Virginia Key Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Thank you all very much for attending this Virginia Key Advisory Board meeting on Tuesday, February 24th. We're getting started about 540. We don't have a quorum, but we're going to go through our agenda for discussion, and we'll be finished a little bit early tonight. Rafa, would you like to start with... Lobbyist note or Pledge of Allegiance?

Thank you. Thank you very much. Do you want to do a roll call?

Here. Thank you very much. Are there any requests for absence waivers?

All right. We're going to have it go through the items quickly for discussion because we don't have a quorum. We'd very much like to welcome two new board members, both of whom who showed up at the last meeting. I apologize for that meeting not taking place. Thank you very much for showing up at our last meeting and showing up tonight. We have Chuck Ellis, who's the director of the Parks Department, who's sitting with us tonight, and Andres Rivero, who is an appointee of Mayor Francis Suarez and brings a wealth of information also to our board. Chuck, would you like to say anything?

Thank you so much. Thanks for being here. Andres, any comments? Thank you very much. It's very nice of you to put the time in and I know you're a busy attorney. On the meeting dates, we're here on February 24th and it looks like the next meeting is, is that right? April 28th?

Okay. Thank you very much. And I know our board, we have a motion and legislation pending that affects our quorum. Has that been scheduled for, to be heard by city commission?

Thank you so much. One of us or more might want to attend the meeting and speak in favor of reducing the quorum. It makes it easier to have a meeting. We're pretty good at having five or six people. It's not always easy to get six or seven. and that legislation would help us. And an item that Raffaella sent us, the 19, the 2025 annual board report, that was in your email. It was submitted just this January to the city manager's office. Did everybody get a chance to read it who might want to read it, that annual report? It's very similar to previous years. We just sort of updated a few things u

Yes. For example, I'm appointee of the Urban Environment League. If the Urban Environment League wants to appoint somebody new, could we appoint Gary Milano or Lynn Lewis?

And it's not that we want to be permanent appointees, but those of us in this group, we have pretty good attendance records and certainly a lot of institutional memory.

Do you mind running it by another attorney who deals with boards? Maybe this issue has come up and we're not treading new ground.

And Gary Milano, would you like to make a comment?

Thank you very much. So in the meantime, we'll keep attending until we straighten this out and until somebody can take our places. Right. I'm the president of the Urban Environment League, so you can give notice to me, and we're trying to do our best to find somebody to qualify who wants to show up, make quorum, and contribute. But thank you all very much. I had no idea I'd been here eight years. And Gary Milano, it looks like you're the longest serving, April of 2016.

Does everybody know how this board came about, by any chance? It came about primarily through the advocacy of Greg Bush. Greg Bush was a professor at the University of Miami, and he was passionately interested in Virginia Key Park and the Black Beach. I think he wrote a book about the Black Beach, the Black Beach Trust. Greg Bush. And there were some issues regarding Virginia Key, Virginia Key Park 15 years ago. And he approached then Commissioner Francis Suarez. And Francis Suarez worked very, very hard with Greg Bush on the documents and the legislation to create the Virginia Key Advisory Bo

They're merely recommendation, hopefully from well-informed board members with a wealth of independent experience. So we came about because of Francis Suarez.

Thank you, Gary. You're absolutely right. Here's a copy. of the Virginia Key Master Plan 2010. It's available online, and everybody should have a copy. And there was the last few meetings of the Virginia Key Master Plan, I think 100 or 200 people were showing up. Isn't that right, Gary? Yeah. And many of the meetings were at the Virginia Key Rowing Club?

Moving on our agenda, and there's one more item that isn't on the agenda, but Andrew Frey is going to give us a very brief summary of the agreement with Marine Stadium and Global. Anybody know the name of the vendor who won the award, Global Spectrum? Is that right? Andrew's going to give us an update on where that stands.

Thank you, Andrew. Any questions from board members? Gary?

Gary, I've got a couple comments that might help. In our Miami Today, it's on the newsstand now, there's a little summary of this. very similar to what Andrew was describing to us, but it says, floating Marine Stadium deal, global spectrum, we'll begin managing the Marine Stadium, Virginia Key Centre, not sure what Virginia Key Centre is, Virginia Key Centre and Flex Park under a five-year agreement, while the city of Miami prepares a voter referendum for a potential 40-year contract this August. Voters will be voting on August on the 40-year contract, even if all the details haven't been work

The number we were getting from the Capital Improvements Department based on the drawings from Richard Heiselbottle, who is the architect hired by the city. to do the renovations for Marine Stadium. We were told that in order to achieve the designs of the work that he was being paid for, it would cost $65 million. It came out here, it's probably in three or four different meetings, those numbers have been discussed. I'm not sure what your question is. Are those numbers still accurate, the $65 million figure that we heard for the renovation costs?

Oh, so the city might not be using his plans? I have no idea. I think he's been paid a $2 million fee already for those plans. be a shame to throw the plans in the garbage can. Does anybody else have any questions? Gary, I think, has a follow-up question.

And one more question. You know, with all events in Key Biscayne Park, traffic is a huge concern, not only for the customers, but for residents of Miami and residents for Key Biscayne. I presume this Oak Group global spectrum, they're super aware of the traffic issues that come from huge popular events, right? Yeah. Are there any new solutions to those problems that have occurred over the last few years at this point?

We have a representative for Key Biscayne in the audience who's welcome to comment on this issue if he'd like, or he could wait for a future meeting. He'd prefer to wait for a future meeting. Any other comments?

Steven. I made it, I made it, I think. It probably showed up. Hi Andrew. The group might know as well as Andrew, originally in the plans there was a maritime and auxiliary building plan for the Marine Stadium. Is that still in the works? No.

Thanks. Mr. Ellis, Chuck Ellis, any comments or questions for Andrew?

Thank you very much. Any comments from anybody else? And moving on to our last item. Let's see. It looks like a number of us will be going off the board in the next few months as soon as our organizations can find people to replace us. I'm currently the chair, but the organization, the board will have to find a new chair and a new vice chair. And we can, let's leave that for the next meeting. And hopefully we'll definitely have a quorum at the next meeting. And I'd like anybody that wants to raise their hands to be the chair or vice chair, we'll be able to maybe discuss it in more detail.

Raphael, do you want to handle that question?

Okay. Any other questions or comments from anybody before somebody calls for adjournment? Steve Leidner, anything you'd like to bring up? I know. Andres Feroveni, thank you so much for coming, and Chuck Ellis for your first formal meetings. There'll be a meeting again in April, and we'll have another agenda. We'll have some great items, and Andrew Frey was very nice to give us an update on that.

Anybody else have any comments? Do we have a call for adjournment?

All in favor? Aye. Thank you all very much.