Remarks by Richard Montes de Oca
77 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 4
- Play at 15:47
“I think so. But let me just wrap up on another point, or at least tie that together. So Calidona. His thought was to make sure that we can San Isidro size it, you know, because there's a sister cities is really tied to San Isidro, not just Argentina as a whole. So we want to introduce San Isidro type elements. Now, what I did was send emails and I have been sending emails. I'm getting no responses. Feels like Ecuador 2024 all over again. Quito. And I think actually now when I looked at it the other day, I think it was a mistake because there's two Gonzalo's. So I'm like, Gonzalo, Gonzalo. And…”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 16:43
“So when I saw the one from. from here in Miami at the meeting he was like hey I'm sorry I haven't responded I go I didn't know I wrote to you apparently I did because he's a Gonzalo as well That doesn't get, you know, it doesn't ultimately respond to why the guy in San Isidro has not responded, but he's like, I'm going to be on top of it. I need to figure out this. All we were asking for, and as you saw in the email outlining, is like, let's do an IT exchange, smart city exchange with their smart city people and our, you know, and just have a Zoom and coordinate that to at least have an…”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 17:38
“Everything on our side has happened as far as like, getting them to identify the sister city related topics that we wanted to execute on. We have not received a response from them. Hence, we scheduled this meeting with the consul general to give us the support we needed to figure out if these people were actually going to respond. When I got to the meeting and met with them, they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll do the San Isidro thing, this Gonzalo, the other one, we'll help you, no se cosa, but let's talk and shift through this other thing I guess we're going to talk about now. Okay. But…”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 18:57
“It's like a Coral Gables of... It's like if you ask somebody from Buenos Aires, they've never heard of Coral Gables.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 20:27
“They have a lot of rugby, actually, is the sport that they do.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 20:51
“It was established over 300 years ago, middle high class and support city has about 300,000 residents in countries. A lot bigger than this.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 21:15
“It's because we have... It comes in for the businesses and for the attractions for restaurants. Exactly.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 21:29
“Okay, so that's my country report. I think, although we have it later on in the agenda about this, Tina, I think maybe it makes sense for you to chime in on the specifics Project and program that you were updating to a committee.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 31:17
“That's what Consul General mentioned also.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 32:53
“We have a very active and interested local consul general and staff. We're not getting the reception we would want from the foreign, you know. Yeah, and there's a lot of definitely as it relates to doing something like that here. I mean, I think we could do it next month, but you know what I'm saying? I think we can prioritize it in terms of like the list of specific countries.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 34:02
“Member Soody Tronson, Right for the next was allowed for a written consent by resolution. Member Soody Tronson, Maybe we can circulate a resolution that indicates our support as a committee, even though we're not present in our absence to take action. Member Soody Tronson, Do we have a charter that. Member Soody Tronson, We can I don't think that we can do it.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 34:26
“to see if that I mean because otherwise like every time we don't have enough quorum we can't take any action that's true that is the way you know the only alternative would be like okay then we gotta meet next month because exactly we were doing this every other month to give each other a break but if now all of a sudden we're not all coming together to do quorum then but if we now only have”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 37:28
“There's got to be I mean, that that doesn't even seem like I would move to amend the bylaws if it prohibits us from taking action because of the fact that there are absences in those seats because yeah otherwise we can't take any action it's true like think about us like we can't follow uh ad hoc space i i just i just think we just need to fill in the empty seats because to have only three people and declare that quorum once too and declare that quorum i don't think that's appropriate Oh, I think that's a great goal. But I also think that in the interim, we need to be making decisions, you…”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 39:22
“I mean, let's also think about people in businesses here. We have FIFA.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 39:43
“I don't know if you're talking about Amanda, which is my, Amanda Marina Ramirez, but she's more of an intern, like a volunteer extension of, she's Argentinian, so I asked her to help me with our sister city programs.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 40:04
“I did. We had like a list going of all the people that we had. They don't come to us.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 40:09
“I get it, Leticia, but I thought like we as a group had put together a list of candidates that we were considering putting together.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 40:17
“I don't know if it was Citi. I don't know if it was Citi. I know this isn't the first time this has come up. We've talked about the fact that we need more people.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 40:35
“I don't know if it was her. I don't know if it was Amanda or not.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 41:39
“So, yeah, I mean, between both of us and obviously everybody on the board, we know a ton of people. I also sort of look at it from what other commitments do they have, you know, and.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 41:50
“How many things are they going to be doing? And also, are they Coral Gables resident or? Yes. That's another filter. Now you're talking about two things. There's about 50 people on that chamber international committee. Are all those people available to us and also do this? Are all of those people also business owner or resident? Probably not.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 42:13
“No, I know. I'm thinking of one, Daniela Betancourt. She's the senior banker at Seacoast. I think Seacoast. Yeah. I mean, I thought that was one.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 46:13
“We have 16 more cities to go. Well, we just covered X, right? Except there's a special program that they're asking about schools. Do you want to cover that? Skip that. What are you guys going to do?”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 46:36
“Let's defer that to the next meeting since we really have no representative from the next. The next thing is Cartagena.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026
- Play at 49:49
“Cartagena's Independence Day is November 11th. Colombia's is July 21st. Interesting.”
International Affairs Coordinating Council · Sep 28, 2026