Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. Go to order at 547. We're going to do the roll first. George Alvarez. Present. Matthew Casamador. He's coming. On his way. Jose Llano. Present. Jessica Medina.

Present.

Manuel Perez. Present. Romy Pego. Present. Carlos Padilla. Present. Daniel Gonzalez. Present. Dennis White, Gabrielle Fernandez, Anna Torres. Okay, order of business, deferrals, additions, deletions. Anybody has to add or want to add anything? Do we have comments?

Yes.

Okay. Even without Matthew?

Yes.

Okay.

You guys just need to say something.

Okay, so we can approve the minutes. And so we had the regular minutes of 428 and the subcommittee meeting of 526. And just so everybody was aware, the day that we were having the meeting that we couldn't make a forum, that's when we decided to have this meeting because there's things that we need to vote. So that way we kind of change the date. And that's one of the reasons that you were asking. I think after this one, we should come back to the regular scheduled meeting so we all can organize it.

I motion to approve the meeting minutes for May 27th.

I'm checking. Anybody in favor? Aye. and then the subcommittee would commence. We reviewed them the other day. See you guys. My class is Torch and we are approving the minutes. We already approved the first ones. So we're going through the process of approving the second.

Do we have to approve subcommittee minutes? Yeah.

Anybody want to do the motion?

I will also motion to approve subcommittee meeting minutes.

I second. All in favor?

Aye. This is the budget review.

Was the 98 1590.

Before.

The first time you might trust.

I can know that was hard on them marketing. Is your year today yeah.

Not an important number.

I mean, it went down from $6,000 to $1,100, so yeah.

No, no, no.

Sorry. Sorry. What was that?

I'm not sure what that is.

One thing of the budget that we discussed in the last meeting was that we have for the network events. 2,495, and I think that we're still missing to get the invoice and the W-9 from, what's the name of it? Where we did the last event, I don't know. Trellis?

Trellis, yeah, she, yeah, wasn't it?

You say Trellis? because I think that's what is missing from here so we'll have four more events that I think one of the things on the last minutes that we did is to approve the places and everything so that we kind of organize and see what we're going to do in conjunction with the term of comps so the $90 it looks to be an expense from

Facebook ad for a small business bootcamp.

Oh, okay. That was last year.

That's from last year. We haven't run anything for this year.

What is the budget here?

It could be because this will come in September. So it may have been built like, you know, the first week of October or something.

I think so because it's a credit card.

Yeah.

So it gets late. That's what happens. Yeah, because the shows for Facebook had.

That's what it could be.

Okay. And then you wanted me to check if they paid out that latest social media.

Yeah, it's because we were looking into to see how many more can we do until September. So based on where we spoke last time, it's supposed to be 2,000, so we'll have four more. And I think on the middle, we put certain options.

How much is the payment to Trellis? 500. Yeah, right now I only see a charge for Bon Vivant.

OK.

I will double check with finance, see if we receive it. But as far as you guys know, we have it. She said you need the invoice now.

Oh, OK.

If you've already put me on, make sure that.

OK. So it looks like on the budget side, we have $2,000 left there. So we have put, I don't know if you guys have any other options. We have put Domenico's, Pamper Chef, El Novillo, and Cancun Grill.

From marketing with links?

No, the networking business.

And that will take us through the whole process.

year and the budget yep so i don't know if you guys have other options or stuff like that we thought that it was domenico's we had never done it and he's on the site that we don't spend a lot of time on anything uh pumper chair because we haven't done anything in a long time in norwegia we haven't done nothing that i'm aware of uh and we will in a long time that's fair obviously it depends on them if they want to do it um i like the idea of the medical doesn't seem like a bad idea are you guys they serve wine we're thinking that it was the police that it has alcohol because we wanted to do it at the new shawarma place yeah but they don't serve anything yeah yeah yeah yeah okay okay i visited them today and i told them to do the ribbon coding and stuff like that they're going to send an email to Isabel. I give them their contacts so they can schedule that. Cool. Cool means.

All right, cool. So how many do we have left of those networking socials? Is it just the one that we have scheduled and then we would have, so that we would be left at what? 2,000 after that, right? Close to 2,000. Or it's 2,000 now with the minus 500 from trolls, right? That's not correct. So that would be for events? And then we're saying now i'm saying with this other one from the medicals or let's say so we end up at 1500 right and then the rest of it was for the bootcamp and all that stuff that we discussed last meeting right.

I don't recall what we did last week, so we were saying that on the $2,000 left budget yeah we'll have 500 for each of these other four restaurants. Domenico's, Pepper Chef's, Nogizio, and Cancun Grill. And we'll have to define the date so we all know when the dates will be. And if we want to do it, that we should do it together with the Chamber of Commerce. And see their schedule.

The Chamber is doing one a month.

Yes. That way it's $1,000 to each of those places.

And that's starting in June or July?

I think we talked about it. I don't remember. I think it was... Because we were so close on the time, I don't remember.

We had to spend by September. So September, August, July, June. Yes, starting this month. Yeah, that's right.

But don't we have some that we wanted some funds in that was for the...

So the marketing dollars, like the ad spend, some of it was coming from... Was it from there or from marketing miscellaneous?

I just want to make sure that that shot is finally vented. Nothing's coming from that.

The cellos, the cellos, uh, networker for the bootcamp is already approved and allocated out of seminar. Perfect. So, so that's, so that's done a, but we do have an ad spend that comes out of, I forget if it's marketing. I think it's marketing miscellaneous if I'm not mistaken. Okay.

All right. So now we're good. So we should be good. That works out. Yeah. Okay, cool. We just have to kind of decide the dates now. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think we just need to coordinate a little bit with the chamber. That's the only issue that it's kind of trying to figure out what works with them as well. I know that they usually shoot for Wednesdays and it's usually the third or the fourth of the month. Wednesday is what the chamber usually goes for. Cause the meetings are always on the second Wednesday. So you can kind of play it off of that. So let me see. Well, maybe, maybe talk to the different restaurants. Yeah. I can't cool it. I got to do it on a busy day. The other being, what, Tuesday or Wednesday by the authorities?

Yeah, correct. I think we have always done it, like, what, like, Tuesdays or Wednesdays?

It's not Tuesday, Wednesdays, or Thursdays. We've done all over our face. Yeah. Yeah.

All I'm saying is, like, right now, I think the chamber is shooting for Wednesdays for whatever reason. They're trying to make that, like, their day. That's fine. It's fine.

And it's great for business. Wednesdays and Mondays are usually... The low days. The highs. Okay, so maybe we can...

Wait, to say better? Oh, for a Mexican restaurant? If you're not a Mexican restaurant, I bet you Tuesday is hard.

So I'm thinking maybe if there's a way that we can maybe set up a motion that we can sort of get prepared to sort of follow along with the chamber, if that's something we can do. Because the meeting is this Wednesday, the chamber luncheon, right? So I'm going to be there with Ray and all that stuff, and we're probably going to have the little PB, Peter Vitale & board meeting actors like to bring it up, then with the easy want to do, and then we want to participate again with the Chamber, you know more heavily with this, and you know, to make sure that the businesses can get that catering check and all that good stuff. PB, Peter Vitale & Okay. PB, Peter Vitale & I just want to make sure we put something in motion here, or at least. We don't have another meeting until July.

If we don't approve something.

We can always do the check after the fact. I want to at least get us in a position where we can say, oh, we're following along with the chamber. And then I can tell people, oh, I can get, you're going to get your check and just give me X amount of weeks, you know, give me a couple of weeks for a meeting and then you can get it. You know what I mean? I want to be able to do that.

And so the motion will be that when you have the meeting, you decide the dates with the chamber of commerce and that's it. Yeah, very much. I think there's a motion or not. Yes. And it's for the next three or four, July, August, September. Okay.

And the September one needs to be earlier in the month because we're going to have the networker at the end of the month that cellos for the, for the bootcamp.

Correct. Okay.

And June has to be now and June has to be ASAP before it's a ghost town.

Yeah. Okay. So June, July, August, September.

Okay. I'm trying to think of the motion to be formatted. I'm thinking maybe it would be a motion to follow along.

To align ourselves with the Miami Lakes Chamber of Commerce networking schedule.

Beautiful.

And make recommendations for the networking venue.

Perfect. Does anybody want to second that motion? I'll second.

I motion for the Economic Development Committee to align ourselves with the networking schedule set by the Miami Lakes Chamber of Commerce, provided they listen and consider our networking location recommendations, venue recommendations, and include us on their joint marketing.

Let's do a second. Second, even more. Cool.

All in favor. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Cool. Thank you, Robin. Okay, cool. And then I'll talk to Ray on Wednesday after the meeting, and I'll let him know what our plan is, the kind of places we have in mind. So let me just make sure. So we had Domenico's. We said Trattoria, which is Gabriel. What was the other place? Did you say Cancun? Cancun.

And Pampered Chef.

Yeah, I got that one.

Cancun. I don't want me to throw a monkey wrench, but have we ever approached Anthony's? I don't think we've ever done anything at Anthony's. I feel like we've approached at Noviu and they've said no. They have not taken us up on it.

We're okay. We're okay. Yeah, I got it there. You have your head on the list on the back as well.

Can you tell me again? Pepper Shepard, Chef, El Noguillo, Domenico's, Cancun, and Anthony's, Whole Fire does a backup. Like, whoever says no.

The other one, which I don't think that it could be you because they're corporate, is Alpha.

Anthony's is corporate too.

Yeah, true.

I mean, I don't know how those places work. They're owner-operated or what, but yeah, they're corporate too. I think the manager is already one of them. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

No, yeah, Anthony's does like sponsor nights all the time for his own group. He took an old role, I'm sure. Yeah, I just don't think we've ever approached them.

Yeah. All right, cool.

Cool beans, cool beans.

So that was the budget, but it also was kind of new business A, so we're good there. So I'll just jump over to 7A. I know this is just a little reminder, just something you should do is revisit that BTR at some point. I don't really know. I know we all talked. I think it's like that Danny Angel guy that we kind of need to talk to. I don't really know how we can get that process going.

We talked about it last week. Yeah. And we're supposed to get information from...

This is what Isabella left. For the VTR YouTube video, Danny plans to create several how-to videos for the eTracket once they finalize a number of important software updates. They anticipate producing the videos at the start of the VTR renewal season in July. The videos are estimated at $500 to produce, and there are no allocated funds for this project. There are some funds in the social media budget, but if the EDC can assist with funding and producing a how-to video for the DTR renewals, that could work. Ideally, this project would be done this fiscal year in time for the July renewals.

Okay.

That's convenient.

I was going to say it now, how convenient that there's no budget allocated for this project, but EDC can do it.

I think he was more not necessarily to Because it was to let them know that it was wrong.

And your website is very wrong? I'll tell you, I'll know. In looking for information on applying for a VTR license, if you Google, so what happens is you Google, right? And the first hit on Google is a very clear link with the Town of Miami Lakes website. But the problem is that that link is... It's a video that's seven years old and it walks you through. It's a great video. It says click here, click here, click here. But the whole website has been redone and none of those buttons exist anymore. And if you go to the website directly and you search BTR, nothing useful comes up. It's all like it just sends you into rabbit holes of information. There's nowhere to click on the website nowadays to apply for the BTR license. So, um, so that was what we were pointing out, like, Hey, you know, this needs to be fixed. And now they just, they basically just took a program and they went like this here.

You want it?

I, but I guess in terms of like updating the website, it sounds like that's what the software. It sounds like that's going to do that.

But, uh, but at the same time, they're saying that they don't have money to reproduce the video. I mean, you don't have to reproduce the video if you make it follow the same path that the video already says. If you just fix the website to match the video, you don't have to spend any money.

It sounds like the social media budget is the communications department. It sounds like there are some funds here, but if EDC can assist with funding and producing.

How much is it, $500? To produce. Just that video, yes. At least take down the one that's showing.

They really should take down the one that's out there because it's super confusing. It's the number one hit on Google when you search. Yeah, I do.

And I have an idea. Nobody's going to like it, but we can look at it as an investment. Whatever extra BTR licenses we get, we get a percentage.

Nice. I like that. We get a cut added to our budget. Will it be as a local?

I can't reply to that. I see how Danny Angel likes that. I think he's going to like that very much.

I mean, a couple meetings ago, we kind of set up how we were going to use the rest of our budget, right? I don't think we really have a lot of.

We don't have a lot of wiggle room. I wish I had that paper in front of me right now. Yeah, right.

I also have a little.

Yeah. But no, but we don't have a whole lot of wiggle room left in our budget. I don't know if we zeroed it out or not, but we.

Yeah, but I know the wiggle room we left us was for the grocery shopping and leftover things on certain days.

Forgetting where marketing miscellaneous expenses, because there's a lot left in that budget. There's almost $6,000 left in that budget. I do know that I think there's pending from Main Street Live.

Yes.

Right? I think it's $1,500, right? That's pending to be charged. Why is that taking so long?

They wanted to do it at the end for whatever reason. That's the way that the marketing agency was doing it. They figured it was easier for them to just kind of charge it. Right, Carlos? Just charging one big thing at the end. So we should be seeing that reflected soon, honestly.

Okay. So out of $5,901.41, we take away $1,500 and we're left with $4,400. I know that for ad spend for the boot camp, Gosh, was it 1,000 or 1,500? I think it was 1,000 that we allocated from that budget. And I believe that motion has already been approved. Yeah, I see. Maybe I'll confirm.

1,000 for social ads here? Yeah. And then 754, Vanessa, which I'm not sure where that's coming out of.

So that's coming out of the seminar budget. That's coming out of the seminar budget. But the $1,000 for each other is coming out of the seminar budget, not the marketing budget. Exactly. So out of the $2,000 seminar budget, there's $1,000 going to Chellis, which is the happy hour venue. And there's $7.50 going to Vanity PR for her PR and social media management services for the day of. And then that leaves us with $2.50 of incidentals. So that's the spend on the seminar budget. I know that we approved, I believe that we approved $1,000 in ad spend, and I want to say that that is coming out of the marketing miscellaneous.

Yes, I agree.

Same thing with the $100 that was approved for Swag Dogs, which I have a point to make on that when we get to Bukia shortly. Gotcha.

Yeah, absolutely.

We also haven't discussed. Yeah. I mean, we have to discuss sponsorships or whatever, but we haven't, you know, discussed raffles giveaways, any of that stuff that typically happens close to the event.

True. Yeah. I remember the sponsorship last time.

$4,400, but you know, I get it.

And I remember the last time the sponsorships were, were sizable and very helpful and left open.

We don't, I don't see a lot of sponsorships coming our way this year. Like last year we had people beating down our door for sponsorships. And that's not like we have like the Florida blue people that wanted to sponsor stuff. And you know, that's not, that hasn't been the case this year. So if we take out the thousand dollars in ad spend, that leaves us at 3,400. And that's not taking into consideration what we're going to discuss today with a Miami baker.

Yes.

Okay. And then my desk. Okay, cool. All right. More on order there. Good to know. That's good. Networking business. We got all right, please. All right, cool. So that's the budget review. I think we're in a better spot now. We spoke about the YouTube video. We spoke about the next networking social. So I guess now we're good for the looping.

Sorry. YouTube video. How are we going to conclude that? Oh, that's right. We never actually concluded it.

Oops. Yeah. I mean, we don't have the $500 funds. That's what we were figuring out right now. So we don't really... I mean, there's a chance we could potentially have it out of the marketing miscellaneous expenses, I guess. We're just not 100% sure.

We're just not there yet. We just need to finalize some things before September before we can come into something like that. Yeah.

They just wanted the video by, Wendy said again, July. July.

I don't know why you're going to make a video in one month, but OK. But OK.

So I'm just going to put the EDC is not ready to commit any funds to this right now.

Yeah, right now. At this moment, we're not in a state really to do that. no okay but his recommendation was noticed all righty so that's the youtube video next networking social like i said we talked about all right i think now we are good for the weekend

Okay, so boot camp. Um, just quick update. We did have to pivot because we had a speaker that is suddenly going to be out of town. Um, so if you take a look at the minutes from our last subcommittee, we meeting we did finalize Milo Gonzalez from NQC as like our inspirational speaker. Um, so unfortunately, Burt Leal had to drop out of Southern travel plans. So Due to the timeframe, I'm just not going to search for a new fit speaker. We're going to, we're going to give it an extent. We're going to give more time to the presenters that we have, which honestly, I think it's going to be great because we have a really, I think, cool lineup for this year. It's mostly AI focused, which I think everybody's hungry to learn. So instead of giving the speakers 20 minutes combined with questions, we'll probably give them 20 minutes plus an additional five for questions. So we have to re-shake out the agenda because I just got notified of the situation on Friday. So we'll re-shake out the agenda, but it's going to alter slightly. We're just no longer going to have Rigoberto at 11.40 a.m. And instead, we're going to have a final speaker with Milo. As far as motions and the committee are concerned, two quick things. The easy one first, the swag bags. not the last meeting, but the one before, we approved a motion for $100 spend to acquire additional swag bags. I learned that was not enough. So we only have about 30 swag bags left, and the cost of the swag bags is a little bit more than we anticipated. So what we thought would be a better move is ordering an additional 50 swag bags to take our total up to 80. So 30 that we have left from last year. They're not branded with a specific year so we can reuse them. So we'll keep the 30 from last year. We'll add 50 more. And 50 more with all the fixings from Vida Custom Print comes out to $820. We already approved 100. So I would like to motion for the committee to approve an additional $720 towards swag bags for the boot camp. that we can bring up our total for the for the actual day up to 80. how much additional an additional 720 we were very short we were very short yes i didn't realize that we spent that much on swag bags last year yes sir they and that's and that's aligned with what we spent last year they're they're it's it's about

Because Manny also brought up that he's very expensive. He was being investigated with somebody else.

No, he didn't quote someone else. But his recommendation was because last year we had produced 100 swag bags. Our goal is to have 100 participants. But realistically, last year we had 60. So if we have 80 this year, that would be a win. So that's why he suggested to purchase an additional 50. So 30 leftover plus 50 new, that equals 80. Yeah.

Last year we budgeted $1,600. Correct.

Yeah. It was like $1,500 something. It was a little less per bag because it was more. It was a larger quantity. But it was about that.

Yeah. Where would the $720 come from?

That would come from marketing miscellaneous. So that is a motion on the floor. And I'm not saying that we have to get swag bags, but it is aligned with what we did last year. if we would like to table the motion to discuss the Best of Miami Lakes ad spend, which I think is more pertinent before we vote on that. So there's an open motion. Can we table the motion? Sure. Come back to it.

This will be an extended discussion. Okay.

So Best of Miami Lakes. So just recap since the last time that we discussed this, because it was not the last meeting, it was the meeting before. We're looking to use the bootcamp as a cross promotion effort with the Best of Miami Lakes voting initiative that we have in town. Part of the idea that I had to number one, increase our registration and number two, increase awareness in Best of Miami Lakes, which I think is a program that people are severely under aware about. is to approve an ad spend in the Miami Laker so we can do cross-promotional ads before, during, and after the boot camp to announce the final Best Miami Lakes winners. The concept is we cross-promote, we promote, and according to the Miami Laker publication schedule, they have an issue on July 17th. So for the July 17th issue, we would do a cross-promotion ad announcing registration for the boot camp and open nominations for Best of Miami Lakes. That would be ad one. The following issue is August 7th. We would do a nomination reminder and also announce that Best of Miami Lakes nominations are closing August 30th. Okay, so within that month, hey, go nominate more people and nominations are closed August 30th. Two issues from then. So then there's another issue, August 21st, which we would do nothing on. September 4th, we would do a final registration reminder for the bootcamp itself with like a QR code or something like that. And reminding people that the finalist for Best of Miami Lakes will be announced at the bootcamp, which if you look at the agenda, we planned for it kind of during when we take a break in the bootcamp, that's when we'll call the speakers, we'll announce them, we'll do a whole thing. And then the final ad would be October 16th. So that would be three issues after the third ad. On October 16th, we'll run an ad to announce the winners. And basically like, I'll see you at next year's Town of Miami Lakes business bootcamp. So that would be the proposed timeline. So it's four ads sprinkled kind of, you know, while we have the nominations and whatnot. How that ties into the nominations. We would open nominations July 15th. So we're accepting nominations for a month and a half. We would accept nominations half the month of July and the entire month of August. Nominations close August 30th. That gives us the 25 days before the bootcamp, ideally obviously before. to look at all the nominations, categorize them into the finalists, invite the finalists to come to the bootcamp to be recognized at the bootcamp as finalists. And then at the bootcamp, you know, make a huge event about go vote for the finalists. So we, by the time of the bootcamp, we should have the final nominations website go live. People attending the bootcamp can vote right then and there, tell their friends, et cetera. After that, we would carry that campaign through socials, right? So the town picks it up from there. And then we would announce the final winners. So the voting for Best of Miami Lakes would be from September 25th through the first week of October or whatever we want to do. I would think October 1st. And then we run an ad on October 16th to announce the winners.

One more thing to add. I think what we wanted to motion, it was deciding the size that we were going to use. I know that you were going to ask Vanessa to see if it would fit on the one that we were saying that is the lowest budget and will have more exposure. So to see the difference on the prices and everything and make a motion so that way we can close and you can Do that art.

Yeah, so the options that we're looking at since we're looking at four ads for issues so we were looking at a here we go either a Third of a page or a quarter of a page vertical Okay, which we printed about last time, but I'll show you guys on my phone here so you can kind of see so this I'll shoot So this is a third of a page No. The top one is what a third of a page looks like. The bottom one is what a quarter of a page looks like.

So if we go for the quarter one, the first one on top, we'll be able to only do three.

No, the first one on top is a third of a page.

Yeah, but in budget-wise, money-wise.

So money-wise, for four issues, the third of a page in color is $5.25 an issue. So 525 times 4. Somebody can do that for me, please. And then the quarter of a page vertical is $460 times 4.

The first one.

The first one is $2,100. And then the second one, 460 times 4. Yeah. Wow. You're hired. Good job. And that's all my capabilities are in there. Okay. So 2100 versus 1840 is the difference. We're looking at a difference of $260. Personally, I would like to motion for the four issues at a third of a page. I think that will be much easier for Vanessa to design. The answer is, can we fit both? Yes, we can fit both. For a $260 difference, I would motion that we go with the richer option so that it's easier on the designer, it's easier on the legibility. It is a cross-promotional ad, so we're trying to get a good amount of information on one ad to give both options. events, their opportunity to shine. So that would be my motion on that.

I think I agree with you when it comes to the size, just because there's multiple things that we're trying to grab. Multiple call-outs. Yeah, exactly. We have enough real estate for each.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. Boyer's second. 2100. 2100? Allocated? Allocated? Out of the four?

Uh-huh. One-third? Four-thirds? Page. Color. Color. One third page color ads in the Miami Laker.

And $2,100 coming from?

Coming from the marketing miscellaneous budget. Marketing miscellaneous expenses.

Are you sure about the prices? Because I remember that we were talking about the size and it was kind of like a difference of... I don't know, $600, and it was only three.

I think because we were looking at half page, because we were looking at half page options. Half page is like $730 an issue. I don't know. It's right here. These are the prices per issue. So that was a concession on my behalf. I was not interested in the third of a page or the quarter of a page. I motioned for half a page or half a page vertical. but we settled on a third of a page or a quarter of a page. So yeah, the difference between a third of a page, four issues, so prices are per issue, four issues. We were also looking at the option of three issues instead of four. So the difference is, but based on the timeline that we talked about at the subcommittee meeting, it made sense to have four issues. So we're looking at four issues color at a third of a page. It's 525 an issue. That's very clear. And I don't believe that there's any kind of setup fee or anything like that. Yeah. And to meet the deadline for the first issue that we intend to publish, which is the July 17th issue, we need to have the add into the Laker by July 3rd. So I think we have a decent amount of time.

Can you review really quick the July 17th? What are the two things you're going to be promoting?

So July 17th, we're going to be promoting bootcamp registration. And open nominations for Best of Miami Dukes. Both things.

Okay. And then August 7th, nomination reminder.

No.

Yeah.

Yeah. Nomination reminder. And announce. Nomination reminder. Nominations are closing August 30th. And reminder to register for boot camp. I mean, if we can fit it. I'm going to let the designer determine that. But for sure, the number one priority on August 7th is the nomination reminder. Best of Miami Lakes NOMs close August 30th.

September what?

September 4th, boot camp registration reminder. Final call for boot camp registration. And we'll put a reminder that Best of Miami Lakes finalists will be announced on the day of, live at the boot camp.

And then for October 16th, I have announcement of Best in Miami Lakes winner.

And see you right next year.

Okay, so I guess we have an open motion. We have to get a second, right? For the 2100? Yep.

I cannot second because I already said what I thought. So do we have a second? If we're debating between those two options, I second the motion because I don't think that the difference is worth reducing the odds.

That's how I feel. Cool. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. So we have left.

So I have a, I have a account.

So 2,100. So we have 5,901. We have the 1,500 coming out of there from the Miami Lakes Live. So that's 5,901.

I haven't expressed it so that we can look at it. So it was 5,900 for the miscellaneous minus the 1,000 for ads, social media ads. minus $2,100, correct?

Yep, that's it. And the $1,500 for Main Street and then $100 for the Swag Guides. So we have approved right now all coming from there. Correct.

$2,800.

No, we have $1,300. I have $1,300. There's $100 for the Swag? Correct. I took out, oh, I took out the full one. I'm sorry. So that's $5,901.41. $1,500 for Main Street Live. $2,100 for the Lakers funds, $1,000 for registration ads, and $100 for the swag bags, $1,201.41. So with that in mind, we can return to the motion on the table, which is an additional $720 to be the custom print to round us out at 100 swag bags.

And are we also planning... on doing, I guess, social media ads as well for the bootcamp? That's $1,000.

Oh, that's great. That's approved. Yep, that's $1,000. All right, then, yeah.

So, okay.

So, we just have... Really, the only other spent for the bootcamp at this point would be giveaways. If we do some giveaways, if we, you know, don't have sponsors or something like that, we can't find additional sponsors.

Okay, cool. So, right now, the swag bag, then. Mm-hmm. We've got around $1,500. Mm-hmm.

So there's a motion, my motion on the table to spend 720 out of our marketing to something in his budget for the additional swag bags. Yeah.

The additional 50 swag bags. Okay. So I guess we had discussion. We had a lengthy discussion. So all in favor, whenever I'm We need a second. So George second. So then all in favor for that one.

Aye.

Aye. All right, cool. So then there's like 480 left. So then 820 is what we're spending in total for those five bags?

820.

That's correct.

No, 720 additional. We had 100 already approved. Yeah, so I guess it's 720 on top of what we had. Yeah.

820 total. OK. OK. And that was already 141. Okay. I think it's probably best to kind of leave that.

There are no more, no more spending.

Yeah. I want to add something. I spoke in the last meeting about it. for the next year, not this year, this year, it's gone. But for next year, like to see, we can work on things that, you know, because I was talking about what are the things that we do for economic to help out and stuff with that. And she brought a good point with me, that vision and mission and stuff like that. And I was like, okay, but what can we really do? The only thing that so far, and we're here to discuss that we can do probably is to allocate a big amount of money in here, like the 10,000 that we have before. I'm not saying 10,000, I'm saying whatever amount we say, is to kind of select certain businesses that need help with social media and help them out with, not social media, I'm sorry, marketing, okay? So let's say, okay, put somebody, hire somebody that is going to teach them and show them the results on a month's period, let's say, or three months, okay? how to do it this is you know if if that if they want to continue and hire them after that is their problem but we give them let's say three months or a month of social of uh marketing strategies phone advertising a little bit of a spend on ads so they can see the potential because there is many businesses in miami lakes that they still outdated that they have not been able to figure out how to do it all the strategies and stuff like that so that way those are able to thrive a little bit better. That way, I think we do kind of another impact. Or the other thing that I put on the table is like, how can we make other stuff that it will be more beneficial for the business? How do we market the town? How do we do other stuff that it will benefit that businesses to bring more people to the town? Because remember, I was big on saying that we needed money on $100,000 to do the marketing for the town. We already know that that was not possible, et cetera. But we can maybe start doing a little impact on each of the businesses and stuff like that. So you guys can bring ideas and stuff like that for the next year. So next year we can figure something better because, for example, all the monetization It doesn't really benefit the businesses and all of that. It kind of tries to bring more businesses to the town, but at the same time helping the ones that are currently learning on the AI. But see if we can do more impactful things results, my point, for next year's budget to kind of think on ideas like that. We already talked about the events to bring people and stuff like that, but that requires a lot of manpower, it requires a lot of hours, it requires a lot of things. We may be able to hire certain people to do those type of things that it will help the businesses at their, their websites or stuff like that. And we have a lot of resources already now that they can probably hire or stuff like that. More now within AI, like giving you an example. There is a company I visited in Chicago in the show. For a hundred dollars, they run you all your ads and you see and when it's not working, and it changed the whole structure immediately, those are funds that we can probably allocate to them. And they're giving you $100 to try it out. So the first month is free. If we tell them, okay, we're going to give you 20 business, just to give you money. But like that, there could be other ideas I think we can put on the table. So we help businesses succeed a little bit more. And that's my comment regarding the budget and what we have done so far.

At this point, have budgets been allocated for the next fiscal year already?

Yeah, I don't know if you guys attended. Here's a copy of what you guys submitted, by the way, if you guys want a copy of it. But pretty much council made the decision that all committees are going to stay flat. There will be no increase to anything. Okay. So I guess if you guys want to allocate into different buckets by then, you can, but there is no problem.

That's your eyes.

We want to make sure that you are, that you're right.

Yeah, I know. We saw it points and then judging, he made it nice. I thought they made it readable, legible. And so just bullet points. Yeah. Cool. Cool. Yeah.

Yeah. Pretty much done. The last thing was, was this. Oh, did you hear that?

What's up? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got it. I got it. Post it. Post it up. Yeah.

I mean, we're just having open discussion. I agree with Carmen, but I always wish that there was more that we could do. Because my thing is, yeah, we can put on a million more events, but who's going to do them? I think if we were to be in a position where we're giving people money, then that probably means that we have some kind of competitive submittal process. Yeah, I was about to say. Like a brand. Avoid any kind of. Right, right. Like we can't be, you know, favorites here and there. Like it has to be like a fair submission process, you know, request process, et cetera. I don't know.

And maybe the ones that need it.

Right.

Yeah. That's why we have to have a whole. Right. That would create an environment for them. How you get selected on XYZ.

I don't know if you have in mind, like, because it sounds like you might already have an idea. If you have in mind of like who we would pay to help them or what, because I mean, and it's not because I don't want to, I'm just being realistic. Our entire budget is $13,000, you know? I mean, we have certain things that we're accustomed to doing that I think are of value. We don't need to run ads in the Laker next year again, but I'm just saying like, You know, if we'd rather try something different rather than, for example, do the boot camp. Although, how does that work? Because now the boot camp is already in the budget.

We can adjust lineups.

We can adjust lineups.

That's what I was saying, right? We can do things and it doesn't change.

I just want to put out there, depending on how the boot camp goes this year, I don't think it necessarily needs to be a permanent fixture of the committee. If we want to play with it for next year and allocate those funds somewhere else.

I think it's needed. I think it's good for the society. The problem is like, you know, right.

Like cost versus benefit. Right. And, um, and, and not only that, but. Okay. So you met this amazing app in Chicago that for a hundred bucks changes your business marketing. That sounds really cool. But how many things can we actually achieve with a couple hundred dollars? I feel like to get real results, like we need more money.

No, no. That was just an example of the money.

Uh-huh.

Right? But obviously, that would not work to just put somebody to just work on that because they're not probably the people that we're trying to help not even understand. Right. What I have and, you know, I use a couple of different ones. I use Vanessa, I use other Dominican Republic. These are new things that they have put in front of me. Right? Mm-hmm. company that is doing something in the businesses that we have in Miami-Dade district where they go over your whole presence online right and they tell you they needed your trip advisor your job your google your all of it blah blah blah blah blah this is how can we help you structure these and they take like a month on it not too expensive four hundred dollars a month and stuff like that so I think that there is room that we can kind of help those businesses with little budget so they see a little bit with the result that that brings, and then they can continue, hire whoever we decided to do with, as there is many resources now, more than before.

I think even the $4,000 that we're about to spend on the networking events. We need to do that many, right. The same people that attend all the events. That's true. Are we really making a difference? The events are going to be done anyway, but, you know, I understand that we're helping, but maybe we can take on our own thing and, you know, do a little bit of what he's saying.

It's just an idea. It's like trying to see how can we make, you know, and if there is more ads expand to promote businesses in Miami, there's more people come, which is, I think, what we want. And that was the only idea because we can probably at least spend.

That's something that we can, that's actually easier. You make a great point is if we were to take, let's say if we were only to do instead of a monthly networking event with the chamber, if we were to go back to our quarterly system, right? Or maybe we scrap the networking events altogether and we take that budget that we have for networkers, which is $3,000. And we do a grant for, I don't know, $1,000 in ad spend to three businesses in the town.

Right. That you could say.

Correct.

Quantify it.

Yeah. So like, I was just thinking, how can we, because I, I, you know, I, I've been trying to see is like, how, like, you know, the business that I told you that I visit today, unfortunately, their time is, And it's not bad. It's good. You know, they have everything. They have invested money on it. And that way is going to be bad reputation for my analytics because continued business disclosing is not helpful. That's just an idea. No, I think it's a good idea.

That's a fair point.

We don't have to do much neither because we're going to hire somebody that is going to help them and hand in the hands and the company or different companies have to kind of present a, this is what I can do to the businesses. This is the, where is their interest? Because that's what also the benefits will be. You will pay a smaller fee than what they regularly probably charge the customer because we're bringing them. 10, 20 businesses that they're going to be able to help. And they're probably going to be able to keep those accounts if they show their sense. If they show their sense.

I mean, we're not going to figure it out today, but whoever we would hire to execute and train those grant winners on behalf of the EDC, I find it hard to believe that they would do it for a couple hundred bucks. Right, exactly. I mean, if we can find somebody to do it pro bono, great. maybe we can kind of reverse engineer that, that maybe there's a few marketing consultants in town that for, for them to get promoted by us, they would do that pro bono work, you know, for free. And, you know, we, we find three of them, right. One for each winner, something to that effect. The other thing that I'm thinking of, again, depending on how, how, what we want to do with the, with the bootcamp for next year is if we want to put more of the, bootcamp effort behind just making uh the best of miami lakes the size that it should be i think the best miami lakes is a really cool program it's like nothing which is the only reason why i've just roped it into the bootcamp because that was already on the agenda for this year but if we want to just focus on that entirely next year and give that the attention that it really deserves and make that make that an event of its own i'm super down for that Yeah.

I like that too.

Yeah.

It's not a bad idea. So. Okay, cool.

Cool.

Yeah. So things to think about, cook about for the next year. Because it's going to come up soon and we have to talk about the next fiscal year, the next fund and all that good stuff. But okay, cool. That makes sense. Very cool. And then we already know how the council, I guess, decided. So the budget report, you guys have it there, but everything's going to be the same. So.

Okay.

All right. Cool beans. That's all I got there in terms of announcements. Denise got us covered. The chamber luncheon is canceled this week. So. Everybody, you're good there. You don't have to worry about that. Thank you.

Is it canceled just for the summer? Or no, it's the same day as the mass for Mary Cohen. Yeah. So we're good there.

So I'm going to make a motion to adjourn.