Community Relations Board - Regular Meeting

I'll call this meeting to order. Welcome, everybody. Thank you. And our new clerk. Welcome. Thank you. We need guidance now.

I'm going to be helping her for a couple months, so you will still see me.

Okay. You can do the roll call. Yes.

Chair Clark?

Here.

For Member Azari Garmizo? Here. And Board Member Henderson? Here. Chair, you have a quorum.

Thank you. And Commissioner, your report. All right.

Not much to report, though I'm happy to take...

Chair, I apologize if I may. The next item is Item 2, Agenda and Order of Business.

Sorry.

I apologize.

I know what you said, because it's...

agenda and order of business, if there's any changes or additions to the agenda.

Anybody have anything?

No. We can move on.

Okay, Commissioner. So nothing major that's new, but I'm happy to take any questions about the recent Commission meetings. I will say I did try to get the Board an allocation in the upcoming budget and wasn't able to do that but I understand we still have a good amount of funds left over so hopefully it's not a pressing issue I'm prepared to make that request again as needed but you know I'm looking out for the funding and trying to make sure that that is always in place so for the September is that

When's the new fiscal year? That would be... October.

October, yeah.

So we have to still... This is like a one-time amount that we were given?

Well, we're still on the allocation from last time of the $10,000. And I don't know. You can ask the manager what happens.

Maybe check with Sandra, because I think that during that discussion, she was going to jump in to say that... It's almost like I understood it to be kind of like automatic, like they hadn't changed it. I think she was going to say something to that effect, and then people kept talking. I think she said something like, well, they haven't changed it, or I don't know. Maybe let's go back with her.

I need to go back and see how I worded that resolution. All right, so just feel that I'm putting an item in. And as I said, happy to answer any questions about recent commission activities.

How much do we have left, Frank?

I mean, I included it a few agendas ago. I don't know if I have it here. It's at $8,000. $8,000 something.

Something within $8,000. $8,000.

But then we allocated it. I'll find it. I think that's why we put in the request for possibly more because we decided to start with $8,000.

Well, we have $8,750. So you have a lot of money until the end of September.

Do we have to spend the whole budget in order to get the same budget next year?

Thank you. Thank you.

I don't see any public here, so we're going to discuss public comments and approval of the minutes. Anybody have anything they want to add?

We're talking about the approval of the minutes.

You can add it for new business if it pertains to anything. I understand. Okay, is there a motion to approve the minutes from the June 12th meeting? I second that motion. Okay, and all those in favor say aye. Aye. The motion passes. Discussion items, so let's start with public works, employee luncheonings, and recognition. Frank?

Yep, through the chair. So at the last meeting, you all voted on trying to schedule this luncheon for August 1st and authorizing up to $700 for $25 gift cards. And this will be for the 24 Public Works staff members. So I since learned that in the Public Works, I think in Solid Waste, one of the longtime employees there, Silas Pettycar is going to be retiring soon. And so they were thinking of doing something for him. And so it came up in yesterday's staff meeting, you know, should this maybe be combined? It was going to be, you know, separate because it was his retirement versus your just general thank you appreciation. But if the board would like, perhaps it could be combined because they talked about maybe doing something on July 31st. And I was like, well, we were looking at August 1st. So I don't know that it makes sense to do them back to back. If not, maybe we can separate them or talk about potentially doing them jointly. However, there are not a lot of details or info because this other luncheon idea just kind of got mentioned yesterday was the first I learned of it. So I think it's just in its early stages. So maybe to consider whether you want to keep it separate or joint.

I'd be okay with the joint as long as we get top billing.

out of them for all first yeah I mean well you you know if you want to go that route you would still be sponsoring the food for public works because I don't know if they'll add other people you know but you can keep it to CRB wants to you know just recognize public work just put our name on the invitation that's all we just want it to be annual we want something that they can look forward to every year if we can okay okay that is okay So in that case, would it make more sense to keep it separate then and not, you know, because they're not, obviously this year there happens to be a retirement that it coincides with, but that won't be the case for other years.

I mean, gathering everyone together is hard, so I understand that, you know, being like we already have everyone, let's send them off or her.

Yeah, I agree.

Do it jointly. It's just not, I mean, harder for them.

But let them know that it's...

Okay, and then let me check. Friday, August 1st was the date we were looking at, but would Thursday, the 31st also be okay for you guys?

Oh, no.

Do we have to be here?

No, I mean, you don't have to be here.

That's okay, Adam. Whenever you guys want to have it.

At what time?

I don't know because they haven't set a time, but like lunchtime, 1230-ish.

I can count that. July 31st, that's when they went.

Yeah, that's the date that, again, was mentioned yesterday. We'll see if it... Mary, are you around then?

That would be my last date.

We could set you, too.

Maybe I arrive at like 1230 when I die, too. Yeah.

Okay, so if it all works out, the board is okay with doing it on the 31st and doing it jointly? Okay.

Very nice.

Cool.

How long has that employee been working?

I don't know, but I, like a long time. Like more than 25 years. Yeah. I can check. Maybe I haven't.

There's only like a handful of those.

Yeah, there's a, I think it's one of the longest. Okay, so I'll follow up, you know, I guess I'll send the board updates and maybe chair, I'll update you if we need any decision on anything since we won't have a meeting before that.

What were they planning?

Again, I don't really know. They were just like, oh, a luncheon for Petty Car on the 31st, and there'll be food. And I was like, well, that's similar to what we were planning. Maybe they could add a cake. Yeah, I mean, you know, there probably will be something specifically for his retirement, but, you know, we'll think of... Are you around?

Yes.

Okay. We'll get some more concrete ideas as we get some more.

We don't want anything?

No, I mean, I'm clear that the direction. Okay.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Community Resource Fair. That's what we...

Well, it's really the vice chair's item, so what I have in the memo is really all I have. It's up to you to talk about the organization and all that.

Okay, could you recap what her idea was and then maybe Kayla, Kayla wasn't here, so maybe we can.

I think the idea was to do like a community resource fair that could have different organizations that could be of value and of use to our residents. So, you know, that could be organized maybe in the green space at the community center, something like that, you know, local resources.

Could we find the vendors?

Yeah, that was a general idea. Then the follow-up question is, you know, who should we invite? And more or less, do we have a timeline? Period. Okay.

Maybe it would be people that could help out, like in your initial, the way you wrote this up, help for the community.

For example, like Hillary's, you know, the gun advocacy. Yeah, so maybe that could be, you know.

And other ones like that.

and then find a date, they can come and bring some of the tools and kind of give us a basic, see if you know what I mean.

It's helpful, and then I'm sort of decided with American Heart to teach BLS, so I could do it. What is that? Basic life support by American Heart. Would you be willing to do that?

Or Hatzalah, or if you could combine that. Hatzalah was going to be a separate thing. Was that going to be here? Was that separate or was that going to be? Maybe that would be good here. Hatzalah would be perfect here. Yeah, I get it.

Yeah, I mean, I guess it would be like a Sunday, Sunday at the community center.

Yeah, yes, yeah. Right. Yeah, I think so. Can I talk to the Alzheimer's Association? Because the caregiver support is an issue that is here. Yeah.

I used it the first time today.

Yeah, because some of the seniors. Because there wasn't a time like Uber or something. And it also goes, I'm outside.

And we're about to get the second car, so now there's more. Are we already having it? Yeah.

Okay.

October. Okay.

And when did we do the palm fronds last year? It's going to be from Monday, September 22nd.

to the 24th.

And when's Sukkot? That's when Rappaport, right?

Yeah. Yeah, it was October as well. Yeah, October. It was the 6th.

For right now? To speak about Paul Firm's next meeting or as in this meeting? For this meeting, you have to make a motion to add a new item. You cannot make a motion, Chair. Somebody else has to make a motion for you.

We would like to make a motion to add new business for adding the pom-poms in October.

Thank you. Is there a second? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Okay, so we'll talk about that after. Add new business.

That will be on the item 7A.

7A. Yes.

I would be happy to see something annual come out again.

Okay, and then when was your paper? When was your paper thing?

The wish tree? The tree will be folded. When was your wish tree?

And there'll be an election coming up in November, so we can do those. We have to speak. about the community resource there also.

I think that's a good point.

And do you know any other resources? Everybody brainstorm. I'll put a list. Okay, that would be great.

You mentioned elderly, and I think I saw an ad the other day of someone in the community, like the older people make some sort of, like I find it like once a day call in, once a week check in. That's okay. and I'll send it to you if I find it.

And that's something. And what are we, just as a general timeline for this, was there any... We didn't get that.

So if we have something in October, September and October are the debates and all the Jewish holidays. Maybe after all that.

And then... What do we have in September? September...

Is it that busy? I don't know as far as Jewish holidays. I know first worldwide is not too busy. One event on the 14th.

It won't be back until the third week.

So that's the real event. I'll defer to you.

We have to get it all planned in August. And then we'd have to get everything out.

I'm not saying I'm on board when I do what I'm doing. I just won't be here August really much to help out. But I could help out with email.

Right.

We could also do a weekday. I mean, Sunday might be easier, but just once we have the calendar, if it's too saturated, we could consider a weekday.

I think that's Sunday time that we could do. Which thing would probably be the best? Even over here, because a lot of people used to pull that.

Mm-hmm.

It's like a daily call, a weekly visit, a customer's plan for the elderly in this community. No, no, it's just like, I'm looking at how someone on Facebook put this in, so it's just like, these are resources. Mm-hmm.

If we come up with a date in August, will that be soon enough, Frank? Soon enough for... To contact these people?

Hopefully, hopefully.

And to get the space?

Yeah, the tricky thing is maybe the Gazette, because it's been closing a lot sooner, because it's going out sooner. So if we don't have it locked in, it's just... That might be the only thing, but...

or at least September is sort of like after Labor Day, before Rosh Hashanah, that might be like a nice... Yeah, families are home.

People are home. School starts.

Kids are back in school, right? They're kind of like, life is settling down. We can invite any tutors.

Cherry, if I may, I apologize. Only one conversation. Have another time, please.

We're taking too fast.

Yes, a little bit.

I was just wondering, when we had that last event with the water paddle and the thrift store, And we put up the barcode where people were able to register. Was there a lot of feedback there? Because maybe we should do something like that to see about resources. Is it about Petaltopia? Petaltopia.

Okay. Well, that was a weird weekend because the weather wasn't great and Rabbi Lipskar died. So it wasn't a super successful event because, you know, weather really didn't. It wasn't great.

What do you think as far as contacting the community through the way you did that people could register? Should we do that again for this event?

I wouldn't do it registration-based here because it's not like you're going to give out like an, there we were giving out like a limited amount of like yoga mats. So you need to have, you know, people that accounted for. I think there you just want to invite as many people as possible to just curiously come and browse through. We're doing the Summer Sundays event on the 14th. which is a Sunday. I mean, it's a brutally hot time, 3 o'clock, but I don't know if you wanted to do something before that, just because maybe there'll be a bit of a crowd at the event. With them?

Yeah.

But it would, you know, keep in mind the event's at 3 p.m., so it is going to be hot. But, you know. hoping to get it treated but if not we could look at other sundays earlier you know would that accept the tourist committee or would they be amenable to letting us put up some tables well probably not the beach area because it's very tight there like the beach is it's very narrow but you know whatever you wanted to do in the green space would be under that big treaty like we had here

Because they may be walking through together.

Yeah, exactly. That wouldn't interfere with us at all. I mean, we could just let people know what's happening there and kind of promote it jointly. Okay, what day is that? That's the 14th.

Of October?

September. But, you know, we can also consider other dates. I guess next month when we... I like these joint things. Show that we're working together.

Does the tourist committee have a list of resources that we can see if those people would like to come?

Not really because... Share some more for... Yeah, keep in mind they're a different, you know, different audience. Yeah, we need to, we need, you know, you guys to finalize which, you know, organizations you want so we can do the outreach and, yeah, let's get there.

This is a nice potential to be a semi-regular thing, you know what I mean?

I feel like... We could check with HR as well. They might have some good companies that have done trainings in the past and different resources.

Okay, so what do we need to do? We each need to come up with some volunteer organizations that will be glad to come on this date from free. And just be ready to hand out and talk to people who come up to the table.

Yeah, information. I mean, obviously we could set up tents and... Is there maybe that Pelican Bay? Yeah, definitely tents. Pelican Bay. Pelican Harbor.

Yeah, Pelican Harbor. And then what about, is there an animal rescue?

Everybody's posting on Nextdoor.

I don't know that summer when it's that hot that they'll bring out animals.

They could just talk. I mean, on Nextdoor every day there's somebody's, they find a dog here, they find a dog there.

I wonder if it's something someone was mentioning that not everyone has a fire extinguisher in their house, although they should.

from their smoke detectors? Okay. All right, so who should we send emails to? To you, right?

And phone numbers?

Yeah. Are we doing that? No, no, no.

Or would you want to do, what did you mention?

Well, I'm saying either, right, either after Labor Day, there's a logic to that. Okay. And then also, there might be a logic to when the snowbirds come down.

And what would that be? After Thanksgiving, maybe?

Yeah. You know, people who are, you know, you know who I think would definitely want to take part is Jewish Family Services. Ooh. They're, I remember talking to their director and they are, yeah, I think they're, they have like a range of programs and services that they want to go to.

Do we want to consider maybe doing our own day in November? Yeah. Or do we want to do it with the September 14th date? Mary?

If we're thinking about having this many people in such a small space like the green space, it probably would be best to have our own day. Because if we are going to have more than... I don't think that would be probable to have that. It's not feasible with that space.

Yeah, you never know. But I don't know. I just also think that the time's a little brutal. If somebody told me, hey, you want to go walk around somewhere at 2 PM on a hot summer day, I would probably say no. Yeah. For me, I think, you know.

Yeah. Right.

But I think town will be busier, you know, and I think it's so nice when it's like late November. I think people just want to be outside that if you put up something.

That'll give us more time to get organizations and get it.

And maybe you could have like a guitarist or somebody just playing a little music or something to just animate it a little bit.

Or you guys can make one of the other Thursday community events at the same time.

Which one of you three? Electric keyboard, drum?

I don't play any of the stories.

Okay, so we'll put that on for the next one.

Okay, and we're targeting more the fall-winter date? Yeah. Okay.

Because that'll be more thankful for it. That'll be our theme. Thanks for the community resources. Yeah, yeah, there you go. All right, we'll put that on for next one. Very good. Okay, the debate?

I made initial contact with Russell Rywell, the coach at Miami Beach High School. He was going to get back to me, and I was just checking. I'm like, I think I need to follow up with him. He's out of town. you know, I think can be a help. I think with the school stuff, it's just a little hard right now in the summer to get anybody's attention. But I am working on that. You know, I wanted to discuss format and stuff with him and, you know, see if... I know that Vice Chair Hoffman knows some Surfside residents who are on the team, teenagers who can help, and I wanted just to see if he had any other suggestions with... Folks, so I am working on that. I have no news at the moment, but I definitely hope to have something by August. I did see in the cover memo, is that right, that there will be at least a general notice of it?

Yeah, I did, we did include something in the, is that, again, it's fairly generic. We don't exactly know the specifics, but it was like, hey, are you interested in taking part in the first service ed debate? We're looking for people to form teams. If you are, it'll be in October, email vice chair. So keep it simple until we have more details. But we do have the open dates in the chambers. I don't know if you have any thoughts on those.

One of the people wants to come out to the table. Thursdays are nice. Thursdays aren't juicy.

So Thursday the 23rd maybe? Or the 16th.

October 16th is your meeting at 4 o'clock. Have that at night.

So we're much too tired.

That's up to you.

We could have a meeting before. Maybe through the 22nd.

We could finalize. Okay, yeah. Then maybe we'll finalize.

So the 23rd?

Well, is that our meeting?

No, the 16th.

The 16th is your meeting, yes.

So the 23rd, then we can finalize.

Okay, that's good. The ones that have registered for ours, once we have them.

Yeah, sure. Mm-hmm.

Yeah? OK, go ahead.

Sorry, just one more thing. So I'll just start pushing the generic announcement a little bit more. It's in the Gazette, but I haven't put it out too much. But you'll start seeing it more on social and next door. And please promote it with your colleagues and friends and family so we get enough people on the teams.

All right, go ahead. Anything from the town manager about Hatsala?

So I asked yesterday at the staff meeting, and I know he did meet with the director, and they've been talking about some stuff. I know they asked about maybe parking one of their vehicles here at Town Hall. So they're in conversations about doing stuff, and then he said, let me figure out what we're doing, and once... they know what it is that they're doing with Hetzala, we'll circle back to the promotion. But they are in discussion.

So this could possibly be a commission. This could probably come from the town manager rather than from us.

Yeah, I mean, it could be joint mayor or however. But yeah, they're talking.

Okay, fair enough. But then that would be good for it. Even just, they would bring magnets for the community resource.

Mm-hmm.

Under new business, we have the palm bonds, October 6th in Sioux Coast. So I think we had to have, well, we also had to have confirmation from the team that goes and cuts them for the town.

Yeah, I mean, we'll just request Public Works that they have them available, but they do every year. So we'll just let them know that we're going to be doing this event again. And we'll work around what they do, putting it at the station there by the dog park. And do you want to replicate more or less what we did last year, or do you want to change something?

I mean, I think it would be good if we were able, with all this time, to see how many community members need it, and then we could allocate and find people. But if not, to pick up how much we get.

I mean, I would just let them get as, because they always get as much as they can. So I think we'll just let them get as much as they can.

What did we have last year? Did we have a snack or something? We had pizza.

Yeah, pizza and popcorn.

That was good.

Pizza and popcorn. So more pizza. We ate a lot of pizza. Yeah, it did go. It was busy. People kept coming the whole time.

Is there enough time? I can't remember how it worked last year, but I feel like it was a Sunday and the holiday started later in the week. This time the holiday starts Monday night, so people will have, will they have already built? Maybe. Yeah.

In the summer. What about the end of September, like the 28th? Is it too early?

I don't know. So would it be better like the Sunday before the holiday? The whole weekend it already gets kind of brown.

What do you do? I think people normally do it like within the three days, right?

Because then after the tree gets, they die after like a week.

Maybe it's so ideal timing, I don't know.

Or like the Fridays, maybe Friday. But let me think. We need kosher pizza. Are they going to be open Friday afternoon?

Because they'll be closing to order the pizza. We have to go from maybe 10 to 2 or something. Well, unless it's early, yeah.

If it's early, yeah.

Yeah, it's going to be hard to get a broader... And the public works on these days till what time?

5?

No, I think they have different hours. Last time it was a Sunday too, wasn't it? It was a Sunday.

It was a Sunday, yeah.

It was the last minute. The people who still don't have. Exactly.

Everybody can always use an extra.

It wasn't that much anyway where we could help the whole community. It was really the last minute.

And it was autumn, right? So people wanted to decorate their pumpkins.

I think something else. Didn't we add something else to that when we had Sukkot last year?

Because I guess like Parks and Rec already does like a pumpkin carving thing. So like, but I guess they already do it. I don't want to like compete with their...

What was that? I don't think it was sanitation.

Do they still do that? Those days are gone.

You don't? What?

Frank, you're yawning.

I'm from St. Louis.

Bob for apples there. Bob for all of them. I've never heard of it.

I've heard of it.

I've seen it on TV.

That's the only time I've ever seen it happen. And then if you can't, then somebody else bites you with the same apple.

I don't think that happens a lot.

How about apples or how about fruit? That's a nice idea because also suppose the harvest, that's what we can have that some.

If we could maybe get some dried.

Give you a budget to like get some fresh skin. Yeah. So we always find out that.

Corn, what about the dried corn? The Indian corn, we would hang that up. That's nice. Yeah. That's fall, that's always been a lot of this going on.

Should it be pizza and some other stuff?

If you publicize it, not about to go bad, I don't want to say that, but that they could donate. What's our relationship with public? I think it's pretty good.

I don't know, we've never asked for that. That might be a health thing they can't do, sir. Some people do it, but... You know, we could also check with maybe the Grove. I mean, if there's something like some typical snacks that are... All right, so...

So what day did you guys recommend? The Thursday before or the Sunday?

The Sunday? The Sunday the 5th? Sunday the 5th? Sunday the 5th?

and then pizza and water, and then see if the Grove or colleagues would give out some extra things to hang for people to take to decorate their homes for autumn.

Okay.

I'll be there. Anybody want to bring up anything else? So we have something for almost every month. August, September, October, November.

And remember, just to mention, the book club thing is up for November. I also need to work on That was on the 20th, right?

Yeah. Well, not yet, but I think it was on the 20th. Yeah. It was a Sunday.

I don't know why I have a number like the 16th in my mind.

Not yet, but I want to have that soon. I believe we're talking about November 16th.

16th, you're right, yeah. It was the 16th.

So, you know. There's still time, but I want to get that sort of, yeah, hopefully by like early September on the latest. Yeah, so we have time to.

All right, so let's just review. the debate update. And if there's anything I forgot to tell them.

And the palm fronds. And the book club. Anything else? Is the book club going to be for all ages?

Is this the Isaac the Sheeper?

His kids' books are pretty... I have them up to go a little We were talking about sort of short stories.

I think they're definitely appropriate for high school kids. High school and up. High school and up, yeah. A teenager. Did he live here? He did. He lived in Surfside Towers and lived here when he won the Nobel Prize. He had Surfside only Nobel laureate this far.

Is there a showcase around this building anywhere? Because I have two books. Maybe we could do it at display.

We'll talk about that. Keep talking on the agenda.

It's on the agenda for the commission. I'm pretty sure it's coming back as a discussion item in August. I'll confirm that. The building is just on a short term. It's going to be rented short term as a construction office for Kushner. and so, you know, just in the interim, but the longer term plan is still, that's just the month to month list. Okay.

Okay, so your homework is try to come up with some resource people, send it to Frank.

Yep.

And debate people. Is there a way to do an Excel spreadsheet or something that you could, like, send to us that we could then just plug in resources and remember or something, like a shared?

Nothing shared. Nothing. Nothing shared, no. Okay.

Yeah, just send them over to me.

And I'll... Maybe the next time we should also, because it will already be August 20th, we should come up with debate. We should have debate questions. So we should all probably bring them to a grade. And then by then the team should be formed so that we can sort of find, what were the three questions? Were there four? I don't know if you said there were four or something like that.

Yeah.

And I'll certainly talk to Russell Rigwell well before that, so I can just make a memo and ask him to circulate it, you know, if I have new information that might help us focus the discussion.

We talked about it last time, and I think it was only like 10, 15 minutes off for each question, because I'm... people would probably follow us through if they were watching.

Did we approve a budget for that or not yet? Not yet. So what do I budget? In case we want to get gift cards for Christmas Day.

Yeah, I thought we were going to do like a snack or something like that. As an incentive for people to come in and watch it.

Yeah. Okay, anything else? Okay, very good, everybody. Thank you.

Is there a motion to adjourn? Sure.

Motion to adjourn. I believe that's the next meeting date. Is that okay with you? August 21st, 2025? You don't have to tell me now, but it's a discussion item on the agenda.

August, what, 21st? Yes. 21st. Yes.

Someone can make a motion to adjourn if you'd like.

No, we're going to keep her here.

All those in favor, say aye. Thank you, everybody.