Resort Tax Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Today is July 6th. And we are carrying on the regular meeting for the tourist board. And. We are starting it promptly at 6 0 5. So can the clerk please call the roll.

Yes chair church argument here. Vice chair Corp here or member Kinzer.

Here.

Board Member Lensman?

Here.

Board Member Martinez? Here. Chair, you have a quorum.

Thank you. The next item on the agenda... No, before we go any further, let me acknowledge the presence of our town manager, Mr. Diaz. Welcome. We also have... the presence of our illustrious former mayor, present mayor, and future mayor, Shlomo Dassinger, presently. And we have the liaison to our board, Commissioner David Weingart. Welcome, welcome all. And we have some members also in the audience. Anyways, so the next item in the agenda is the agenda in order of business. Any changes. We'll move to the next one. And that's one of my favorites. I think it's going to be the first. Down commission of liaison report. Did you do it last that's more last month.

I just gave a brief comments, but we didn't do any report.

All right. Would you like to make a report today? Commissioner Weingart, he is the liaison.

For me to report to the board or the board to give a report to the commission?

Sorry?

For the liaison to give a report to the board or for the board to give an update?

No, normally is your commission or the liaison giving a report to the board as far as any suggestions or anything that has transpired that we should be aware of and so on and so forth.

Yeah, I wanted to just thank everyone involved with the planning of this last event. I know it was partially funded from the resort tax fund. So 4th of July celebrations were very well received. Continue hearing really positive feedback feedback from the community, from everyone I walk into and talk to. So kudos to all involved there. And looking forward to the July 19th soccer watch party. Just continuing to create these events for the community that bring everyone together is really, really generating that good sense of community that neighborly love and feel and keep it up.

Thank you, Commissioner. Next item on the agenda is public comments. We don't have any cards. Mr. Mayor, would you like to say a few words?

Hello, Shlomo Danziger, 9000 Harding Avenue. I guess I want to thank you for your contribution to this amazing initiative that was put on. We hear some feedback. We're keeping all that in mind. But in general, this was an amazing opportunity. It was the first time that we've ever gotten all the cities together to do something like that. And it really set a stage for hopefully what we're planning for the next couple of years in regards to addressing some of the bigger issues that affect all our cities. So this was not just a nice event. Usually the residents have from 1 to 7 p.m. And then they go home and walk back to the beach at 9 to watch it. Now they went from 1 to 7 and from 7 back to 9 at 96th Street. I was out there. It was pretty crowded. People from all over. We forget that all our kids go to school in the same place. They're all in Ruth K. Broad. So They're not strangers. These are people that we see every day. So thank you again for that support and for making this possible. Thanks for all the work.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. The comments that we've received for this particular event of the three towns have been overwhelming. positive all the way. So this board will try to continue to see, perhaps maybe in the future, we can do joint items or joint events.

Very good.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Anybody else would like to speak? No? Okay. Public comments is closed. And now we move to the fifth item, which is approval of the minutes.

Chair, if I may, I would like to apologize. It turns out that I have submitted the draft of the minutes, not the final version. So I have edited the final minutes and I have printed it out and put it in front of the chair to sign, there was only changes in grammatical errors. There was nothing else in there that was changed. Would you like for me to go over which grammatical errors there were, or would you like to approve the minutes with the changes that I made?

No, that's fine. There were minor adjustments, and it's just spelling errors.

Yes, it was just a couple of spelling errors.

I'll move to approve the minutes.

Do I hear a second? I second.

to approve as amended with the grammatical error changes?

Yes, as amended.

Second by?

I second.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Thank you very much. Okay, the next item on the agenda is Resort tax board minutes. Okay, that's the one we just did. Resort tax collection and vacancy report. And that is our friend Frank.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I did circulate the report earlier today. One off? Try that again I circulated the report earlier today, as we just received some new numbers from finance and the report data is also up on the screen. We are not looking at the restaurant side, because you know I realized that there are too many missing payments on the restaurant side, especially there is one high grossing restaurant that has not paid all year so. I have flagged that from finance. They are following up. But of course, it wouldn't be an accurate snapshot. So for now, we're holding off on that. But if we take a look at the months of March and April for the accommodation side, for the first time in a while, we are in the red. uh versus 2025 although of course you know very slightly less than one percent point eight percent but just something to watch and see um what that number looks like for future reports you know we don't want it to see to go down too too much into the negative and of course still up a healthy fight 15.6 versus 2024 so you know overall i think the accommodations collection is still strong but something to watch um versus 2025.

Any comments from the board?

Absolutely, go ahead. As we discussed a month ago, the amount of money that's in the fund balance, as Frank went to Andrea to get an update from finance, we thought it was $5 million. It turns out, oh my God, it's over $8.5 million. $8.5 million. And with the town's requirement to have a reserve of a certain percentage, 1.1 is unavailable. So we have $7.4 million as of September 24th. There could be more as we are now in July of 2025. I have an item here. It's 7E, the business district grants that I'd like to talk about and perhaps use some of the funds. But I'm astonished at the amount of money sitting in this account that sitting in this account and has no other use except for things that might relate to tourist and tourist activities. We have no plans for another park. We have no plans for a tennis center. We have no plans. So I'd like to see how we can use these funds because they're just sitting there accumulating. And I also am trying to understand why we have a policy requirement for a reserve on this particular fund when I don't know what we'd have to use that reserve for, an emergency party, hurricane party, what are we gonna do? I don't understand why there's a reserve, and maybe our town manager can help understand what maybe that, now we have reserves on our other funds, which are important to have, and not spend, but for the tourist tax, having a reserve, that's even more unavailable to utilize, and we'll just sit there, it makes very little sense.

First of all, let me just interject for a second here, Fred. 25 years ago, and I love to go back into history, we were lucky if we had $1,000 in the tourist board fund. We made activities with dollars and cents and we were very, very careful. So the reason why the increase is starting to come on the last three, four years is because of the new construction that have taken place. And the reason why the item goes on reserve is because if the funds are not used, obviously you know that and I know that and we all know that goes into reserves. And it is by ordinance, I believe, that the funds collected, and there's only three towns that are allowed to collect tourist tax dollars. That is Bell Harbor, Miami Beach, and Surfside. And the code or the ordinance or whatever you want to call it that gave us that availability stated that these funds must be used, must be used by tourist activity. And that's the reason. If we don't use it, then it goes into reserve year after year. These reserves have grown in the last, and correct me if I'm wrong, Frank, in the last six years. Correct? Because before that, we didn't have any, basically. It was pretty dry, and the activities and the events were very limited because of no funds. So once the new developments became available and dropped the funds into the tourists, that's the growth. So that's the reason, because it is by code that we can only use these funds that we collect for tourist activities, periods. Is that help you in any way? Fred?

I think the mayor perhaps wants to share with us some ideas perhaps that he and the commission have for some of these funds. Yes? No? You're standing here for a reason. That's fair.

If we wanted to, let's say, build a second story at the community center,

We're not going to do that.

I'm saying if we wanted to do it, those are the funds to be used because of the tourist facet of it. But anyways, the mayor is standing up and he wants to give some comments or input. And I also have, after you, I have a...

Board Member that has if there's a good i'm open idea I just my frustration is what I don't care about 25 years ago that was a long time I do okay. You can live in the past there, Mr argument I appreciate that but i'm concerned about if it's the last four or five six years, whatever it might be that there's. There's these resources that we should be coming up with ideas to utilize. And it's not, in my humble opinion, just for parties, just for events, because unless we really go crazy with some events, let's get really crazy and start giving away gold-plated something. But I digress.

No, I just want to give a little perspective, understanding that, first of all, the tourist board, I don't have the exact numbers yet from this year, but they bring in a little bit over, I think we're projected a little over $5.5 million. Closer to six, I think, at this point. But understand that our numbers kind of fluctuate. It's not necessarily what was reported this year. It was sometimes from last year and so on and so forth. But we're close to $5 million now in operating costs, specifically off the tourist fund. We're over $4.5 million that goes to pay for the Parks and Recreation Department, the staff, even police overtime in a lot of events. So when you start looking at what's sitting there, it's not all just going into savings. There's a big portion of it that offsets our operating costs. As you all know, our operating costs total last year was like 60 million, 800 and something. I think, I don't remember the exact number, maybe 14 or 17 million is from the general fund. Close to five is being funded from tourists. So tourism, as Mayor Torgman mentioned, we're one of three cities in the entire state of Florida that get to take this money ourselves and operate with it. There are restrictions on what we could spend on it, so just understand that a big portion of what is coming in is already being allocated for what we get to enjoy every day, not necessarily just parties and events. That being said, again, we may not need a second floor today. At some point, the community center, which is now about 15 years old, it's gonna time to do something else. We've got 88th Street, we've got multiple locations to look at. We've got an entire block we're looking at down here. There's long-term planning, which again is very difficult to do, but there's other projects that we may allocate it for. Parcels of land, again, the commission hasn't even sat down and had the opportunity to identify the opportunities yet, but we're gonna require a bit of a reserve to put that together and maybe build the next phase for our town. So I hope that was just helpful information of where it's allocated, and it's not just party money, but it actually goes to help fund and operate this town and build us bigger and better.

Mr. Mayor, if I, my recollection is we spent, what is it, at the community center, yeah, no, no, but we spent what, $3 million? We spent a great deal amount. Now in the future, if we have funds, like the mayor said, we could build. In fact, I got a call today that said to me, why doesn't Surfside have a gym? And I know there's been talks about having a gym. And a gym, if we open it up to tourists, it can be built and it could be paid with tourist tax dollars. So it may sound like a big amount of money, but in reality, when you start looking at major maybe capital expenditure, it's not that much.

Do you have any further questions such as parks and rec we in our commission the past we hired 3 community service age to specifically address downtown area right for tickets double parking that was funded by tourist dollars so there's a bunch of positions within the town. I think we're at a little closer to 100 140 you know employees now. Some of them are being paid specifically by tourist funds. And right now we're looking to build up some other groups. So keeping that in mind, it's used to offset the operating costs of this town. So that's why it's in, I came up to answer why it's in a reserve fund policy, because it's not about just building up for parties, but about ensuring that the town is gonna be able to continue to operate if we get a downward slope in the future in tourism. I know they're worried about the next COVID. I heard there's something coming with rats off a ship today. But you never know, right? So at the end of the day, we don't want to remove services from residents that they are accustomed to. So even if we do get a downtick in tourism, we have that reserve fund policy to ensure that those departments could continue to operate and provide services.

Good. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

So, yeah, my question is, and I'm thinking about it from, I come from a nonprofit background, budget standpoint. I know these funds cannot be used for anything but tourism. Are they restricted when we look at line items?

Are they restricted? Yes.

Yes. So they're restricted. They have to be used towards tourists. They're by code. We will never balance budget using these. They will never be used to balance budget.

No.

Okay.

Strictly by the code, by the formation of the, what is it, legislative or whatever. Special Act, the legislation, it has to be used by that.

And my next question is, why do we not have, because I believe we closed fiscal year 2025, why do we still have the 2024 facts? Is that the only facts that are available to us?

I'm sorry, what is the question?

We're showing numbers at September 2024. We should have closed fiscal year 2025.

Go ahead. Thank you. Mr. Manager?

Mario Diaz, Acting Town Manager. Surfside just recently completed fiscal year 24 audit in March of 26. We are currently trying to catch up. We anticipate that the fiscal year 25 audit would be completed by the end of the calendar year. We've had a lot of turnover within the finance department. And so we're now playing catch up. It wasn't until I think last week that they finished the reconciliation for fiscal year 25. And now they're doing the fiscal year 25 closeouts. So even though the fiscal year ended, we have not been able to go through the closeout materials, which is why you don't have the updated numbers yet.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. Does that answer your question, Jocelyn? Okay. Any further questions on the dollars and cents?

I just have a question for Frank. Sorry. Do you expect when we get the restaurant numbers added in that we are out of the red?

Well, those numbers wouldn't affect that category because that's just for the hotel side. But I think that we had also been seeing a bit of a decrease on the restaurant side, maybe five to 10% percentage points. But also last year, when we were looking at the reports, we constantly had the same problem of many, you know, restaurants lagging. So I would tell the board members, I'm like, you know, this may not be accurate, we may not be that much in the red. That's why be great to have more of an accurate reflection, but I do think that it'll be a much smaller deficit once we get those payments, or it might even be even.

Also, we have to realize that there's a few closures, and those are the ones that produce the tax revenue, and that we don't have control over. Yes.

Through the chair? Go ahead. Regarding the business district vacancies, do you have any new vacancy or any new business coming in town? I read, I was passing by after the 4th of July celebration, and I walked there. It was very busy, and I saw a sign of BB's something. It's a restaurant.

Well, there was a BB Sweeney boutique that has been there a few months now.

But it was a restaurant or something like that. It has chairs.

I'll have to check with Code because sometimes they get the first alert. I know that the big corner property at 9599 just north of Grand Sons, the big one that had a wrapping, we just recently rewrapped it. So I think something might be coming there. So I'll let the board know next month if I get the info.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any further questions? Yes, Frank.

I have one, too. David. So those restaurants that went out of business, are they responsible for the tourist money up until they leave?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. They need to pay that money. Otherwise, we'll go after it, right?

Any further questions, David?

Everybody's good? Okay. Next item for discussion. is, first of all, I see we have two people here at the audience that are going to do presentations. But let's do 7A, if I may.

Summer Sundays.

Final watch party. Frank, where's Frank?

Here. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And we have Sarah, our vendor, here as well. Of course, we've announced the event, and you'll be seeing a big push over the next couple of weeks on social media and our different channels. Obviously, we're a little bit closer to the date now, so we have a better understanding of what teams are still in the draw. I think on the American side, which might create the biggest... fan response, if you will. The three teams still in it are Argentina, which obviously a huge population of Argentinians here, Colombia, and Team USA, Go USA. So one of those three might be a possibility, also some European teams. So I just wanted to talk through whether you still want to keep the event open and keep the food not ticket based or if because we're expecting potentially a lot of people you may want to restrict it you know just just to finalize and then to give you a little bit of a visual this is the way that we hope to set up the event if we can get the beach club to shift north for the day if it's not possible then we'll just have to move a little bit further south but You know you can take a look at the proposed layout and yet just let me know your thoughts on the tickets and the food.

Through chair. Yes. Frank I know there had been because I was at the the. World Cup game that was broadcast Netherlands Japan at the park. Few weeks ago. I was there with David. The truck that was there with the screen that Rudy had procured looked to be okay, and I believe the cost was significantly less than what we proposed. And the vendor did say they could be on the beach. Was that something we could consider? Yes.

So I did talk to the vendor, and we got a proposal from them. They came out to look at the site and everything. Great company. I mean, I think we're excited to work with them in the future. Unfortunately, for this date, their provider that does their seating had nothing available. So they could have only done the screen without the seating, which we had already advertised. You know, we went back to our original vendor, did get a better price from them as well. So we were able to decrease that cost from like 14 something to 11 something. But I did keep in touch with with mobile billboard. And I said, next time we have an event, you know, that has a screen involved, I'm happy to reach out to them and get a proposal because I heard a lot of good things about their service.

Thank you. Okay, good. Anything else on that? No. Okay, we'll move to the next item.

No, we have, excuse me, through the chairs, we have to recap and see if we are going to reconsider the opening event.

I'll start my comments as far as ticketing this event. I don't agree that in any of our events we need to limit. And especially, you know, I know in the past two years there have been some activities that have been ticketed. and I've gotten a lot of negative comments about that. How does the board feel? Hello?

I just worry that if we get a huge crowd, we will not, I understand the slight bites. I just worry that we run out of food. I know that when I plan events, and I know how many people are coming, I can then order extra so that we have the extra. We just, we don't know what we're looking at, And so that's my worry. I understand that we can't do vending on the beach, but I don't even know if we can project how much we need. And so that, not worrying, but that's kind of where my thought process is, is just we have nothing that we've done like this before. So we don't know how much to kind of, yes, we have a huge budget, but you know,

That was the question I needed to know. You know how much we allocated for food for this event?

So we increased the budget to $30,000 total, with the $10,000 going exclusively towards food. But there might be an additional part of the budget that was already allocated for food as well. Sarah could probably speak to that.

I think that $30,000 by a lot of food, a lot, you could feed a country with $30,000. So, yes.

But I believe 30,000 is for the whole event, not only for the food.

Right, but the food is 10,000, regardless. $10,000 buys a lot of food, and especially if you're gonna do bites. I mean, you're not gonna be serving dinner, you're gonna be doing bites. So just quantify food at $10,000 for a minute. I'd like you all to think about that, and I'd like to get your feedback. Board, are we here today?

Yeah, don't make me the bad guy.

I wanted to ask the town manager. On the July 4th event, they didn't require ID, and they gave everybody food tickets, T-shirt, bags till they last at beach. And it seemed like I got something at 5 o'clock to eat. in the middle and they still had a lot of food in the kosher part and there were still people waiting and they were in line for the food trucks. How did you anticipate how many would be coming that day?

No, we didn't do anything scientific. It was very simple. Our spending authority was for about $15,000 when it comes to contracting. And when we were looking at quotes for kosher food, we figured about $15,000. For the community center, we figured we might see about 1,000 people come through. And so we kind of split the overall cost. We thought maybe a third of that or so would come for kosher options. So we asked them, what would 300 people cost? They told us it was just about 15,000. And so we said, OK, no more. So we won't be able to do that. So that's basically what went forward on that. The good thing about Surfside and the July 19th as it relates to the sports, the World Sport Championship, FIFA is very strict on wanting to make sure they get paid for any licensing when it comes to their name. So we don't necessarily call it the World Cup anymore. But essentially, this is not a large venue. And so what we've seen throughout the tournament is that you have about two spots in Miami Beach that attract a lot of people. And then you have a few spots in the city of Miami that attract a lot of people. Our event is nothing like that. And there's no large announcement or anything like Miami Beach or the city of Miami or Miami-Dade County do. So what you're attracting are more of a local. The concern that we have for this event more than anything is spillover. And it's more from a safety standpoint, right? Because especially if the favorite makes it to the finals, which is Argentina, They're ranked number one in the FIBA rankings, so that's why I say the favorite. But if they make it to the finals, we have a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very large community, not only of Argentinian, but then almost every Hispanic is wanna support the lone country from this hemisphere. So, Our concern is going to be more towards that. I think that Frank has done an absolutely amazing job, not only in what he's presenting to you, but over the course of his career with Surfside. In my six months here, he is someone where I just say, go. I don't even ask because he's proven himself time and time again. He's able to really manage and stay kind of within the budget. Usually a budget goes over when the board decides we want a little extra and we're okay spending a little bit more. And oftentimes those recommendations are for something that is really, really good that adds another layer or just scales up the event depending on what it is. So it's not a criticism on that at all, but he does a very good job, whether it's $10,000 or if we now have a little bit more room because the vendor for the screen and the seating came down and he can move that money. I think if you are comfortable with that budget amount and you tell him to go and these are all the things that we want, he will get you the biggest bang for your buck.

Good. I think we could do it through the chair. Um, I, I kind of hear what Mario is saying about our, town manager, saying about that. The last time Argentina played, they were parking on 88th and Carlisle to walk down to take the trolley to Manolo's. So there is a concern of spillover. I mean, it's within walking distance. You know, I'm just, again, he's right. It's not a huge space. We can't, you know, Again we can anticipate but if we do get a larger than life crowd and they are rowdy.

What is our you won't have to worry about feeding at that point because PD is going to swarm the beach and it's going to be restricted off and if you've got something to eat great but if not tough.

And then how does that look what are the optics.

I think the optics is that we kept a very safe area on our beach. The community is safe, and I'm sure that all of those celebrating will be happy to go where all of the bars and everything that is set up for that. But we will protect the community. We'll protect those patrons that are there. And then at that point, if it just becomes too big of a crowd where also fire marshals and everything end up getting, there's protocols. And no one expects, especially during a large World Cup event in paradise, because it's not Qatar. It's not any of these. Everybody wants to come here. And so being here, the good thing is that the game is not in Miami. That's a good thing, because a lot of people will travel to New York for that. Right. If we have something here, people understand that when you get 50,000 people on a beach, you're going to have PD there. So we've already been organizing with Miami-Dade Sheriff, Miami Beach, Sunny Isles, Golden, Ball, Bay Harbor. It's called an MOU. It's a mutual agreement between everybody. Everybody's been preparing for these games. They've done an absolutely amazing job. I haven't heard of any negative news. Yeah, streets might be messy at the end of the night and stuff like that, but everything's always been very respectful. I hear more about a dog attack in Hialeah in a neighborhood than I do about a... An event for one of the soccer games, so I'm very confident that this will be an amazing Opportunity to watch one of the greatest games in the history history of mankind on the shores of paradise Thank you.

You've answered that another question and this might be for Frank. I know we had a budget line item for security Do we need to increase that?

I think that we, Frank, if I may interject, I think we've analyzed basically the whole thing. Actually, this conversation started because of ticketing. And we've deviated into security, and we've deviated into this, that, the other thing. Basically, let's answer the question that was on both boards. Is the ticketing, I asked the board, what are your feelings I'm ticketing for this event.

Through the chair, let's do what Eli's looking for us to do. I would project that we are probably overestimating the potential for this great amount of people to come to Surfside, of all places, to see this final match of this soccer tournament. There are so many other venues. If Argentina is in there, there's the Argentinian neighborhood that is north of us, or south of us, I'm sorry, in Miami Beach, and they block off that street. It's where the bandshell is, and that's where they're gonna go in mass, and be in control, crazy and they're not going to come to Surfside for that. That's the party people. That's the party people. Right. Surfside, we may get people that are, oh, hey, I'm at the beach. Oh, there's a game. Hey, there's a screen over there. Hey, I don't think we're going to need to have freaking security. So let's stay calm. We have tourists that are here in Surfside, but we have only a small number of hotels that might accommodate these people. People that stay at the Four Seasons are probably not going to worry about seeing this game on the beach. They're going to be somewhere else spending a lot of money. So long story short, to take it back to the point, I think we have allocated enough funds. I think that we made the decision a month ago to go with smaller portions so that there's more of them and they can last longer. And I agree, no ticketing, let it be open, let people come. If it becomes a massive party, which it won't, then PD will move people out of the town. So let's keep Surfside what Surfside is and let this be open to anybody that comes and wants to enjoy a bite. And the other thing is, I don't know, this screen is not going to be massive. It's not going to be how many people could actually be in the right range to see the match on this screen without being too far away. So I don't think there's gonna be this massive crowd. So yes, enough funds, no tickets. Let's do what we've got. I agree, PD will take care of the security.

Let's leave it as it is. Judy?

I agree.

That was short and sweet, thank you. Gosling, any further comments on that?

I know there was a question on alcohol. No alcohol?

I mean, you still have it at Flanagan's and so on and so forth.

Yeah, but people might use the beach and bring their own cooler, but they're there all day long, so that's fine, right? It's a party day. I think the food is going to be the same thing. If you are going to watch there and you don't want to make a line to go get food or whatever, you bring your own stuff to the beach. You got it. That's it.

David? Yes, no ticketing, I agree.

Okay. Just for the hell of it, for our liaison, what is your feeling on that?

I completely agree that law enforcement is going to do their part as far as the fire marshal as well. And it's also expected when you go to an event. Food is going to be first come, first served. You can't guarantee there's going to be food for every last person. But I will compliment all those involved again that there was more than enough food this past weekend. I saw them giving out trays of food at the end. And there were a lot of people.

We're doing good.

Yeah.

We're doing good. Parasite is a slice of paradise in the midst of big town fun, right?

There you go. I have a question. Go ahead. Not about the ticketing. So are we paying for the overtime and the extra police as well as? We always do. OK, good. We always do.

And what about, do we need more lifeguards or? Through the chair. I'll speak with Marianella over at the community center. And whatever she determines is best for safety, we will go with her recommendation. And of course, same thing with PD. I'll meet with chief press. And we have funds to cover all the safety and extra overtime.

Good. All right. Very good. Good conversation. Can we move to the next one? Yes. All right. The 7B, which is Hispanic Heritage Month, Celia Cruz Tribute, Beach Music Concert. And it's my item.

Do you want to introduce it?

Go ahead. You know, we do a lot of activities, but sometimes we don't coordinate our activities with our surrounding events. The... Middle of September through the middle of October. We're celebrating all throughout his Hispanic heritage month. And obviously you know we we want activities done in search site. And so I figured I asked the board if they're amicable about having a basically festivity honoring Celia Cruz which was one of the. Actually, I was quite surprised when I asked Frank, do you know who Celia Cruz is? He said, of course I do. Half Cuban. So I think that if we can coordinate some events with other events that are happening, I think the results are double and triple. So Frank, you want to elaborate more?

Sure yep so because of chair tournament's recommendation we propose that Alan and I was here with beachside events and a musicians Alan has been a resident for a long time, and it has a long history, working with the board music events are kind of his specialty, although you do. So we have Alan's proposal on the screen. And Alan, if you want to walk us through it and then talk a little bit about the other stuff you've done in the past.

Sure. Good evening, everyone. My name's Alan Andai. It's nice to see familiar faces and longtime faces we've had the pleasure of working with. Most of everyone that's on the board. My name is Alan Ando. I was actually born and raised in Surfside. So our connection with the town has always been to provide what we do on the private sector, which is high-end social and corporate events and try to give back to the community I was born in. This is a little bit about our company. We just this year exceeded our 6,000th event. Since January, we've produced about 160 events. So we're actually at 6,050. I have to update this. And we are in-house at most... Our partnership has started and built on relationships with hotels. So we're in-house at all the hotels from Key West all the way up to Palm Beach. We do some things on the West Coast, but our specialty is focusing on oceanfront high-end four- and five-star venues. Why Beachside Events? We are a current trusted resource for numerous municipalities from South Miami to Palm Beach. As mentioned, we've produced over 6,000 managed events. We average about 250 events per year. Born and raised here in Surfside, so we know the community. We know what the expectations are, and we make sure that whenever we do an event, we are catering to all the ages and demographics. And we also make sure that we include the partnership with the hotels, with the restaurants, with the downtown district. We really try to make sure that it's a full, immersive and inclusive experience when we provide our productions. I believe we have a positive, trusted track record with recurring design concepts and creating signature events. You want me to skip through the proposal or I know today's a football game. So I'll just briefly go off of our history. We started working with Town of Surfside in 2008. So we are almost 16 and 18 year partnership. We are the original concept creator and producer of the signature event, Third Thursdays, which started in 2008 up to 2019. There was a little break in COVID. We've co-produced the Taste of Surfside event. the car show experience, the music on the beach, which I believe most of you have experienced. We also created the Beach Soiree in 2024. I'm the co-producer of the art and jazz experience that took place in 2010 and beyond. And then we worked with Judy in 2025 on the anniversary. So we did all the backline production coordinated with the supplier. So I was asked to come back in. We started Music on the Beach as Jazz on the Beach, and then it kind of blossomed into the music series, which is what we had. up until two years ago. So the first event, we did a concert only, which is the first scope, which would be the salsa band Celia Cruz Tribute Band. I actually played on Cayocho, which is a very big festival in Hialeah. So our background is in the performance arts. And then the second experience is the concert with the FMB experience, which includes the band, but including the light bites and hydration station. We've kept our fees pretty much to what they were two years ago, so they have not increased. And then the third experience. experience is creating the concert experience the f and b and then also if you wanted to upgrade it with a salsa group dance performance where they can come on do a feature or do a little quick class where they teach basic steps to the audience although when we've done this event through third thursday and music on the beach everyone knows how to dance salsa so it'll be more of like a latin feature rather than a class so these were the three concepts we did it as a one-off or if you guys were interested in reinstating the music on the beach we created a couple different other concepts which were some of the popular options that we've done in the past which again keep the rate the same as we've done in the past so it's we leave it up to the board as far as if you were looking to bring back the series or do this as a one-off event And I believe that's it, thank you for listening to us.

Okay, the first question is, what is the basic activity for the, assuming that we go with the Celia Cruz, assuming that the board goes with that event?

So we provided three options. One is just the concert with the stage and sound and band, which is scope one. The second option is if you wanted to implement the light bites and beverage station that we've done in the past. And then the option three would be with the dance performance.

So option two, in a nutshell, is the bites plus the concert. Exactly. And hydration. Yeah, hydration. Let me hear from the board. Yes, Jocelyn.

So I don't know if you all know, currently touring and Tony nominated was a Buena Vista Social Club themed Broadway show. It's called Buena Vista Social Club, and it's about all of that. So a lot of people like Yo Soy Gringa, and I know who Celia Cruz is, but we also know from growing up here, Buena Vista Social Club and that kind of aspect. Could we incorporate more of that into it?

So this band is actually Cuban-based, so they will definitely be able to play. And they have actually performed many of those classics. So it's not 100% Celia Cruz only. It is a, obviously, Latin theme. As you see here, we provide Latin bands, Caribbean, classic rock. And when we used to design the events, we would try to do it based on the cultural heritage of what's going on in the month, which is why I believe in October it's Latin Heritage Month. So we would pair... what's going on in October, November, December, and then try to make sure we're designing it cohesively. But it would be a heavy Celia Cruz playlist, because obviously we're doing a tribute to them, and then we can definitely sprinkle in... Bring it back on the other. Absolutely.

Right.

Judy?

I like that idea. I like Buena Vista Social Club a lot, and I think... It mixed perfectly with Celia Cruz, and it's our heritage as well. And I think it will be more blended. It will be great. I will go for the second option. And I think we still have to revise our calendar for the whole year because we have a lot of events. So I think we should go for this event and then see. what else we can do, you know? So myself, I'll vote for this event.

So your tour's number, option two. Fred?

Through the chair. Yeah, I would tend to, if just presented this, say option two is the better of the three, let's have some food, let's have some enhancement. We have a pretty wide budget available, I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think we have some money. I don't think the dancing piece is necessarily Maybe because I'm a gringo, I don't know how to, and salsa probably would never pick it up. I've tried and it doesn't work. I'm sorry, no, it doesn't work. Yeah, I tried. But no, I think we have enough Hispanic people in our community that we'll just dance.

It's a mixture.

Yeah, so let's have food and drinks, celebrate the music, celebrate the culture. I think that's fine.

Thanks, Fred.

Yes, I agree also with option two for this one. I think people are going to get up and dance anyway. and then others will follow, so I think it'll work.

Frank, what's your opinion on this?

I like this second option as well. I think it's nice to have a little bit of food and the hydration station. Is there no food?

It's just the hydration station on that one.

Oh, yeah, the light bite. Yeah, light bites. I think that that would work well, and I like combining Celia with Buena Vista, broadening up a little bit, but using her as the flagship.

Jocelyn? Can I ask a question? One second. Okay. Jocelyn?

Yeah, I go for scope two as well. People just, I mean, even now at the third Thursdays, if we want to dance, we dance. Yeah.

There's a delay.

Okay, I agree. But this is also educational too. So to me, I'm going to be sitting and listening more because I don't know her music that well. Oh, no. My wife will.

I will show you.

Okay. So I think it's going to be an educational thing, and so I think it's perfect.

Cool. Fred? Just a general question beyond this one event. One of the things that I've sensed, and I've been on the commission, I've been around for a long time, we sometimes have this one-off vendor. And I know Ellen, but I know Sarah. Is it Sarah?

Sarah.

Sarah, she's here as well. And there's other people... Are we only single sourcing this to Alan? And I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but I'm curious, does Sarah have an option for this kind of event? Does anyone else have an option? Because we're going to talk about Third Thursday, and I also want to have a discussion about opening this up so we have choices, options and choices, one of the things I used to love to say in my days in the commission, Mr. Mayor.

Well, one of the things that I brought forward, Fred, is I've asked the board to come up with ideas at the last meeting, and I said bring, because everything gets stale. Once you do things over and over and over, it gets stale. So I asked this board to start coming up with ideas that you like to see, events that you like to see. And so at the same time, we will ask Frank to make sure that we have bidders on these activities. Because it's not just one person that's interested, other people are interested. Now what you're seeing now is that we have limited amount of time because we have now piggy bank on these activities that just started. And they were already there for us. and soon we're gonna have our own activities. Is that correct?

Yeah, through the chair, yeah, just also clarify the process. So the board, you can always decide whether you wanna have multiple people pitch an event or just one. In this particular case, this was the chair's idea and he already had Alan in mind, which is fine. You may have an idea for a balloon festival and you know, X vendor that you wanna bring the proposal to the board from that vendor. Now today, the board has a chance to say, hey, Alan, we don't quite love your proposal. Sorry. Can we have Sarah do it? But it's up to the sponsoring board member unless you tell me, hey, Frank, we want a new open event. We want a kite festival. Bring us five different vendors to pitch for a kite festival. Then we can proceed that route. But it's also your prerogative if you want to pick a vendor and have a specific idea that you want to bring to the board, and then the board can respond and say whether they like it or whether they want to offer it to somebody else. It's really up to you, but this particular case came with a recommendation.

By the way, Alan didn't say this, but I'd like to inform this board that third Thursday, Talking back again, history. Third Thursday started with an idea that I had when I visited Calle Ocho, and they had First Fridays. And I said, what a wonderful idea. We need to bring this to Surfside, because at that time, the business district was suffering tremendously. And there was a lot of vacancies, and there was nobody to buy into the businesses in Surfside. So I came up with the idea to have an event on 95th Street, and we call it Third Thursday because we were doing it on Thursday. And I got together with Alan. At that time, I really didn't know Alan. And with $1,000, I believe, we started it.

It's 500. 500? Started Thursday.

$500. We started Thursday. And it was amazing because we had people cooperated. Alan worked really, really hard at producing activities. Not like now. Now you got $5 million. Hey, come on down. But back then, we didn't have any money. So we limited the activities. And we were successful for years and years and years. And I think Third Thursday is still a hit, even though we moved it from 95th to 93rd. What I would like to say at this time also, speaking about Third Thursday, is that we need to look at maybe an activity closer to 95th Street, closer to the business district. Why I say this is because Third Thursday was born with the business district in mind. And we've moved away from that since now the activity is on 93rd Street. So I want this board to start thinking about activities that maybe we can do and produce it for 95th Street, specifically for the business district, for the tourists to come in and visit the shops and so on and so forth. MS.

Through Chair, if we do do that and we move it to the business district, we have so many restaurants on the business district, it would be nice to either have them maybe donate food or give out light bites, make them incorporate into it and kind of give them the opportunity to present themselves, almost like free advertising.

Again, there's gonna be a lot of activities and information and input on that. I just wanted to interject this as a side talk But when the event be presented, I think that that's when this board, and that's why I said, guys, think of things that you want to see. Think of things that can help the business district. When you had a business district 30 years ago that was suffering, that they couldn't bring a person into the shops, that's what this activity was created. And it was very successful.

If I can comment and piggyback on what Jocelyn said, when we were producing it, It's been a pause over the past year and a half, but that was one of our big things is supporting back our local district.

Yeah, that's what it was.

We actually, to date, reinvested over $50,000 back into the restaurant business, making sure that we supply from our local providers. I know that there's been a lot of... When the board changes, we go off the direction from the board. I know we're not... I guess that's the next topic, but I did want to... make that concept that you brought up actually be implemented. And so if we're given the opportunity again in the future, happy to.

Let's move forward from this because we're gonna be talking about this a lot more. I know. But Judy has a comment.

Just one comment on this for later, because there's still time, is where it's gonna be,

happening i was gonna actually because i i'm seeing a lot of events and obviously everyone likes doing the parties on the beach but now that you have the park i'm open we've done events on both but i think the park might be a nice way to just change up the venue you also have the bathroom facilities and it just kind of gives you a little bit of a different space but wherever you guys want to host it it depends because if we're thinking of the business district the park is not a good venue

I'm talking about the music on the beach if we do it on the beach it's still off the path if you want to close the street down we're happy to do I'm saying when we talk about the music concerts activities that we may bring into we need to have perhaps maybe in mind the business district but to take the activities from the beach to the park I think the beach is a much nicer venue We're on the beach. We live on the beach. We want to have activities on the beach. As you know, we had a big series on activities for events for done for in the beach.

Yep. So again, we're happy to...

The park is nice. It's a good venue. I think it's more locally than opening up the way that we do our activities to everybody in the tourism and the hotels. I think the park, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. You guys correct me if I'm wrong. But I think the park is a little bit further venue than it was.

I'm happy to confer with Frank.

I had an event from community relations at the park. And it was very good, but there was no parking. There was no place to park. And we had a lot of seniors coming. And they had to be dropped off. And then you had to go out back onto 96th to come back around through the town. Good point, David. But the facility was perfect. There was a little kitchenette. The guys working there were perfect. But the parking was just not very good.

But it's also geared more towards residents. Which is?

Community relations. True. Again, we were having a lot of seniors coming, and they couldn't.

Okay, get there any further comments. All right. So let's guy let's yeah, I'm entertaining a motion for the Celia Cruz tribute.

I'll make a motion for the Celia Cruz tribute with Alan with option with option to scope to with Alan and I do I hear second.

I second. Any further comments? All right. Can the town clerk call the roll?

Yes, Chair. Board Member Kinzer? Yes. Board Member Lanzaman?

Yes.

Board Member Martinez? Yes. Vice Chair Karp? Yes. Chair Targerman? Yes. Chair, the motion carries.

Thank you. Thank you, Alan.

Thank you. Have a great night.

Thank you. I cannot wait until we hear that music. Everybody dancing salsa.

Azúcar. All right.

Is that the word?

Yes, sugar. Azúcar.

We need an education.

I'll teach you. All right. The next item is?

7C.

7C, which is, I think that, Alan, you're still here? Yeah. You want to give it? No, you didn't do the third Thursday, did you? No, that's Javier. That's Javier. Okay, so let's do the update on Thursday series recap. Seven C. Frank.

Thank you, Chair. I will welcome Javier, who did the series for us last year.

Javier, the video is there. Video icon. Okay. Hello, good evening. Javier Valmana, ADA 51, Abbott Avenue, Surfside, Florida. So this past 2026 series was organized by us, Weeby Productions. And just to give you some background, this year's series was called Cruising the Globe, and it was based on three regions of the world. It was originally inspired by an event that we did in 2025, that was called A Night in Italy, and it was an event that was very popular and we got great feedback from, just embracing and showcasing the culture from one country. So with this series, we decided to, at the direction of the previous board, to expand that and create something that was similar but even more engaging and more substantial in a way. So just to go through it, the three regions that the series was based on was A Night in the Americas, A Night in the Mediterranean, and A Night in Asia. So each region had several countries within it. For each one, it was three countries. So the first one, a night in the Americas, was Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. The second night was a night in the Mediterranean, which is Israel, Turkey, and Greece. And the last one was a night in Asia. And it was India, Japan, and China that we featured. So this is the event series vision and objective. It's just kind of like a summary of what I said, which is that it was based on the Night in Italy event that we hosted the previous year. And you can see some of the pictures. These are from that event. And I'll read it very quickly just to go through it. Our vision for this series is to recreate the same warmth, energy, and joy that our Night in Italy celebration brought to the community while expanding that spirit into a truly global journey. Each event will invite guests to experience not just one, but several cultures in a single evening surrounded by their music, flavors, traditions, and artistry. Our goal is not only to entertain all ages, but to ignite genuine cultural connection, leaving every guest with a lasting memories and a deeper appreciation for the richness our world has to offer. And as you can see just from the picture, we try really hard to decorate the event space. Obviously, we do them on the street and the parking lot. So we try our best to make it feel like you're somewhere else and you're not in a street or a parking lot. So these are just some photos from the first event, a Night in the Americas. featuring some of the food we hosted. So for each event, we have entertainment from each country, we have food from each country, and we have alcoholic beverages, so like adult drinks, from each country as well. So in this case, we had kosher, asado, or barbecue, for Argentina. We had tacos, which I'll get to in the next page, for Mexico. And we had some bites from Brazil. And we also partnered with Morelia to have paletas for Mexico. So you can also see some of the different activities. We had face painting. We had a mural that we painted and designed ourselves. to have as a backdrop for pictures. For Argentina, we had a tango demonstration. And another one of the things that we did, and you'll see it through the photos that I'll show you, is that we normally, in order to engage both kids and adults and everyone that comes out, we like to hand out, or at least we did for this series, different things that guests can wear just to kind of uh, you know, engage with the event. And this one, we, we gave out, uh, authentic like Mexican hats and we gave out these, uh, flower crowns that you see on the, on the top right, uh, picture with the face painting, uh, and the little girls. So this is just, you know, more photos of the event. For Brazil, the entertainment that we had was a samba and carnival performance. We also had activities for kids. We had a face painting featuring, like, Day of the Dead, you know, inspiration. We had... What else? We had a goalie post for Brazil, and we also had... carnaval-making, mask-making activity, which those are not in the pictures, but just kind of had to summarize.

From these three events that you showcase, which event do you consider was the most successful one?

So, I mean, they were honestly very successful. I would say the last one was the best one. One, because it was the last one of the series, so I feel like probably that in itself was an attraction. The last one was a night in Asia. And it's the three countries that we selected have a lot of culture and food. And visually, we do a lot to decorate the space. So I feel like they have a lot of colors and things like that. So in that sense, I think probably the night, obviously, because we're in Teresita and we have a huge Jewish community, the night of the Mediterranean, one of the countries that featured was Israel. And for that one, we also got a tremendous turnout.

Any comments from the board? Yes.

I'm not done with the presentation. This is just the night in the Americas. I'm going to go through the night in the Mediterranean and the night in Asia. So this is a night in the Mediterranean. We had several performers. We had a singer. singing Hebrew, we had Turkish belly dancing, and we had, let me see what else. Oh, and we had for Greece, a harp and violinist performance. Also, one thing I'll mention, piggybacking on the previous comments, is that for every event we did, we partnered a lot with the town businesses to be able to both showcase their products and hire them to provide food and to kind of reengage with the community. So for example, for the first one, we partnered up with Morelia's. This one, we partnered up with a local spot called Crezi. And we also, for some of the activities, even partnered with another... business called Potter Me, which they do with local pottery for kids and things like that. So yeah, you can just, I'll go back just so you can see some of the pictures. We do a lot to decorate the space. We set up string lights all throughout. We even provide vendors, any businesses that we partner with, we provide them with all the tents, signage and everything so that everything looks even. We even, depending on the different countries, so one of the things that we do is that we normally for this series divided the space into all the different countries. So in the Night of the Mediterranean, you would have Israel as you walk in, then you'd have Turkey, and then you'd have Greece all the way around. So as you walk in, you're kind of going through the different countries.

OK, very good.

For food, we had falafel bowls, we had Greek sliders, lamb sliders, and we also had some Turkish delicacy that I can't remember the name of.

Just a little comment. I was not in the Mediterranean, but I heard the food was amazing, and the lines were big. And so by the first time I went to try that restaurant in the downtown, and It wasn't very good. Yeah, it wasn't very good.

Very good. But honestly, one of the vendors at the Mediterranean night was not ready until about an hour after. And that's a huge thing.

Yeah. We had, I think it was the Turkish vendor. Yeah. We had the Turkish vendor was having trouble with the power and some of the fires and stuff. We obviously did everything in our power to fix everything as soon as possible and we helped them and we got them started as soon as possible. Even as one of the benefits of having a variety of different food vendors is that even though one was struggling, we had Cressy, which was the kosher option. open, and we had the Greek one open as well. I'll talk more about the number of portions and everything later on. But one of the other things that having different food options, even though the idea is for everyone to go through each station and really get to try each country, we both provided a lot of portions. And having different stations also helped so that food really didn't run out. If we had anything run out, it was in the last 20, 25 minutes of the event.

Also, with the first one, I was there. It happened to be a night that it turned very, very cold.

Very cold, yeah.

And so the turnout may not have been what we were hoping for, but it was a fabulous event.

Yeah, so it got very cold that night, but we did get a lot of compliments on the kosher steak that we had, which was extremely good, and many of the other bites. And also just to give you an example for the drinks, we would normally, because we have three different countries, for example, for the first one we had caipirinhas for Brazil, we had I think an Argentinian wine, and I believe either a Mexican beer or margaritas for Mexico. So it just carried on like that for every event. So you would have the option of getting one of three drinks. So you could choose what you wanted.

The fact that I was not able, did not attend any of your activities for this past year, I was just curious to find out, and that was the question I had, was how successful were these events?

Well, I think, I mean, I might be a little biased, but I think they were very successful. Okay. And I think, you know, we expected them to be successful because of the experience we have with the Night in Italy event that we got a huge turnout for. We, you know, we did some of these events things as far as food, as far as drinks, as far as entertainment. We carried out the same concept. For the night in Italy, we had four different food stations, from pizza to handmade pasta to, I think, a charcuterie station. We also had wine. So we carried on that same idea.

Aside from Judy, the experience that I heard that she experienced one of these events. Anybody else? There's a You are all through then? One second, let's hear from Jocelyn.

So I was at all three. Um, I think that unfortunately like the Morella popsicles were amazing and everybody was in line for them, but it was like 50 degrees. Um, and so there weren't a lot of people out, but the residents that were out loved it. Um, love the food. The second one, except for that vendor starting late was amazing. The third one, the entertainment from Asia with the, I was there with Judy. I was a, it was a dragon dancer and they had drummers. It was fantastic. Every age was engaged. Everybody was happy. They didn't want it to stop.

I agree with Jocelyn. The only one was the I think it was the kosher one or the last one. It was just a huge line. I think that might have been the second one. No, that was Crespi.

Yeah, that was Crespi.

Okay. They had the line because for the last one, we had a sushi vendor. And they, because of the experience with Crespi, where obviously it's something that had to be cooked on the spot. It was falafel. It was like a falafel bowl. And it was something more substantial. The line got pretty big, and for the next one, what we tried to do was we got a sushi vendor, and they had everything ready much quicker. It's a simpler product, so it was nonstop. But I think what you're thinking of is that one.

And then these were also ticketed, so that you had You had one ticket for this, one ticket for this, one ticket for this.

One thing that we usually do, and we started it with the Italian one, and we carried it over, I think, to all of them, was that we normally try to have a food station that is open to the public. So for the night in Italy, it was... It doesn't work. No, I know. I'm just giving an example.

That's a mute point nowadays. We already talked about it, right?

For summer Sundays, I think for every series you'll have to, or unless you want to just say that moving forward you don't want any tickets, that's fine too.

I think right now, from what I gather or what I've said, and I don't know if it was understood, we should move away from ticketing. Okay, because these activities are done for the public, it's done for the tourists, it's done for people that come from Hialeah, have friends that move into the beach or visiting, and they should not, my opinion is that they should not be ticketed. Now, eventually, if we have other activities that the board feels they should be, then we'll go the way that the board wants to go, period.

I just worry that we're...

Yes. Yeah, Eli, one thing that he mentioned, and because of the date, which is January, February, and March, and that was like the weather didn't help one day, I think we should be prepared ahead of time to expect that maybe in the month of January and have maybe those heaters that we had for the snow moon soiree that are really very helpful and maybe have the contact in standby and see what happens, and have an extra budget for that, which is not the event, just in case it happens with weather, with any kind of event, and we can help facilitate that, it will be great.

Great, Jocelyn?

If we're gonna move away from ticketing, I think we need to think about possibly head counting, just so we have

sense of attendance I think we've done in the past we we've done these activities it wasn't born yesterday and I think that we've done pretty good from all the years that I've been involved we've been pretty good I don't think anybody went hungry besides that remember it's food bites it's not dinner some people may want to have dinner but it's not so the food lasts a lot longer so I

But not even that, just to get a general idea of how well they are attended.

Well, that's the reason why I ask him how successful you think the events, because some of us attend them, some of us do not attend, so we do not know. But I think we generally, from all these years, we've got a pretty good pulse on it.

Yes, although through the chair will say it's very hard to get an accurate headcount when you have an event that you know people can enter from all sides and you don't necessarily have to check in so you know we can really just kind of eyeball it.

Also, through the chair there were giveaways at most of these two for surfside residents and um. and visitors who could prove they were staying at the hotels. Maybe with those, it would be accurate to get a head count so that we're not... Well, these activities, Jocelyn, bear in mind, you cannot have an accurate head count

What you can do is have estimates right and so far all throughout these years I haven't really heard much complaint in this and until this last 2 years that have gone by with the ticket and I think the ticket is created a problem and that's why I want to move away from that but even with the even with the giveaways that were special to residents and tourists, yes. All right, anyway, thank you very much.

I'm not done yet. I have a few more pictures, and then I have a video, and that's it, right?

Go to the video.

Maybe just the video, because I think they have a sense of the series. But just the video would be nice. Perfect.

I don't want to spend the whole night here.

Let me see if I can.

I wanted to ask something. I like Javier's work, but when I was on four years ago, It was Alan and I because he originated this third Thursday. So I thought there was some kind of policy or...

Decision that it should continue with Alan so through the chair just want to report Clarify that yes Alan has done most of the third Thursday series, and he may have originated obviously that that precedes me But I will say there have been different vendors through the years and even when I started in 2016 17 2017 18 and 19 the series was produced by a different vendor that is that is outside of here so it has gone back and forth and But again, you all are welcome to give it back to Alan or decide whomever.

The board will decide when we come to the topic of talking about the events for the coming year. Now, you have a video you said?

Yes. This one is the last one, which is a night in Asia. We had a lot of different activities for kids, including sumo wrestling for Japan. We had Chinese calligraphy. We had a samurai axe throwing. We had henna for India. Four different food stations. And we put a lot of effort into decorating each section so that it really feels like you're in those places, in those countries, and it's not just a blank event.

Okay. Are you done, sir?

With this one, yes.

Good.

Thank you, Javier. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you, Javier.

And through the chair, the second part of the discussion was just to get direction from the board as to, you know, the way we picked the vendor most of the last few years was to have several people do proposals and presentations. They can come up with their own themes and present. Is that what the board would like? Multiple options?

Yes. Options.

Okay.

Because what I want to do is to keep things fresh. And in order to keep... things fresh, we need to have ideas from vendors. The board itself needs to come up with ideas that they would like to see and share. So, yes, it's bring other vendors. When activities that we're not... Look, two years ago, we did the mentalist. It was a complete deviation from any of the activities that we've done. It was very successful. It was standing room only. And it was done at the hotel. And it was great. And that was just an idea that came up. And in fact, when I heard about it, I go, what? Mentalist here in Surfside? It was a big success.

And to your point, Chair, for any of the vendors that are in the room, if you have ideas for different events that you want to propose for Surfside, they don't have to be stuff that we've done in the past. It doesn't have to be Thursdays. It could be a one-off, totally new idea. Feel free to approach me or any of the board members. so we can possibly bring you before the board.

The point I was making was in the mentalist, because that was a completely different move from anything else, and it was a success. Somebody brought it forward and go, what? Mentalist, not going to work.

And it was, yeah, it was a novelty.

Chair, if I may, could I chime in for a moment? Yes, I'm sorry. No, thank you. I think these recap videos as part of our communications and marketing on our Instagram and all social media and all that is extremely important. I watch that. I feel like I had a good time, right? And I want to go to the next one. So when the next one's marketed, you know, I'm thinking... you know, infuse a little bit of FOMO, you know, if someone missed it, they want to go to the next one and create that. And I love the direction, you know, Chair's pushing here is bring creativity and, you know, let's take this to the next level. Let's elevate it all.

That's exactly it. Thanks. Thanks, Commissioner. All right. The next item that we have here is 7D, Farmer's Market.

Yes, so we'll just welcome Javier back to give us a quick recap on the season for the farmer's market, which just finished. It normally runs October through May. This year they did an extension, so they carried out through June, recently wrapped up.

Where is it from here?

to get it from my email one second. It's not opening up all the way.

Hello again. So I introduced, in partnership with the town, the Surfside Farmers Market in 2019, in September of 2019. Since then, we've been running, I think, pretty much continuously. And originally, it used to take place in the parking lot, I think about three years ago, two, three years ago, at... Mr. Turgerman's direction. We moved it to the beach, and it's been a great success since. This is a recap for the for this past season 2025 2026 the farmers market is every Saturday and Sunday from 9.30 to 3.30 PM as Frank said usually we run from. First week of October to the last week of May and that's usually your season question.

Is my heart also doing Saturdays and Sundays yeah yes they do and do they do the same duration as we do.

They do slightly different. They pretty much do because they're supposed to start, I think, at 11 a.m., but they start along with us. And instead of at 3.30, I think they end at 4. But we pretty much start and end at the same time.

I have another question for you. And the reason why I personally asked for this recap, by the way, because I was there three times. And the last three times that I was there, I didn't see any farmer's market per se. I saw jewelry, I saw clothes, and I was not impressed by it because I don't want the farmer's market to be a flea market. I want a farmer's market to be a true market. So that's the reason why I asked for this, because there was no vendors when I was there selling any type of vegetables.

Actually we Bell Harbor doesn't usually have a

We usually have, Bell Harbor has a juice vendor that has like fruits and stuff, but they don't have fruits and vegetables. I think they had only the first season that they were there, which was the first time, which at the time we used to be in the parking lot. Since then it didn't work out for them. We started and we did have for the past two and a half years up until late January, a consistent vendor. Before that we've had, you know, when we were in the parking lot, We had several others that we switched around. At the end of January, the vendor that we had stopped doing it. We had several attempts at bringing someone back this season, although mid-season, it's pretty difficult to bring someone, both because, especially January, which is smack in the middle of the high season, Most vendors are already committed to other markets, and the selection, you know, produce is not like, I don't know, juices or sandwiches or something like that that it's easier to get. There's a very limited number of vendors in Miami. Most are located in Homestead, so it's hard to bring them out, and especially when they're, you know, when they're already committed for the season.

So right now... What can we make sure that for our farmers, not Bell Harbor, Surfside, and of the farmer's market be successful in the sense of produce? Because when I think of a farmer's market, I think of a variety.

Chair, if I may, could you please speak into the microphone?

Oh, I'm sorry. I don't have it. So now what I was going to propose to you after being there, and I've seen that, you know, basically what they were selling was, like I said, jewelry and clothes. To me, that's a flea market, not a vegetable market or a farmer's market.

If I may, we have very few, most of the vendors that we have are food or beverages in some sense. We have dried fruits, we have hummus and Mediterranean dips. For artisanal stuff, because we don't want it to be, I don't want it to be, I agree with you 100%, a flea market, the artisanal vendors that we have is very limited, and the few that we have, it's like handmade items. We have one that sells, and I can count them with my hand, because we have one that sells kids clothes, hand-sewn and, you know, and designed by her. We have one that travels the world every summer collecting artifacts from a variety of countries, all handmade. She brings them and she sells them at the market. Most pieces are one of a kind.

Yeah, but those are not, that's not?

No, no, no, I'm just going through the artisanal. We have at most three or four, usually, outside of that, you know, Vegetables, we had a vendor, like I said, up until the end of January, they had three tents, so it was their biggest space. And that one was very nice. It's a hard one to replace because it was such a big one and they also had guacamole, they had other things that they also sold. That's good. So, you know, currently in the summer right now, we're focused on finding someone to be able to take up that space because throughout the season, we tried even with previous vendors that we had had and they just couldn't commit. But we are working right now in the summer to try to find a vegetable vendor for next season. Outside of the vegetable vendors and those few artisanal vendors, we have a pretty big variety of food. Usually, it's hard to guarantee sometimes, but most of the time, kosher options. We have a kosher pizza vendor, one that opened a bakery here in town. They stopped doing it at the beginning of the season. Then we had another one. that came along. We had another kosher vendor that was kosher brisket and sandwiches and things like that. So as far as the kosher aspect, we see a huge engagement from the Jewish community as well because we have several of those products. Even in artisanal, we had a vendor most of the season that is here. They're residents of the town. They had artisanal resin mezuzahs. So, and then, you know, outside of those, we have a lot of food, we have dried fruits, we have hummus, like I said, we have lemonade, we have acai bowls, we have fresh coconuts or coconut water.

Yeah. Again, like I said before, and I, am I? Speaking. Oh.

Yeah.

Thank you. So, like I said before, all is good, but my interest is to have a vegetable market. And the attraction in Surfside, and especially on the beach side, as you know, we've been very successful, is vegetables. You have lacking of the vegetables, and you're going to have all of the good things that you're saying. You know, we have world travelers, we have this, we have that. That to me is a flea market. And that's not the picture that I want or at least I don't think it's a picture that we want to project. So what do I need, I'd like to propose to you, and with the agreement from the board, is that you can guarantee us at least two vendors that are in the farmer's market between January and whenever that are going to be vegetables.

So I ask the question just one second.

As if I can guarantee it? Yes. I mean, I can do everything in my power to have it, like we've had it for the past six, seven years.

Because when I went, I didn't see that.

Can I ask when you went? Just to have an idea as far as...

It was on a Sunday. I can't begin to tell you. I don't remember yesterday, but it was on a Sunday. All three times were on a Sunday. The fourth time, actually, I should have mentioned, it was very successful. I was there. I was hopping. It was food. There was vegetables. Then I went, and it was all I saw. In fact, recently, maybe it was our mistake to extend it one more month.

In hindsight, it was. In hindsight, usually it ends at the end of May. We extended it until the end of June in anticipation of the World Cup.

Maybe everybody was just tired. Maybe. So I want to make sure that it's not a flea market. That's my whole thing.

No, and I think one thing that we've had in mind since the beginning and one thing that I have really, I think, made it my mission for it not to be, it's a flea market. Like I said, we have 17 spaces in total. Usually throughout the season, you know, the number of spaces that are filled varies between, for example, low season, high season. I would say it's usually between, we have 17, it's usually between 13 and those 17. That's fine. That it's filled. And out of the 13 or the 17, I would say that, you know, At a maximum in high season, four vendors are artisanal stuff, are either jewelry, clothes, or something like that.

What percentage is it? Four.

Four out of 17. That's good. Yeah.

That's good.

The rest, it's usually food and refreshments and vegetables, when we have vegetables.

I do have to say, to Javier's point, because I do frequent quite a few farmers markets between here and Broward County, Even if Eskaya, which has a lot of food, it's mostly food. There are no fruits and vegetables. The only farmer's market that I was at this year that had an abundance of fruit and vegetables was Parklands.

That's a big one.

It's a huge one, and the farmers are that far out west. That's part of the problem. Our farmers are predominantly in Homestead, and for them to come out here, I don't know if the...

Well, maybe we shouldn't call it a farmer's market. Maybe we should call it a flea market.

But it looks... Of course not. It looks fairly similar to the one at Legion's Park. It looks fairly similar to the one at Vizcaya. It's unfortunately the vendors that are out there.

Yeah, there's very few.

As long as you have... a fruit and vegetables at all times. When I was there, there wasn't. In fact, I asked some of the vendors, were there any fruits, any vegetables? They said no.

Yeah, no, like I said, since the end of January, I think we had one that started out like one weekend. And then since then, we haven't had, we've covered those spaces with other products. but we haven't been able to have the fruit and vegetables. However, with that vendor, they were with us three and a half years. So for the past three and a half years, they were there. And before them, we had the ones that actually do Legion Park. It's one vendor that sources from different farms, and they actually run the market. They started this market with us, doing it with the produce, and then we've had several others. But it is, like she said, It is very difficult to procure a produce vendor. It's not impossible, and that's what we've had, and I'm doing everything in my power to obviously keep it, but it's very difficult because they're all in Homestead. There's a very few amount, and it's very difficult. It's challenging.

Could we do a, through the chair, may I? One second. Yes.

Yeah, I think I do get your point, and as much as is possible to have it will be great. And if there is data we cannot have it for any reason, I think we should still have, like we do have there, for example, the coconut water with fresh coconuts there.

It was always there.

It was always there, and it's amazing because I usually do my runs or my walk on the beach, and the thing that I buy the most in there is the coconut water or the fresh fruit. you know, like whatever to eat, cut it in there, juices and all that stuff. And it's still, you know, farm fresh food, you know, which is kind of the thing that we want and the tourist want and everyone want. And I think if we do have that component, we're still on the kind of safe zone to call it farmer's market.

Judy, I just want to make sure that we don't lose this site. that it is a farmer's market, or at least we label it a farmer's market. And even if we have one, I'm sorry. I have a thought on you. If we only have always at least one that has the variety of produce, I'm fine with it. But when you don't have that, and yes, you have juices and you have jewelry and you have clothing and you have, That, to me, is not a representative of a farmer's market. Commissioner?

I definitely feel that it should be the farmer's market feel and vibe. It's a big part of our Sundays. We go out every Sunday. We stop there. We pick something up and go to the beach. So it's a grab and go, or like Judy was saying, You do your run or walk, and you grab a coconut. I don't know how much people are coming with shopping bags and walking away with bags of produce and heavy stuff. So how do we get that feel with the grab-and-go thing? So perhaps a vendor that could do crudités, like sliced veggies and hummus or dressing, where you could take it in a boat. You have the veggie vibe. You have the kind of celery, tomatoes, that kind of carrots. And take it to the beach. Take it for a walk. You see a lot of people walking around with their grab-and-go, or acai bowl, or something easy. Through chair, if I can... Veggie farmer... Yeah.

Right, but that's what I meant. If I can... One second, Jocelyn. That's what I meant before, and I keep hammering the same point over and over and over, and I'm sure you got my point. Absolutely. Because you and I communicate quite clearly. So... Again, that's all good and fair, but I want to make sure that we see vegetables so I can call it a farmer's market.

Let's go with that. Get some vegetables. Maybe Publix can do that.

Fred, I have an idea.

There's vegetables.

For vegetables. Jocelyn? What about partnering with FarmShare or Feeding South Florida? You want vegetables there, let's do, we wouldn't advertise it massively, but we could do farm fresh giveaways. What FarmShare and Feeding South Florida will do is they'll provide the volunteers, they'll provide the vegetables, All they ask is that you tell them like what city you live in and they'll give you a bag of zucchini or okra or I used to do it with Federation and JCS. I can partner and get you the people that JCS uses and their vendors and we could do a vegetable giveaway both days. Okay.

Are you familiar with that? I am familiar with it. I work with North Miami, and they do like a city pantry that they give that away.

We've hammered the subject enough, and I think that we killed this dog three times, so let's move on. I think you got the message.

I got it. Okay. Thank you.

Good.

Thank you.

Good. Good. Good. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Good night.

Thank you, Guy.

Oh, my God.

All right. Now for 7E, which is Resort Tax Board Business District Grants. Fred, this is your item.

It is, and do you want to introduce this, Frank? I can just do the preamble, and I have spent time with Frank and our attorney in discussion about this.

About a half hour, right?

More than a half an hour, probably. But I won't take a half an hour today. I'll try not to, please.

Thank you, Fred.

I want those damn vegetables, come on. I'm kidding. I've been in Surfside 16 plus years now, and I have for a long time been very underwhelmed with our downtown district. I was on DVAC, PNZ, Commission, now here, and our downtown is still our downtown and it's not world class, it's kind of...

It's Art Deco.

It's not even Art Deco, it's sad, it's sad. I walked our downtown every day, several times a day, and it's like, okay, this is just not happening. We have a lot of turnover in our businesses, coming and going pretty quickly in some cases, which is disappointing, not sure why. Economics, volumes, I'm not sure how successful they are, If I'm thinking of Surfside as a tourist destination, and that's what we're talking about here, this is the tourist board. We're one of three communities in Florida that have the opportunity to collect these resort taxes. And I think Miami Beach is a pretty big resort town. We know that. I think Bell Harbor. Maybe not, I'm not sure what they're doing with the money, but that's Bell Harbor. I would like to see somehow we as a town enhance and support our downtown district. on the commission that I served with Mayor Denziger and some other folks, we had a plan, we had designs to really make our downtown walkable, open, wider sidewalks, less parking actually, some carve outs for outdoor seating for people to sit and enjoy food, beverage, whatever they wanted to. Great plans, commission changed, and that got thrown in the wastebasket. Here I am, and I'd like to still think of how do we get our downtown to be more like Coral Gables, like Lincoln Road, like Fort Lauderdale. There's so many downtowns that are so beautiful. If I'm a tourist, I'm not going to come to Surfside because of downtown. I'm going to come because of the beach. I'm going to come because there is a great community of religious organizations, religious institutions here that I can pray and be with family. I'm going to probably stay at some world-class hotels. We have the Four Seasons, which is number one in the country, not only in the country but in the world. Some other great hotels, the Grand Beach. The Marriott and I gotta believe many of our tourists just don't come to our downtown and if they do they're probably thinking What is this? They don't go to our restaurants the people at the Four Seasons probably go to about harbor shops Of course, there's they go and they say the Four Seasons exactly but they date so so my proposal and I and there may be some help I need from the Commission and Commissioner Wong got. Mayor Danziger, I might need your help again to carve out some funds. But I want to incentivize, and I think we have some funds, $7 million, $8 million, maybe there's not all of it to our availability, but how do we incentivize our business owners and or the property owners of the properties on Harding between 96th and 94th to improve their property. The awnings are all different and in different state of disrepair. The storefronts, there's no cohesiveness, there's no continuity. The sidewalks, although they were sandblasted and I appreciate that happening a year ago, they were sandblasted to get rid of the paint and the slippery conditions and it made it safe and relatively decent looking. It's kind of gone into somewhat disrepair. Mr. Manager, please feel free to work on the sidewalks again if you have a chance, more sandblasting or whatever. He's not listening. Keep moving, Fred. Keep moving. grant program, let's use some of these funds to match investment in our downtown, and. I don't think we can.

Again, like I said. Never say never. No, I don't think, maybe I'm wrong, but we can use these funds to enhance a private business.

If we term it under beautification and some other ways we can, I guess, phrase it, and if the attorney would like to opine, perhaps.

I want to address for a second the awnings. If they're in disrepair, we have a code, a code enforcer, or code compliance, I should say. They're in charge of making sure that those are clean, they're not ripped, and so on and so forth. That's not a tourist board activity. So what I'm saying to you, your idea is good, but I don't see how we can invest our funds that we have in reserves or otherwise into the business district. Now if you tell me that we're gonna enhance the community centers, let's do it, because we have the funds for it. But other than that, I think that if you lived here 17 years, then you've seen the decrepit way that it used to be. In fact, when a business went vacant, they used to use brown paper in the windows, and we've improved that by having some nice colorful messages on the windows. That's a huge improvement. We didn't have that before. Business went vacant, brown paper. It was horrible. And then we started thinking about art in public places. And so it came out with the screening, which is a lot nicer. As I said, if you feel that, or you see that there's earnings that are in disrepair, is it code compliance?

It's not disrepair. They are in disrepair, but they're also, every building has its own motif. There's no consistency. That's the beauty.

The beauty of it is it's Art Deco. I said that before. Look at the buildings.

This is not like Lincoln Road. This is not Art Deco. If you've seen Lincoln Road, you know it's nothing like that. We pale in comparison.

Well, it's a matter of opinions, right? But anyways, again, if you have ideas because of your observation, bring it to the table.

Something like more.

Yeah, I mean, you brought the idea that something needs to be done. What? Who? What funds? Allocations. Is it a different department? Is it the town service side responsibility? Or is it a tourist board responsibility? You know, we need to have something that we can grab on and say, okay, we as a board could do this. And then you propose it to the members. and let the members vote on it.

May I say something?

He's proposing now.

I'm proposing that we actually act on this, ask someone to investigate. I've had conversations with our attorney, with Lily as well. There may be some ways to accomplish this without just saying no to it. I think that's a bit disrespectful.

Have they come back with your request?

We had a discussion, and there are some possible.

What was the outcome?

That we might need the involvement of the commission to allow some variations of investments.

Okay, but that's the commission. We're talking about tourist board.

If the tourist board doesn't ask, we don't get, so let's ask.

Well, that we could do.

Thank you. That we could do. Through chair, I have a question for Fred. Fred, are you talking about kind of more beautification in terms of local, like we did at Little Bay Park, where we have more local vegetation, or are you looking more to standardize the awnings, standardize the way the businesses look, standardize the amount of seating they have on our sidewalks?

I'll answer that a little bit, and then I'll let you answer further.

That was a question to me, Mr. Chair.

That was a question for me. What I want Jocelyn to know, that standard earnings has been a topic for the last 25 years. I think one of the nice things about the business district is that it's individual. Everybody is individual in the business district. Now, some people may agree with me. Some people may disagree with me. But the beauty of the building, actually, if you look at the buildings itself, they're very nice. And the storefronts, I agree. Some of them, they do need improvement. But that's the owners. If you don't like something, say so. We can't go and police private businesses. We can't. So having said that, go ahead, Fred.

I'm not suggesting we police, I'm suggesting we incentivize different behavior. If there is a way, grants, if we can invest.

It's not our duty to do grants, it's the commission.

Right, and would that be grants from our money, or would that be them writing? It's our money.

Right. You cannot use tourist, you know, this idea that all of a sudden everybody's interested in seeing this 5 million, 8 million, 10 million, You can't spend that money unless you do, like I said, a major capital that has tourists involved in the mine. Then you could take $5 million in billability with tourist tax dollars and say, you know, this is an activity that we have open to tourism. That's fine. But you can't take the money and put it into a private business. You can't do that.

Chair, perhaps a thought. I'm listening to the discussion. Whose place it is, whether it's this board bringing ideas to the commission or for me to carry it back to the commission, perhaps that's a path. But I think there's a few things here. I think there's a long-term vision of... Planning for suicide, which has been a discussion on on the commission and that's ongoing. That's not a 123 thing, but I think this would be play a huge part of it. You know what our downtown district is for. 2530 year plan and how we're getting there. Um, but there's also some immediate things perhaps. Uh, you know, like the sandblasting was done as a safety measure. I think, and it has been a discussion, I know other members of the commission have brought it to town manager, is keeping it cleaner as a start. It should be pressure washed more often. You walk through, there's actually dirt in the corners next to the storefronts and the sidewalk. That should not be there. We want to create a welcoming environment, before a grand renovation here, but just some of the basics. The landscape has been elevated recently. I know there was extra effort put there of trimming that and keeping the trash clean more frequent. But going back to your idea of the third Thursdays, bringing business to the storefronts there, the businesses there, perhaps this ties into it of elevating this experience so that more people are coming to it. So just trying to bridge the conversation and I think a grand renovation is something that's gonna be a longer term vision and has to be part of town planning and I think it should play in and whatever this board's role in that and bringing ideas forth, will be, now I'm here to support that and communicate it back to the commission, but some of the immediate things perhaps we could look at also, just elevating the experience there. I would be in support of, I think other members of the commission would be in support of some more outdoor seating and looking at the shift of the parking spaces there, but it's not a one, two, three thing. It's a longer term vision.

So you know that I'm the guy that started the outside dining in Surfside.

Great job, I love it.

The code did not allow it. We could not have outside dining. And I got together with the manager at that time, and we said we're going to call it a pilot program. And using that excuse, outside dining was born. So ideas do come up. They become a reality. I personally don't like the way that they did the sidewalks. I think the reddish color standardized would look a lot better or was a lot better.

I actually met with public parks recently, and they have a paint that can go back to that color that has the non-slip option in there. Because the sandblasting didn't pull it all off. It's patchy.

Right. So we talked about at the commission level, and this is not a commission. See, I don't want to make it a commission meeting. But we did talk about putting pavers, and they said, no, the old people are going to trip on the pavers, so therefore it's not warranted, and so on, so forth. And I don't want this to be turned out as a commission meeting, but there's a lot of ideas, yes, but it has to be brought to the commission level, period. Not at the tourist board. That's where I was getting at.

Frank?

One second.

Me? Yes. If I may, I just wanted to reiterate sort of the parameters within which we're talking. When I spoke with Board Member Lansman, his initial request was that, you know, can we do some sort of grant program, right, that would drive tourism to this area? And the response was, as you've aptly pointed out, You exist by a special act of the legislature from 1967 that specifically lays out how you can spend your funds. You also have a provision in your code, I believe it's section 70 of the code, that specifically sets out how you can function and what your duties are with regard to how you spend funds. Within that, the answer that legal gave was if you bring it up to the board, The board can discuss various options. The world is your oyster. And then we can see within what the appetite of the board is within this idea, whether it's feasible or how it could be feasible based on how your funds are intended to be spent. So I think that was the framing of the conversation in which this idea was being brought to the board, at least from legal's point of view, which I think was brought up a couple of times in our conversation with Board Member Landsman. That was the context in which our advice was basically we need to see what the appetite of the board is, what their wishes are, and what their direction is, and then we can advise what is feasible and what is not feasible given that.

Are you trying to tell me that we can spend these monies anywhere we like?

No, sir. That's not what I said at all. Okay. No.

So are you in agreement with me and the board that the funds that are spent here are tourist...

They need to relate back to the tourism, yes. And the special act and the code set out how you can do that. But within that, I don't know necessarily that a grant program is what the board is interested in. There may be any kind of variation with the intent to drive business. What I want to just make clear is that I cannot say yes or no to how funds can be spent until I know if there is direction for legal to look into that. And then we're happy to do so. So I think the idea was to bring the conversation to the board to see what the desire, what the appetite, what the direction of the board would be, and then we would be happy to look into that for you.

I think this board would probably agree with me that we basically need to do any type of activity, any type of activity, that we legally can spend the funds, period. I don't care what it is. Bring a monkey to 95th Street.

Can I just respectfully disagree with that?

What do you mean? What do you mean?

Why are we not thinking outside the box? Why are we not thinking of bigger potential options? Why are we not thinking of how to, businesses, restaurants, shops in downtown aren't there for the residents and the tourists, then I'm mistaken. Tourists can and should come to our downtown. Tourists, not just people that live here. So if we help to beautify, and I'm not saying more palm trees or more... or whatever it might be, something tangible that can actually help us elevate our game. And maybe it's not grants, as they may not be a viable option. Although, again, I'd like to engage the commission. Yes, Commissioner Weingart, please help us do something for our downtown. It's been tried and there are certain commissions that have said, we don't care. Let downtown deteriorate. So let's, let's, let's, I don't want to, I am not on this board to sponsor more activities and more events and more third Thursday, second Wednesdays, first Mondays. I'm not here for that purpose. I will do. I'm part of this board. I'm part of this board to actually help us elevate surf side.

Yeah, but not on grants that makes it illegal. So again, If you come to this board and you bring ideas that the tourists are included in this, fine. If it's gonna be. Did I not do that? No, you're talking about businesses and basically individual businesses.

Do tourists not attend and utilize our businesses?

Yes, and they pay the tourist tax dollars. Hey, there it goes. But it doesn't mean that we are going to sponsor these businesses. These are private enterprises. Anyway, enough said on that. Frank, you had a question. David. David.

Yeah, I think it would be better if... If we made a recommendation that would go to Commissioner Weingart to take to the commission for us at the next meeting, think about Fred's ideas. If it is code enforcement, I'm seeing tiles from previous owners put up. And they're buckling and falling off their walls now. The garbage, even though they're trying, It's still there. So anything we can do to enhance, you know, to make a recommendation, we'd like to see something done, whether they do more code enforcement, more beautification. But that would come from us, recommendations, turning it over to them. I can't remember if Frank was in charge of this, but a few years ago you had something like a late night recommendation. where the shops were open.

Midnight Madness.

I thought that would be perfect for us. When I was on this committee last time, I came up with an anomaly night somebody from France told me about, where it would be like a scavenger hunt. And in the jewelry store, we put a necklace made out of macaroni to see if people picked it out. But that way, they'd know there was a jewelry store there. if i think if we came up with some activities like that to get people there you know and then somebody was mentioning where the restaurants would be bring a freebie you know have a little table so people know what they have there you know some samples i think we could go that way to help with fred's ideas to get people there they did have some late night thursdays the last couple of months too like i went to potter me late at night okay Frank, was that Frank or was that Tourist or was that just you came up with that? Through the chair.

So Midnight Madness is an initiative that was born out of some of the local businesses. So it was their own initiative. I think, I don't know if they've done it two or three years now. If it's three, the first two. I think it's three. The first two, they were on their own, but we did help them to promote it a lot. And then last year, I recommended that we actually sponsor it so that they can go a little bit bigger and do a little bit more. So we did. And that was successful last year. So that's something that I recommend that we continue to do. separate topic, but something else I've proposed, maybe not for the season when it's so hot, is to have a musician or somebody on Harding Avenue just to create some elegant ambiance music. Those are low impact things that don't require a lot of .

So maybe we'll put that on for the next agenda, some ideas to pull people on. And we can also put on the agenda our recommendations do more according to Fred's ideas, too.

Well, I do want you to know that when the Third Thursdays series came out to life, and we used to do it on 95th Street, we used to have rancheros, Mexican music, that I used to walk. I personally used to walk in every single restaurant in Surfside. and bring these musicians inside the restaurant and play Mexican music. And they loved it. But then again, this whole activity was moved from 95th Street to 93rd Street.

So just, sorry to interrupt, just to go back, because I'm just taking notes, and I have a request from the tourism board to bring back to the commission, find ways of elevating the downtown district. in support of this idea. I just want to connect a few other pieces. I think our attorney was telling us that we could ask for we can give a example of what we're looking to do and council could look into that and explore if that's legal use of the funds. We're not saying it is legal. So I think, I think, you know, Fred's idea of it started abroad, but just breaking it down of like a few things that could be done for the downtown district to help the businesses, to help the resort tax, The whole cycle, right? Because we need those funds coming in to support all these other nice events and music on the street and all these other things. It's a full cycle. We're not giving money to business owners. It seems much more of supporting the overall health and ecosystem and creating that environment that people want to be there. with the music, with the fun events that we're doing, but bringing the business, and if we're bringing the events in town closer to that, it should be something impressive that we're proud of, right? Whether it's uniform or not, that's not for me to say. For uniform awnings, that's not my place. Art deco, I like art deco. What that means, it means something different to each of us. I'm not gonna get involved as far as that goes, but just from listening, I think what I was hearing from council is that we could give a request of, an example, hey, if we're doing X, Y, and Z to elevate downtown district to benefit tourism and to therefore feed this whole cycle, is that permitted use of funds? And we could ask anything. The answer may be no, but we could ask.

Is that fair? Yeah, just to clarify, yes, that was the information that was given when I spoke with Board Member Landsman and to the board is any direction that you would like to give to legal for us to explore use of funds based on your ideas, we are happy to then look at it, see the legality of it, and opine on it, and then we can let you know if you can use the funds for that or for anything else.

All right, very good. Thank you very much. Mr. Lansman, are we in agreement now? No? Not yet.

I put you on for, I have you for the agenda. We're making some agenda items. Yeah, for our agenda. Our agenda. Okay.

All right. So now we have a direction, proposal, investigation, and recap, and so on and so forth. Okay. Now we go to the next item, which is? 7F. 7F, Sponsorship and Strategic Partnership. Jocelyn, that's your item.

Yes. So coming from a nonprofit world and always having a nice budget, but looking to highlight things that are local. We have Flanagan's. They're excellent. Granted, it's not kosher, but it behooves them to participate or sponsor or even offer food. Most restaurants... We'll give you food before they'll give you money for our sponsorship. But I think we need to look at who we have in town. Possibly look at brands. I was looking at the spiked teas that are spiked with vodka, which is Surfside Brands. I'd love to be able to reach out to them and see if they want to be at our stuff. Their logo is... very similar to ours. If they have promotional stuff from last year that they want to give us for giveaways, why not? There are so many opportunities in this community. We have banks in our community. For a lot of them, our events are advertising for them. And give them the opportunity, let's say, You know, we give Chase Bank the opportunity at Third Thursday to have a little tent in a booth, and they offer free checking accounts for residents, things like that. I want us to think of what we can do to help highlight the businesses in town and to help highlight the restaurants. A lot of our kosher restaurants, when I worked at a yeshiva, were very willing to give me food before they give money. But it highlights them. It gets them involved. And it makes them part of our community even more so than they are. Especially with Flanagan's, you have things like, and I think our Flanagan's loses out when they have things like St. Patty's Day. The Flanagan's in the Grove, because they own that massive property, has a truck out there. They're there for two or three hours. They're giving things away. If we could close our parking lot for that day, it would bring people to Surfside. It would encourage other things, and it's not necessarily something we're spending money on. So if we can all kind of look into things and just see who we can bring in. You know, if we close the street for St. Paddy's Day, that'd be great. It increases their business too, not that they don't do a smooth business, but it encourages a partnership between us and those that are giving us this resort tax.

I think that maybe the vendors that are coming through for...

Chair, if you can speak into the microphone, please.

The vendors that are coming through for the, let's say, Thursdays, they can explore or even the Tourism office can explore vendors on to add on to the events or maybe in coordination with the with the event producer You know, I mean those are good ideas.

I think we should perhaps maybe look into it And also I know that the Marriott the residents in Marriott did offer residents to use their pool and things during their slow time and If we can partner, you know, even with the Grand Beach or the Surf Club and say, look, if residents come in on Monday because it's a slow night, they eat at this Michelin star restaurant and they get 10%. Plus, we'll kick a little more of the resort tax in.

Yeah. Good idea. Very good.

Yeah.

To the chair, good suggestions. We will turn our wheels and I'll think of, you know, if there's any opportunity.

We'll come up with something. Sure. All right, very good. Thank you, Jocelyn. The next one is additional funds for the 4th of July event. That already went, didn't it?

Yes, it did happen. Thank you, Mr. Chair. But so because there were some changes to the 4th of July event, and again, you know, we don't produce the event per se, but the board does fund it. There were some changes that were requested, I guess, late, you know, pretty close to the event date, and that resulted in some increases. So there The budget that Parks and Recreation had was short, and all the changes resulted in $24,127 short. So the ask is if the board is willing to pay that money so that it does not have to come out of the general fund. And just so you know, we do have plenty of money that will roll over at the end of the fiscal year.

I'm going to charge Fred Landsman with the bill. Let's go through.

So if I may comment through the chair,

Yeah, I want to ask.

My experience on Saturday was not as pleasant perhaps as others because of this combination of our three communities. I think there was some, was it politically nice?

You didn't like it?

I did not.

No, okay. I didn't know.

A part of it, I went to the earlier part at the community center. There were some glitches there that weren't really smooth and that could have been better. in the evening, I went to 96th Street Beach right at nine o'clock looking to see our traditional display of fireworks at 93rd and nothing. And I look to my left and I see a display of fireworks down north that seemed to be another community. I'm like, that's not our fireworks.

And it was. It was.

And now you're saying you want $24,000 more to cover what was in my... People were leaving the beach. People were leaving at 9 o'clock before the fireworks or during the fireworks.

I think people were like... Are you not in agreement? I know the answer, but I'm going to ask it as a question. What I'd like to ask Frank is what is this for?

What changes require a $24,000 shortfall?

the moving of these fireworks to the jetty in Bay Harbor because they wanted fireworks and we didn't get any? What was the point?

So it was a number of changes. And I may not have them all here, but I do have them in an email. I'm happy to send them to the board because I did ask Parks. And again, I'm not involved in the day to day or the back and forth or the different contracts. But from what I understand, the relocating of the fireworks cost X amount of thousand dollars. They had to adjust the catering budget maybe on the regular side and the kosher side that resulted in X thousands as well. And, and that's how it built up to 24,000. Again, tomorrow morning I can share the full breakdown.

The $24,000. Does that include. Well, Harbor and Bay Harbor, or is it just strictly our portion?

That's what the town is requesting. I don't know if some of that was shared, you know, activities with the other municipalities. You know, I know, I don't know. Again, I'm not.

We don't know. Okay.

Through chair. Judy. Well, there's a part I agree with Mr. Lanzman. I didn't like the fact that the fireworks and the whole event was like far away, that it was more like to Sunny Isles than to us. I would love that event to happen on 96th Street as I thought it was going to happen in front of the beach on 96th Street where everything was happening. It didn't. Where was it? It was on... Behind what? Behind the jetty.

Near Hullover Beach.

Hullover Beach. Hullover Beach.

No, it was not a Hullover. It was launched from the jetty. And just a few things. I'm going to chime in because I hear everyone. Number one, launching from the beach side I've researched this, is for this type of display, you cannot do. So you need to do it out really in the water on a barge. The challenge with that is it's $100,000 more. And if the waves are above a certain point, I don't know if it's a foot and a half or two foot waves, they'll cancel on us.

How did we do it in the past? One second, Justin.

What I've looked in and what I've seen is that it's been done on the beach by looking the other way. But it's a safety concern. There was a fire behind the Majestic because after the official display, a private person went and launched fireworks and they caused a fire in the shrubs. In the shrubs? In the shrubbery, in the green space.

In the green space?

Yeah, from stuff that fell back down. So it has to be launched further out.

So that's why it was done that way?

It's just one factor. I'm saying obviously we combine towns and it was big enough and you were able to see it from everywhere. I mean it was it was much bigger than it's been in previous years.

I'm sorry.

And and one time ash flew back on the beach. The people were so and then it also one time I heard it went into the pool. and they had to close the pool. That would have to be checked out, but I did hear. I was there one time where the ash came flying back at us. So, okay, so questions on the 24,000. Nextdoor is not, you know, there's a bunch of mean people on there, but they keep saying that we were the, Surfside was the only one paying for the, Fireworks, so that's not true. Good. Okay.

So this was all shared and the food was shared Equally equally I don't have the exact breakdown but us in Bell Harbor both chipped in in a big way for the fireworks and drone and Bay Harbor did that entire 96th Street all the events and Stage and all that they covered all that and the music with enemies Oh

The feedback that I got, and knowing that we've done the barge off the water, as has Miami Beach for the past 60 years, two miles out, which has always been, those that have set fire to, unfortunately, to the condos are residents lighting off their individual. I've always had a problem with that. I'm sorry, people are not careful. I've seen kids blow their fingers off. Right, but my question is, with that 24,000, and whether we do or we don't, I'd like to see what the breakdown is from the other towns contributing, because our rec department should not have to be the only ones contributing.

Right, okay, so here's my question, and I'm gonna put this, I'm going to ask a motion from this board to pay or to contribute to the town funds on the additional $24,000 that the town incurred in the production of July 4th. So I'm going to ask what was done is done, and I think it's been an experience. I think that this tourist board, should be how should I say sensitive enough to make sure that we cover activities that are for the tourists as well as the residents so I entertain a motion to pay the additional funds through chair I would like to put a codicil on that that if things are changed again somebody is

I'm sorry, but the town should be able to vote on it. And I think it was, I'm sorry, I think it was really unfair that residents and our representatives, it looks like there was a handshake somewhere and nobody was consulted. And while I don't mind participating with our neighbors, I feel that we need to be asked.

Okay, so here's the question. The question is that these funds have been spent and they're asking us to, if it's possible for us, to contribute to these funds to make sure that we at the Tourist Board pay those funds. Do I hear a motion to approve?

I'll make that motion.

I second. Second.

Any further discussions? If not, call the roll. Please.

Board Member Kinzer?

You made the motion, so it's a yes anyway. Yes.

I'll say yes, but I would like to see the accounting, the forensic accounting, and make sure that Bell Harbor, Bay Harbor Islands also had to ask for additional funds to cover whatever shortfall.

It's not necessary because we don't know what the budget is.

I want to know.

I think the commission should be asked.

And again, this is the first time you're hearing of a 24K overrun. I wasn't aware of anything overrun.

If I were in the commission, I'd want to know as well why this is being asked after the fact.

Okay, so we have a motion on the floor. We have a second on the floor. What is your vote? I said yes. Okay.

Member Martinez?

I agree with Mr. Atsman. I would like to know the numbers, the account, and I will say yes with the condition of seeing those numbers later on. Okay. So is that a yes? So we'll have to redo them a motion, right? Yes.

Who made the motion? Me. You don't have to. That's his prerogative.

Yeah, so the motion on the table is to approve

Because it's 24,000.

Right. So it's a yes or no on this. If that is not, if there's a difference or an amendment that you want to make or anything like that, then that would be a separate motion. Or you can amend your motion and then that would be.

I don't want to amend it. I agree with Eli that they want the money to pay. And then if we want a second motion, it should be a, you know, and I'll be glad to make it. We need a discussion next month. on seeing if we can get that information, but also on some pros and cons of what we observed when we went there. So I'd be glad to do that. So I'm going to stick with this motion. What about you, are you going to stick with seconding it?

I'm going to stick with the motion and I can motion that we ask for the financial.

So if anyone would like, would you like to have the clerk read back the motion so you can continue your vote on it?

The motion is really and truly to vote to pay.

Correct. I just want to make sure everyone who's voting understands that that's the motion.

I haven't voted yet. She hasn't asked me to vote. So who's next?

Yes, I was in the middle of the call on the roll, and I wasn't sure if Borma Martinez was voting yes or no on the approval of the $24,000.

Well, yes, of course.

Vice Chair Karp?

Yes.

Chair Turgamon?

Yes.

Chair, the motion carries.

Thank you very much. And then. Commission. I motion. Wait, she wanted to make. One second, one second. Commissioner, you need to inform the commission that we voted for the additional expenditure from this board. I know.

And for a breakdown, I mean, that should, we'll get through.

No, no, no, this is the next motion.

I motion that by the next meeting we have a breakdown of the budget as well as what the other towns contributed in regards to the $24,000 we just paid.

Okay, do I hear a motion?

Yes. She made a motion. May I have a second?

Do I hear a second?

I second.

Any further discussion?

And so can I put on the agenda for the next time the discussion for the pros and cons of what we... Yeah, he'll put it through.

Through the chair, yes.

Okay, I'll write to you. I'll write to you, Frank. So that's not a motion. That's just something for, okay. Okay, yeah.

Mayor Catacoro?

Yes.

Board Member Kinzer?

Yes.

Board Member Lansman?

Yes.

Board Member Martinez? Yes. Vice Chair Karp?

Yes.

Chair Torgerman?

Yes.

Chair, the motion carries.

Thank you very much. Thank you, guys. I think it's... And it's very, very good points that everybody brought out, Eric. As far as the expenditure, why was it this way and why was that way? What was the drawback in putting it over there and so on? So maybe next year we won't do it.

Through the chair, just very quickly, I didn't bring it to you at the last meeting because I was not aware. So this is something that came up recently, and that's why it's here before you now.

It's fine. It's not your fault. Did I say it was your fault?

No.

No one said that. OK.

Okay, 7H. All right, so now we're on what? 7H. 7H. Legal follow-up on the board. The name.

Yeah, so at the last meeting, the last board meeting, legal was asked to look into whether this board could revert back to using and being known as the Tourism Board instead of the Resort Tax Board. Correct. The Tourist Board. Correct. And so... We looked at it. We looked into it. And our information is that prior council immediately preceding us did give an opinion that the code codifies the resort tax board. So that is accurate. And so our recommendation, if you would like to use tourist board for meetings or for anything else that is forward facing, Our recommendation is that you may want to request that council amend code so that it would read something to the effect of, you know, it's hereby established the resort tax board, which may from time to time be known as the tourist board. And then in that manner, you would probably, you know, you'd be able to accept.

Okay, so what is the action that we need to take now?

So you would want to request that council amend or commission amends the code.

Who do we request, me or whoever?

Well, you may want to put it to your commission liaison.

Put it to the commission liaison.

But you'd want to make a motion that this board is asking for the recommendation to the commission. Did you hear that?

We make a motion.

Yeah, if I were you, I would make the motion. We make the motion. Yeah, so it's a formal. It carries it through. Right, so it's a formal.

All right, so I hear a motion. Do I hear a motion?

I'll make the motion. Could you repeat the language, please? Sure.

Commissioner Weingart? Your motion might be something to the effect that the code, that Section 70 of the code be revised to reflect that the board should be established and known as the Resort Tax Board, which may from time to time be known as the Tourist Board.

All right. Perfect. I make that motion.

Got that, Commissioner?

Second.

Okay, any further discussion? No. That was very good checking, thank you. Board Member Kinzer? Board of the Board, please.

Yes.

Board Member Lansman?

Yes.

Board Member Martinez? Yes. Vice Chair Karp? Yes. Chair Targument? Yes. Chair, the motion carries.

Thank you very much. By the way, this may be out of order, so help me out if I am. Now that we're talking about the board being named, hopefully approved by, as the tourist board, I'd like to suggest to this board that there's a little park on 92nd Street and Bay Drive. The park was originated.

Chair, can you please speak into the microphone?

That's okay. The park was originated by the prior prior commissioner with the dinosaur site where they made a space in the corner of 92nd Street and Bay Drive. They had a little park named Flamingo Park. Then came a new commissioners, and they changed the name without any buts or buts, and they made it Little Bay Drive Park, whatever. I would like to see if it's possible that we as a tour if you like the name Flamingo Park which is the original and the reason why was on a flamingo Park is because Hialeah gave us a Flamingo which went into that little Park and that's why it was called Flamingo Park I think Flamingo Park is more of a tourist attraction because tourists go into parks and take a look at it that little Bay Drive part do you agree disagree I don't care through chair.

When I think Flamingo Park, I think Miami Beach. I think of Hialeah. Well, when I think flamingos, I think of Hialeah, but nobody chases the flamingos anymore. But yeah, Flamingo Park is Miami Beach, especially being a beach grad, because that's where we played every baseball game, everything else. I also think Little Bay Park may have been voted on, so we do need to check that.

I would like to talk, I would like to talk too.

One second, one second, one second, one second. Frank? Mr. Attorney?

Through the Chair, just quickly, the name was voted on through a contest, and that was through communications, but there was voting.

So the name was voted.

So my request would go where and how? to revert it back to the original Flamingo Park.