Community Enhancement Board - Regular Meeting

Leo, what's up buddy?

Hey, good evening guys. Can you hear me?

Yes, can hear you fine.

Great. Long time.

Been a minute. Yeah.

Marie is here as well.

I am. Hi, guys.

You there?

Hello, Bree.

For some reason, I cannot hear you. I can't hear you guys that well.

Chris, say something now.

Hello, hello. Yeah, that is much better. OK, I changed my speaker output, whatever. All right, Jacob's here also. Hey, guys. Sorry about that. Hey, you're good. How are you?

Doing well. Trying to get on the internet here at the Marriott. They've added firewalls and whatnot. It's crazy.

Where are you?

I'm in Nashville this week for a conference.

Oh, nice. It's so much fun there. I love Nashville.

Yeah, it's fun. I'm trying to hopefully get home by tomorrow before the, I think the hurricane will still be in like South Georgia. So I'll be able to like skirt around it. But we will see.

Yeah, I have some friends who are supposed to fly from Miami up to Atlanta for a wedding on Friday. And it seems unlikely.

Yeah, I would agree. How is it down there right now? Is it just windy? Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, not even really windy. It's just kind of like, it's just kind of steamy and slightly cloudy. Like there's no rain yet. All right.

So before we start, um, recording in progress, there he goes, Johnny man, you're always on. Um, we have a new village manager. Dr. Rosado resigned about a month ago. He's doing well. I stay in touch. He's doing his thing. But, you know, after five and a half years, it was time to part ways. So we have a new interim manager who I'll introduce you to momentarily. He just walked into my office. So Frank, you want to introduce yourself to our residents who are on our community enhancement board?

You guys are challenging us for sure.

Hello, city manager.

Hello. I'm Frank. Been here before many years ago. I was here from 2013 to 2018 as a manager. All right. Then I escaped. And then I got drafted. So I'm happy to be back and we're going to make things better.

Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back.

Thank you.

And Chris actually works for the city of Doral.

Chris, what's your role again? What do you do at Doral?

Procurement specialist over there.

Okay.

Yes. Yes.

We have some quality folks on here and, and Gray and Jacob have now been involved for a, for several years at this point, I think over a year for sure.

Yeah, about a year and a half for me.

Yeah.

So what are some of your major issues or plans or projects you'd like to see? What do you want to see happen?

More public art, right? Yeah, we've gone through the public art and a couple of murals and the picture framed at Vogel Park and whatnot. A lot of the stuff isn't anything crazy. I know that I see here on our agenda, we're talking about the bus stops, trolley stops, Pirate's Alley project.

Okay. I've been given the word to, well, I can, is the coastal walk the island walk?

Is that the same?

Okay.

Yeah.

So all three of those have been given to me by various commissioners to try to make something happen. When you say the bus stops, you don't like the bus benches, is that correct? Is that the deal?

Yeah, I know that they had been in talk for a while. Weren't they installed already, Leo, or one of them was installed? Not yet, so five of them.

They had a pilot. Yeah, because you sent a picture of them.

Yeah, that's more about an update. I would say I requested that just to kind of see what was going on there. Ah, cool, cool. But I mean, it's, I mean, and then the second agenda item was also, I mean, it was more like a discussion of like, what else can we really think about, um, thinking about like how we've been, like, I think you guys are doing the fall festival of some sort, like that's a yearly thing, like thinking about how we could do that more often in different parts of the, the cities, um, knowing that we have limited amount of public space to trying to figure out how we can identify those places that maybe are private to kind of bring public for momentary purposes. Um, I know that's what it was very big in the communities I've come from. So I was curious to talk more about those things and as well as, uh, we, Miami doesn't have a very good, um, composting type, uh, programs or not at all. But my understanding is that Miami beach has started something like that. So seeing how we can maybe leverage partnerships with other parts of Miami to bring programs into the city like that. Um, and so that's a big, big part of, uh, sustainability.

Yeah.

Cool deal for me. One of the projects I tried to get going while I was here was to install a vertical piece of artwork on that piece of concrete that sits there by the bridge by Channel 7.

That's the pedestal that you all may have seen as you're driving through the flat bridge there by Channel 7.

Yeah, there's a pedestal there that had a cable to it that used to hold up the antenna from WIOD. And it's just out in the bay. And we thought about, I even got with several artists that had done, you know, something vertically statuesque that you can see as you cross the bridge as you enter into North Bay Village. Put out there and light up. You come in and be something kind of iconic. And the pedestal is already sitting. Yeah. So I'm into that.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a great idea. I think what it's going to be interesting over the next few years as the development that is coming, that's in the pipeline eventually happens and we see a lot more progress. I think the opportunities for this kind of community enhancement and public art is really going to grow kind of commensurate with that as well.

Yeah. one of the things we could look at is with all these projects coming up, if we could get a theme throughout the village that they have to put one and a half percent by, uh, county code into art for art and public places. So if he came up with a theme or something, like we have one in the city of Miami. So I was with the city of Miami for about 40 years. So they had a theme at their, uh, in their parks where they had the doggy parks, that they had statues of different dogs in each one of the parks. So they had a Dalmatian or they had a collie or whatever that this particular artist did.

That's by the Pam, I think, right?

Well, that's a different one.

Oh, okay.

That's another dog.

That was the cats. They had the cats there too, right?

Yeah. But I mean, look, I'm not a policymaker, but I'm a supporter. So we can, you know, Collaborate, come up with different ideas to present to the commission. I mean, you're an advisory board to the commission. And I would certainly be amenable to help with whatever, you know, whatever you come up with and try to push it or, you know, get it in a package that might be more presentable from a governmental standpoint.

Yeah. Leo, how much can I guess the rollout of like Pirate's Alley and obviously knowing that the street is public, buildings are not, but trying to think through like, I mean, I look at like Espanola Way and that's a kind of a very unique part of Miami that could very much be recreated on that street. And like, how much can we like, who gets to contribute to that? And how do we try and like bring that, like an idea like that to the village? Because that then becomes like an opportunity for like the Friday night kind of music sessions or like the festivals or things like that that can be housed along an access way, but also giving way for like restaurants to be able to like have outdoor seating in that area to kind of open it up.

Absolutely. So I know that we had talked about that previously and preliminarily. We looked at potentially doing a farmer's market and something like that in that area. We looked for quotes for string lights back there. The quotes are just over $100,000 because of the different poles that have to go up to hold the lights. And they have to be very tall because the trucks that go through there are very tall. Delivery trucks to the supermarket there. So we're looking at different things right now to see how we can make that possible in this next fiscal year. But, you know, it is quite a bit of money, so we're going to have to lobby the commission on that and see if that's one of their priorities. But that was kind of like our first immediate step to try and placemake that area is putting these string lights and these poles there, while also keeping in mind that there's a lot of difficulties that go on back there. Yeah.

Leo, I recall in a meeting with Rachel a couple of months ago about the city getting funding to have an environmental or construction consultants group to come up with a plan for Pirate Sally. Has anything further happened on that?

We did. So that was ULI. That was the Urban Land Institute. And they presented their findings to the commission. I want to say it was July. So I can absolutely find that for you and send that to you all. But this is kind of the string lights I mentioned is one of their points. So that actually came from that plan. I'm not too familiar with the rest of it at the moment because I know that we were stuck on those lights, but I'm happy to send the rest of it to you guys so we can look through it.

That would be great. Maybe we could even put it as an agenda item for the next meeting.

Sure, absolutely. Yeah, I think that would be really good.

Yeah, just to go through it and see what they came up with. I'm super keen to hear it.

And Commissioner Garo just joined us as well. Bree, if it's okay with you, if you want to have a meeting. Hey, guys. Sorry, I'm a little late. No, we have Frank here. He was introducing himself and just talking about a few things that we have going on.

Sorry, what did you say, Leo? Do you want me to start?

Yeah, go ahead and call the meeting to order now at 6.43. All right.

Yep, yep, yep. Evening, everyone. Calling the advisory board meeting to order 6.43. I'll do a quick roll call.

Yeah. So Bree? Present. Chris Cotton? Present. Jacob Petrini? Present. Nick Quay is absent, and Sylvia Santilli is also absent. Okay, continue.

All right, moving to the first agenda item, since we have a quorum.

We can really quickly, I'm sorry to interrupt you. If you want to keep talking about what we were talking about, that's totally fine. We can do that later. It's really up to you.

Yeah, no, no, no, let's do that.

Yeah, and I added those two items just as more like conversational points, like seeing wherever we go. It's more just to kind of get us back together and start thinking about what we'd want to do next and what we could do beyond our, or just... So I think the Pirate's Alley thing I think is super interesting because I think it can combine public car, commerce, like all those things together, economics. And so thinking, being able to see that plan and seeing what other people came up with and understanding the timeline of that would be super helpful, I think, for us too to know, hey, if this is where we want to be in two years, then we can start to plan for that in two years versus like, Like the lights might be a good idea in year one, or it might be a waste in some sense to do year one, because in year two, X, Y, Z is going to happen or could happen in some sense. So like trying to think with how we can collaborate with other groups, I guess, making those decisions and the commission to kind of, yeah.

Yeah. Now that the recommendations have been made, is there a formal process for adopting those? Do we adopt all of them? Is there a discussion at the commission level on what we're going to adopt? That's interesting to me to know what we're going forward with and what we might not be.

There was a presentation. I don't believe the commission formally adopted the recommendations, not that they did not welcome them. More of just kind of taking it in, seeing what's possible. um you know not formally agreeing to every point of it but seeing you know what's reasonable now in year one like jacob was saying versus year two and kind of going from there so i think there's definitely an opportunity for you all to give your opinion and contribute to that conversation for sure that'd be yeah maybe i guess how has this group worked in the past is like could we take that document come up with almost like a response or like a

Like, hey, here's like what we would think, like how this could impact the community or what our thoughts are in the next couple of years, like what we would like rank higher than others in terms of trying to deliver that enhancement.

As far as ULI goes, I know that their whole piece was just a recommendation. Their part is done. If we were to hire somebody else, you know, or ULI itself, I mean, that's a totally separate conversation. It's really up to us to decide if what they propose to us is, you know, makes sense for us or if we're tossing the whole thing out or if we're taking it to the next level.

Let me jump in because I remember the discussion pretty well and it was they had phased it out for us in a couple, I think it was some things that they thought we could put into action within a year and then some things that were mid and then some things that were longer. Do we have the presentation from them where they had the phasing? Because maybe there were some immediate things within the first year that we could start to work on. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I remember they had some more simple solutions to start to activate it, and then some of them were more long-term solutions.

I will look that up and see if it's on one of your commission agendas.

I mean, the way this would work in the past, this is frankly, is that these types of reports would be given to the appropriate advisory committee, and then they would make recommendations to the commission. You are an advisory board to the commission. So you all would look at these different things, whether it included this or something else, and then you would make a formal recommendation to the commission as to how you wanted to move forward or what you wanted them to adopt as advising. So, I mean, this is just another tool, another report to be able to evaluate with whatever thoughts other thoughts you may have.

Yeah. Yeah. To that end, it sounds like, it sounds like it's something we would need a bit of time to kind of see and digest and, and, and really think about. Yeah. I'm happy to come back together with our own individual recommend.

Absolutely. And like we always do, I'm happy to send it to you. And if each of you would like to send me, you know, your thoughts on it individually, I can put everything together and kind of have that packet laid out. That'd be interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't seem to be in the agenda for the February meeting. That's when it was presented initially. But that's probably just because whoever was there at the time, they just shared their screen from ULI and they presented, you know, so it wasn't attached. But I will send that out to you.

Yeah, let's send that out so that everyone can have the attachment and maybe next meeting we can start to talk about implementing some of the short-term suggestions.

Yeah, awesome. That'd be great.

I wonder if they take into account, Leo, the development that's going on. Because I saw maybe last week that... I saw last week that Sunbeam had bought up one of the apartment blocks that was either, I think that was on Pirate's Alley or maybe it was on Hispanolla, but there seems to be a lot of ongoing development and I wonder if that was taken into account by the group making the report.

It was taken into account in general. That specific purchase that you're referring to, I'm not 100% sure if that was known by the group that was doing the assessment.

Right, right, right. I suppose my point is that these things seem to, like, the new development, new development and new acquisitions seem to be happening quite regularly. So what is current intel on the development for one month might not be for the next.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's definitely being considered. And even to the extent, like Frank mentioned, that 1.5% of all, you know, the full cost of building the thing has to be public art and all these different things are being considered when we look at these things. So yeah, 100%. And, you know, Sunbeam, the owners of Sunbeam have certainly been partners in the village for decades. So they get what we're trying to do. They understand our mission and And even the project that Frank was talking about with the pedestal, I mean, that's something that we need to work with them on because it's basically their pedestal, you know? So these are great partners that we've always had and we look forward to working with them.

Absolutely.

But yeah, that did close recently.

So that... Do you remember the, what's that apartment block that they bought?

I don't remember the name. No, but it's right behind. Yeah, it's right behind Pirate's Alley. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's exciting.

who part of the village is responsible, if anyone, for seeing how all these pieces are coming together and changing over time based on that seven-year plan? And then if there is someone or isn't, it'd be interesting to talk to them just to see how they're processing that. And then two, have we had sessions where we brought together these key private organizations like these key partners that obviously own their own properties, but actually impact a lot of the public space or could end up creating public space together?

Yeah, no, those are great questions. To answer your first one, we have a village planner who definitely advises us from Calvin Giordano. Her name is Sylvia Vargas. they consult for a number of different cities in Miami-Dade and, you know, across the state. And she advises the manager on, you know, on laying out different policy and things like that. Or advises the manager to advise the commission on laying out policy and how to plan things out correctly. So I also encourage you to watch some planning and zoning board meetings. And if that's something that you're interested in as well, I encourage you to apply for the Planning and Zoning Board if that's something that... Yeah, I'd be curious. If you get tired of community enhancement and you get tired of... No, no.

No, no. It's more so because I think they're hyper-connected in terms of understanding what the boundaries are and... seeing what they're doing and getting reports on that to know what we should do next or what we think could be an opportunity now versus then. So that's helpful.

I'm also happy to send you a zoning map that kind of lays out what our intentions are that are part of our NBD 100 master plan. So all that is kind of laid out there and gives us the how-to on how to develop this beautiful village into what it's going to be. Cool.

I would love to see that, Leo, if you could.

Yeah, it's really fascinating. And then to your second question, we're actually working right now on the North Bay Village Chamber of Commerce. So typically in past years, we've collaborated with the Miami Beach Chamber but we understand that we would like to develop our own brand, you know, bring our own businesses together. And Miami Beach, although it's just a bridge, a short drive away, we still feel like it's kind of different priorities, you know, different interests. So right now we're actually working with all our developers, our community, on this Chamber of Commerce. And that's actually going to be starting in January of next year.

Sweet.

So we have a part-time executive director who's a resident at Moda. Her name is Kristen. And she's been identified by those founding members of the chamber, including the village is the founding member to run that and do some basic kind of ground level stuff to get that thing built and moving. So we're going to start doing events. You all are, of course, more than welcome to come and and we'll let you know. So it's, it's the little things, man, little things year over year that, that eventually we get to where we want to be, but, uh, we're playing that groundwork and we're excited for the chamber.

That's cool. Yeah.

I didn't know that was a thing. That's awesome. Yeah. And you can join as an individual member for $175 for the year.

Sounds like a good investment.

Do you want to go through some of these other items that you had on here? I think, uh, I'll be honest with you, and maybe Frank knows more than I do. I'm not too sure about the composting initiative specifically. I know that the beach does do that. You're absolutely right. And we can definitely reach out to them and see if there's room for collaboration there. But beyond the beach, I'm not sure who else in the area does something like that.

Well, I remember you connecting me with someone that person never really responded, but it's more like, I guess it doesn't have to be composting, but I'm trying to think beyond like, I mean, enhancement or like, that can be in different ways. Uh, it doesn't necessarily have to be like public art and like, like visible in that way. So like thinking through, how do we do that? It could be like through the music type festival, they're bringing artists to like the area and like public spaces. So trying to think of like, are there examples of that? And like that we, this committee has done in the past or not like curious, like if you have any history on that for us to kind of think through those things.

No, I really can't say I do. I, as far as, um, collaborating with another municipality, not, not really. Um, nothing really comes to mind. I know we have the food trucks over there at Pelican Harbor every Wednesday. Yep. Uh, certainly we do our own, you know, programming as, as you all know, but, but as far as, uh, you know, anything like recreational, like, like what you're talking about, I really can't think of anything. We, we actually just had this week, our, uh, postal mayor's event. So we brought all the mayors together from the area that, uh, have an impact on this game bay. Um, And we do stuff like that with other cities, but not like a festival, if that's kind of what you're getting at. No, we haven't done anything like that.

So my wife was the president of, so I live just across the bridge in Belle Meade on the other side. So if you go right across the bay, you run into where I live. And she was president of the Maimo Biscayne Association. And we were able to shut down Biscayne Boulevard and have several festivals right on the boulevard. And that's an F dot road too.

Wow, that's impressive.

But there are, you know, you can have events that are smaller with street performers, artists that would love to come and perform individuals, much like you'll see in Mallory Square, in the Keys, that type of thing. If you have a venue to be able to do that. And with these new buildings coming up, there's going to be public spaces that we're trying to get into all of these buildings that, you know, it's just not a building, but you can, with some of those venues, we could have performances and take place on a periodic basis that people would just walk over to. And I remember one time when I was, I was in the fire department back then too. And, uh, I brought a harpsist to the fire garage to play for the mechanics. And it was just, and we invited a bunch of school children in the nearby school to come. They'd never seen a harpsist before. And to have that event in a garage with a bunch of fire trucks in there that were being repaired was just really something different that you think, well, that wouldn't even fit. And yet everybody was just enthralled and had a great time as his harps has played for an hour. So those kinds of things that seem minuscule in themselves have a tremendous impact on people that are able to come and just spend a little portion of time and see something like that that they probably would never be close to at all.

Yeah, a hundred percent. I know the band shell does some unique things like that, but, and, um, like when I was home in Vermont, like a couple of weeks ago, they had a, uh, madagascarian uh artist who was playing and i thought that was the most unique thing ever because he was speaking in his native tongue which is clicking and stuff and so i think very unique things like that given that i mean we have a pretty decently sized school system i guess so kids being exposed to different things um yeah i think that would be a very cool thing to think about for us when we have a village hall built in just under three years we can bring the harps to you a lot of

to the fire station there.

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people out there who would just love to perform and have the opportunity.

Yeah. And as we keep developing the Island Walk, you know, which you were asking about, Jacob, we're going to have the Island Walk North Plaza, the South Plaza, which you all are already familiar with, with that beautiful mural that we did. We're just going to have more places that we can do some stuff for things like that, you know, so.

Yeah, okay.

Absolutely. Cool. And if we can go to the other item you had on here, the musical arts program. I love it. I think it's a great idea. I know that Commissioner Streitfeld, now mayor-elect, another update since the last time we've seen each other. You know, she'll take over mid-November. She has expressed interest in doing after-school arts programming that is non-sports specific. So we actually, this semester, this fall semester, we started at Ties an after school painting art class, and that's fully funded by the village. as part of developing our relationship with the school and the school district. So we covered that entirely for this fall season, and we're also planning to do so for spring as well. I asked the principal if he would be interested in changing that activity to something else, because the folks that we're working with, it's Arts for Learning. They do programming all over the county, and they do anything from theater, drama, to painting, to music, So I asked the principal if he was interested in changing that out instead of painting, doing something else. And he said he really just wants to develop the art programming right now as far as painting goes. So he's happy with that for the spring as well. And we budgeted just under $12,000 as part of this next fiscal year for that program.

But what's really significant about that budgeting is is that it was at a lower level than what the sports were getting, and Commissioner Streitfeld wanted us to bring it up to the same level of funding that they get for the soccer or whatever, and we did that. So we were worried about $8,000, and then we brought it up to the same to the $12,000 as the athletic sports are getting. So that's a significant increase, too. Yeah. Yeah.

So that's kind of earmarked already for that program, but by all means, you know, if that's something you all want to push and want us to recommend to the commission, I know, uh, mayor elect Streitfeld would be, uh, would be in favor of that for sure. And we'll find, you know, some funds somewhere if that's a priority of the commission, uh, for, for musical arts. Did you have anything in mind specifically or?

No. Um, it was more like I, when I thought about like, the towns that i've lived in like they had like a friday night like the different food setups and vendors and like they always had like a band kind of playing for a couple hours and you're talking about like an outdoor thing and i'm here thinking it's like an after school for kids yeah yeah i wasn't thinking i mean that's a really cool that's a really cool thing as well uh yeah yeah i guess what i was thinking is like because i was looking over my balcony one night i was like looking at the marina in and there's not a lot of stuff i guess that happens on like uh treasure island and i was just thinking like oh there's like a really cool cobblestone street here you have all the like waterfront there and there's never a lot of people just sitting there on the water and then you have the restaurant and you have a few businesses there but it would have been neat to see like a band playing there one night with people walking around and some like food trucks are kind of set up as something different um so it kind of sparked that thought

Did you happen to catch our music in the park event this past?

I wasn't here. I saw it though. I heard, I heard it. Where was it though? I was at the field, right? Yeah. That's like an annual thing that you guys do, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. We do it at least once a year, if not twice.

They had a pizza truck there and they had a saxophonist and they had a band and They had a little foam pit for the kids.

Yeah. So I guess like those types of events, I guess doing them more semi-regularly. I wish if I was in town, I would have definitely gone to it.

Yeah, we can talk to communications and see if we'd want to do that maybe quarterly instead of annually for sure. But like you all were talking about and Frank was mentioning, you know, there's room for smaller kind of activities like where an individual can come and kind of do something special that we haven't really seen before. And really anywhere. It doesn't have to be at the typical venues that we've used for these large-scale events.

It's a small event. You can do something on Pirate's Alley. You can do something. Yeah. There's places that a huge crowd wouldn't come, but the local people right there in the area would come.

Yeah.

You know, somebody's performing or somebody's.

Out of curiosity, has there been any type of surveying of the villagers on what they think enhancement means to them and what they would look at? I know we probably surveyed them a lot in terms of getting to the North Bay Village 100 and stuff like that, but is there anything specific or any type of data that... we'd be able to look at or survey information?

Besides the Pirate's Alley stuff that ULI conducted, which was our most responded to survey ever, we had over 100 responses. I think it was like 150, actually. In a short period, it was like two weeks or less. We haven't really done any other surveying recently as far as I'm aware. Okay. Um, so yeah, I mean, we can definitely put something out and see what people are interested in and see if that, uh, if that means we have to change some of what we're doing, we're happy to.

Hmm. I think that's, I actually liked that idea.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm mainly just curious, because, like, I mean, public art is awesome, and I think it's always super enjoyable, but, like, even when we think about it, like, someone might be thinking about something completely different in terms of, like, how that we can, like, improve our community and stuff that we're not even thinking about or seeing on a daily basis, or it could even be, like, simple stuff, like, I don't know, something super loud, like, at certain hours in the day, and, like, just trying to, like, adjust that, like, and I have, yeah, just throwing random things out there, but could be very interesting. But obviously we probably need to figure out the survey respondents rate too.

Yeah, no, let's do that. I think this is a good time to do it. And I like where the conversation is going because I know you all have certainly been involved in almost all of our public art projects in the last, well, this board in the last two, two and a half years, at least since I've been here. I know we've done about 11 or 12 public art projects. in that short time. So maybe now's the time that we move forward to, you know, doing more musical related activities and, you know, that kind of thing instead of public art. So that's certainly within the scope of this group as well. Cool.

I mean, there's passive art and then there's interactive where the people can come and actually have an experience that's sort of focused as opposed to like the mural when you come in you see it you see it and yeah it's neat but you drive by and and you you know pretty soon you become used to it being not memorable after and you don't even look at it anymore because yeah you have an event that's interactive or at least you feel like you're participating uh with some event that takes place it has a tremendous impact on whether you have know ballerina performing or a juggler performing or any of those types of things yeah neat little things that you think about that you went up there and there was an ice cream truck and you watched the juggler for half an hour yeah for sure absolutely absolutely commissioner you wanted to say something

No, I was going to comment. If I missed, I jumped on a little bit late. Sorry about that. Did you talk about the bus stops? Did you talk, did you touch on that?

We did. We touched on it early on. Basically the update is, uh, we're going to have five bus stops implemented before the end of the year.

Okay. That's awesome. Yeah. That's what I was, uh, anticipating here. So that, that would be great.

Long overdue.

Yeah. That's awesome.

Yeah. Cool. Um,

Yeah. Cause the other, some other like random thoughts that I've had about like enhancement would be, it's like transportation. I know we have the, the freebie, I think thing, but also thinking about like, how do we like the trolley that goes to Miami beach? Like how can we connect the city to that more or the village to it more in the same with like, we don't have any of the like city bikes on our islands, but they're on both ends. And so like thinking through like scenarios like that and like, how do we make it more,

friendly to come to, come to here and leave. It's so funny how this works. So I met with City Bike this past Monday. Oh, yeah. Oh, cool. The mayor, was it the mayor? Yeah, the mayor had a meeting with a resident who uses that service often on the beach. And that resident was kind enough to facilitate that meeting with City Bike. And we met with them Monday and Frank doesn't even know about that yet, but we used his office and we met with City Bike there. I think it makes a lot of sense. The only issue is that the station that they use for the bikes, which has 16 bikes, takes up two parking spaces, which you know is essential real estate here in North Bay Village. uh so i think it's really just working on on finding the right place for it it's got to be somewhere central but they told us it's at no cost to the village whatsoever which is what we like to hear so uh i'm definitely going to follow up with them and see if they've identified any places for it or or if we do that on our end yeah we would love to have city bike here in the village and that way people can you know go to miami go to miami beach yeah and do that whole thing yeah Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Or even, yeah.

Getting from like Harbor Island to Treasure Island.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Cool.

Good one.

Sometimes there's more going on than we even realized.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's why it's like good to have these conversations.

Yeah.

Um, but it's, it's, we, we put it all together.

That's cool. Um, so it seems like what it like going through that, that, uh, what do we call it? It's not a plan or a recommendation or.

Yeah. The ULI.

The ULI. Yeah. We'll, we'll send that out. It's like going through that and then spending the next session, like kind of talking through like what we, what we think and how we want to react to it. And then maybe even spending the next month to thinking about how we might want to survey the, the village about like, what do we want to like try and learn from them to then be able to focus in on in the next, next couple of meetings, depending on how long it takes.

Sure.

Yeah. How long would it usually take you to get a good response from residents, Leo, if you put a survey out?

I would say like two to three weeks. If we market it aggressively, I think two to three weeks is probably a good time.

Julie does a really great job of like making sure those emails go out, making sure, you know, people who are connected on social media, like she does a great job of doing that. So I have no doubt we could reach people.

I think our communications team has really built out kind of a consistent schedule of putting out that newsletter every Friday. And yeah, I think it gives our residents something to look forward to. We have more than 2,000 500 people on that list. So that's almost a third of our entire population, which is great.

And also because of all the activity that's going on, people are just generally engaged anyway. People are reading it. People are like, you know, waiting, like I wait for like Friday to roll around just to find out what's going on because it changes so quickly. And there's so many exciting projects happening at the same time, uh, at this time. So, um, uh, it's a great, it's a great opportunity to like seize on the enthusiasm in the community right now.

For sure.

Absolutely. Yeah. 52 wins, 52 weeks was a, was a good one.

You like that one? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I can prepare the survey. I can share it with each of you individually so we don't violate any rules. And you can all give me your feedback. And if you like, I can publish it ahead of our next meeting. That way we have maybe some results to look at.

Yeah, that'd be awesome.

Okay, that sounds good. Yeah. And then, uh, and I encourage you as part of that musical arts program item, Jacob, uh, and the rest of you, I encourage you to think of any vendors or any specific musical acts that you'd love to see, uh, any Instagram profiles you come across, you know, by all means, just share it with, uh, with the village account and we can start maybe reaching out to some folks and seeing what, uh, what the prices would be and, and what kinds of things, uh, you know, we're interested in. Cool.

One of the places you might reach out to is new world school of the arts.

Yeah.

They have individuals like the young students there that are in, they have a full orchestra and all that, but then some of them break off and there's three or four of them that are string instruments and they go out and they play. And make a little donation to them or to the school. I'm not exactly sure how it all works, but they have groups, they have dancers that go out with small... you know, programs that they do. Yeah. So there's a lot of performers, a lot of young people that want to show their art, want to show their performances.

Yeah. We could have like an open mic session one night somewhere.

Yeah, that'd be cool. That's a good idea. Yeah.

Or even like, you know, we have the kind of assisted living facility on Treasure Island, like maybe bringing in some music to like those residents who might not be able to get out very much as well.

Yeah. We do have a budget line item for that place specifically and for senior activities in general. Okay. You know, it's not often, but I would say maybe bimonthly we do, and that's every two months, we do an activity with them and we invite, you know, a musical act to perform for them. Oh, nice. It's more senior focused, so I don't think it would be an act that we would, you know, put out to the entire village.

Yep.

But we definitely have that partnership with, which is now, it was Elite Health, now it's Conviva Healthcare. Is there a musical program at the school? So not that I'm aware of. As part of the curriculum, you mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, not that I know of. I don't know.

Because we used to do that in high school. We used to go to all the nursing facilities and play jazz band for like an hour at all of them.

Even a little choir or something, you know?

Yeah, the thing is the school's an elementary school, so I feel like you don't get access to that kind of, you know. They're not that good yet. But I'll ask. yeah yeah that would be nice like getting that like seniors and like elementary school interaction or facilitating that man that's that's interesting seniors uh facilitating a senior elementary school yeah yeah that's that's something yeah that's interesting something to think about yeah um

Yeah, and I have friends at the New World and the ballet, so I'm sure that we could try and figure out something there. It would be maybe interesting for us to think about too, like a theme that we'd want to maybe like present within a period of time. So it's kind of like building on it or staying with it. And then like each year, like it's something different or each quarter, it's something different depending on how often we do something. Could be kind of neat to do.

Yeah. And besides New World, I know FIU and UM both have similar groups as well. So we can reach out. Yeah. All right. Very helpful. Anything else on these topics?

No. Just wanted to see everyone's pretty faces because we haven't met in a while.

Yeah. I'm glad you put those on the agenda. Shout out to you.

Nice work, Jacob.

Sounds like we're going to have a lot to plan for him now. Yeah.

It's exciting.

Bree, do you want to go ahead and do the minutes? Yes.

Oh, right. Yes. So if we could bring up the minutes from last meeting. Gosh, when was that? Oh, May.

May.

Yeah. So do I offer a motion to accept the minutes? Is that what I'm doing, Leo? No.

Approved.

Yeah. All right. So motion to approve minutes. Approved.

We need a second.

All right.

Who's got the second?

Alton.

Jacob has the second. Okay. Jacob has the second.

All in favor?

Aye. Aye. That is approved.

Minutes approved.

Sounds good. No real updates on my end. I'll let the commissioner speak if he has some, but just want to say, you know, we're excited to have our new interim manager here. Yeah, welcome.

Nice to meet you, Frank.

Yes, this is great to have you, Frank. We look forward to having your experienced hand on the helm.

Yeah, so we're excited for that, and we know that this hurricane is coming up, so I just want to make sure you all know that.

Oh, Lord.

Dural, I'll have you in a bunch of meetings today. Is that what happened?

Hurricane preparedness, but it should be all right. Sandbag, basement.

We're going to get outer bands. That's about it.

It's going to hit North Florida as a Cat 3, it looks like, maybe a Cat 4. Yeah, I'm a panhandler. we're looking at wind gusts of about 50 and, uh, and about three or four inches of rain. So not, not terrible. And that should all start, uh, I think soon. I think. Yeah.

I said it would start.

Yeah. We'll start to get some rain probably. Yeah. So before I came here, I was the director of emergency management for Dade County. So.

We're in good hands then.

Thoroughly, uh, with, uh, We didn't have any hurricanes in four years I was there, but we did have that building collapse in Surfside. Because you were there. Yeah.

Hurricanes were scared. They were like, we're not going through Miami. But yeah, Frank did oversee the building collapse issue.

Oh, my goodness.

Chief, you want to say hi to some residents here? Sure. The chief just walked in.

Please, Chief.

Come here. I think you've met a couple of these folks. Hey, how are you?

Hey. Good evening. Good evening. Y'all are all working late tonight.

Oh, yeah. We're going to make sure the village is in the best shape possible in case we have any kind of, you know, issues from the storm. So make sure you all are safe.

Appreciate that.

We very much appreciate it. Thank you all.

I did notice walking around earlier, there was a little bit of a storm surge over by the arena here at Grandview. Yeah, because I was walking the dog at six o'clock right when I walked in to make it for the 630 meeting and I was noticing already, like, wow, the storm surge is a little bit in the marina already.

Yeah, you have the king tides out there also. Oh, yeah.

King being October, too, yeah.

Yeah, they're starting to push some water already. By the way, Leo, just a reminder, we have an event next Wednesday, if you guys can make it, at 8.30 in the morning at Cal, Coffee with a Cop. Come meet some of the officers at the

Oh, coffee with a cup.

I like that.

All right. Next Wednesday at 8.30 a.m. All right. Nice seeing you all again. Nice to see you.

Yeah, nice to see you too.

Back to work. The manager won't let me go home. Yeah.

Take care.

They got to stay as long as I do.

All right. So that's it for me. Commissioner, do you have anything you want to share?

No, I'm all set on my end. Nice job, guys. Good to see everyone.

You as well. Have a great day, guys.

Thank you. Have a good night.

We need a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn.

Seconded. There it is.

Thanks for keeping us on our toes, Leo.

Yeah, exactly. Good night. Nice meeting you.

You too, Frank.

Have a good night. Take care.

Bye.

record you