doing wrong, and they make an example out of that child. We need a couple of these children to be tagged. for their speeding.

41:47 – 42:13•Frank MacBride

From what I understand, they have a registration process where the parents have to sign off on it. There's a safety, almost kind of a quiz, like a driver's test they have to somewhat pass. You know, I will wear a helmet. I will ride one person on an e-bike or a scooter. And then it's registered in the city. And they must have some kind of a decal or something. You remember when you were young, you used to have registered your bike in day categories. I do, too.

42:17 – 42:29•Frank MacBride

You used to come to the volunteer fire company right here. And the volunteer fire company used to be right here where the gym is. And they would register your bike.

43:41 – 44:04•Frank MacBride

They shouldn't be... From what I read, with the state scooter and e-bikes, they're supposed to wear a helmet if they're under 16. They're supposed to follow the street signs, signage, stop signs, speed limits. Those e-bikes have speedometers on them. I guarantee you they're going faster than 20.

45:38•Frank MacBride

One police patrol on the beach, but it's...

47:54•Frank MacBride

People with SUVs aren't going to abide by them. But we have enough police on our streets that can handle that, but...

48:29 – 48:58•Frank MacBride

But I'd like to see a combination of the three. A combination of having parks do an educational workshop, offer a workshop for parents to come, saying that this is coming up, I'd like you to work with the police department to get this registration process started. I don't really know what it involves and I hope it's not in depth, but I think before we have a problem.

49:13•Frank MacBride

Right, tied to the requirement that there will be a registration process in the near future that you need to come to this workshop to learn what it's about.

49:57 – 50:13•Frank MacBride

It's not just the kids that are riding these things. It's a lot of people that are working, you know, I see them parked outside of the audience. It's obviously a lot of the hostesses and waiters that are, it's an easy way to get to work. You only live down the street. It's an easy way to get to work. But they're zipping through.

51:25•Frank MacBride

I appreciate you guys looking into it and keeping the ball moving. Set by the wayside for a little while, but I'm glad to see it's moving.

52:33•Frank MacBride

Anything else? 5B Surfside Santa. What's up with Santa?

54:30•Frank MacBride

Is this something that would be out for bid?

55:09•Frank MacBride

Okay. So when he comes down, before next year, we need a makeover.

55:28 – 55:41•Frank MacBride

Where is he stored these days? He used to be stored by the trash trucks. Where's he stored? He's stored at the community center.

56:25 – 56:38•Frank MacBride

Okay. So we're going to recruit Oliver to need me to get paints or whatever we need. Clean them up a little bit? Zap them up?

57:47•Frank MacBride

So is the sand uneven? Is it not packed anymore?

59:27•Frank MacBride

So it needs to be leveled and compacted.

59:37•Frank MacBride

And the last time I walked on it, there were a lot of people that liked to walk.

59:55•Frank MacBride

So what... Do you think it was ruined because of the re-nourishment project? The dune re-nourishment?

1:06:25•Frank MacBride

Elevate the dune. Yeah. But if they're going to have a walking path on the dune, it needs to be.

1:07:32•Frank MacBride

This sounds like a manager issue. Yeah, now we're talking about how manager it can be.

1:10:35 – 1:10:50•Frank MacBride

But it's not our department. That's why. Back to the meeting. I'm going to direct you to please speak to the manager and get back with us and the resident, of course.

1:10:57 – 1:11:17•Frank MacBride

aware of, I thought that you would be not in charge of the beach and the nourishment and stuff like that, but you would help to be aware of the maintenance of the walking path and the hard pack. You're not. So we don't know whether it's Public Works, whether it's Durham, whether it's

1:12:36•Frank MacBride

We need to know who's going to make it right. We paid for this, or the state paid for it. It needs to be done right.

1:14:47•Frank MacBride

But I'm asking you to go through the manager because he would direct.

1:15:18•Frank MacBride

Sir, did you have something you wanted to speak on? No.

1:15:30•Frank MacBride

Next meeting date will be on the 21st, January 21st.

These excerpts are remarks by officials whose identity a person confirmed, from a transcript generated automatically from the official public meeting video and presented unedited. Accuracy may vary; view the original recording for reference.