Sustainability and Resiliency Task Force - Regular Meeting

Hi.

Hi, Jessica. Welcome. Thank you. So we're waiting for Alicia to come on board so she can start the meeting.

I don't know if we have quorum.

So far, yeah, Alicia's on, you're on, Brenda's on. So we showed AppleCorn, and then Jessica will get sworn in.

Recording in progress.

I told the mayor tonight when she said we had a new person that we're going to swear in, I said, it's a public forum. We probably shouldn't swear. She responded back, great one, Dad.

Yeah.

Apparently that's the definition of a dad joke. Let's see. I think I need to find the agenda, huh?

She's getting sworn in. All right, let me text Alicia, see if she's going to jump on.

Hey, everybody. Hey, Mayor. Hey, Mayor.

Paloma and I got caught in the rain.

I ran in just before it started raining.

Nope, not me. But I collected like 10 pounds of trash. So that was pretty awesome.

That's awesome.

I'm exaggerating on the tonnage, but you know. as much as I could carry. That's great.

Yeah. Daniel's doing a clean up tomorrow. The shark gang did?

Yeah.

He's doing a clean up tomorrow.

He's doing clean ups all the time. It's an incredible thing.

Yeah, we collaborated with him last Monday. Amazing.

Yeah, I saw the content. It looked fantastic. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, we made a lot of progress. We got over 60 pounds of trash. Oh, gosh. Wow.

You guys covered, like, the east side of Treasure Island?

Yeah, exactly. From Grandview Palace down the road. So then next time, I think we're going to go from the dog park all the way down to the other side to cover, like, both sides. And then we'll start getting internally. But at least to get Biscayne Bay to make sure that no trash is getting in the bay, I think, is, like, the most important. So amazing. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening, Madam Chair. I'm going to stop talking now.

How's it going? Very good. Hi, Alicia. Hi. Hi, Annabelle.

Everybody's great.

All right. Call the meeting of order at 633. I do. Or roll call, Dave.

Here, present.

Alrighty. Brenda?

Here.

Oliver?

Alicia? Oh, never mind. Yep. Sorry. Just kidding. Did he come in?

No. Alicia, he did text me saying he was going to be running a few minutes late and he was going to try to make it in before 7. Okay.

Alrighty, and then I do believe we have a new member, Jessica.

Thank you for having me. I'm honored to be here.

Hello, hello.

We do have a new member.

That's what I read, right? Yes, that's correct. Shall we do the swearing in now? Or did you already do it?

Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and swear in, okay? Jessica, if you could please raise your right hand and repeat after me, I state your name.

I, Jessica Alessio. Able resident of the state of Florida. Able resident of the state of Florida. And North Bay Village. Of North Bay Village.

And being a Sustainability and Resiliency Task Force member.

Being a Sustainability and Resiliency Task Force member. To hereby solemnly swear. That I will support and obey. The Constitution of the United States. And the state of Florida. And that I will in all respects. And that I will in all respects.

Observe the provisions.

Observe the provisions.

Of the charter and ordinances of the village.

Of the charter and ordinances of the village.

Thank you, Jessica, and welcome aboard once again. Thank you so much. So happy.

Hey, Jessica, can I learn a little bit about you? Absolutely. Why are you excited to be here?

Well, I'm excited to be here. I've been a longtime North Bay Village resident. I'm really involved in the community and trash pickup. I just started a business that's oriented around, you know, cleaning, but I've always been passionate about the environment, sustainability, and really want to contribute to North Bay Village as much as I can. So it's an honor to be here. Thank you for having me.

No, thank you for your service. It's really great to have new members. May I ask, did you recently move here? Have you been a resident in North Bay Village?

No, I've been a long-term resident. I've been here for about 12 years. I bought my condo eight years ago here.

How did you hear about us?

Actually, my best friends, I grew up in Boston. So my best friends moved right after high school to North Bay Village. Actually, I had two of my best friends that I grew up my whole life with moved to North Bay Village. And that's how I got acquainted. As soon as I got here, I just felt like it was home. I felt like I was always meant to be here. And I rented for a little while in Harbor Island. And then, yeah, when I had the opportunity, I bought a Grandview Palace and I have a beautiful patio garden. I'm one of those corner units. So it's great for my dogs and my animals. I have two dogs and a cat. And yeah, I just want to improve the neighborhood as much as possible. I feel like this is a calling for me. And I'm just happy to be here.

Thank you. I see that you're evolving with the village. And it's really nice to meet new people that do care about the development of what North Bay Village is going through. So very excited. We have some really incredible members on our task force. It seems that you are very familiar with our mayor, our liaison. She's a badass. She has led us through She's she's still leading us. She she really, really gives us the heart and soul of the task force. But everybody, every single member is also a huge contributor in every special way. And, you know, please reach out to us, you know.

Yes, I'm not afraid to ask questions. I'm going to the cruise. So hopefully I'll see some of you guys on Friday too. And we can hang out and catch up and get to know each other. So I'm always open to asking questions, learning more, you know. So please, any suggestions that you guys have for me or anything that you can teach me to catch me up, I'm always open to it. Please reach out. So I'm just happy to be a member of the team.

Absolutely.

I'd like to say that, you know, welcome. One of the things that I like to do is make sure that I am always looking for opportunities to bring back. So I hope that you, in your day-to-day journey and your travels and in your learnings, that if there is something that you focus on, that you see an opportunity around that you know, you bring it to the bring it to the table. What we about two weeks before the meeting, we'll get an email asking about any agenda items. And so that's your opportunity to place things on the agenda. So perfect. please keep on the lookout and I will see you on, I will see you on, uh, on, uh, on Friday. Awesome. I run a nonprofit called volunteer cleanup.org. Um, you used it with, uh, with, uh, with Daniel and I'm primarily focused on marine debris and all the plastic trash in the ocean and Bay broader. Uh, so, um, I'm focused on clean air and clean water.

Yeah.

And, Wait a minute, where did Brenda go? Is Brenda still on? Oh, there we go. Brenda, do you want to introduce yourself?

I couldn't get the mute off. Yes, I'm Brenda Krebs. I work for the county in the Department of Environmental Resources Management. Okay. And I've been a member of the task force since, I want to say 2020. Okay. So I'm not right. And I live on Harbor Island. And what else? I super impressed Dave Dobler with your Biscayne Bay Marine Health Task Force. I just had to say this in the Marine Health Summit last week. So that was an incredible, incredible lift. And so I have to... Sing Dave's praises there. So a lot of the people from Durham went and presented at the summit last week. So that was really impressive. Amazing.

Yeah, Dave, thank you so much for allowing us to organize and use all of your equipment. And that was incredible. And we're actually, like I said earlier, we're going to plan another one to kind of cover the whole island, hopefully, of North Bay Village and continue this going. We have so many more people that approached us to volunteer that would love for this to be a community thing on a regular basis here.

Yeah, fantastic. Great. I'll talk to you all about that on Friday and we'll have some conversation on the boat ride about like kind of our theory of change.

Yeah, absolutely.

And why and how we do what we do. So I'm very much looking forward to it.

Me too.

All right.

All righty. So I'll give a quick intro to myself. I live on North Bay, wait, Treasure Island. I actually just moved over to North Bay Island, but... Yeah, my thing is I like to look over the water. I like to take care of the water. Currently working on a bay garden. Got to take that sponsor check to the village manager. I'm going to try and send over to you. And you can always look on our previous agendas, but they're usually very, very lengthy. So I can send you some of our main projects that we're working on. And I highly encourage you to meet with also Christina, our... sustainability i'm so sorry christina brazilian officer brazilian officer okay jessica she has so many great projects going on and ideas and i don't know if you've had a chance to meet her or have been made aware of her um definitely encourage that. So yeah, welcome. Thank you. And I want to start off with, I guess, okay, does anybody have any changes or approved meeting minutes?

I didn't review them. Did anybody review?

I didn't. No, I saw them. I approved. They look good.

Great. I second.

Alrighty, motion to approve.

Dave's second? I'll move. I thought he just seconded. Whatever.

All righty. Motion approved. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All righty. So Dave, I would like to give a quick little summary of the Marine Health Coalition. I really do wish I could have made it, but you know, all the work that you do, I just want to hear all the great things that happened.

It was an exciting two days, actually. So the Biscayne Bay Marine Health Coalition is a group of clean water advocates who have come together to raise awareness for the problems facing Biscayne Bay and the solutions around them. Back about 10 years ago, we hosted our first summit to really raise the alarm for the fact that we lost over 70% of our seagrass and there was just trash everywhere. We brought science, community, the government, and business together in order to figure out what we do. That led to a series of events, including the Biscayne Bay Task Force, which ultimately created the Biscayne Bay Task Force Report, which is our guiding document to Biscayne Bay recovery. So everything that I do focuses on coming back to the Task Force Report. I encourage everybody to read it. In addition, as an outcome of our first summits, the county, after the task force, then they put together the Biscayne Bay Watershed Management Advisory Board, on which I hold the seat, as does Mayor Streitfeld, which is comprised of a wide range of stakeholders. I think there's probably... 20 of us. And so over the years, we have held a summit every two years. This was our sixth summit. And our primary focus this year was to drive forward the county's reasonable assurance plan, which is a strategy that will tell the state is a county and stakeholder created roadmap how we are going to reduce the nutrients that enter Biscayne Bay. That is the root of the problem that we have, which is excessive nutrients, primarily nitrogen. That is fueling algae growth, which blocks light from the seagrass and kills it. And seagrass is the building block of everything in Biscayne Bay. And so this was the sixth summit directly focused on developing this reasonable assurance plan, which we need to give to the state and the state needs to approve. And the idea is that if we do these things, our water quality will come back within standards. So the reasonable assurance plan is a long lengthy process. It's very scientific and you need to get all of the municipalities on together. And so two years ago when the county said we're gonna develop the reasonable assurance plan, we said, great, you've got two years to fix it because we're hosting another summit. And that is your deadline because you're going to be asked to present it. We just put the pressure from the public and said, hey, this is what timeline we're working towards. You said it's gonna take you two years, great. We're gonna hold you to that two years. And so this year's summit, we held what we called Wrap Day, which was bringing together over 60 public works folks and resilience folks from different municipalities to hear about the reasonable assurance plan. Thank you very much, Christina, for showing up and you brought somebody with you. Did somebody come with you?

No, I think they came by themselves. On wrap day or the second day?

On wrap day. There was another North Bay Village person there, wasn't there? Oh, gosh. I'll look through the list. But thank you, North Bay Village, for showing up because you also came to the summit as well. And so the idea of the wrap day was to help the municipalities develop the projects in which they need to submit for the reasonable assurance plan. So that was a closed door session. It was a half day at Jungle Island, very successful considering the county has not had the greatest success engaging in the municipalities. And so us being a neutral third party, kind of an honest broker of sorts, brought everybody together so that we can all have conversation about how together we solve Biscayne Bay. And the next day we had the Biscayne Bay Marine Health Summit, which had over 450 attendees. covering everywhere from science, to community, to government staff, to elected officials, to business, including development. And so we had a wide range of stakeholders and we heard an entire day of the science, where we came from, where we are today, and where we're going. and the entire goal is to advance the reasonable assurance plan and so we had a nice section on that we had a nice uh nice um conversation with david martin uh from tara group and he brought together walter myers uh and uh a couple other henry i forget his last name is a really interesting conversation about the role of development in protecting biscayne bay And we learned about some really cool concepts where they're using the space underneath docks in order to provide habitat, oyster reefs, sponges that can filter tremendous amounts of water. And so what is the role of development to contributing to the community and very specifically to this Biscayne Bay asset? Uh, so we also had an afternoon of breakouts with, uh, community driven. So a lot of science, a lot of projects. So we're starting to do, um, just recently learned this, that they are starting to actually do, um, prop scar seagrass plantings. So I'm very excited to see new rehabilitation projects, but the Bay is still in trouble and we have a lot of work to do. And so that is what the coalition does. And it was a tremendously successful day. We will have all of the videos up on YouTube. They were supposed to be delivered to me today, and then I'll be uploading them to YouTube. And, um, you'll be able to watch the entire day, uh, and what, and maybe whatever you missed. So, um, there were some really good conversations and I think progress. Oh, and thank you to North Bay Village for being a sponsor of the event. We appreciate it. Thank you. It's a community driven, there's no profit. It's just figuring out how we do this.

Nothing short of amazing, Dave. I really do wish I could have made it. You know what's going to catch my ear is the sponges and oysters under docks. David Martin proposed that? Is he also looking at purchasing or doing the development at the Miami Seaquarium site? Yes. I think that might have been an idea i heard from colin ford he's the one that kind of you know put me in the direction of instead of identifying corals and putting them at the bay garden and using oysters and sponges for filter filtration first because nothing can survive as you said you know with the murky water.

These are not brand new crazy ideas that are like innovative, right? These are projects. These are things that people are putting together. We know oysters can filter a tremendous volume of water every single day. Biscayne Bay used to be awash in oysters. And so it is only logical that we attempt to do that. And so most of the projects though have been either community led or they are really, really, really big projects like the Million Oyster Project in, or the Billion Oyster Project in New York in Hudson, in the Hudson River. So these are things that we can do right here with limited dock space. It doesn't have to be a big project. These oyster shelves are not very expensive at all. And so we can look for opportunity. And when we were discussing the Harvey Reuven Park and what we do along the shoreline, and I asked Patrick, hey, can we do something about oysters? They're like, oh, yeah, sure, we can just put some oyster shells down there, right, in between the rocks, and then they'll just naturally grow. Great, let's do that. Just like your project on, you know, in Vogel Park with the reef arches seawall tiles. It's just opportunity and it's space. And so anybody who comes to develop on North Bay Village and is going to amass tremendous wealth from the projects that they wanna build, my question is going to be, how is your project, how is your participation here going to be a net benefit to the Bay, right? And it is what you can do within your own property and with your own development and what you can contribute to the community who's working to protect it. It's not just paying for roads and sewer lines, it's also how do we pay for the stormwater infrastructure to keep Biscayne Bay clean from our stormwater? What do we do about their fertilizer practices? How they're building their swales to retain water on premise and pervious surface, right? So this was kind of the big takeaway for me is that most developers are, they're focused on their project. And they're focused on flipping their projects around. They want to get their projects started faster, done faster, so they could sell them and they can move on to the next project, some hold. And we should be, you know, one of the things that I learned about David Martin is that, and this is not good or bad, I think it just gives an interesting perspective, is that he buys projects and he owns them. Right. He retains ownership of a lot of the projects. And so he becomes vested in the long-term success of the project. And so, you know, that makes me want to ask somebody who's coming in and buying a property, you know, what is your long-term commitment to Biscayne Bay? How are you going to invest in it? Whether you are going to fund seagrass restoration, whether you're going to put oyster docks, whether you're going to build, you know, living shorelines, living seawalls, those kind of things. I think it's a... good conversation to have because they're the ones making all of the money from this from this day and nobody wants to live on a dead bay i'm just gonna chime in that i couldn't agree more and we are doing that

You know, we are doing that.

Can I ask a question?

Sure.

Are there like business incentives for restaurants as well for the oyster docks? That could be like an idea of having them fund and maintain things like that. And then they would have also a business incentive.

We don't have anything like that at this time. And I don't know that we have... Yeah, we don't have anything like that at this time. But as far as development is concerned, every time a new waterfront project comes to us, we are asking these questions. And we are securing... commitments on all fronts to think about whether it's the construction and design of the seawall, really pushing on the number of slips at marinas, which was an incredible conversation for the most recent approval on East Drive, but whether a project is to be owned long-term by a developer or not, the conversation about the health of the bay and long-term resilience for stormwater purposes is front and center, and it quite frankly has been. but we can always do more. We can always do more and we can always do better. And what really helps is when we have these items coming before the commission, the development agreement approvals and the site plan approvals, when members of the public attend those meetings and speak, to ask for these things specifically it gives those of us on the dais additional political capital and and power essentially to push harder for more yeah um mayor i would love to

um know when these big development projects are are that are on the water line are coming in front um yes i can go look at the the agenda right um honestly there's so many municipalities i pay attention to i don't pay attention to anybody's agendas Um, but if there is, I don't, I just don't have time.

Um, but you, but you do have an aid. Um, and you know, um, listen, one of the things, one of the things that I, I do as part of my job is I check agendas regularly. I mean, look, I, I will do my best to let you know when a big project is coming and I will do my best to let the public know via my NBB Rachel Instagram account. Um, But it just has to, you know, this is a thing. If you care about what's happening in your community, stay informed. I know you do. Don't look at me like that.

I'm not looking like anything.

Okay.

I miss a lot of stuff.

Yeah, we don't have, but the related project, you were well aware of that project. And that was- I heard about it from a neighbor. Yeah, that was the most recent one that we had. The site plan approval- that we had a month and a half or two months ago was actually not a waterfront project, even though it sort of appears as though it was a waterfront project. They do not own, this property owner did not actually own the access to the bay. The 360 condominium owns the access to the bay. So anyhow, we've digressed, so.

But I'll share the YouTube videos so everybody can watch. They can pick what they find interesting. But there was a lot, a lot of great content. So, yeah. There won't be much coming out of it.

Thank you, Dave. And I guess like another point to I mean, when I guess for a good example, like a lot of people came out and I forgot what development it was, but for the additional slips for a marina. And if I'm not mistaken, the developers had to opt into a clean marina program. because of the residents speaking out upon it. But then our village manager also with the Bay Garden and the contractors and product designers that I brought in, he also introduced me to Continuum to present their product as well so even if we do like catch wind and maybe we don't make it to the meeting I think there is still opportunity for us to make suggestions for those projects before getting approvals or even them like opting into it you know just putting it out there and you know something is missed I don't think it's all

Yeah, it's not too late. Absolutely. Madam Chair, you are absolutely correct on both fronts.

Okay. So I'll get back to the agenda. Old business update on stormwater master plan. Item 3A.

Sure. Um, so, so I guess this will be the first time doing this for Jessica. So Jessica, the way we have our stormwater master plan, it essentially divides the village into three main basins, Harbor Island, North Bay Island and Treasure Island. So each of these are in different stages of either design construction. So, Harbor Island is right now being designed by Ribic Engineering. So, it's on the site close to Civic Park or future Civic Park and they're a little bit over 60% design. So right now, they're just waiting for underground utilities surveying. So that's what we're doing. We've got a few quotes. And once we've determined which one of those quotes we're going with, Rubik will be working with the surveyors directly, and then they'll push the design to 100%. now the way we've instructed ribic to design the stormwater is to just make sure to have it as compact as possible so that when we're ready for a future park site there's enough space for us to have lots of creativity in that park so that's harbor island now norbay island's a little different that one's completely designed and it's in the pre-construction phase although there are some tweaks going on Initially, we were going to use a parcel of a property there to put some of the utilities, but we've decided to put them actually on the causeway. That way we're no longer doing eminent domain on this property. And we're going to do directional boring underground all the way to an easement that we have. So this is where Norway Island is. We are also communicating with FPL to finalize and make sure that they are... in agreement with the design that we have that's now on the causeway instead of on the property. So this is where we are. I know this can get a little technical. If you need more detail, let me know. now treasure island is our is the more challenging one it's the one that needs the most uh the most love it's the one that's more prone to flooding um we had some issues with treasure island we had two well actually three different contract uh consultant on treasure island so what we did we ended up just dissolving One for now and then two are pending, pending our attorney. We dissolved the contract because we weren't going anywhere. There was just so much conflict. So we decided to treat it more as one basin instead of a basin with multiple designers, multiple consultants. We were looking for a more streamlined approach to Treasure Island. So we have until, I believe until next week, Mayor, to give you a draft RFP so that we can proceed and hopefully have this on commission in June. So that's pretty much the update on the stormwater master plan. Any follow-ups?

So the contractors, so we're streamlining. Can you tell me a little bit more about what we've decided?

So we had BCC. BCC was the main consultant. We've done businesses with them for a long time. And I think we had over, I think I'm going to say $800,000 contract with them. And so they were acting as a consultant to the actual designers. Okay. Which were EXP and... and Chenmore, EXP was doing phase one. But unfortunately, BCC and EXP, they tended to not work well together. So they were, especially BCC, they were basically draining the contract and funding, and we felt like it wasn't going anywhere. We weren't getting any results. So that's when we decided to dissolve. our work order with BCC. Okay.

Any other questions or comments? Dave?

Yeah, I may have asked this before. Is FPL going to underground the lines?

Yeah, on North Bay Island.

Great.

Yeah.

Great. Because that means we can plant some trees. Maybe.

I mean, it's a long way to go. We should plant trees everywhere. It's very tricky with FPL.

Yes. So that's why we also want them undergrounded because.

Yeah. So we, that's definitely something we can bring up at the next meeting that we have with them.

Well, if they're undergrounding, then they shouldn't care about trees. They care about trees.

But they're still roots. So you have to make sure, you know.

Yeah, sure. Sure.

Maybe some sort of Silva cells system to contain the roots.

Yeah. I'll tell you that, that, uh, either Silva cells, but I've also, you know, they're also making roads that are kind of like raised that have space underneath. Right. And so when you need to access something, you don't need to dig everything up. You have access to it. It's interesting what they're doing today and, you know, creating that underground, you know, water storage space also underneath the roads.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Kiva Skane just went through a very interesting situation where they were designing pump stations, basically Miami Beach's pump station situation.

We talked about this at length at the last meeting, and while I really, like... Oh, I'm sorry. Did we talk about this? We have a long conversation about this, and I really kind of want to move this meeting along.

I forgot. I'm sorry.

Okay.

All right. Any other questions or comments on this item? No? Okay. We'll move on to 3B, discussion on green infrastructure policy.

So this one we also talked about at the last meeting. I really think that this policy is ready to move to the next step. Essentially, it has definitions that weren't in our code before, like CIP definition, nature-based solutions, definitions for different rating systems. So, Jessica, to kind of give you a little background on it, different municipalities, including Miami-Dade County, they are not requiring that any of their CIP projects, so not private development, but CIP projects. infrastructure project have some sort of certification. So envision or lead for buildings, et cetera. So this would just have us be aligned with that frame of thought. And so this is a pretty simple addition to our existing code. It explains the intent. You know, having more green stormwater infrastructure, more low-impact development. It also asks for a stormwater management plan in all our CIP projects, asking for certifications such as Envision, LEED. And it also asked, which I thought was key, this was inspired by the city of Miami. And this is already happening, but this is our way to make it official so that the chief resilient officer, so that would be me, or someone that would take my place, be always involved in planning, procurement, or design of any green infrastructure within the city. So that way resilience is always in the forefront of all our, you know, of all our infrastructure, all our projects. So this is essentially the green stormwater infrastructure. It's pretty simple. I'm open to feedback, of course. This was attached to this agenda as well.

I read it.

I think it's great. Christina, when you ask that if it's ready to move forward, do you need anything from us?

Yes. So this was the announcement that I made at the commission meeting last week, and I'm trying to get staff and commission liaisons to reinforce the mode, the vehicle for getting items from a task force or advisory board to the commission. So what I would like is a... basically a motion to recommend to the North Bay Village Commission approval of the green infrastructure policy. So if someone wants to make that motion, I would very much appreciate it.

I'll make that motion.

I'll second it.

All in favor?

I'm in favor. Oliver's in favor.

Hello, Oliver. Hi, Oliver.

Hi, sorry, showing up late.

All righty, motion approved.

Wonderful. I think you guys need to be a little bit more formal in the voting. I heard, what else are we missing? We had a motion from Dave and a second from Alicia and an approval from Oliver. I don't hear from Jessica or Brenda. I approve.

I said aye.

All right, great. All righty. Unanimous. Excellent. Thank you. So Christina, you'll prepare this for the June meeting.

Wonderful. Thank you. Absolutely.

Thank you all. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. So then we'll move on to 3C, discussion on sustainability procurement policy.

um so this one i did not attach to this meeting it was attached in the last meeting but um so to also catch you up so this is our initiative to have better procurement policies in the city so the way we purchase thing it focused mainly on um office supply and um our kitchen etc let's see I did have a presentation last meeting. I think this one might be ready to move to commission. I would love your feedback on it as well, Mayor Streifeld.

We can also treat these as living documents. Things could be added to it. That would be presented to the commission of new ideas and new technology, new products, because this one was targeted also of eating healthier, sourcing more local food. Am I kind of understanding that last one? So it...

I know there was a little bit of pushback on this because there is a concern about cost, whether this would cost more. So there definitely needs to be a bit of direction that's given to staff on this one. And I did want to sit... with um different directors and just to just to get their feedback on how they spend their dollars so that that so that i have them on board so they don't feel like this is forced upon them so i think this one could maybe wait uh another cycle um yeah there was a food procurement option to it we do you know i love this village in terms of um When we have a meeting, we make sure everybody's fed, you know, and I think that's wonderful, but there's not always a plant-based option. Dave, don't be mad at me. At the summit, I was starving. But there is a, you know... there is an impact, a nutrient impact of animal agriculture on our water. So it may not be Biscayne Bay, but it will be another bay or another body of water. So it does make sense so that we always have a plant-based options so that we give our staff the opportunity to eat well and do well for the waters. So Essentially, that was the food aspect of the procurement policy. Just one aspect, but it's mainly office supplies.

Would it help if we, I know you and I were supposed to get together on this to explore like more products and I still want to maybe reaching out to the companies and kind of getting pricing and then creating like a menu where, you know, people can see, you know, what the cost would be. So it kind of puts them more at ease because that's the main worry for the majority of

Yeah, that would be great. I'd love to meet you, Alicia.

Likewise. We can get together on that and we can work on that. And then next cycle, we can present what we come up with.

I have a question, it's Oliver. I don't remember if we talked about this or not. I know I mentioned something about landscaping and you said that's not appropriate for this, but what about materials and supplies that the city purchases? Because we're going to have a lot of facilities pretty soon between building and a community center. I know we don't want to get cost ineffective, but is there any language about purchasing cleaning products and things like that that we could mention in that document?

We can definitely add that. There's nothing right now that specifically says cleaning products. It says low toxicity, low emission products, but I can make it more explicit.

Is it closer to identify like actual products or would that kind of be us promoting like certain businesses?

Yeah, I wouldn't identify the products, but maybe saying something like biodegradable, you know, something in that sentiment.

Maybe we could create, like, a range of pricing for, like, the products. Like, if we do a little bit of research, like, this is usually, like, the cost between, or do you think that's a little too much?

Well, that could be, like, a support document for staff.

All right. I'm sorry, Oliver, did I cut you off?

No, it's okay. No, thank you. I just wanted to mention that. Whatever other things we buy at the city, I'm not sure where the big budget items are. I haven't looked lately, but just with an eye towards sustainability.

Yeah, I think, Oliver, it's a good idea to think kind of holistically about sustainability. direction and giving the intent and and and and broadening that scope out to the things that we buy the most things like um uh eliminating single-use plastics to the greatest extent possible to purchase products that are made of recycled uh content versus uh virgin content um I think these general guidelines are really very helpful as things change. We don't need to change the policy. It's giving kind of the spirit of it. And I think there's also something that both Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami introduced in their plastic-free procurement policies to the greatest extent possible, right? This way, it's not a hard and fast rule and you're giving more Uh, more of an inspiration, an aspirational think about how we spend our money and where, you know, who we spend our money with versus getting so nuanced that people get, you know, get in the weeds. I'd love to see a copy of it, though. I don't think we saw a copy.

Sure. And I think we're doing some of these things already just for budget purposes. From what I hear, we're no longer buying single-use creamers. So we're just using what we have. So this would be a way to make it a bit more official. And we're also, I believe, streamlining our purchasing through Maite and her team.

So then anybody that wants to have hands on this, let's kind of work on it. And if they have any ideas, I think it was attached in the last agenda. So yeah, welcome to work on this. I'll give it to you, Christina.

If you could circulate it again to the SRTF so that it's fresh and they're in there. And so that Jessica has it too. For sure. That'd be great.

Madam Chair, I just want to remind of Sunshine. I didn't know if you were indicating that we would work, anybody would work on it together offline.

No, not offline. Yeah. So Jessica, so I don't know, have you served in a task force or a committee prior or is this your first committee?

No, I've served as president. I also have my own nonprofit organization.

Okay. So are you familiar with Sunshine?

With sunshine?

Let me, I'll just explain it. You guys are not allowed to have conversations with each other outside of this forum about items that will be voted on by this course. Yes. You can talk about anything else you want, but you can't talk about items that are going to come on that are going to be voted on.

Of course. Perfect.

Yeah.

So if you want, let's say if you wanted to work on this, policy with us, then it would be either you could go directly with Christina or you could send in your ideas, but it cannot be shared between us or discussed between us. It only has to be done during a public meeting. Okay. All right. So moving on to new business item for a discussion regarding a potential new waste hauler pay as you throw program and compositing initiatives. Composting, compositing, composting initiatives. Dave, is this yours?

Uh, it is mine. Um, we went through it last month and Christina was going to, uh, well, we wanted to make sure everybody had an opportunity to, uh, to dig down a little bit into the RFP. And then, uh, Christina was also going to have some conversations, uh, that hopefully we can then bring in front of commission. So in the agenda is the link to the RFP. Or, sorry, to the proposal of issuing three different RFPs. And one of the... One of the changes that I have started thinking about between this one and now is the structure of the three RFPs. One might be for landfill only as an alternative option to consider for the Commission and Christina is whether it goes Landfill then recycling that organics, or if we do the what I have written in here in the, in the, in the current recommendation. But I don't know if Christina got a chance to dig into any of this any further.

Oh, I did. I think it's pretty, it's definitely going to be revolutionary for the city. I'd love to, I know this is something not for now, because now we're looking on piggybacking Coral Gable's contract, but I'd love to see how we're going to transition to that once we have that piggyback. So I think this is definitely a conversation, a secondary conversation I need to have with Stephen.

Yeah, that sounds like... So I'll just jump in. Christina, I would just ask that you sort of tread lightly in terms of how you talk about the piggybacking because the commission has not taken a vote on that and we're not doing until June.

Okay.

And I really, again, want to emphasize... how important it is to take the recommendations from this task force seriously and in a time sensitive manner because it is such a heavy lift and it is so revolutionary. So Dave went through this PowerPoint presentation at last month's meeting. The task force said that they were not prepared to vote on it at last month's meeting. I will just let you guys know from my perspective as your liaison, I would very much like to see this move forward so that it can become a conversation at the Commission level, and I would like for there to be more public engagement on this front. I agree with Dave wholeheartedly that we are at a very important inflection moment on waste hauler services generally, and I do not want to miss an opportunity to do something incredibly impactful. So if the task force could sort of lock in on this proposal, I would really appreciate that.

This is going to be voted on, Bowen, with the commission?

It's not going to be voted on unless the task force advances it. Or if the discussion... And it came up at last month's meeting and you guys decided that you wanted more time.

Does anybody have any objections or questions about the proposal?

I don't. I understood it and I fully supported it at last meeting. I apologize if there was anything else that we were kind of waiting on. But again, we had a really long conversation about this and we dove pretty deep into this. So I would want this to go before the commission as soon as possible. So I don't know if anybody else has reviewed it or has any questions or comments.

That's Oliver. I would just like to, I guess, yeah, I would like to vote on or make a motion that this proposal, the way Dave has presented it, goes forward to the commission and ask if it's not already in the proposal that the task force has. Obviously, the commission is going to vote. We don't have any real power over that. what the RFPs look like, but I would appreciate the opportunity for the task force to be able to review the RFPs as they're being prepared and have comment on them so that it doesn't end up being something where we have an intention, we put all this nice ideas and then we have, and then something gets voted on and we haven't had a chance to comment on it. Is that fair?

That's a great condition. You guys can make a recommendation to the Commission to consider the proposal with the condition that RFPs come back to the task force. Absolutely.

It's already on page 17 to authorize the Sustainability and Resilience Task Force to review draft RFPs prior to issuance and provide written comments to staff. Excellent. I believe there is also in there Uh, SRTF member members on the selection committee. So as appropriate, if you're forming a selection committee, uh, then, uh, I would like to have one or multiple suggest that we have one or more multiple people, uh, from the sustainability resilience task force, um, on the review and scoring committee, if appropriate. So the, the, both of those are in there, Oliver, it's a great call.

I made a motion. Anybody want to second it?

I'll second it. All in favor? Aye.

Motion approved.

That was unanimous. So what I'm going to do is I'm also going to reach out to all of the North Bay Village commissioners to explain the concept in a little more detail and see if they have any questions, see if they have any concerns. I have a feeling that once people understand this, they're like, oh, that makes a lot of sense.

It's very well written.

Thank you guys so much for taking action on this item. Dave, thank you for all the work that you did putting it together. It was a heavy lift. And so Christina, if you have any questions about what the agenda item looks like, we can talk about it on Friday if that works for you. But You know, the June agenda is going to include the question about what's next for trash pickup. So having this item also on the June agenda is, in my mind, absolutely fundamental.

Sounds good.

I'll also share that I had a conversation with one of the commissioners from Key Biscayne this past week, and they are in the same situation as we are, where their contracts are up for renewal. I think that we may end up getting a more, we might end up getting better proposals if we partner up with them, if they agree. I don't know how that works, but within the proposal, it's for us to include a piggyback clause so that anybody else can jump on it as well. So maybe we partner together. I don't know exactly where they're going with it, but the commissioner was extremely interested in this.

Really nice.

Great. Thank you. Appreciate that. What's next?

Staff and commission liaison updates.

Okay, so I'll go first. I had a really fun meeting on Friday with Christina and Tom Klein from the University of Miami. It was really fun. From the University of Miami's Center for Urban and Community Design. Tom Klein runs that program. There is a very, very cool seminar taking place this fall where architects, students, architecture students, engineering, landscape architects, there is going to be both masters and undergrad students are going to be working on basically green infrastructure designs, and they are going to be using our new stormwater park here on Treasure Island at 7560 West Treasure Drive as one of the sites for their seminar. Christina can expand on this, but we're basically in the process of hammering out an agreement in principle with UM. I think Tom is going to come present at the next task force meeting. So he's going to show you guys the PowerPoint presentation that he gave to me. It's gonna be really cool and a lot of fun and we're gonna have not, you know, it's the students are gonna be putting together their ideas for how to maximize that site for water quality, stormwater retention, all of the things that we need, as well as harmonization with the gray infrastructure that's going underground and the roadway harmonization and all of the things. But each team of students is paired with a group of professionals, engineers, architects, so on and so forth, So that once the ideas are fleshed out and we get all of the pretty pictures of what the park could look like, the next step is that the professionals work on it to ensure that it is practical and meets all of our needs in terms of regulatory compliance. Does it have the capacity for the levels of storms that we need to be prepared for? future sea level rise conditions, so on and so forth. So that is a super, super cool partnership. All the credit in the world goes to Christina for this collaboration. I think once Tom presents to this task force, you guys are just going to be like, This is really, really exciting. And the good news is that we're not going to spend two years dreaming about it only for it to be like pulled out from under us. Like this is a thing that is absolutely going to happen. Yeah. if it kills me. So yeah, so that's kind of my most exciting update. I have asked staff to prepare the new RFP for Treasure Island Stormwater so that I can review it um before i leave either before i leave for alaska or while i am on my way to alaska a lot of a lot of a lot of time on a plane to read so um i just i want to have that rfp like reviewed before before i go um so that it can get on also the the june meeting um Oh my gosh, I feel like I'm working on so many things and now I've just drawn a complete blank.

And that last thing, that sounds really great. Thank you for that update. Is there going to be anything, did you say there's going to be anything sort of charrette-ish about that with the community, sort of an invitation to comment?

On the Stormwater Park, Oliver?

Yeah, I maybe mentioned that. Oh, yeah.

Oh, there will be, like, totally. We'll have public engagement on that. Absolutely. Okay, bigger picture updates. The community center is opening... on Thursday, June 4th. We're having a block party. There will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony and some remarks. The emcee for the evening is our Mayor Emeritus, Brent Latham, who's also the community center. The full name of the community center is the Brent Walter Latham North Bay Village Community Center. So it's going to be an amazing community gathering. I'm strongly encourage everyone to be there on June 4th from 5 to 8 over obviously at the new community center on Treasure Island. So please, please come out to that. I hope folks are getting the emails about construction noise. We've got a lot of new development and there are concrete pours happening overnight. Staff is really doing their best to communicate that information to the residents. Yeah, I'm trying to think of all of the other controversial stuff that I'm dealing with and whether or not it applies to you guys. And I think since none of you have kids in the soccer program, we're probably good to go. Are there any questions that I can answer about other things happening in the village since you have me here?

I have two questions.

I have just a quick question on the community center. I saw a survey go out to see if there was going to be a gym there. Is that any result of that?

We've gotten an unsolicited proposal from the owner of the gym at Grandview Palace. to use the third floor space as a gym. I am 100% opposed to that concept. And the feedback that we got from the residents was also pretty anti. It's really important to me, to the rest of the commission, and I think to our community that that third floor space remains as much as a flex space for use by the community as possible. So it's not going to be a gym. But the reason we did that poll, Oliver, is because we did get that unsolicited proposal and there were a handful of folks who were pushing it real hard. So we needed to understand where the community was on that.

Oh, thank you for explaining that. Is that going to have Waterview?

I'm sorry?

Is that going to have Waterview? No, right?

Oh no, you absolutely can see the water from the third floor of the community center. And you can see the water from the rooftop too.

Will you be able to continue seeing the water from... Are you asking me about future development? Yeah, is it going to get in the way?

Um, let's see if you, I don't know.

I'm sorry. I haven't, I don't know. Like I'm trying to envision. I don't know.

Okay. So if, if you're, if you're standing on the rooftop of the community center and you are facing south, um, your, your view south is single is RM 40 basically. And the height limit at RM 40 is four stories. So no, your view will not be obstructed.

Right.

You are looking east toward the beach. You absolutely can see the water. Unless something happens redevelopment-wise at Treasures by the Bay and Wake. I would be very upset if a redevelopment proposal for those three buildings came about. As of right now, I am not aware of any plans redevelopment that is happening. But there are, you know, I think that there are people who are getting pressured to sell at Treasures on the Bay. It's concerning to me. It's just my personal opinion. That's me, Rachel, not me in my official capacity talking about that. So, yeah. And then when you look west, there's nothing that will block your view because it's all single family homes. So, yeah.

Cool.

Yeah. Awesome.

Thank you for that. Coastal mayor's meeting there.

Oh, 100%. Yeah. Awesome. Any other comments, updates? Christina, as our liaison, I would like to hear about the wrap day experience from your perspective, if that's okay.

Yeah. Sorry, it took me a minute to realize that you said no one else from the city was there with me, but I'm sure next year we can arrange. You know, I saw people from previous or other municipalities that I knew. I actually really, really appreciate the wrap day. I got a ton of notes from it, you know, and it's usually when it's talking about rap, it's usually in a really big forum or during the Biscayne Bay meeting. So it was really nice to be, you know, a little closer to panelists, Sweeney, and they really pressed us on asking a lot of questions. And what I really appreciated was the document that you created, right? You know, with the checklist, you know, how many times we clean our inlets and things like that, because it gave me the opportunity to talk to Tim and ask him questions about, you know, our maintenance procedures for, you know, our infrastructure. So it really helped, you know, deepen my knowledge. my involvement with public works, even though, you know, we're already involved, we're in the same room now. Um, the second day was wonderful as well. I really love, um, uh, Juan Mulieret with Plus Serbia. He was, you know, he's one of my favorite presenters and I love that you had him on. I did have to leave a little bit early. I had to leave about three. And so I missed the rest. So I am looking forward to catching on YouTube what I missed. It wasn't my first time. I think I went maybe two or three years ago when I was at FIU.

That was four years ago.

Was it four years ago?

Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. So, you know, my only constructive criticism, I mean, what an event to put together. Oh, my goodness. And then Jungle Island. So I know it took a lot of work. Only constructive criticism was the, you know, when you have such a large time block, it's always good to be in a facility with EV chargers because, you know, When you have an electric car, time is everything and you're spending a long chunk of time and that's the revenue for whoever the organizer is as well. So having an EV charger would have been wonderful. And of course, more plant-based options for less nutrients in the water bodies. Dave, if there was food, I would have stayed the whole time, but I was starving.

It was vegetarian. It wasn't vegan.

Oh, and I commend you on that. I don't think anybody noticed even. So I'm sure no one would notice if it's completely plant-based. It's all about the caterer. If the caterer cares.

It's really interesting how we have had to, how much work it has to educate. But that's also the opportunity as the customer that we are out shopping, so to speak, and we're having these conversations. And so it is the same exact thing that you're talking about with your procurement policy, which is you're having conversations and letting them know what your buying signals and what your buying values are. And they will adjust and they're not going to get it perfect. We had the lovely kids from the Easterseals come and do a coffee cart, but they brought styrofoam cups. And plastic cups, and you know, that's not going to fly with me. And so, you know, it is constantly an opportunity to leverage the power of the pocketbook.

What I loved about the plastic, I have to just jump in on that. So the plastic, not only was the coffee in styrofoam and plastic, but the hot coffee was in the plastic. I'm like, OK, if I want to get microplastics into my system, this is the way to do it. I even told the kids and I went over and I actually got from the regular percolated coffee. I brought the cup over. I said, can you make me the same great coffee you're making, but put it in this cup? So I think they got the point, but I was friendly about it.

yeah no i appreciate that brenda we ultimately ended up when i started seeing them floating around like like i like i i lost my mind on the styrofoam but i i i also had to be very conscious that you know these kids are you know they're not used to you know they're just there to make some coffee right and they are they they they have some sort of of uh you know mental challenges and so What are you going to do? I got rid of the styrofoam, but then Lauren went and got all of the cups over there. We use it as an educational opportunity to lead, and that's what you're doing with the sustainable procurement policies. I'm glad you found value out of it. I'm glad you liked the report card. The idea was for you to go have conversations with Public Works on that worksheet, and Because nobody, the whole thing about the reasonable insurance plan and with everything that we're doing, honestly, is that people have to want to do it. We can't make everybody do everything we want them to do. And so we have to bring them along with us and, you know, have these conversations and, and, and, and leverage the opportunities. You know, it's not always going to be perfect, but you move the ball. Right. And, um, We can't make public works clean and backtrack from external nearly as well as that can be a directive from leadership. It starts conversations. There is a report card that I understand is coming out from Miami Waterkeeper that I'll be on the lookout for it. just out of curiosity to see how they decided to score North Bay Village and the other municipalities.

Okay.

I'll loop you in on that.

Thank you.

Amazing meeting as always. Thank you, everyone. Any public comments?

This is Janice, Deputy Manager, and I just wanted to say this is my first time joining your meeting, and I truly appreciate all the love you guys have for the village and all the care and all the hard work this committee puts in. And thank you, Mayor, as always, for leading the charge.

Thanks, Janice. Guys, Janice is a star. I'm looking forward to getting to meet her and spend more time with her. Thank you, guys.

You're welcome, Janice. Janiece, you're assisting Frank?

Yes.

Oh, great. That's wonderful. Congratulations.

Thank you. And I'll be on the cruise with you guys on Friday. So I'll see you all there.

All right. Janice is not new to the village. Let's just be clear. Janice has been our deputy manager for like almost two years now. Oh, really? Yes. And she also was employed by North Bay Village like a little bit, not back in the day. In a prior life. Yeah. Back in the day, a little bit back in the day.

So glad to be back. And, you know, this was my first time. And so I'm just impressed with everything you guys are doing. It's great. I love it.

Yay.

Thank you, Shanice. Awesome.

Motion to adjourn?

Yeah.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Thank you, everybody. I'll see everybody on Friday.

Thank you, guys. It was an honor to be here. Looking forward to Friday.