Sustainability and Resiliency Task Force - Regular Meeting

Good evening.

Hello.

Good evening.

Is Madam Chair with us? Yes.

Can you hear me? I can. Yes. Hi.

How are you? Good. And yourself? I'm good. I'm here. If you don't mind, if you gave me the floor for two minutes after a roll call for just some housekeeping items that are pending for the board, if it's all right.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Let me get started. Call the meeting order at 1230. I mean, not 1230. I'm in a different time zone at 630 p.m. Roll call. Neil Krasner.

Neil Krasner, Treasurer of Highland.

Vice Chair Dave Dobler.

Present. Hello, everybody.

Hi, Oliver.

Good afternoon here. Oliver's here.

Hello. Is Brenda present? I am.

I'm here.

Hi, Brenda. And Madam Mayor. Just wanted to say hi. She here? All righty.

Isabel? All set, thank you so much. Just a couple of quick notes on your agenda. Item number one, an opening item, it contains 1C, which is a selection of the board secretary. But I just wanted to elaborate that the secretary position has changed a little bit since we have that AI component that's assisting. So whoever is chosen or whoever would like to continue the role, you would only have to make sure that the AI notes are correct and that the motions are captured and that there's accuracy. And of course, transfer it to the template. But the heavy lifting is usually done pretty well by the AI software. But we can't just use that because it doesn't come across clearly in some areas. So that's number one. Your June meeting is scheduled for the 24th. It conflicts with a budget hearing. So I just wanted to bring that to your attention so you can discuss if you would like to meet again in July or toss some June dates around to see if you can change it. Please, I sent the source of income forms to everyone earlier last week. Just get those, you can send those to me electronically at your convenience. And the most important thing is the oath of offices. You see, technically, You can't make motions or vote without the paper signed and received. So if you haven't sent that to me, please do so as soon as you can, just so we can be on the up and up and have our dots, I's dotted and T's crossed. And that's it for me. I mean, if you don't have any questions or concerns, the floor is yours.

Thank you so much, Isabel.

Madam Chair, can I interrupt for just one second?

Absolutely.

Okay, so folks, I really would implore you to reach out to Isabel if there is a question in your mind as to whether or not you submitted your oath of office. We want everyone to be able to... perform their duties of the task force members so please please please follow up with isabel and send those um and the other thing is about the scheduling conflict between the budget hearing and the june task force meeting i would very much appreciate it if if isabel if you would work with the chair and the vice chair and the board members to identify an alternative date for June, so that we could keep our June meeting, we're going to have some some things to discuss. And so I don't want to push to July, I really would like to do a June meeting. So let's just go ahead and start trying to reschedule that.

We'll do I'll get to work on it immediately, throw some dates out and compare availability.

Thank you to suggest the dates after the budget hearing. I think that would work best for the task force and That's all on my end. Anybody else has any other questions? Thank you again.

So right now after the 24th, Alicia, is that what you're saying? Recommending?

Yes.

Okay. I'll keep that in mind.

Thank you.

Oh, a quick question for you, Madam Chair. Do you have another email that you prefer or is your email Miami RE back up or where would you like to be contacted? I'm getting a little bit of like technical glitches from one of your emails and I wanted to just make sure we communicate on the one you prefer.

Yeah, I have a better one and I'll email over to you. Thank you.

All right. Thank you all. Have a great meeting.

Thank you so much, Isabel.

Have a good night. Thank you.

Madam Chair, I think you mentioned that the date after the budget meeting is the budget meeting on the 24th?

That's what I understood. That is correct. Yes.

Okay, so are you suggesting that we do like the 25th or?

Yeah, the 25th, 26th, 27th. I would like to do it that same week. So I don't know if any of the task members would like to just say when they're available, if they could do any days after that, that would be good. And I'm sure to make it much easier for Isabel.

Does this have a poll feature within Zoom?

Um, I can do that for you in the morning. If you, if you'd like, I can, I could take care of that administrative stuff and compare dates and send something back to you all for like a, like a doodle poll or something like that about availability. Yeah.

That'd be great because I'm on vacation July. So if, if you want me involved, the 25th is the best day.

Okay. Brenda, are you available the 25th? Neil? No. I am.

I am.

Okay.

We're doing the 25th. Great. That's great. So I'll lock it in tomorrow and I'll send confirmation.

Thank you. Love it. Thanks. Well, Rachel, does that work for you too? And it might be busy for you. I know after a budget, I'm sure it's a long one. If not, all right, we're going with the 25th.

If anything, we have a little bit of time to reconfigure if anything should arise. Okay.

And then June 25th is good for me. Thanks.

Okay. Selection of board secretary. Who wants to offer if anybody wants to offer? or services?

Well, I may regret this, but I don't mind wrestling with AI, I guess, and see basically if I can take the notes and try it out.

Thank you so much, Oliver. Do we have to make a motion for that? For Oliver? All in favor?

I make motion. All in favor?

Aye. Aye. And I second the motion.

Second.

All of us?

Yeah, I guess I have to vote in favor of this. We volunteered.

You raised your hand. That's no takesy-backsies.

Yeah, I was like, you guys vote. Hurry up, vote before you change your mind. All right, all right.

Thank you, Oliver.

Thank you so much, Oliver. I really do appreciate it. I couldn't be more excited to have a very productive member of the task force. All right. Do we have any old business approval of meeting minutes from last meeting? Any changes or comments?

I see no changes.

Okay. Motion to approve?

Motion. Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Hi. Old business update on status of green building code revisions project. Oliver?

Sure. The mayor and I met prior to the last meeting, actually, and went over proposals, a red line version that we have not yet shared with you. If it's okay with her, probably after this meeting, I would propose that I submit unless she has additional changes that she wants to look at. And it's just a draft version right now. And the idea... was just to change the code a lot of the things in there but modify it so that it's basically a these are requirements and at a very base level and and to um to take away the carrot just make it these are you know the base level requirements for green building not going too far to you know beyond what other municipalities require But I kind of, I don't, I think the mayor's been busy probably with all the, you know, I've kind of looked at some of the issues they're dealing with with the developers right now. And I don't know that this needs to be another issue to put in front of what's being, you know, quite challenging issues with some of the developers that are trying to get breaking ground. and just in the context overall of what's going on with the process. I still think this is what I would propose as a required green items that I can, again, I can, rather than go through it in detail and spend a lot of time, I think it's just best if the mayor is okay once she, if she has some additional comments, because I know she wanted to go through and to submit the red line to the committee for you guys to review and then comment on, we could go through either again in the July meeting or even later. It's a long-term, you know, I'm not looking to get this, this doesn't need to get done right away, but I think it's something our city, it's good for us to focus on as a sustainability sustainability and resiliency committee. So, Mayor, do you have any other things you wanted to mention before we share this red line with the group?

Oliver, thank you. I think, you know, you hit the nail on the head. I've been really distracted with some of these heavier development approval lifts that we have before us. And I think our planning staff is also devoting a lot of time and energy to that as well. So why don't we circulate the red lines that you worked on that you and I discussed? Why don't we circulate that to everyone? Yeah. And I would really encourage each of you to take a look at the green code as we're proposing to redline it. And put together some recommendations for how we might also add additional requirements or maybe re-incentivize things a different way. Paying particular attention to stormwater. We still, in my mind, are not doing enough to incentivize or require every single property owner in North Bay Village to, quote unquote, do their part. Whether it's doing more to incentivize green roofs or gray water systems or even the most simple rain barrel projects. we could be doing more. So I think following this meeting, Oliver, if you would just make sure that Isabel has the latest and greatest version, she can get that to the rest of the task force. We can have a really healthy discussion in June. And Isabel, let's also coordinate to make sure that Sylvia has some bandwidth to take a look at this and can participate in the June discussion. And if not, then we can talk about that. If we need to push it to July, we'll push it to July. But I would like our planner to participate in the conversation before this board. So we'll either discuss it as a group in June or in July. But I do want to keep moving it forward, Oliver. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. That's all I have for that item then.

I like that process, so. Okay, moving on. We have a presentation by Oil control?

Was Isabel still here? I don't know that Isabel was still on the line, but I see that Leo and Janice and Gabby are all on the line. There's plenty of room for staff follow-up here. So Gabby, if you wouldn't mind just helping to facilitate this flow of the green code, red lines from Oliver to the staff to the rest of the task force, that would be really great.

I'm really looking forward to it. And Oliver, for gray water treatment, I'll send you over some information on what I know for that. OK, please, Oliver. Give you some language. Awesome. All righty. So I'm looking forward to the next presentation by Oil Control. Do we have both representatives here?

Yes, we are.

Hi. How are you guys? Good, good. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Marianela Watanabe. I am the business partner of Ms. Fanny Marino, president and owner of Oil Control Florida. We are immensely grateful for this opportunity to present to you a very innovative and unique proposition to clean the planet, believe it or not. And we thank you so very much for this opportunity to each and one of each and one of you. And please feel free to ask us any questions that you may have or send us an email with any questions as well. We are here to work with you, help you clean the planet, and we can do it together. We cannot do it alone, and we can do it together. And oil control is a fiber that is organic, biodegradable, and immediate absorbent of any hydrocarbon spills that, of course, in any surface and is also a fire retardant as well. And it's a 100% USDA certified and is also a BioPreferred product as well. Let me introduce to you Ms. Fanny Marino, please.

Oh, yes. Hi, everybody. How are you? For me, it's really an honor to be with you guys and try to explain to you about what is oil control. I can say that I feel like a passion to be in this field because we already know that the problem, that the contaminations, is in the problem normally, especially very close to the bay. My name is Fanny Marino and I am already three years working in the field with the oil control. More than sell the products, we have three years try to educate the people how our fiber is acting and how important is for the habitat that we are very close to contaminate for everywhere. Before I continue, I will ask you please I'm sorry for my English. It's not so good, but I will try to do my best that you understand, especially when we're talking about something different than the day-to-day conversations. Today is a special moment that we can, we want really to show you how is our fiber, how we can do for the planet. And more than the planet, we can start with any city in Florida, especially if we are right now with North Bay Village. I would like to say thank you to Ms. Doris that in one moment she take care as she has said as to make the demonstration and she just give us the opportunity or the way to continue show our products to people like really need to solve the situation about the habitat. Here we are, like Marianela say, our product is a fiber, which is getting from the trash. I can say trash, just like that, that people doesn't need it, that they throw away. And we collect all those, it sounds like a weird to say trash, but in reality is like that. We select a special trash in the world, not only around the factory, but we have to collect from any place in the world. And then after we just process the fiber, we continue to clean. I would say any spill can be in the world, we are ready to help because our fiber absorb 100% anything that is coming in the related to the hydrocarbon. and also vegetables and organic oils and some chemicals, some chemicals. And in that process, we can say that we are a bridge in between how we can get the trash, I can say, or the fiber from the world. And we process that and we use that in each kilogram of our fiber absorb seven liters of, any spill that can be in, you know, any spill. So besides that, and then after that, all that we absorb 100%, but we recuperate 70% of whatever we absorb. So it's a really, I can say, rotator product. After that, we can finish with the fiber, Dory, and we can use like a combustible for uses in a big industry, in an oven industry, oven that can they process for the, you know, the bricks or concrete, stuff like that they can use. So we finalized in around three to 4% of ashes. So that means that we collect trash we process the product, we clean the planet, and after that, we just have a little bit of the ashes. So our product is really beautiful. It's amazing what we're doing with our product. Not only we absorb hydrocarbons, we also, any oil paints, we also, it's organic 100%, is to have so many pictures that you can use for anything, in the kitchen, in the pool, in the shop, in the repair shop, industrial shop, in the water, in the river, in the ocean. No matter where, we are there to help. And the most important thing right now is that, you know, to find people, to find the organization that really wants to clean, to clean. I cannot say the planet because you have to be so big, but that you can plan it. You can try to clean your own habitat around your city. You know, it's so many things that we can do. And it's amazing. It's not what I can tell you how is the fiber work. It's a few. I really, I can say as you or any that are interested in our fiber to see how we can present, how we can act and make a demonstration what the fiber act. So it's for us really a very pleasure to be in here. More than pleasure is to give us the opportunity to help you guys to clean the city and especially the planet.

Can I ask a quick question? Yes. Well, we all just received your hard copies for us to pick up. We received your package a little before our meeting. So I don't think we really, I kind of browsed through it really quick, but I have to go through it in detail like the rest of us. I guess my question is, I appreciate this presentation. Now, your company or product, Is this something to be presented to Miami-Dade, to the Miami-Dade Fire Department, to the U.S. Coast Guard and other entities, FWC? Or is there also something where us as a village, we may partake in a, say, a small order where we could respond quickly to something very local that a resident says, oh, I see oil behind our unit in the marina or whatever. But that's what I'm trying to understand is what is the focus of this presentation? Who is it mainly for?

Mr. Neal, thank you for your question. To answer the first question regarding if we have percentages to officials such as fire department, asthma, things like that, yes, we have. They're trying our product and they're purchasing our product as well. They are amazed of what they're seeing with oil control and what we can do for the environment and for them also. This fiber is a non-toxic, it's harmless. It's also inert, it's natural, biodegradable and it can be handled very easily by anybody as well. And yes, we would like you to have a presentation for you and your team and we can present it and you can also have small orders if you wish. We suggested to perhaps show you the forms that the fiber comes into. The fiber comes into bags, barriers, booms, also pillows, water pillows, land pillows as well. we can set up perhaps a container right there in Paul Vogel Park so it can be immediately accessible for any type of immediate emergency or spills, of course, in the bay.

So our local government here would need to facilitate to see what we have available in budget, say, for Marine Patrol or how it would work with the local fire department.

Neil, I want to jump on that. The idea that I had, because I had the pleasure of already meeting with oil control, and do we have any remediation remedies for oil spills or any contamination that is going to be, or that could be produced by developers? And, you know, do we have any specifications on how they need to clean it up, what they need to use, like what certifications each product that they use has. So I think for North Bay Village, just for us specifically, I think that's a huge issue that we're going to be dealing with shortly. So whether it's even going through our storm drains or directly into the water. So I just wanted to bring that up because I feel like Oliver's also working on green code and if it's even allowed to require that from developers in the event that there is remediation needed or prevention, this could also be used for prevention from what I understand, correct?

That is correct.

Yeah. Anybody, any industry can use it.

And it will only absorb hydrocarbon. Will not absorb water. So there's no need for detergents or chemicals to clean or anything like that. And it's biodegradable, of course. It will absorb any type of hydrocarbon spills. 100%.

Do we have any village staff available to kind of give us insight if we have anything in code for prevention or remediation for these types of spills or contamination?

Good afternoon. This is Roger. I'm the new CIP manager. Hi. The village itself, I don't know who has any specific code, but Developers, contractors, anyone working in construction, they are required in their permits. They are required to have environmental portions of their permits, their construction permits. And that requires them to, has requirements for cleanup. if there are any spills or anything like that. I do come from the industrial side, so I do know that any operators, contractors, things like that, they are required to have spill prevention plans, as well as cleanup and remediation plans in case of a spill. They're required to have all sorts of documentation recording what, if and when certain spills, the size of the spills, the cleanup that was required, and they're also required to have certain, a lot of, I should say, basically the spill prevention plan covers spills from five to hundreds, if not thousands of gallons, should it ever occur. That stuff is usually covered on your confidence data.

Thank you so much. So that would be something, I mean, what I'm going off on is maybe even higher for green code to use something like this or even incorporate it into the code.

Madam Chair, if I may. Absolutely. I'm thinking like, and I don't want to... I'm not really so sure that building up a new building, a developer is going to need this as much as the boating community, like Marina, or somebody who's dealing with accidents, like a car accident. I understand the concept of this technology. In fact, during the BP oil spill, I was collecting hair in order to send out to a company who is making these long tubes to absorb the oil. It's called haircuts for oil spills. And so conceptually it's great, it seems fine. I'm trying to figure out the use case where we would, where it would be appropriate for us to have any of this and short, you know, a couple of, you know, maybe a couple of units in the Marine patrol boat or, you know, maybe in, you know, well, fire department is county, you know, maybe police department if they're on the scene of an accident, but it's not really their job to contain these things. I'm not so sure that we are exactly the right candidate, but like the the Clean Boaters program within within the state of Florida, that program would be like an ideal market or Miami-Dade County Parks with all of their marinas and having these available for boats that spill or for know like uh sito and boat.us who are responding to to accidents i don't see how we're responding we're going to have a significant quantity um of spills that we're going to be dealing with in hydrocarbons at this point man chair if i may absolutely yes

Thank you. Thank you all, first of all, for being so amazing at receiving this type of presentations, because I remember the last time I was one of your presentations in person was at the Moda building. And it was very impressive. And I learned a lot. And I think that's for me, bringing oil control forward. to you guys is more of spreading their awareness and services because a lot of the members in our committee or in their boards are so well connected because they're already entrenched in the community of environmental services and awareness, right? So they're definitely working with Miami-Dade County. Ideally, Miami-Dade County, the state office, will really understand quite an emergency that we're in with the state of the bay. And they will then say, ideally, we're going to make this requirement around our coast, kind of like a rescue service, imagining that we already had a spill of oil there. that is really the current conditions for the Bay, right? So one of the good things about this company that I was very impressed about was that they remove phosphorus and help with the nitrogen levels in water, which we all know was one of the big reasons why we have the fish kill, the overheating nitrogen levels going up and, you know, And, you know, eventually I'm hoping that as they connect through the county, they're able to provide us becoming maybe a pilot program around our islands. You know, we help our own nearby communities. I think I would like for you guys to actually see it in person, how it works. It's so impressive because it's more than anything. It's spreading awareness. They also have a system that attaches to the, you know, those baskets that the city and then if we pay for them or there was a grant with them. that they were collecting big garbage and not going through the bay. It's there on the drainage system that goes into the bay. So they also have a system that it's similar to that. It actually includes some of that material they're talking about to remove toxins coming out of buildings, for example. So I think a lot of this is going to have to be that a private facility, sector type of situation. But as Aisha mentioned too, you know, wondering if people are going to have an issue, it's good for us to know that there's a company that they can call and make an emergency call. you know, strategy plan with them. Maybe there's something that we can connect with as far as the city. But again, I think the main purpose, and you're absolutely right, Dave, it's really hard to say, let's all pay for to wrap our own island with it, which will be a dream, right? To wrap the whole system around the islands and fix all of this at once. I'm hoping that the state takes some of this responsibility. But I think it's important that we're all just aware of the type of technology that we have available now, which is very impressive. And also that they've been proven in their service and their product has been also approved by the United States. And it's one of the companies that is recommended through the federal state level. So of course, systems that work because of the organic and the results of the product itself. So anyway, I just wanted to add that and I thank you all for bringing presentations like this to the group.

Thank you so much, Commissioner. Who else had their hand raised?

Yeah, I had a question just about the product itself. So especially the floating ones in the water. So let's say I, whatever, I think there's, sometimes I see on the bay, right outside my house, sometimes the sheen of somebody spilled, they're obviously, they're probably their fuel, their diesel or whatever for their boat. And it's kind of stinking up. but let's say i i'm just curious how it works if i had one of these floating things out in front of my dock or somewhere out in the water does it if the water is clean it doesn't get heavier or full of the hydrocarbons because there's nothing there but let's say i put it out and i was just curious and like within a day it filled up with hydrocarbons Do you have, is there any like process that you've looked at where you can say, oh, this area that you put this in, it must be loaded with stuff because within two days it's saturated. Is that how kind of you can, it's not really a testing device, but are there other, it's a cleaning device, but are there, is there information you can get from the rate at which it gets filled up with hydrocarbons and how? Yeah.

Your question is very, very important because that's the special thing that we normally do is encapsulate all the hydrocarbons that can be spilled in the water. Anytime that you are around any boat, any boat, little, big, or whatever, they always have around them a very, very particular of oil, right? That is something that we can maybe, you know, we can maybe working together because we have a barrier that is as soon as you throw our barrier through the water, that immediately we encapsulate in seconds. I cannot say we have to pass days and days and days. No, just in a couple of minutes that we absorb all the oil can be around. I had the opportunity to be around the bay a couple of, two months ago, and I saw immediately, immediately, I went to walking around and I saw in the corner of the complex with buildings and all of that, a little, and I said, as soon as I saw that one, I said, that have oil. Because you can see immediately if, and I promise, And I promise to come back and put one barrier and show how is that clean immediately. You don't have to spend too much money in truck and anything. And you don't have to spend too much money in the product because the product by itself absorb immediately. I want to mention something. And it's in any place. You can put the barrier. You can put the pillows. You can use anything. We also have a special pill for the pulse, like a look, work like a filter for the grease of the body. In the restaurant, this is amazing how the restaurant spill the oil in, also they have a special trample to get the oil and also is still spilling. But I want to answer something about related to the phosphorous and nitrogen. That is, we know exactly what's happened around the Bay, around the Bay of Miami, here in Miami-Dade County. And we personally did a very big analysis and we get very positive analysis. What happened is that we still continues to prove that, not to prove, to investigate 100% if we can absorb it. We can absorb, but the duration, the time that can be in the water, our barriers, it's a lot of things that is working right now in the laboratory to see how we can say, listen, we know that we absorb, but it's very expensive for the base to have 20 hours, 12 hours, or 24 hours, our barrier. You cannot have more than that until we get the proof that we can keep it at least one month. No one month, but that never happened one month because the fiber is organic.

Yeah, Philip.

Yes, sure. But we can, as soon as we, you know, have the result completely that we can absorb 100% the phosphorus and nitrogen and also... for how long we can put the barriers and so many things that is around there. But we are working in there now. I have a question, very big question, because it's something that Marianela and I, all my people from the factory, if you have a big problem in the bay, why you don't spend with our barriers? money to put it into the investigate how fast or how good we can do it with the barrier. We already know that we'd absorb, for sure. We absorb one time, double time, and three times. But we have the poor one that is still working in there. But if you really have the problems, It's good if you, you know, be together and invest in investigation. I can give the product with no cost. And maybe we can do something special for the body.

Yeah. And especially if you can turn them pink, as per my last idea that I always bring up, and then surround some of the islands and get funding from the arts community. I only have one idea for this committee, by the way. It's just to recreate Christo around these different islands. Yeah.

We need, you know, you need help for the baby. We need help with our product because we know that the product is good. A hundred percent. I can, you know, I can do whatever you want to demonstrate how the product is good. Really, really, really.

Can we show any of the videos that we brought?

Yeah. If nobody minds, I understand the general principle. I'm not sure that we're the ideal customer for it. I'm going to push back on your ability to remove nitrogen and phosphorus. Absorbing oil, I completely understand how that completely works. I'm not going to question you on that. It seems like we might have a couple of units, but we're probably not the right customer for that. I think that when you start talking about nitrogen and phosphorus, I'm not convinced that you would need to show me proof. And it is not the you know, knowing what I know about nitrogen and phosphorus. You know, live plants will remove nitrogen, phosphorus, but spent agriculture material is not going to. So if you want to come back and show us that it removes nitrogen, phosphorus, but I'm not I'm not suggesting that it is that it is going to. I think that's going a little too far in your in your marketing claims. If you can prove it, then I would happily champion you to other people who are working on removal of nitrogen and phosphorus. You can just sell your product all day long to the South Florida Water Management District. um because uh but because you haven't demonstrated that you can actually address those chemicals of concern um unless somebody has an idea on how north bay village might move forward you know like a use with a use case with this um i'm gonna just archive the the knowledge and if I have an opportunity to present the oil spill contamination, because that's dealing with boats and we have a lot of problems with that, but that's I don't know that we're the right customer to purchase.

Let me respond to what you concerned. We already did the analysis in the lab. We know and we have the papers that we absorb nitrogen and phosphorus. No, what I can say is no question about that. What is the problem that we cannot say immediately, listen, we have the solution. Because we still have one step that we couldn't conclude with the laboratory. We have right now in Spain, they are working with that. We already finished in here, but we have one special step that is not complete. And it's for how long we can leave the barrier in the water in order for them to absorb the phosphoronitrogen. We can leave it in there maybe 12 hours, 24 hours, and then we absorb it. After 24 hours is when we are working in that process, right? Because it's organic and the barrier cannot be too much time in the water with those particular contamination that you have. So we are working in there. I am not here to tell you we absorb water, nitrogen and phosphorus. Don't worry about it. We can do it. No, no, no, no, no. This is a really very serious situation. And we already went there. We went to the bay. We take the water. We do everything that we're supposed to do. But we have one step. And also, I can prove to you or I can send it to anybody who need it, the result from the lab. You can have it and see until the one, two, and three step. We have the fourth one. It's a standby because they have to do so many things in order for them to tell us for how long we can leave the barrier in the water. This is the big problem, but we have solved it. But no, I cannot say, hey, give me the job because I'm going to clean the bay. No, no, no, no, no. Until we don't have the certification 100% that we can do it.

I'm very much looking forward to when you can demonstrate that you can remove that because that I think is a game changer. Does anybody have any motions or anything they would like to take on this, actions they would like to take on this item?

Well, does anybody else have any other questions? Listen, this is a good company. They're doing the right thing. They're trying to go in a direction of sustainability, and I want to thank Oil Control for this. This is not an easy feat. If you guys could send us over the certifications that you have, that would be great. And just any other further information. And I think a demonstration would be good. I think there could be a way that we could advocate for more sustainable oil control features. I don't know what is out there now. So, you know, if this is a better alternative, I still want to look into it and, you know, have the village potentially just give suggestions of more sustainable oil control features. So that's my stake. And if anybody else has any questions or comments or emotions.

Thank you for your presentation. Yes, thank you. Thank you. We will go over your product in more detail and go from there. And I think not to beat it, To death, David elaborated basically what I started out with. I think it would be a good idea, whatever the product does, if it's just for oil, it's mostly in our marina. It might be who of us to have, whether it's several bags or whatever, with the Marine Patrol, the Fire Department, and the Police Department. But we're obviously not your primary customer.

Yes. Is there any particular person of the of the team of the committee that I could reach out to set up a meeting and a demonstration on-site demonstration?

Commissioner Acosta or I would be a good contact to reach out to. I believe I have your contact information, so I will reach out to you.

Commissioner Acosta, do you want to... Actually, they did come to City Hall and they did a full presentation there. That's one of the reasons why I was hoping that you will all see this yourselves with your own eyes. So, so that you can understand a little bit about how it works. So it's really, you know, I think it's more of a committee thing. If you guys want to have that in-person presentation, I think that you already have the information right now individually. So review that. And if you feel like you want to have an in-person presentation, or even if it's just like, you know, individual, you say, hey, you know, like they say, I want to be curious about it. You know, you send information and they can set that up. At the moment, they're working with the county. They're trying to get to the higher levels. But like you said, it's really about advocacy. And the more they spread awareness as people hear it, it may, you know, when we hear stuff from our state level or local levels or individual meetings that we have and we hear people talk about, they're looking for solutions, they're looking for solutions. This is why we're spreading this. So that if you hear something like that, you can also take advantage. Hey, I met this company. This could be an option, you know.

There is, if I may quickly say that we also have a few cities already, Doral, Hallander Beach, also we're in the Pembroke Pines as well. But we are setting up cities already and they're working with us as well as the fire department, hazmats, and things like that. We brought some videos and they're only like Two minutes, one minute.

I'm going to put up an objection to that only because we have more to get to in our agenda. My suggestion, because I used to run sales groups and we used to sell the cities, is you've got to find your target audience. And that's going to be the folks in staff who deal with Marine Patrol. I love learning about new technologies and capabilities. But you have to sell on the use case. And I think that... You know, if staff were to come and say, hey, we're really looking for, you know, we've got a problem with oil spills. We don't have a technology for it. Right. But I don't I'm still not entirely sure where us doing taking any action or seeing would help you advance your sales. And so if you want to set up a, you know, a demonstration, then, you know, you know, then, you know, I'll happily look. But I'm not sure of any action I would take at this moment.

No, we're only an advisory board. Two members that are here tonight. Commissioner Acosta and Mayor Streitfeld. You would be the two to advance us forward if it has merit. We appreciate your presentation, but we only advise our commission. We have no voting power or say so. But again, I thank you for your presentation.

And that's absolutely right, Neil. I think that's definitely, if any step to be taken, that would be a great step. It's you as a board making only that a recommendation for the commission to even consider what are we doing in case of an oil spill? How are we prepared to deal with a Marine Patrol now that we have a dock area with Marine Patrol boat access there? So I think that that would be a great first step. Thank you, guys.

Thank you so very much.

Thank you, guys. Thank you so much. And I will like to offer you guys anything you need. If you are in emergency, just call me and I will be there and you will see exactly what is the product.

Awesome. Thank you very much.

No, thank you, you guys, for giving us the opportunity. And I expect you to have a beautiful meeting today.

Thank you very much. Okay. Next on our agenda, Madam Chair.

presentation on transitioning into private way services? I believe that is yours, Dave.

No, this is direction from the last meeting and the meeting before that. We've been having a long conversation about recycling and the village's overall approach to our recycling contracts. It started with a big conversation about our Waste Connections contract, which brought necessarily the entire solid waste management program into the conversation. And so staff has been working for quite a while to begin framing the public conversation around privatizing our solid waste management here in North Bay Village. This is a public meeting, so technically and quite obviously, this is the first public conversation that we're having about privatizing solid waste. Gabby has put together this kind of step-by-step presentation to walk you all through the genesis of this discussion. And we want to hear from you. We want to get some feedback because after you guys provide initial feedback, we're going to... meet internally and assess what we need to do to sort of approach this in a different way or somehow differently. But the village is basically gearing up for a very hard conversation around privatizing solid waste. And so you guys are basically getting the benefit of seeing what we're thinking at this point before anyone else is getting to experience that. And I just want to say, you know, we don't often have vendors. I mean, I guess that's not true. I mean, we do often have vendors present to the Sustainability and Resilience Task Force about things. their technology. And I don't think that oil control was any different than having, you know, reef arches or kind designs or anybody else here. We all have to be thoughtful about whether or not we recommend that the commission takes some action and how can we incorporate this into certain things. I think this was a productive discussion. I'm glad they were here. None of you should feel obligated to reach out to them to schedule an in-person meeting. You know, demonstration or anything like that. Certainly, Commissioner Acosta is free to, you know, request a proposal and bring that to the village manager and the rest of the village commission during budget season in terms of whether or not it makes sense for us to have their proposal. products on our marine patrol vessel with which i probably think it is in our best interest to have those same thing with code enforcement um but i just don't want anyone to feel like they are obligated to meet with vendors because you're not um and i see leo's here i don't know if gabby's here also but leo uh gabby are going to be running this private um solid waste management presentation

Absolutely, Mayor. Thank you for the introduction. Can I, Madam Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, can I move forward with the presentation? Yes, please do. Awesome. All right, guys. Well, the Mayor gave you a pretty good introduction there as to what we're thinking. And I just want to reiterate, and I know the Mayor will agree, that These kinds of decisions are made with the taxpayer in mind. There are, as you'll see in the presentation, a lot of expenses that come with running our own program. And given, I think I should probably just get into it, but given some of the changes in our village landscape, we think it makes more sense for us to go in this direction right now. So I'll get right into it. And thank you, Gabby, for helping me put this together. So as most of you already know, we have our existing services for residents for solid waste collection. We have two garbage trucks at the moment, and we employ a small staff that handles those services across the village. One of the main reasons which I was alluding to is that we are moving in this direction is our two trucks, they are a little bit older and they have some maintenance costs that come up, some recurring expenses. And I just know from personal experience, we're always going to the commission to ask for more funds to address those issues. So as you also may know, the public works facility on Galleon Street was demolished. And that is to make way for our new community center project that's coming. The trucks are still stored there. There's still space there for those trucks. But given our immediate construction timeline for that property, we're going to have to find a new home for them or get rid of them altogether. So in our looking around for space around North Bay Village, We've realized that a lot of the properties are not zoned for this kind of storage space. That presents a very serious issue for us to look for a property outside of the village to house these vehicles. So that's been an ongoing issue for us. And some main reasons here why we wanna switch to privatize it. The site of our community center will soon be developed There are no, like I mentioned, locations in the area for this kind of storage, given county zoning restrictions. The trucks are located in a residential area, which is not ideal, even though that's been the case for many, many years. We certainly would like to move away from that. And the decision was made by commission to build that community center. It's going to bring a lot of amenities to our residents in that area and village-wide. and high cost to maintain our own service. So these are the high costs that we pulled from October of 2022 till current day. We've spent just over a quarter million on regular maintenance for those two trucks. That's in less than three years. And in total, our expenses are 387 in fiscal year 24. So far, we're at 209. Benefits of a private waste hauler. I'll let you just kind of take a look through, but essentially improved service quality. We will lean on private sector to have more innovative ways of doing things, certainly more modern technology. Freeing up land for that community space that we were just talking about. Job security for our employees. So we can definitely work a deal where our current employees that are solely dedicated to solid waste collection can be hired by the private entity. And we can work on that. Cost savings for our community. We hope to move money around and to bigger priorities like recycling. So these are our two options as we see it. We have identified that Coral Gables has a very similar waste collection contract with waste management. We can use that contract as a template as we typically do with certain vendors, like a piggyback contract. And that does include backyard trash pickup, which is a feature that many of our residents cherish. That's something that makes having our own service so special. And we can definitely incorporate that as Coral Gables does with their private provider. The approach is cost effective, maintaining expenses at a level comparable to current costs and ensuring that the new vendor is able to address any maintenance and repair issues The agreement would also include recycling through the vendor, clear labeling on recycling bins and public education to reduce contamination. And the village will be on its way to setting the bar for local recycling. The other option is to go out to bid for this service and something we're also very familiar with. And this involves, of course, the competitive process, assessing different providers. making sure that we get the best deal possible, ensuring that our contract reflects our very unique needs as North Bay Village, and certainly will include any modern tech out there in the industry and best practices. So our first step is to speak to you all and get your input. Secondly, we will start town halls. We propose three town halls, one in person and two virtually over the course of the summer. And then the commission is hoping to make a decision on this by September at their commission meeting. And that is the end of my very brief presentation.

Thank you so much, Leo.

And I'm happy to pull up any slide you all want to see again if discussion leads in that direction.

Leo, can I ask the first question?

Sure.

Okay. What we just saw right off the top there, it said that, you know, you could piggyback off of Coral Gables, almost as if you're entertaining waste management as a primary. Would the village charter require any contract over X amount of dollars to receive a minimum of at least three competitive bids rather than just saying, I'm not saying going to do, but that you say, well, we're going to get a piggyback. We've got a good number from waste management, so we're going to vote and go with them.

And I'm happy to let other staff jump in who are certainly more qualified than I to speak on the topic. But in my experience, we have piggybacked on similar contracts before.

This is Steve Buckman with Bowie Works. Yes, we are allowed to piggyback off of that contract because that contract was already competitively bid through another government entity.

And that competitive bid for a different community would then, you're saying, apply to our community, even though they have different demographics and geographics?

Yes, demographics and geographics don't matter, just as long as it was publicly bid through a proper public bidding process.

And that's in our village charter?

It is.

Okay. Okay.

I just want to jump in here and make sure that everyone realizes that we're getting your feedback. A decision has not been made to go out to bid or to piggyback. And whether we go out to bid or piggyback is a very big decision that the commission will make in the future. So I appreciate that you guys don't have the Coral Gables contract to comment on, which I think would be useful if you had it. You know, the benefit of piggybacking is we can make the decision sooner and get moving faster. The benefit of having a competitive process is that we have the opportunity to interview and vet everybody and the commission makes a decision.

And to add on to that, Mayor, there's certainly going to be a lot of opportunities for public input. So that's after we send out that Coral Gables contract, especially to this board. We want to hear from you, certainly when you have all the materials in front of you. And there will be plenty of opportunities for that to happen.

Leo, I have a question. Actually, this is probably more a question for Stephen. Have we evaluated the performance of Coral Gables? For example, do we know their contamination rate? Have we spoken with their staff about any reports or challenges of leaky trucks or... you know, violations within City of Coral Gables. Like I'm not opposed in general to the idea of piggybacking on it. I think that's what we actually did with the current waste connections. I remember seeing Surfside's contract and that's where I had a lot of feedback on. So, you know, the idea on an RFP is really to be able to decide who's gonna do the highest quality job. And so have we seen how well it's happening in Coral Gables?

Yes. So we are currently in the process of making those evaluations. We're in the beginning stages of this process. So we reached out to Coral Gables, getting some different information. We've reached out to... reaching out to other communities that use other services, um, such as waste pro or coastal and see what kind of performance they're getting. So that also helps us determine whether or not the, uh, piggybacking is good for us because we may end up finding that everybody gets kind of the same performance from everybody. Or we may find that, you know, hey, this particular company is doing better than the rest. So those are things that we're looking at and that we will continue to look at. We are by no means have decided to piggyback this contract. That's such our starting point right now.

Yeah, I think in general, my concerns, and I've been very vocal about them in general, is that we have a tremendous waste crisis in Miami-Dade County, and no one is doing a good job. Every municipality is having problems. They all have high contamination rates. Nobody's labeling their bins well. Some cities are doing better than others. But my... I believe that I see this as an opportunity to demand better and expect better in the performance in waste reduction and diversion. And so my concern is not how we procure it. It's going to be who are we going to be able to get to step up their game because You know, everybody, you know, there's a handful of vendors and, you know, some are better than others. But at the end of the day, I don't think anybody is doing a stellar job of decreasing contamination rates and increasing recycling rates. And I have a lot of concerns about whether material even shows up at the MRF. So if we're going to fix our county's waste crisis, we have to do better at diversion and reduction. And so that's I think that needs to be the criteria. Even if we don't go out for a formal bid, we have I think we should be developing a matrix. where we are scoring and if the idea is to just you know we can just look at other communities because some have waste connections some have waste management some have coastal and i think we could do our own evaluation and that is going to be more relevant to decide um because if we're going to go with you know xyz vendor um then then great we can pick up piggyback off of somebody's i do have a question though on the contract while we are while we are piggybacking on Coral Gables' contract, does that mean we can make no modifications to the terms of it? Are we required to accept whatever terms were in the Coral Gables contract?

Generally speaking, yes, we're required to accept whatever terms were in that contract. There may be some variations that we can negotiate in the best interest of the city. But the final determination for that would be on our legal department for that. But yes, in general, we would have to follow the scope of the original contract that we're piggybacking.

Okay, because any contract that's going to get by me with my thumbs up is going to be about the performance requirements for their role in decreasing contamination rates. and ensuring transparency on the delivery of where that material actually ends up. That it actually ends up in a recycling facility because it is cheaper to dispose of trash in a landfill than it is to send it to the material sorting facility. And so the The incentive is if there is an organization that is purely focused on the bottom line, the profit motive is going to lure people to just drop it off wherever it is cheapest. And just like what we saw in the initial contract, there was no requirements that are telling people that the Their recycling material is going to go where it belongs. My issue is not on the trash. It's all on the recycling and the diversion.

Well noted.

Is it okay if I speak up next? Oliver, question.

Yeah, go for it, Oliver.

Okay. I've lived in North Bay Village since 1994. And one of the reasons I like North Bay Village, I always liked it here, is the kind of control that we have over our own police department. And I guess we used to have or we currently have, maybe not going forward, over our own public works, trash and everything removal. I understand that. I think recycling is already kind of outsourced to the county and things like that. But, um, you know, the, I, I, I'm very, I have a lot of residents who've lived here a long time. We kind of have sort of a, um, visceral relationship knowing our trash people and what happens and kind of, you know, it's been a long time feedback back and forth about, uh, understanding how trash gets removed. And I feel like regardless of the fact that this is not the budget committee, but I don't know if you guys are going to present to the budget committee, but that would be an interesting thing to really see if there is going to be cost savings. And I understand in the presentation, Leo, you made, you did state, and I believe that you probably have done a very good job of exploring all options. But I'm just gonna ask, because I asked this at the last meeting, I believe, about this, or maybe the prior one, and I don't think it's been clearly answered, at least not in a way that I understand it, is why, if we have these leases for trash trucks, and I understand they can't be kept on our island because of zoning requirements, But why we can't find a space maybe near where the trash goes to release a space where those trucks can stay and be stored there. It's going to be the same distance for a person who drives our trucks to come here, drive the truck down there and drive back and park it here versus getting their car or whatever, the city car. go down to there, drive, get the trash back to the dump. And then, so I don't know if you, I didn't get any feedback that yes, there are no spaces for us to lease a truck, keep our lease trucks parked in a zoned area, not in North Bay Village obviously, but in the county somewhere. And if that has already been looked at, that's fine. I just I didn't get the message that that has actually been looked at or considered as a cost. And maybe you'll tell me that's crazy. That can't happen. But that's my I think I'm not going to be the only one. As you have these conversations, there are going to be residents who have visceral responses to outsourcing our trash just because that's kind of our island. We have our police force. We have our trash. So I'm just giving it to you now in a non-yelling kind of way as best I can, that this is an emotional issue of a little bit, but I can, it's not for me. I can be talked out of it. Just say, oh yeah, you're going to save a ton of money and we're going to do a better job and convince me of that. And I'll be convinced. But right now I don't feel like the presentation answered some of these questions that I would have as a resident concerned about budget, concerned about control. So that's my two cents.

Thank you, Oliver. Before Leo answers you, thank you sincerely for your comment. It's the right question. It's a great question. And your comment and question is going to make us more effective at talking this through with the broader community. And that's really what this is all about. So thank you.

Can I go?

Yes, Leo, you may proceed.

Thank you, Mayor. Oliver, excellent question. And to at least partially answer it, I know Steve will go right behind me. We have extensively looked at properties in the area that make sense for us to store our trucks. We certainly don't want to do anything in Medley, Hialeah, things like that, believe it or not, were considered. They're just too far. And that is where zoning requirements allow for the storage of these kinds of vehicles. Anything closer to that, I've certainly been at least partially involved in that search. It just does not make sense with the zoning requirements at the county for us to store these vehicles anywhere near the village within.

What does just too far mean?

The cost, the expenses, the time that our staff is going to have to be on site at these different locations to drive the trucks all the way over here, do their service and drive all the way back. Those kinds of things were absolutely considered. And Steve, if you want to jump in after me, if you have something else to add.

Yes, so the areas that are close to us are not going to allow us to keep those trucks parked anywhere on the property. So the other areas which are in Medley, Hialeah, where we could do that is far out of the way as far as, number one, in correlation to where North Bay Village is, and number two, where we actually dump the goods. Where do the goods get dumped? I just want to let everybody know I've been here two and a half months, so I am new to the village. I have not explored keeping the trucks at the Miami dump facility. We'll definitely look into that. So I don't know if that was already previously looked into. I would think that it would have been. But I think that Miami would probably have a liability issue with that. But we will look into that to see if that's a possibility. That would be great. Thank you. In the end, I still believe that privatizing would be the most beneficial option. thing for the city, both on performance and efficiency and call savings. And just so that you guys know, we do not plan on letting any of those employees that currently do waste go. We do not plan on transferring them over to the private hauler. We plan on keeping them here in the village, working on different incentives that we are looking to increase upon, like litter control, And just different things to improve the quality in the city. Pressure washing and sidewalks. We're improving the quality of the village and keeping our employees employed.

And what about the bulk waste pickup, especially for landscaping? Is that also going from the city to this third-party outside agency? At this time, no. No? Okay. Bulk is going to remain in-house. So you still will have a truck?

Yes, but it's not those trucks that you see normally picking up your garbage. It's actually our grapple truck that we have.

Gotcha. Okay, thank you for clarifying that.

Dave? Yeah, I very much appreciate that we're looking to make sure that we retain the staff and not try to transition them over to the private sector. I think that what Oliver was bringing up is actually really interesting because if you think about it, These trucks could be parked anywhere between here and where we dump the trash, right? They could be stationed anywhere and it's just as far to drive a truck from here to the dump and then back to here as it is for staff to drive in the morning, not check in in North Bay Village, but to go from where they live directly to pick up the truck and that becomes their base of operations. It would be the same mileage from... The either way, as long as we're somewhere in the middle. So I would consider exploring that. I know that Sunrise, sorry, Surfside also has their own their own their own service. I wonder if there is an opportunity to partner together in in in in such a service. For reprovisioning these staff, we might want to consider them, part of their role is to do contamination auditing. That would be a really good role. They know the routes and maybe they can be the ones because according to the interlocal agreement that we have with Miami-Dade County, who handles the recycling of residential facilities, That is on us to audit those bins and to tag them. That is in our interlocal agreement with Miami-Dade County. They are not saying that they are going to perform the contamination auditing, which means that nothing is actually going to get done. And I think the final thing is that if I were rebuilding this, I would be fine with any waste hauler hauling trash. Where I see the opportunity within Miami-Dade County is improving the recycling. And so my question is, does the you know, I don't know. I don't know why we are today, why we are picking up trash. North Bay Village staff is picking up trash, but we are contracting out the recycling. I would be doing it the other way, because I don't believe that a lot of the vendors are actually taking their materials in the trucks that they pick up, that they're actually taking it to the recycling facility. Much of it, yes, but I'm sure there's operators who are not taking it to the MRF. And so what I would want is to be having North Bay Village trucks and staff handling the recycling. Anybody can handle the trash. Who's going to handle the recycling very effectively? So my question is, do these restrictions on zoning apply to recycling trucks the same way as they apply to solid, to trash trucks? And could we just take over and have North Bay Village staff handle the recycling because they can handle the contamination, they can tag things, we can control it. And we can make sure that it is delivered to the MRF out in Pembroke Pines.

Where are you facilitating that, David? In other words, where would you be setting up this mini recycling garage or facility within the village?

Well, I think inside the village is difficult, right? If the restriction on where we park is the same for trash or recycling trucks, right, and they need to be stored somewhere industrial, okay, that limits our range. But if recycling trucks, because they're not landfill, because they're not solid waste, would... would the requirements be the same? If requirements are not the same, then they would be lighter, right? In which case would open up more options for us to park those vehicles in. But if we only need one truck as opposed to multiple trucks, maybe, Maybe we partner with Surfside.

The other part of it from the slide presentation is the slide that showed the cost for maintaining these two garbage trucks, which seem to break down quite a bit and are really busting the budget. I don't care if an outside company is hired and they build in, you know, a certain X factor for gasoline repairs and all that. It's going to come in much lower than the burden of us sitting on these leaking lease trucks all the time. It takes that whole thing out of the equation.

How do we how do we know that privatization happens? costs less because when you have a private service, you're bundling in profit, calculating profit. So I'm not convinced yet. I haven't seen data that demonstrates to me that moving to a private waste hauler to a for-profit business will lower our costs.

Well, we'll have to wait to get the numbers. We're only doing generalized discussion tonight about specific dollars and cents.

So that's great feedback, Neil, because, you know, Stephen and Leo should really, you know, if we have the Coral Gables contract, we know what things cost. Right. We should be able to calculate whether this is going to be a cost benefit to the village. If all things are equal, that's very different than if one costs more than the other.

I agree. I agree.

So Leo and Steven, I think it might be a good, you know, when you're having public comments, give some folks some data on, you know, what it might look like. including our own current you know waste connections contract that we have and waste management based on coral gables uh or you know however you want to do it but but i think we need to know whether it's going to be you know uh uh cheaper uh better uh you know whatever understood thank you for that feedback okay

Okay, moving forward. Village staff comments, reports, updates. Madam Mayor.

Okay, well, thank you guys. Really good feedback on the solid waste conversation. Steve and Leo, I'm going to ask that you guys run the AI transcript from that portion of tonight's meeting and present some responses to me. before the next task force meeting. I'd like to see the data that was requested by the task force members before we move forward with more public meetings on this. I think they asked some really good questions. So thank you guys for that. My thunder has been stolen, but I'm really thrilled to welcome Roger Hogg, our Capital Improvement Projects Manager. Maybe our Capital Improvement Projects Director? I think it's Manager. But Roger is our guy on the Public Works team working with Steve Buckland, our new Public Works Director. Steve, you've been appropriately introduced to the task force already, have you?

No. Actually, this is my first meeting with him.

This is your first meeting also. Okay. I'm thrilled to welcome both Roger Hogg and Steve Buckland. So Steve comes to us from the city of Pembroke Pines. He is the new head of public works. And Roger is an engineer and comes to us from... a transit agency that you all may have heard of or used once or twice, TriRail. Um, but Roger's got, um, a lot of really great experience. So they're working together, um, to manage North Bay villages, many, many, many public works projects. This is everything from the repaving and milling of treasure Island roads to installing new signage, um, at the East bridge, welcome to North Bay village and our, um, new school zone that's being installed there to civic park and village hall and the stormwater master plan so these are these guys are super busy so i just wanted to give both of them steve um you can go first and then roger if you guys want to you know just say a few words about what you've been up to it's been a lot in the last couple of months

I'm Steve Buckland here. I've just been getting my feet wet with the village and learning about the different processes that you guys go through here and getting familiar with the different projects. we're going to make some changes. So I wanted to say that, you know, Roger came on about a month after me. He's been a great addition. He's very intelligent. He's very experienced and he will definitely make a big difference in our capital improvement products.

Thank you, Steve.

Roger, Roger, go ahead.

Thanks for the, uh, blowing endorsements to you. I appreciate it. Um, Um, good afternoon. Well, good evening again. Um, Roger Hawk, uh, capital improvements manager. Um, I, as the mayor said, I, um, I arrived here by way of trial, not actually taking the train, but working here before I got here. Um, one day maybe we'll have some, um, public transportation expansion up to the village, but until then I'll be driving. But before that, I did spend a lot of time as a civil and environmental engineer. I spent a few years with CMEX in their mine and cement plant as their environmental manager there. And then also with a national engineering firm that, funny enough, specialize in solid waste. So I'm very excited for the opportunity to serve the village in its capacity. Steve has been a wonderful addition to the village and he's been great to work with so far as well as the rest of the village staff and I look forward to meeting you all in person and interacting with you in a fruitful and positive way.

Thank you, Roger. So guys, the other the last commission meeting, but during the April commission meeting, um, the village commission unanimously authorized the village manager to hire a chief resilience officer. Um, we, you know, I, I wish that we had hired a chief resilience officer years ago and it's regrettable that it took our stormwater master plan. screeching to a halt to finally create the political conditions where a chief resilience officer could be hired by North Bay Village. But nevertheless, we are in the process of interviewing candidates. The chief resilience officer is going to be the new liaison to this board when they're hired. But they're also going to be overseeing the stormwater and roads projects. So just a little bit of history. When we approved the stormwater master plan, we also decided to go out to bid to bring on a program manager for the stormwater and roads program. We passed a $60 million bond and we believed in the best interests of the village that we should have a program manager and that that would be an outside consultant, an engineering firm that would manage the various phases of the projects and the various engineering firms designing and permitting the projects We went through a grueling rigorous procedure and hired Black and Veatch, and that did not work out. And we were sort of in a bit of a transition where we had one engineering firm largely managing the project, but it was a very loose relationship between that firm and our staff. And things just didn't progress the way that they should have progressed. So I conveyed that to the Commission. We are now interviewing for the Chief Resilience Officer position. We're very specifically looking for a licensed engineer to be the CRO. This person is going to do more than propose policy changes to the comprehensive plan and review edits to the green code. They're going to be overseeing teams of, of engineers. So I'm really looking forward to ultimately the village hiring someone soon, but we're also going to make sure that we're getting the right person. And that person not only has to be a Florida licensed engineer, but they have to demonstrate competence, curiosity and, and success um in the areas of incorporating uh sustainability and green infrastructure into what are otherwise basic engineering plans so that is in the works as we speak um and we will keep you posted um as soon as we hire somebody so that's really the bulk of all all i have oliver yes um

would it be appropriate once you kind of have someone selected for them to come meet us at our meeting if the timing works out and then we can make a, I mean, just so we can feel like we're part of the decision to make a recommendation, because I'm sure they'll be qualified, but wouldn't that be kind of nice to have the recommendation from the, from the sustainability and resiliency committee that we're all on board with the, the officer or is that not appropriate? I'm just, I don't know. I just thought it would be just ask the question.

It's really not appropriate to be honest, because the village manager makes the hiring decisions and the village commission doesn't really have a charter authorized way other than to threaten Frank and tell him he's going to lose his job. If he hires this person or doesn't hire this person, we don't really have, um, It's not the commission's decision. We made the decision to hire a chief resilience officer. But listen, I mean, if the timing works out where I know Frank wants to hire someone and Roger and Steve are happy with that person and it makes sense to get them in front of you all, I'm happy to do it. But it would be an introduction more so for you to establish a relationship with that person. There wouldn't really be any authority to make a recommendation to the village commission because the commission is not making the ultimate decision.

That makes sense. I appreciate that.

Could I just make one comment? Yeah. I guess I'm just a little surprised that I didn't know beforehand that Black & Veatch was not under contract with us anymore. Maybe at some point we can have a digital conversation, whether it's a coffee or whatever, so I can get some detailing.

Neil, I am happy to have a more detailed conversation with you offline about what happened with Black & Veatch. But the long and short of it is that they were not performing to what their contract required, and we decided to terminate the relationship.

Okay. I mean, I'm interested only because I was part of that whole evaluation process with Carl Gables and North Bay Village. And the additional contractors and engineers, I kind of always like to have some kind of closure and feedback. So we can figure something out after the meeting.

Yeah, I'm happy to give you my unadulterated opinions, not necessarily for public consumption.

Thank you. No, that's fine. Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Welcome to the team, Roger and Steve.

Yes, welcome to the team, Roger and Steve. Welcome, guys.

And how does I've met Tim. I haven't met you yet, Steve. How does Tim fit into all of this now? What's Tim's position? I know, you know, what he was doing before and he was kind of running.

Neil, I can answer. I can. I'm happy to answer the question, but I wanted to allow Steve the opportunity to respond to you.

That's what I'm asking, Steve. Yes.

So, Mayor, I'm sorry. I just this is Janice, the HR director. So Steve just texted me that he had to step away from the meeting quickly. But anyway. I'm happy to help answer that question. So Tim is our public works superintendent. So together with Steve, they are the heart of our public works department. Tim is more of a field person who troubleshoots stuff with our team on the field, while Steve handles more the global component of our public works department. services and our strategies for servicing the community efficiently and any changes that need to be made, such as what he was touching upon earlier today, increasing litter control programs, enhancing our landscaping, things of that nature. But Tim is very much, they're very much a team. I can't stress that enough.

Oh, but technically, Tim reports to Steve.

Yeah, Tim, Tim reports to Steve. Correct. Superintendent and Steve is a public works director.

That's fine. I coordinate through both of them. I look forward to meeting Steve in person also.

Okay.

Great. We're over our time just doing time check. Madam Chair.

Yeah, mama comments. No public comments. Motion to adjourn.

I would make the motion to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you, everybody.

Have a great day.

See you on the 25th. Thank you. Excellent meeting.

Thank you, everyone.