Resort Tax Board - Regular Meeting

We're ready Madam Chair. You call the order and I do a roll call. trickles out this. Vice chair Martinez. Remember Calloway here to have a quorum. Okay, thank you.

Call me a commission the a son the vice mayor Tina thank you so much for being here. Thank you Frank for being here. Thank you Cynthia. Thank you. Judy, and we're ready to start. We're going to try to do that very quickly because it's not that complicated today. And we're going to go to the agenda and order of business. It doesn't work, now are working.

They're working fine? Okay, now they're working. Okay, yeah. Yeah, through the Chair, just wanted to let you know we may, we should skip the Clean for Cones recap again because Rodrigo is traveling, so if we could defer that to the next month.

Okay. Because we need them to be present or we can talk about it?

Yeah, he has, well, he has the recap presentation with a lot of the numbers and the breakdown, so I think it would be helpful.

Okay. Okay, and something else? No? Okay, then we keep, do we have town commission liaison report, something to report? Yeah, right. Here, this one.

Thank you. I don't actually have a report for today. I will say that the downtown sidewalk cleaning had started and stopped. I don't have information about it. There was a dispute with the contractor. I have it on the agenda to find out the status. And also the house at 9333 Harding, I also have an agenda item for that because apparently it's being leased. and the commission never discussed it based on the survey that was put out, so I do have those items on the agenda to get more information and have an actual discussion.

Okay. Okay. Do we have public comments?

There's no public, Madam Chair.

Okay, and we're going to approve out of minutes. A minute from July 7th, there are some, something to correct?

No, no, no, no, a motion, no? Okay, yes. I make a motion to approve the minutes from July 7th.

I second the motion.

Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay, now we're going to resort to collection and vacancies report, and it's in charge, Frank.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was hoping we would have a new set of numbers from finance, but we didn't. So what I did a short while ago is I gave you a different snapshot of the last report that we'll look at the month of April. So I have the data up on the screen. And it's actually a really good report, because although you see a decrease in 5% on the food and beverage side versus last year and 3.1 versus 2023, I noticed that our highest grossing restaurant is not included in the April data. So they hadn't made that payment, which I'm sure they will. So once their numbers are in, I think we're going to be in the green. So we're actually going to be very good. And if you look at the increases on the accommodation side, I mean, they're massive. I actually had to double check the numbers a couple of times. I'm like, is this real? But yes, we are up 36% over last year and 41.2 over 2023. So really, really strong numbers overall. Over in the business district, Just want to note that we have a property that's been vacant since November 2020, 9509, which is near Josh's. On that corner of 95th, it was going to be a few different sushi restaurants that never happened. But now it looks like it might be another ice cream shop, soft serve ice cream, 16 handles. Yeah, should be coming soon. That's what's new in the district.

Okay, nothing else, right?

No.

Okay, yeah, we have a little ice cream, maybe, I don't know, some people love it. I saw that there are like a one, two, and actually one next to the other in some part, yeah, and a paleta stone, it's true. Okay, thank you, Frank. We're going to see annual events, the 7A, ongoing annual events. And a budget for that, or schedule something?

Through the chair. So I provided you with a budget for next year, just as a reference, because this isn't, you know, it's just really just a conversation. I want to know from you all, you know, the typical annual events that we do year after year are summer Sundays. We have the Thursday block parties. Pedaltopia has typically been one that we do every year. So some different seasons, we've done different numbers of those. So we've done as many as like five Thursdays. We've done as few as three in other years. So. Because there's often talk of wanting to introduce new events. And of course, we also have parks and recreation events. They have a pretty strong lineup, which I actually have their schedule as well. Yeah, just wanted to know if you feel like we should have the same amount of Third Thursdays. And how you feel about the schedule, if you want to keep it more or less the same, change it up. And obviously, you don't have to decide everything today. It's just an early conversation.

And it's good to have a conversation between us right now, because it's true, with many comments about the events, because we have always the same, the same, and some of the quality is going down in some events. Maybe, I think... If we want to keep it the same kind of events, I would like to suggest to do less. And then we can really do the big event and we can concentrate in the big event, for example. And I guess it's one of my suggestions. Instead to be doing like a, how many Thursdays do we have? Like a four, four?

This last year we did four.

Exactly. Because that way we had a chance, we had the opportunity to do a better event, I guess. It's a suggestion, but you're more than welcome to jump and suggest something else. Because I think, for example, the palytopia was really two days and was really bad. The common study here was not the best. And if we do the third stage, the fourth, and when we can... concentrate more in the big event that I'm trying to do, I think. Okay, is someone want to make comment, Cynthia?

I don't know about Paddletopia, so I'm sorry. I don't know what the feedback was personally, and I couldn't attend, but I agree. I think there's just a lot of events, so I think less but better. Yes. And I don't know if it's like one less of each, and then you make them bigger and better, because I feel like you're restricting the food because we're trying to stretch it out a lot. And I also feel like every time I looked at the calendar, there was something going on personally. Yeah.

Yeah. I agree the same, and I think for summer Sundays, I think we are starting too late, because it's too hot, and now we have all this, the algae in the beach. I don't know if, instead of starting, we have started July, maybe we can start in May, which the beach is even more beautiful, and we can really take more advantage of the weather, and it's already, kids are almost out of school, summer's starting, so maybe we can make May, June, July, and then we have September, the weather is not good, it's always like hurricane is at the peak. So I think that's something that we should take in consideration. And regarding Padultopia, this year two things happened that didn't help at all. One was the passing of Rabbi Lipska and the other the weather because it rained a lot. So maybe we also should consider changing the dates for Padultopia and I think Now that we have the paddle rental, it's amazing because we're going to have more people interested in doing the paddle top because we're creating the culture in the town. So we can really make a good event of it because now people are more aware of the use of the launch of the kayaks and paddles. So I think still a good idea. but maybe find a better weekend not rainy. And that is not in the rainy season, right? And yes, we can make three Thursday and three summer events.

Through the chair, just wanted to make a comment on this year's scheduling for summer Sundays. It is a little bit later than usual, but that was because we had a lot of 90th anniversary events in the spring that we don't normally have. So, you know, we probably would have started a little bit earlier in June, but I think you make a good point about maybe starting them in May when the weather is even better and there's less likelihood.

Yeah, there's not much wind. There's not much algae. It's not that hot.

Yes, and sarcasm season is particularly bad this year. It isn't always, but obviously, you know, earlier in the year will be less of a chance of that.

Eliana, do you want to say something? I like all the events we have.

I don't have any complaints about them. I enjoy all of them, and I've only gotten good feedback from people that really like it. In fact, I've gotten feedback from people that used to complain about events that, especially on the Thursday stuff that we were having, You're like, wow, this is amazing. As it went on this year, the first couple, I think, there were some issues we had to work out. But I think people were overall very happy. The weather is something we can't plan for. It is a good idea to move it so we're not dealing with weather issues. I agree. That would probably be good. I do think Paddletopia is great because it also uses a different venue than our other parties. It uses the park in a really nice way. But having it at a different time of year may be the difference because then we won't have the weather issues.

Yeah. And I think, you know, something that is very special of our town is our waterways, right? Not only the ocean, but also the bay. So I think it's good. to create the awareness of our waterways in something that is not so impactful, because it's not motor, it's just a sport. So I think the bad thing was weather, because it was very well organized. There were so many classes. There was like the yoga class, the breathing class. I was there the two days. I suffered the rain. But I liked the event.

I also think that the Paddle Topia, if we wanted to do it, let's say, in April, more with Earth Day or something, it's a great way to combine events. And so we can have that be the theme, and it would be one event, because normally we have sort of an Earth Day theme event. Instead, let's make that together. So they're bigger events, but less of them, I guess.

Through the chair, just having an idea. I mean, paddle topia is typically a two day thing. Um, we typically do, you know, the parks does the earth day fair and we do the plastic fishing on that Sunday. Um, do we still want to have paddle topia be a two day or what if it was a Saturday, the Saturday before they can't, if we're going to have it on one day, it has to be a Sunday, unfortunately, because we can't,

exclude, or we have to do a two day. That's just the way that.

I have a great idea, but I don't know if it's, can I, may I?

Yeah, sure, go ahead and I talk about it.

Now that you were talking about Earth Day and Plastic Fisher Festival, maybe could sound crazy or not, but maybe Saturday we can have paddle topia and Sunday we can have paddle topia and plastic fishing. And I went to an event with kayaks and paddleboard cleaning the waterways of plastic, because it's a lot of plastic over there. And we've been doing a lot of plastic cleaning on the beach, but we can do it.

It's a great idea.

Yeah. So we can do both things and unite the efforts to create something bolder, bigger, meaningful.

Yeah, if you insist with the Padeltopia, I would like to recommend at least one day, not two days.

It didn't cost. Let me finish, please, please.

I prefer just one day because even that some comments that you mentioned are positive, A lot of comments were very negative about the quality of the event and the two days. And I think many people didn't show up. The weather and everything happened. But I think it's too much. We were talking about that we are having too many events. Frank printed a copy of all the events that Park and Recreation organized, too. You have it there. It's on the screen, too. And then you can see... Because it's that event, our events, and other events. I mean, just, I agree, you want a Padeltopia, but reduce at least to one day, not two days. But this idea that she's mentioning, maybe we can combine, and that way you don't feel that you had two days doing Padeltopia.

OK, so I just want to say it costs the same. It wasn't a savings of any money. It was the same event. It wasn't, she even told us last time, it's the same money. Because it's not an expensive event. It's the people coming to do classes and all that stuff. So in general, I think people like to have weekend things. Like in Bay Harbor, they have the art weekend festival. There's nothing new on the days. But for all the work that's involved in setting up, it's nice to get the two-day payoff. People also have different schedules. People with kids, they'll have soccer games or this games or that games. They can't necessarily make it, giving them an option. And we don't do a lot of weekend festivals. That's like the only one we do, to be honest. There's not another festival that we run or event that we run that's over two days, all year. So I think that's what makes it special. I love the idea that Judy has about combining it with the plastic fishermen and getting the plastic out of the water. So sure, we can rebrand it and incorporate that. If we could, you know, do the sustainable reef that weekend too we hit like a bullseye right but i think that we can i wouldn't i don't want to cut back we're not we're not spending too much money we're not we're putting good events together the weather is the weather we're in florida we can't really predict that it's worse if you have one day that you look forward to and you get rains rained out at least for the two days some people made it to half of one day and then the next day it was rained so i don't see the benefit of cutting that it's not an expensive event that costs a lot of money

Well, yeah, it costs anyway.

No, but it's the same pricing. It wasn't any more expensive to run it as two-day. The whole event was cheap, wasn't it? It was $30.

It was $30 for a two-day all-day event.

I mean, compare that to the one... But it is a good event. It was a great event. It was a great quality event. I feel like you're in the minority on this one thing.

Listen to the people, listen to the comments, not just the comments that you hear. are different comments. Even some people from us, they were doing the same comments about it, but okay. I made my comments, I respect your comments, and it's fine. We can decide, right now is just to start the conversation.

Just to get a feel, and already I think we had some good ideas about the timing of things, and I really like the trying to do something to clean up the waterways. I think Rodrigo may have pitched something similar before, but I think if we can incorporate that element, That would be something cool.

Yeah, and I think, yes, we can really cut the third Thursday and summer Sundays instead of four events, three events. That's already two weekends that we are cutting from the agenda that it's too big and it's a lot.

Yeah, I mean, even maybe going down to three and three would open up the calendar a little bit more. And it may not be to not do anything else. It may be just to have an opportunity to do some new things. But again, you don't have to decide today, but that gives us a sense of where you're at.

Yeah, because it's summer also, and many people, a lot of people was part of the people in the public, more than the suicide people right now in the events that are organized on the beach.

Yeah, but it's summer too. But it's good, because we're the tourism board. We are not parks and recs. Parks and recs, it's for the people. you know, especially for the benefit of the residents of our city.

But we are not only for the benefit of the residents, but for the tourists.

And, you know, and so I think also, Samir, it's kind of... Yeah, we want to attract new people.

to the events, and we want them to say, hey, we had such a great time in Surfside, so when their relatives come visit down the road, we want them to recommend Surfside. And sometimes, you know, that's where the event experience helps.

Yes, and that's why I think to create the awareness of our waterways, not only the beach, it's a great idea, because people, you know, that comes to these hotels, we see how the increment of the increase of the rate of the rooms. And it's good that they have activities. They can do, okay, I walk there and I can do paddleboard. So many people want to do paddleboard, but they don't do it on the beach because they are kind of scared if it's not really flat, it's not a good day, blah, blah, blah. But to have it on the

Yeah, that's a great addition. I know the hotels are very happy.

And I think we should think all, you know, like even for our big event that we want to do, it's what makes Surfside special. And I think it's that, is that we are surrounded. It's anyway a tranquil place surrounded by water, a little bit high end, nice restaurants. So we should think about all those elements when we are thinking what, the events that we're designing.

And when is when we are going to decide this, about the number of events? When we have to decide, because it's already...

I mean, obviously we need to invite vendors, so you first have to let me know, do you want to invite multiple vendors, the ones that we typically do, or do you have somebody in mind for, say, Thursdays that you want to offer the series to?

I thought that, I forgot his name, the guy, Javier, he did a really great job with that Italian night thing. I would give him more events.

I mean, he could always do, remember, you almost picked him for Third Thursdays last year, and it was like a night in Italy and the Aloha and Sports Night. I mean, he could do the Thursday block party series as a night in this and a night in that. And, you know, I mean, if you all decide you want to offer him

I thought he did a great, he would have to present, I guess, right? Of course. But the other idea that I had was, because you were talking about that this is for tourists and everything, we have to be more strategic about when we plan, the dates we plan it, because there are certain weeks that are holidays up north where we get a lot of people in town. And I, for example, my husband's family, extended family, comes down for a certain week every January. They happened to come down one time when we were having one of these parties. And they told, I mean, they wouldn't stop talking about how amazing it was to everyone, everyone, how great it is, how great it is. So if our goal for tourist dollars is to, word of mouth, we want to make sure that we're doing it at a time when there's lots of tourists in town, not when it's just like, yeah.

So it's got to be. Our high season starts in November.

It's got to be a little bit more thoughtful, because I think last time we were just like, that date, that date, that date, but then it's busy. We were busy.

It just gets very crowded, right? It was a lot of different events, many weeks. And obviously, we had the 90th celebration, so that added to the calendar. But yeah, timing is important, as Eliana mentioned. And I think December, January, February, those are your peaks. So I think if we can put together some great experiences for people to enjoy during those months, I think they'll walk away with, you know, talking about it. That's what we want.

Yeah, and that's why it's important to invite new people, too, because we have the same people every time. I mean, and we have another two. You mean attending the events, the same people? No, no, no, doing events. We had new people this year.

I will invite. But as you know, I invited a lot of new people through the years. I think only one new person has ever gotten picked. So many of them don't necessarily always want to come back and present because they get overlooked. Just keep that in mind. I do put feelers out there. But again, if you tell me, hey, we'd love Javier's ideas for Third Thursdays, I think he'll do a great job. Why don't we offer it to him? You have that discretion. But if you want to say, hey, we want to pick some more.

I have an idea. I think for this year, just maybe to change. Because people really like the Italy night he presented. And if he has more ideas, maybe we can do. And it doesn't have to be the third Thursday. event necessarily or could be if we are reducing the two three nights but it could be at least those maybe he can plan two events that are in like a very high peak season you know like november and december that will be you know like because we know it's gonna be good so

But why wouldn't we just, I mean, I don't, I agree, but why do we need to change, why wouldn't it just be called Third Thursdays and have him do it on the, and he can call it a night, Third Thursday, a night in whatever. That's what he did last time. Yeah, yeah.

We have already a name.

It's just nice because people can remember it. It's just very easy to remember when it is.

I agree. We don't have to change the name.

And let's try to keep it on the Third Thursday.

Yeah. Maybe we could do January, February, and March. I mean, those are three days. months and and then you know maybe we transition into some other stuff what's in December then December super high well December I mean parks has an event and then it's also holidays people are traveling it's Art Basel it's actually kind of slow like you get Art Basel and then it's dead and then it's Christmas okay January February March sure But, I mean, if you wanted, but what is the third Thursday?

No, if we did January, February, March with third Thursday, and then the April was the Palo Alto.

Okay, you guys remember, no conversation, and you need to go in order, because Jim can do all the program, all that. Okay, someone else who want to give another idea, something else? No? I think we have to decide this anyway, because it's going to be September soon.

I just had one comment as an idea potentially. I don't know how the summer Sundays, if you guys love them or if we thought starting a little earlier, maybe you skipped July because it's so hot and people are traveling. And maybe that's where you reduce to three events and take the money, which is only 20 grand, but put a little bit more into the third Thursdays so that whoever has that can elevate it a bit more. But you're not saving money, but you're moving it into a different.

And we are trying to do a big event is what we are trying to organize another event that we did.

We have money for that already. We have money for that already.

Exactly. That's what we are trying to do instead to be. different media events to do a big one is what we're supposed to do. Yeah, we're going to talk about that. That's not what I'm saying, though, Diane.

I'm sorry, maybe I'm not clear. I'm saying potentially reducing the summer Sundays to three events instead of four, taking $20,000 and putting it into the third Thursdays. No, the third Thursdays. and allowing and just sprinkling a little bit more money onto the third Thursdays, keeping that at four, but giving the vendor a little bit more money so that we can have a nicer event. You could, in theory, take that 20 and put it into the big event too, I suppose. So that's also the idea.

Because through the chair, I will just note that when we did a night in Italy, it was a higher price than a regular third Thursday. Yeah, it was. Not crazy more, but it was a little bit more.

Yeah, it was.

Okay.

Okay.

I like that idea. I also, the only thing is I also, I know that when Sarah does the events like the Summer Sundays, she's also limited by a budget. And so what we get is sort of a function of what we're paying for. So to some extent, it's not fair to be like, this isn't as good as the other thing where we're like, here, make amazing things with 20 grand. And then we're going to someone else going, you have 50. And then we're comparing them and going, look what a great job he did. And look at a crappy job this was. So we really, if we want to up the... the quality and have less of them. We need to sort of sprinkle the money, I guess, evenly to upgrade if that's what we want. You know, again, I don't know what she would recommend would make it better, but I do think if we do three Third Thursdays and then do the Paddletopia, that would cover all the months, right? January, February, March, April. And then when are you thinking for this new signature Surfside event?

So we'll talk about it in a separate item. But I mean, we had two ideas, maybe one for the fall, one for the spring. But it's all early talk. But there is a separate item for it.

Yeah, but we will talk about that later. OK. Yeah.

OK, but this gives us an idea. And we'll revisit the schedule. And we already got some good ideas.

Yeah, because we cannot do even, like you mentioned, Ileana, because there are different kind of events. When you're doing the beach, really, you don't have to do that much stuff that you do here. It's different also.

It's different. That's not true. You can do amazing things.

Well, do you have wood quality? Yeah, you can do, but we don't see that.

You can have a snow cone maker. You can have this. You can have that. You can do a lot of stuff. But we would, it's up to the vendor to say, if I had this, I could do this, this, and this.

Okay. It's okay. We can go to the 7B, new tunnels, painting update.

Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. So after the last meeting, I did find a really good artist that can execute the painting of the turtles. I think they will be under I know they will be under probably under 1200 each. So the price is very good. The timing that best works for the artists would be, I think, to do them on August 17 and 18. So coming up. So yeah, if there's no objection, we'll move forward. But I do want to talk about where you are recommending that they be installed, because I know when the project first came about a little while back, Vice Mayor Paul, you may remember we talked about putting one at the 92nd Street beach entrance. Just want to know if that's still the... suggested location for one of them. And then if maybe one of them should just go across the street, we added one new turtle, the one that was not related to the board here on this side of the sidewalk. Maybe we can put the new one on the opposite just because whatever locations you recommend will just have to be confirmed by the town commission because these are, you know, kind of permanent structures. We just wanna make sure that they're okay with.

I mean, if they're. What about if we put in 96 something by the beach that we don't have a staff there? Nothing really is zero. Okay, in 96.

At either end of the beach path, maybe one on.

But would it be in the way of the farmer's market?

That's not my.

No, necessarily. No, no.

We're not gonna like plan the town around vendors.

No, no, but I'm just thinking, okay, it's a small sculpture and it's a very big space. I'm not like fully envisioning it, to be honest.

Where are you thinking of putting the one on 90, on the first, on the 88th?

I wasn't planning on one.

Weren't you talking about the beach entrance? Maybe 89th, not 88th. That's where the memorial is.

No, I'm talking, I thought you were saying you wanted one where the beach path starts on either end of the beach path. Is that what you were saying, or I misunderstood that?

The beach entrance, which has like a sidewalk and a little bench.

Yeah, I actually have a photo of it, just if we want. Okay.

I don't know where the turtle would go. Yeah, I'm not following where you want to put it.

It's not where I want to put it. It's the board had talked about the 92nd Street entrance. It wasn't me.

Okay. I just wanted to wear, I guess.

So I guess it would be somewhere. You know, there's the equipment at the end of this. I can't get Google to go all the way down there. But do you want it somewhere in this vicinity? Or do you just want them both out here on Turtle Walk?

I don't know. They're your turtles. That is 90 seconds?

90 seconds, yes.

Yeah, where? Where you are going to put it there? I would...

I'm sorry. I think there were some that fell apart by Turtle Walk. The idea of having them by Turtle Walk is a destination sort of for tourists and they take really nice pictures. Maybe some of them need to be switched out and move some of, like I would put the new ones there and maybe move,

I don't know that I would move any of them. I mean, they're all okay. When they get broken, we fix them. So I know a few had some injuries last season, but we always repair them. The paint may be getting a little bit dull on some of them, but none of them are looking bad, in my opinion.

Yeah, okay.

Do you want to talk? Right, go ahead. If you're going to do it on that street, on that path, I think the only place you could put them is between the two trees down the middle. There's not a lot of space. It's not like a wide space. You won't see it. I don't know. I don't know. Or unless you put it down by the little sign on the ground that tells you what street you're on where the kids, the kids. The little, yes. The mosaic thing. I don't know if there's room there.

Maybe if you put it like where the first tree is, if you put it in front of the first tree, then you would see it.

That people can see it. And I have an idea. I was trying to do that. Give me a second, Judy, please.

Closer to the past. That's just where the mosaic is or the workout thing?

So it's possible there's room.

You'd have to go and look at it. Get rid of those workout things. They're so ugly.

No, but they are useful. I use them.

You do?

Yeah, I do.

I was thinking in 96, because in 96 we don't have a thing. Yeah. Something saying source site. No one knows that it's source site. Yeah, me too. I think it's sort of a grand entrance.

We could go out and look at it. I mean, I'm just not super familiar with that entrance, but we'll just find the spot that you all are recommending, because again, we have to tell the commission this is the spots they're recommending, so.

Can we have, instead of one here and one there, two of them in whatever place we choose, even if it's the 92nd or the 96th? Because I think it's more meaningful if we have two and that only one floating.

Yeah, absolutely. I get lonely.

For me, it would be great to have them both on the 96th street on our entrance to make it. but could work there where the space is better. But there is good for the hotels because we have the Marriott around there and it's close to the four seasons. For the tourists kind of thing, I think if we really find a good place close to the path on the beach, it will be amazing.

But if we agree all the 96 would be one of the options, it would be great.

Yeah, I think having them.

And put it to like Judy proposed would be better. Let's see here.

Yeah, like an entrance to the town. Exactly. I like 96. It's like this side is Surfside. Welcome to Surfside.

You go there, Frank, a little further? A lot of people go by the path. There's like a triangle there.

Yeah, I think that's like here, right?

I know you can't see too much because they have the construction, but if you put it there. Are we allowed to put anything?

I don't know.

That's what you got to find out what we're limited to.

Yeah.

Maybe.

I mean, they're bolted down. They're not too heavy. I know Public Works can move them and remove them if, say, a hurricane was coming.

Yeah, like the entrance would be great. Or on either side of the beach path. Yeah, exactly. Like that, if you're allowed to.

Okay. On the curb there, I mean, it might be a little bit in the way of the market also.

Through the chair, if you put them by the walking path, no one's allowed to ride anything there. Okay, that's a walking path. If you put it on the hard pack is where people are riding bikes and things like that, so there's more problems for hitting it, whatever. But I don't, if they put it by the, you know, on either side of the walking path, that's like welcome to Surfside, you know.

Okay, I'll talk to Public Works and we'll find out if it's possible to put them there. And if we are, maybe we'll work on a little mock-up. We'll confirm their recommendation.

Because Bell Harbor has sculptures on their path. Okay.

It should be doable.

big upside down yoga lady.

And something that says welcome to Surfside. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Something because we don't have even the name of Surfside is really nice in there.

Okay. But that's a whole other thing. What is the welcome to Surfside then? Because we don't have a sign.

We can get a sign or a pack. We have the budget.

You mean like on the, on the tunnel?

What does that sign say that's there?

It, I think it talks about the dunes maybe or, or beach rules. No, that's, that's one of our beach signs. Okay.

And you can all go. We can have a sign made.

I think the sign says, you know, no bikes, no dogs.

It's true, it's true, it's true. Okay. But then, that's it. You are going to find out and let us know? Yes. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

And may I? Maybe we can also, if we are thinking this way and we like this location and we would like also 92nd Street, maybe we can... For this year, also another two additional totals and place them so we have them in 96 and 92nd. Oh, yeah. Because I see the value of having them in 92nd Street strategically for the tourists. and I see that here, because it's where our beach starts, and it's beautiful, and so we can invest, because I think we have the money, into more turtles, and do what we've done, you know, do the turtles, do again, you know, with the school that we already approach, and, you know, select the piece, or whatever, do the whole thing. Sure, yeah.

I would like to suggest something different to the turtles. I think that's also okay. Too many turtles. Because if we have this thing that Judy mentioned about the intercoastal, why wouldn't we do that kind of table with a soil-side ladder or something that we have the pads there? Because it's soil-side, because it's supposed to be a town. We are not exclusive with turtles. Black Harbor has turtles. Miami has turtles. But if we do... The table for surfing would be amazing to another kind of sculpture. The what? That kind of...

The surfboard.

The surfboard, yeah. The big thing that they do for surfing. The board, the table board. The board. What?

Kind of like a surfboard installation.

Something different to the turtles. We have turtles.

I know, but the turtle is our town. Like, we have a theme. It's our mascot. That's why we have it. Yeah, it is. It is our mascot.

We have a lot.

It's like if you went to a school and they had a mascot, gators, and you were like, why is it all gators? Let's have an opossum.

I know, yeah, but I know. We have a lot of turtles. We have a lot of turtles. I know, but that's because it's our thing. Well, yeah, but, okay.

We don't really have a surfing, like, it's not like a surf town. We don't get, like, a, yeah, we're not Hawaii.

I would just say let's do these two first. Obviously, the commission has to confirm them, so let's see if they like the suggestions, if they like the ideas, if they're pro-turtle, and, you know, then we can explore some more.

Okay, okay, okay. We are in 7C that we're going to skip because it's clean for cons. We are going to go to 7D event recap for summer Sunday, but we did that already in certain way, but you want to wait, no?

No, I mean, as I mentioned before, Sarah unfortunately can't be here tonight, but if we want to talk about the event that was last weekend, sure, go ahead.

Oh, yeah. Well, we were there. At least three of us, we were there, and I enjoyed it. I liked it very much. Thanks for the picture of myself that are everywhere. I like the food was much better because something that we've been talking about, and I think it was the paella was great, the potato tortilla was amazing. I think this time she nailed it with the food and people was happy and there was a lot and I stayed till they completely wrapped up and there was still paella and drinks so I think people, the only thing that really kind of, that was not good, it was the sargassum because we had it all, you know, so it was hard to put the, to do the set up with the sargassum so maybe for next time we should recommend maybe to go a little to the back. So where she puts those little...

The thing is through the chair, where you have to leave like an emergency vehicle's opening, yeah. But I don't know that it, because to me, I mean, the opening was very narrow and then the stuff for the tents was right there. I don't know that it can go further back. I mean, I'll mention it to Sarah, but I thought that the opening that there was was already like pretty tight. Yeah.

I like it. Okay. Someone else?

Just want to mention one thing. Yes, I think the food was a lot better. The paella was very good. It was made fresh on site. Only thing would have been the music was not really Spanish, so it didn't really fit the theme.

It's the same groove that she always brings.

Yeah, but people enjoyed the music. They were dancing, and they were having a good time, and I guess at the end of the day, that's what matters. People had a really good time.

Okay. Something else not right. Then 70. Through the chair.

I just want to say yes, I thought the event was very good. The one thing I noticed there were like plastic cups. I think that this was something I mean way back when we started the series it was about not using plastic. The commission at the time. I think in their contracts stated what materials to use.

Yeah, it is in the contract. But I do want to say, I remember only paper cups because I remember them very well. I didn't see plastic cups. Were they drinking cups?

So I would like to see less plastic. And I mean this for all the vendors, not just zeroing in on this one. And I guess they're using the plastic forks that The compostable plastic forks aren't really compostable. It's a commercial-grade compostable. It's not, you know, so, I mean, Parks and Rec still uses those, too, and I think it's good if we can all move away from that.

Like the wooden ones more that we used in the 90th?

Yeah, okay.

Because she was using plastic.

Yeah, I think when the series started, she was using more of the sustainable materials, so I'd like to see Really, all the vendors go back to doing that.

I did notice the forks and the plastic, but I didn't see the cups, but I will mention it. Thank you for letting me know.

She had both plastic cups and paper cups, so maybe they ran out of the paper.

Okay, but we got to make sure we only do paper.

Got it. Okay, 7E, Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

Yes, thank you Madam Chair. I just wanted to put this item on the agenda early to talk about this year's ceremony. We obviously, we're gonna have some really nice lighting. I think it's going to look even nicer than last year's with the new vendor. There's going to be more. Of course, we have the nativity scene, which I'm really looking forward to seeing it unboxed. So whenever that happens, we'll take a nice photo and whatever, because you all sponsored that. But yeah, just to talk about the little event that we did last year. It came together very organically. It was kind of last minute, but it turned out awesome. Diana and I and a lot of us were working on that very hard. But just the question is, do we want to replicate that same event more or less for next year? Or do we want to enhance it? Do we want to get a vendor involved to do a little more?

I thought it was really nice because it had a community. It really felt like cozy and community. It had a different vibe. I feel like when you get vendors, and I love that the youth council was there with the food. It's just a really great way to meet your neighbors and the kids, and they feel like they're putting together something. So for that particular event, that to me is what the holidays are about. the holidays are about coming together as a community and everyone, you know, tripping in and doing stuff like that. It was really nice. It was nice because it was different. It wasn't like a produced big event, that's my view.

Yeah, I would like to add something else, like for example, carols, you know, maybe bring a little, yeah, something, you know. Carols. Oh, carols. What about the choir, the New World Choir? Yeah, well, talk to someone. A lot of kids in town are in it. Whatever. It's something about music.

They would love to be invited.

They would love to be invited, the New World Choir. The high school kids are really good, too.

Yeah, whatever.

I think music would be nice, for sure. I mean, Christmas music is such a big part of Christmas.

Enhance a little bit more. I know it was just last minute, and you guys... did the best, but maybe we can do more, like we mentioned, like more cocoa, more treats, more things. and the little gift or whatever, even if it's organized by, could be organized with the help of the youth council, because I know they'll love to do, to work in there, you know, it's a nice, as Liana mentioned, it's a nice activity to do with the community, with others, you know, like... even like a company, but that it can work, we can work with the youth council and do.

Yeah, to help in the event is fine. But I really suggest that we need to buy something because last time we were borrowing all the decoration and everything. Yeah, of course. We need to have our own because we were asking the neighbors to be actually, Lucero bring us all the stuff from her house and we put everything in the tables. It's something that required a lot of time, and we did it really in a hurry and working so hard.

To the chair, Lucero had really nice stuff, so maybe we can just ask her to buy some stuff. We can pay for it, but she has good taste and a good eye for those things.

Yeah, because she left us all her arrangement. She put everything from her house, and they said, Wait, this one's here.

If she hadn't had all that stuff handy that afternoon, it wouldn't have turned out as nice as it did, so she was a huge help.

Yeah, I suggest that we authorize Frank to do that, that they buy something for us. because we can be lending the people something.

Some nice tablescape, some decor.

Exactly. And the carol that she mentioned, it would be great to have that arrangement right away because it's then close to, do we have the date already for that?

That's the next part of the conversation. So I wanted to see if we can lock in a date. My suggestion is Sunday, December 7th.

Sounds good to me. Late. Doing it early.

I'm away the Sunday before, and that's like the end of November. So you all can do it that Sunday, but I'm going to be traveling.

I think December 7th is good.

What's wrong with December 7th? Christmas is three weeks away from that. And Hanukkah is the next weekend. When are you coming back?

I'm coming back that Monday.

December 7th. No. The 1st, right? The 1st, yeah.

What's wrong with the 7th?

I think it's November 30th. You said, right?

I'm away, but you all can still do it.

Everyone's away.

That's Thanksgiving.

Everyone's on vacation.

Yeah, through the chair. I just looked up the dates for Basel is December 1st to the 7th. I would recommend the 7th.

Because it's the last day. Our buzz was quiet. That last day, pretty much everything's over.

Okay, well then, if everyone agreed.

Or the 3rd of November, if you want to do it earlier.

That week, everyone is off from school, the whole school, so everyone takes off. All the kids are not going to be here. The ones on the Youth Council won't be here.

I think the 7th is good. Okay, well then the 7th.

Okay, I think it's a good date. I mean, it's first week of December still.

Okay, December 7, and we are going to authorize.

So we'll talk about some music and getting some decor for us. The Santa.

Yeah, and the Santa. Pictures. Yeah. The choir is going to be...

Yeah, I would ask New World, since you have a relationship with them from the New World School of the Arts, the high school, they have a choir program.

The ones that did the turtles.

The ones that did the turtles, they have choir as well, they're very talented.

But also, we can ask our school here. Yeah, also from Ruth K. I remember a long time ago, they did a presentation here, but I don't know if they will.

And they did it for White Harbor, you are right, and they were singing beautiful, the kids. And a lot of kids, they live here in Southside.

That's why I say.

That would be cute because then you get some local.

And if we tell them in advance, the teacher can really prepare them for that.

And who knows that? You can do that?

You mean you want to do the elementary school kids, not the high school choir program?

Why not?

I think that the kids... Yes, I know.

Not elementary, the middle school.

But I think that the parents will enjoy it. But I think that the general... I think the quality, no disrespect, but the caliber of the kids who go to New World in the choir program are professionally trained and they've auditioned. So I think there's... You just said you wanted to make this, like, elevated and make it more professional. Having... You know, my kids went to that school and it was great and they performed a lot and I went in class and took pictures, but I would not... hire them or bring them to an event that I was trying to, you know.

Okay, but then I suggest that we hire professionals then. No, but the New World Choir.

Here's what I can do.

I can reach out to both, get some feelers, who's available, what it might cost like.

I know at least three Surfside residents are in the New World Choir. That's also the residents. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, we have that option.

I'll reach out to both, and I'll, you know, obviously.

That option's out there, and if no one hire, a lot of people want to make some money for December, we can hire someone, some professional.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'll look into options. Well, we're going to talk about this again, but at least it's good to lock in the data.

Then it's going to be December 7th. Perfect. Okay. Let's go to 7F. Fall and spring signature events. Some ideas. Remember that Clara is not here, but well, she... She was proposing these, we were talking harder about that, and we were talking about a ballroom, masquerade, the different ideas last time. And we didn't end it, but we're supposed to bring Everyone, some great ideas.

Are you talking about something similar to the 90th anniversary party?

Yeah, but beautiful and great because the people really love. We never hear any negative comment. The quality of food, the quality of music, the quality of everything.

But it was the 90th. It was special.

But we want to do something special. Why not? We have the money. Instead of having little event titties, I mean, why not? We were...

Well, just to introduce the memo. So again, because you've been mentioning some signature event ideas. And obviously, last year, we had to do the 90th celebration. So this is just an early discussion about different ideas that we could look at. An adult-oriented ball or masquerade type of event came up the last time. Is that something you all want to explore for the fall? I know for spring, you know, when you talked about the signature events, Javier, who's here and can come up in a minute, had an idea to have us partner with the Ground Up Music Festival, which is already established and has like Grammy award winning artists that participate. So maybe to do an official concert that would be promoted as part of the festival here on our beach. You know, that could be something very cool for the spring. Obviously, there's a lot that can go into it. So, you know, we can first talk about the fall idea, the masquerade, and then when you're ready.

But I think from what I remember, the discussion last time with Clara, what we're looking for is an event not like a one-time party. She was, from when we talked about it, it was supposed to be something like, for example, Basel is a thing. It was supposed to be a weekend of a theme, of something special that's different. Not like, not having another event and just something here from it. That was the idea, was to come up with a signature event like, For example, I was wearing a T-shirt last time. It said Wintergreen Music Festival. The town of Wintergreen does a music festival. They're very well known for it. It's in the mountains. We need something. So I am not looking to just, this is me personally. Again, I'm one person. I wasn't thinking, let's just spend a bunch of money on one party. It's going to be a fun party. that doesn't have legs or marketing potential if it's every time it's a different thing. Like, oh, we had it this time.

But it wouldn't be every time a different thing. So the idea would be to introduce these signature events that will become signature annual events.

But a masquerade ball, something like that, is not a unique, it's a type of a party, but we really need, and what I'd like from professionals is ideas to put some time into it with marketing. What would work with our town that would be a theme that would work that we could, brand and do, and it would grow. Like Art Basel became a thing. Wintergreen Music Festival became a thing. Like, let's come up with a thing.

Not just... We can ask the vendors if they have ideas. Again, this is Javier's idea. It may not be a two-day thing, but it fits some of the other markers that some of you may be interested in.

But the other guy... Let me talk a little bit. We were thinking in different things, but for adults oriented, a very nice event once a year, once a year.

Right, but that was not, that's not a signature event. The conversation around a signature event, and that was Clara's thing, and I remember, maybe we should wait until she's here to talk about it, but she was definitely on the, her idea was it would have its own name and theme, and it would, yes, for adults, okay, but not, like, the jazz, a jazz group on the beach is something that, what's his face did? Remember the other guy?

No, but this is very different from music on the beach. It's extremely different from that.

Well, it's not. It's just a gesture. No, it is.

It's a five-time Grammy Award. It's a part of something established that has a lot of marketing behind it.

It's not Surfside's thing. It's something that exists, and we're piggybacking on it.

Correct, but it's not like music on the beach. That comparison's not accurate.

That's fine. But it's not a signature new event. Depends on the conversation.

You're going back to Clara's original idea and conversation. We have since had other conversations about the signature events based on the success of the evening celebration. So some people, again, maybe not you, but the chair would want, was thinking of a signature event that could be similar to that. So there's different schools of thoughts and different conversations. It's not just one way. But if, you know, going back to Clara's original idea, we want to think about something that is more than one day that vendors could come up with? Because again, I'm not getting a lot of suggestions from the board, so I could send emails to vendors and say, hey, just the way they came, I think, last year or the year before, we had some new vendors that brought brand new ideas. Again, most of them you passed on, but we can ask for some parameters. Hey, we want a two-day festival, something that is going to be marquee and unique, something that you know, it's gonna set us apart, these are our venues, what do you have? What are your ideas? We can put that out there.

We can enrich everything, Ileana. The idea is that everyone bring ideas, and to make it, if we wanted, if we have enough beautiful things to do in two days, perfect.

You know who would be good? Cheru might have ideas. Huh? Cheru might have ideas.

Who is Cheru?

Cheru is, yeah, she's the one who did a lot of the event.

Well, we're going to invite different people, but we need to bring our ideas, Eliana, not to let them know what to do, but we let them know what we are thinking. Maybe they can give us a feedback with their ideas, and then we can decide from there.

So this conversation, for example, I was going to see if there's interest in this adult-oriented idea, for example. Maybe there isn't, but if there is, I would then reach out to Charu and to a bunch of different vendors and say, hey, give us your best proposal for this type of an idea.

I would, instead of talking to vendors necessarily, I would start, I mean, yeah, vendors, fine, but I would start with, I'll call Charu, I guess, or whatever, but it should be a brainstorming of resident like what kind of thing is unique to Surfside what type of an event is unique to Surfside how we manifest it maybe it is a masquerade ball or something but that doesn't do a brainstorm right now yeah but a masquerade ball I start to think about Purim I'm like okay it's Purim or it's Halloween it's like you know Halloween is basically everyone getting up in costume also yeah So it's Purim, so I was.

But there's no, Halloween is in the streets and it's different, I mean.

It's just an adult Halloween party if you all get dressed up, you know. So I don't know, I'm not, I don't, this is not my area.

More ideas, Cynthia? I don't have any ideas yet. No? We need, that's right, we need. You sent some ideas, you know, I would like to suggest something to keep working. Why you don't try to think your ideas and then we can brainstorm, we can send it to Frank by email some ideas, and then we bring it back in the next meeting and we discuss and we decide before we call it.

We can send an email out to residents and say, hey, we'd love to design a signature event for Surfside. What are some of your ideas?

No, don't do that.

I just want to say, we have included that question in surveys in the past.

You want to know what residents want? No.

We have included that question.

Remember, it's for tourists. It's for residents, but for tourists as well. So we cannot forget that. We are sitting in a board that has to reflect the tourists as well.

But the tourists, yes, but that's why I think it's good to have a name for an event. Like for the Wintergreen Music Festival, they advertise it and people plan on coming. They're like, oh, it's time for the music festival. Let's make our reservations.

So we have to come up with a... Yeah, with a great idea that will be able that the people can want to come.

So through the chair, maybe talk to the hotels to see what... Yeah. They would find interesting.

Yeah.

That's great. Exactly.

It's a good idea.

Yeah.

Absolutely. Is there a timeframe for the event? Is it like a specific, did we say like what month? Not yet, right?

No, I mean, different ideas came up. So I was thinking maybe we could do one in the fall and one in the spring. But again, it also depends what else is there, how expensive are they?

And we were thinking for the fall to do that before whatever happened next year.

You mean for 2026 fall?

No, no, this fall, 2025.

2025, we're not going to have anything together by 2025. Why not? A signature event? Why not?

We have been talking about this.

Do you know how much work it was to put together that 90th thing? I mean, we have Art Basel in the fall also and all these other parties going on.

Ileana, we're doing brainstorming. Okay, okay.

I think once we decide the date... and events gonna be about, maybe we can also, in that weekend, we can feed one of our other events to make a whole weekend full of things since people is coming, you know? So if we are thinking, for example, jazz festival or whatever, you know, and that maybe that weekend we can have, you know, like next day or in the morning or whatever, something with the plastic fisherman or the beach or whatever we have for the third Thursday, make it packed for that weekend so people not only come for one thing, as you mentioned, but for all of them together.

So we create a run.

of some of our events that we already have, but one main important thing, and the other satellite kind of things that already exist, but that these people don't know. Right, right, and for them it's all part of it.

We can use good zone of the Thursdays, for example, and we can keep doing Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, or Thursday and Friday.

Yeah, we could even use one of those events.

Yeah, okay.

That said, Javier is here, and he did want to present his idea for the ground up.

How about a roller disco?

But think about it. It's there to be. We have to.

Surfside sex fest. We have a nude beach and a naked party. She said adult only. She said she wants it adult only.

Adult only.

What? What did you say? I said the Surfside Sex Fest. What did you say? On the nude beach on Hallover. I didn't get it. What did you say?

Good evening. Javier Valmana, ADA 51, Abbott Avenue, Surfside, Florida. Well, hope you've all been having a great summer and summer break. Welcome. Thank you. Welcome. To give a little bit of background, about a year ago, This board was having a discussion about a signature event, similar to how you are now. And several ideas were pitched. One of them, Frank pitched, mentioning an event that I think he said takes place in Malibu or in the West Coast. And it was called Jazz and Oysters. And from the time I heard it, I thought it was a very good idea. Not necessarily whether we do that exact thing, but a similar concept. And I found myself in a great position to make something like that happen because I've been working with this festival, Ground Up Music Festival, which is a local festival that takes place here at the band shell in Miami Beach for about three years now. And I think this festival really captures a lot of the things that Surfside somewhat represents. One of those being a good balance between just like an elevated and quality focused substance of like an event. And in this case, it's music. But I think, you know, it translates to the town and it being that, you know, we are, I think, a quality driven town. And then also on top of that, it's very laid back. And one of its main characteristics and like kind of branding and selling points is its beach location. So I think that goes hand in hand with with our town, and I think it it opens up the possibility to do something together. Not necessarily something that piggybacks on the festival, so not doing like Ground Up Music Festival 2.0 in Surfside, but doing something like Jazz and Oysters, so a signature event with its own branding and everything, whether it's oysters or something else. But just, you know, using the fact that, you know, I can facilitate the collaboration with this festival, which already has a following, already has, you know, puts a lot of money into promotion and all those things. And it's a festival that, you know, I'll play a video shortly to kind of give you an idea of what it is and what it sounds like. But One of its main draws is that most of its attendance, I want to say close to 80% or more, is from out of state and even outside of the country. So it's people that are coming into this area to stay. They get a hotel, and they come into the area to just be a part of this festival. And as I told Frank when I brought up the idea, I think it opens up the possibility to collaborate with the festival and with our hotels to create some type of partnership where we can use the festival's draw to bring traffic to our hotels, to our town, to our business district. And that's just to give you some background.

When is Ground Up?

So Ground Up, every year the date changes slightly. In 2026, it's the second weekend of March, which I think it's March 13th to the 16th. This past year was in February.

And where is that specifically?

It's at the Banchel in Miami Beach, right on 73rd and Collins. Yeah. So this is actually, I'm sure you're all familiar with the Banchel. They host a lot of concerts and stuff. This is the biggest event that the Banchel does. And it's a three-day festival. It closes down not only the stage area, but it closes down the entire park. And they set up several stages. They do master classes. And I mean, I've obviously been a part of it. And I think it's great. And I think it really opens up the possibility of doing something with them because it could bring a lot of quality performances and musicians to the town. And then we can bring quality food and drinks and things like that to kind of put it together. Let me.

I think when we finish doing something like that, we can like.

Madam Chair, can you speak into the microphone?

Tina was mentioning something that even the hotels can promote, really that hotels will be able to promote that to bring the people here and would be great for the hotels too.

So, you know, one of the other things, I'm sorry.

Ground up or ground up?

Ground up.

With a D. With a D, yeah.

One of the things that I also think would be cool about it is that if we were to do it as a signature event, just in collaboration with Ground Up, the festival is every year. So what I'm thinking is of doing a performance or something, like an event that's within the week of the festival, probably like a weekend before, Sunday before, And, uh, you know, assuming that it does well and that it's, you know, everything we, we, we want it to be, it's, it has the opportunity of being an annual event that as it gets recognized, uh, our Surfside one, uh, as being, you know, our own, it'll drive more traffic to the town.

When we just tag, when we just tack on a day, like if it's the 13th, 14th, 50, 60, wouldn't we just have it on the 12th? Like people aren't going to come in.

four days early you know with nothing in between yeah and spend yeah so i you know i i'm i'm saying the the sunday before but really my main i guess you know requirement would be to just be within within that week of the festival what day is the festival is it friday saturday sunday so we could have our thursday event thursday that would be the natural to if you want to piggyback off of it that would be That's a possibility. The only thing about doing it on a Thursday, I mean, it all really depends on the scale that you want to do it. It's that if we do it on a Sunday, we can do a larger event, more substantial throughout the day, maybe start late afternoon into the night or 4 p.m., something like that, into the night. While if we do it on a Thursday, it's going to be just a few hours.

Aren't they going to, licensing-wise, they're not going to let us use the word ground up? If that's their festival, unless we're paying them a licensing fee or we're part of it or giving them a piece of it, they're not going to let us do it.

Yeah, so I'm not saying to use. So that's one of the things I said, that to not do a Ground Up 2.0, what we want to do is, for example, let's say, hypothetically, it's called Jazz and Oysters and Surfside. It'll just be in collaboration with Ground Up.

But if we use the word ground up in any capacity, they're not going to let us.

Well, they would be doing it in collaboration with us.

So the ground up marketing team or ground up.

Yeah, the CEO.

The CEO ground up is cool with us using the word ground up.

Right. So one of the things I did, I mean, before... I've worked with the festival for over three years now, and I've built a good relationship with the entire administration, and especially the CEO. And obviously, before coming, I asked them if this is something that they would be open to, collaborating with us. And obviously, still dependent on a lot of details and things that have to be developed, but yeah.

So you want to basically put together a music festival in Surfside

Something of that sort. I wouldn't, like, this is more.

Madame Chair, if I may, no outside conversations on the record, please.

This is more of just a music festival. What I would want to put together is something like have an additional draw in the case of jazz and oysters.

Forget the oysters.

Most of the town is kosher. You can't have an oysters event. I'm just saying example-wise. The rest are vegetarian.

Please, please.

I'm just saying example-wise. Whatever food it might be, if it's jazz and pizza, we can say it's jazz and pizza. Jazz and jerky. Yeah. But, you know, my point is that we have that draw of, like, for example, maybe we can have, we have, I don't know, three, four pizza places in town or we can bring a variety of pizza for people.

No, I'm not saying it should be pizza. I was just saying.

No, I'm just saying, like, as an example.

Yeah, I got it. Okay. I'm just trying to understand the association with Roundup. I'm not following how it's associated with Roundup.

So the association with them. is that they would be providing us with world-class talent that we otherwise wouldn't really have access to.

So the talent's already in town earlier than the rest of us.

Right, yeah. So that's the main point of the collaboration. For example, I'll go into it later on, but the headliner of the festival is this band called Snarky Puppy, which is a jazz band. And they've won five Grammys. They're in their area of expertise. They're well-known. They have a following. They have over half a million followers on Instagram. There's a draw. Ground Up, this year, for the first time, they did a festival just like this one, but in Europe, in Italy. And it worked out really well. So it's a brand that already exists, already has a following. People that know it know that they put together great music, great musicians. And I'll show you in this video kind of what it's about. It's a little over three minutes, so it's a little long.

The idea behind the Ground Up Music Festival is to create a little oasis for people to escape their daily lives in February, hang out a few steps from the beach, in the sun, listening to musicians from all around the world with this super interactive kind of atmosphere with masterclasses and performances. And the only thing that the artists have in common is that they're all incredible.

Roundup Music is a bunch of people who love music. It's their life. And we've been seeing stellar performances by people you would not see otherwise. Brilliant singer-songwriters, brilliant musicians. There's people from all over the world, literally.

For me, this festival just feels like a party in someone's backyard.

This is a great festival because it's not super huge. You have an opportunity to interact. I saw Chris Potter. I said, hey, Chris Potter.

He's like, hey.

You know, you can meet anybody here. Everybody's hanging, and the food is good, and it's just fun.

The artists are chill. They spend the majority of their time actually in the audience. So I mean, yeah, it's just kind of hanging out.

to have a festival join this group of people you can tell that it's for the music people are enjoying the exchange between the performer and the audience it's what we need for music right now seeing a musician play is only really half of

what they are, you know? I mean, there's a person behind the music and behind the musician. I like having a situation in which the audience can see that other half.

What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?

It's a festival because it's fun and there's killing musicians and there's music, but it's also kind of an educational situation because there are clinics you can take and there's stuff you can do all day.

Where we talk about songwriting, where we talk about playing, it shows you new music. It shows you music you didn't know about before and thrills you with it.

All cultural rhythms are relevant. You should learn as many of them as you can. One more time. All cultural rhythms.

I'll pause this really quick just to show some of, I have more that I can bring in the future, but some of the specs of pretty much the impact of the festival. And as you can see, I mean, 4 million in local economic impact, 4,200 hotel room nights, 1,070 supported local jobs, 50 million media impressions, thousands of tourists from all 50 states and 54 countries. And they are actually, it's a festival that's supported by, the Miami-Dade Cultural Office and some other county organizations. So, you know, they have very good reach.

A festival, to me, is about the gathering of people that really care about music and care about what it can do for people.

So that gives you an idea of what the festival is, if you're not familiar with it. It's a jazz festival, but there's a huge array of different musicians and genres of music that they invite, and even different collaborations with musicians that you normally not see together. So yeah, the general idea is to do a collaboration with the festival to be able to have some of that music here in town. And I'll actually say, I mean, every year I see a lot of suicide residents in the festival, so I know that there's some interest already.

And I think it's a very good idea, but just we had to do some kind of, variety here for suicide. And I think it can be something going Growing up, right, we can start slow here in Salsa because we cannot do here like an ultra festival.

Of course.

It would be terrible for, but it can be something like growing up. I think it's a good idea.

Yeah, and I mean the... With the varieties for us. And the point of the presentation also, you know, it's not to make a decision today. I just... Even as Frank suggested, instead of coming and having all the specific details, which for an event like this, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of things. Just bringing the idea to you and just kind of the different elements. You can tell me what you like, what you don't like, what you see that would work. It gives me some feedback to be able to come back, if you do want to continue with it, to be able to come back at another meeting and be like, OK, these are the details. This is everything broken down. So just to say that no final decision or anything like that has to be made today. So Who's Snarky Puppy, a world-renowned American jazz fusion ensemble led by Michael League, co-founder of Ground Up Music. They have five Grammy wins and are the host and headliner of Ground Up Music Festival.

Don't they get paid a lot to perform at Ground Up?

These? Snarky, whatever. Well, they're co-founders of the festival.

So they get a cut of the festival.

I mean, yeah, I would assume. But actually, well, so Ground Up Music Festival is organized technically by Ground Up Music Foundation, which is a nonprofit that is co-founded between this person and the CEO of the festival. So I'm sure they get something, but it's a non-profit, just to kind of put that out there.

I have a question for the chair. Yeah. I'm trying to figure out whether you're trying to pitch a music festival in Surfside as a standalone event, or if you want to do something themed to ground up, like tack it onto Ground Up, like I was saying, maybe the third Thursday event is a music festival event where we're working with Ground Up And we maybe put more money into it so it's like a bigger event. Something like that?

You can imagine it like that, just on a much, to be honest, bigger scale than a Third Thursday.

Right. Because the music that's coming to town, unless all of these people performing, I know that Crosby doesn't live here. I mean, some of the people don't live here. they're not going to be in town to perform. You're talking about getting like named musicians, like Grammy award-winning musicians to perform?

Yes. And I'm not saying, obviously it's not going to be the variety of the festival, because it's a three-day festival. And we would do a couple hours of an event. And I'll get more into it. The idea is to bring, for example, the headliner, which is Snarky Puppy, which is out of all the bands that perform, it's the most famous, and having them do a 45-minute set, for example, bring a few other performers, bring a... Do maybe a small master class in between. And obviously, I would also include, if you wanted to, the food component, the drink component, just to kind of make it like a well-rounded event.

For example, when I worked in Morning Talk, every Morning Talk show, the Today Show, GMA, we had a summer music series where you got the top names to come and perform outside the studio. and it was over the course of the summer, is that what you're like thinking of? Like getting big names to come perform in Surfside?

Well, so I mean, so my initial idea is not to mention Oysters again, but my initial idea is something, imagine if we did. Jazz and pizza, just for hypothetical. I could do that event just finding local musicians, but it would not have the same impact. as it could be with, you know, in partnership with a festival that's already established and is able to bring, you know, these names. Obviously it wouldn't be that many names, but some names.

Yeah, the idea that I understood is that taking advantage that all these musicians are going to be here in town to practice and all of that. And Javier, don't think, we are talking about a big event, not a Thursday event that you know. is something much, much better than that. That's why we were thinking to do a continuation with a Thursday event maybe with more money, but also with this idea of music. I think for us would be like jumping into the plane because they are here already. Yeah, because we never will be able to bring something that good at all, even if we pay all the money, because now they are going to be here. That is why we're thinking maybe we can take advantage of that if we can really... organized, and also we can decide whether we want for us, because our town is different, we don't, I mean, we have a big population, different population, but we can organize that, taking into account that they are here, I think

That's why I was saying doing it the day before, the Thursday before, would be the natural thing. My only concern is I would think that they wouldn't want to take away from their own audience. Because if people can see Snarky Puppy for free in Surfside, why would they pay to go to Ground Up the next day? Because I'm sure they're charging admission for Ground Up.

um okay we have to organize that part i'm going to get to all those details through the chair so i was thinking if you're going to go with something like this um perhaps it will be free to ticket holders yeah surfside residents and yes exactly yeah and we have to organize it in a way that we can control that yeah i agree i think we have to all those questions that you had

that's something he has to manage. It's not us, Elena. So he's proposing something that if he's proposing, I think he's capable to do it. If not, he will not bring it to the table. So let's not ask things that, you know, doesn't, you know, We might need some input on that, but that's it. And the most important thing, if we want to really get something like that, that I think it's fabulous, it will be amazing. It's in the May of March and it happens on spring break. So that's why people can travel from different places.

We're not here.

You are not, but many people's gonna travel, so maybe I'm gonna be here, I don't know, but it's not for me.

Through the chair, just to piggyback on that, I think what I like about this idea, and again, we may or may not do it, and there's a lot still up in the air, but what I really like is the demographic. Knowing that a lot of those people are out-of-towners, I mean, we are the tourist sport. And a lot of what we do gets a lot of the residents. And it's great. We love to see our residents and our hotel guests. But I think if we do our own one-off thing, we're going to get that same crowd. We're going to get our residents, and we're going to get a few others. doing something like this really gives you the opportunity to introduce Surfside to a lot of new people and potentially even do something with the hotel. So the demographic, knowing that it's heavily visitors, that's something that I think is really valuable.

That is what I think is an amazing idea that we can take advantage of that they are going to be here. I mean, if they are here, and we can jump into the same plane would be great, and something for us, because otherwise it's impossible to pay. I like the idea.

I like the idea also, I don't think of it as a signature event, I think of it as an extension of something that already exists. So I like it, I do like it, I think it's great, but I almost prefer, if we could come up with our own music festival, And, you know.

Sorry, I think you're not getting the point of what he already mentioned. We come up with our own festival that nobody knows and nobody's going to come. We are piggybacking with something that is already known because we as a establishment want people to come here and we won't be able to generate the impact that he has already shown us there. So it's something, it's... He mentioned, it's a collab, and we can make collabs and make our own things.

The only thing, my concern is that at the end of the day, the commission and us answer to residents as far as whether they liked it, didn't like it, hated it, didn't it. If we, there's gonna be this perception that yes, the tourist money is for tourism and all that stuff, but residents feel like it's, theirs for they want to be able to go to the stuff, right? And so if we have some amazing event when people aren't here deliberately or can't go, then there's going to be blowback, not positive, for the commission and for us in general. So if we can find a way to do it, not when there is...

Didn't we just talk about earlier about taking advantage of those peak, like we just talked about taking advantage of when the tourists are all here. But to your point, I mean, the Surfside residents that are here will have the opportunity to attend and to do so cost-free. And keep in mind that, again, the rest of the annual lineup...

But the rest of the... At the end of the day, the commission, the mayor, everybody wants... people to be happy with the stuff that's going on in town, because that translates into them reelecting them, whatever it is, saying nice things about them. So if we're gonna be spending a lot of money and making a big event, we should do it in a time when everyone can benefit, drawing people in. I also think, quite frankly, the crowd that goes to that residents may be like, that's not who I want in town, like a bunch of hippy dippy whatevers. I don't know, I mean, this is just the surf club.

You really have to think about your role here. I mean, this is the tourist board, and we're talking about one event. There's many others that cater to residents.

That would be just one event.

Through the chair?

Okay. Through the chair? We need to reorganize.

Yeah, I just wanted to say one thing. I think the good thing about this is the location. It's very close to Surfside.

Yeah.

So, and there's not a lot of hotels in North Beach. The hotels there are small. So I think it's really important to work with our hotels and see, because it is during high season. So are our hotels already booked? If not, it's a good opportunity to bring people to Surfside that are going to this festival and they could stay in Surfside because it's really so close to where the festival is. It's like off the beaten path, but...

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

And I think talking about that the people is going to compare, it's the same that I was talking about the Padeltopia. Some people didn't like at all, and we are doing it still, Padeltopia again. See? I mean, this festival is an opportunity for us. I think it's going to be always, because we have a lot of people cranky, but in every city, people like that. We're going to be... I mean, not allowing this opportunity, we can do that. And then we can continue doing that to the next day, the Friday, for example, an extension of all that. But never is gonna be the perfect time that everyone is here, Ileana. Never is the perfect time.

But are we charging, because you were just saying it'd be free for residents and hotel guests, but then we're charging admission for other people?

We don't know yet.

I'm actually getting to all of that. Just to answer some of the points that you all have made. One of the things, there aren't a lot of hotels in North Beach, so I think it's a great opportunity. Not only that, even though it happens in Miami Beach, Miami Beach has a ton of events and events that are much bigger. So there's really no recognition to Ground Up being a Miami Beach event. Outside of that, though, what I'm pitching is an event that we can brand however we like, call it whatever you like, and include Surfside's name in it. In the background, you know, we'll be working with Ground Up. And now you asked, like, you know, how can we get, like, why would they be interested if, you know, if it might be something that draws away crowd or people from their event? So how I kind of pitch it to them to kind of get their interest since, you know, I pitched it as a few hour, I don't know, four or five hour, just to say a number, event, whether it's the day before or even the Sunday before. I pitched it as like a pre-festival launch party, right, in Surfside. And that's what it is to the festival. So they can tell their attendees, hey, Ground Up is going to have It's going to be called whatever it's going to be called. But it's going to have this launch party in Surfside, which they actually do. I mean, they've done to a much smaller scale. They do every year. They've done in Wynwood. They've done it in bars and things like that, where they just rent out the entire space. not as an event, but just as a pre-launch to the festival. And then you also asked regarding the date, whether it's a day before, or like I said originally, for example, the Sunday before, which it's four or five days before. One of the things that I think would be a draw, well, if... If it's a spectacular event with, let's say, food and drink and all these things, and it's free for hotel guests, well, guess what? If you're a ground-up attendee who already paid for all three days and you stay in Surfside, you get to go for free. And outside of that, I'll get to the details later, but in order to make it very appealing and seem very valuable to anyone that isn't a hotel guest, a Surfside resident. And I included it in there. I mean, I'll get to it. But even there's a small selection of VIP that pay a larger package to get an all-inclusive experience of the festival. It was another one of my selling points to the festival in my pitch to kind of get them along, was you can offer this to your VIP as an extra thing that is included to the VIP, but it's not included to anyone else. So those are some of the different elements. So to answer your question, if we do it a Sunday before, I think it'll still get great draw if it's people that are already coming for four or five days paid for the tickets to the festival are not cheap. So they already invested all this money. They might as well stay an extra few days, which is better for the hotels because more days that they get to stay in town. And they get a free experience, a whole event. So those are some of the different elements. I'll get back to, I think I've kind of gone over it, some of the general event details and general idea. So my initial idea was to condense a three-day music festival experience into a several-hour spectacle here in Surfside, bringing the highest quality music, food, and drinks to town, including several performances, different artists, and master classes. And then as far as the theme, we can continue the Jazz and Oysters theme, propose, or create our own. The intent is to create a signature event for the town that, while remaining independent in branding from the festival, thrives on the collaboration of the two. So that's one of the main points. like I believe Diana said, we want to, it's a great opportunity that we can benefit from the draw that the festival already has and bring that to our hotels and to our businesses in town.

Surfside Palooza.

We used to have an old music festival, Surfside Palooza. We really can't do oysters. Let's come up with something else.

I know, I know. I know that, you know, as far as the kosher aspect. It could be oysters and something kosher. It doesn't have to just be oysters.

In the current political climate. Let's continue. People like oysters. I don't like oysters. They're disgusting. Yeah, some people. If you call something oysters, you're immediately alienating half the society. No reason.

Okay, guys.

Keep going, please. So then as far as the event impact, well, a partnership with Surfside would translate to partnership between the festival and the hotels. It would increase hotel stays and business district sales, experiencing the sound of world-class musicians performing in your own backyard. As far as town residents, they would get an experience for free that, quite frankly, I don't think it would even be possible if anyone else just went up to the CEO of the festival and told him, hey, can you do this for Surfside? because I had to tell them about all these things, all the potentials for the festival. Another thing, for example, that I told them is that I think the Surfside community is actually the perfect demographic for the festival. And I know this because I see a lot of people from Surfside every year in the festival. So I know that there's definitely draw or interest within the community for it. And you were mentioning as far as the crowd, it's actually a very... elevated experience. I mean, as far as festivals go, it's not really like, you know, like young hippies and it's very, you see all ages and, and it's, you know, it's, it's a great experience. It's yeah. Yeah. It's not ultra. It's not, it's unlike any other festival. It's very, uh, as far as the musicians and it's very precise as far as the size. It's not a bigger festival because they don't want it to be. They want it to be a very small and curated experience. So date and locations. So as far as the date, like I said, it would have to be the second week of March, 2026, within a week of Ground Up Music Festival. Ground Up dates are March 13 to 15, 2026. And then possible locations. Given that we are a beachside community, and I think that's our most prized possession, I think it should definitely be, to some extent, on the beach. I included the Surfside Park as a third option, just because as far as space, it's a possible option. But I think if any event like this, if we did it at the Surfside Park, it would feel much like a community event and not like a signature event. So I would focus on the first two. The most appealing option would be the first one, which is doing both a footprint on the beach and the community center and the biggest footprint being on the beach. However, for this year at least, the issue with that option is that the space of beach that we have behind the community center is not huge. And on top of that, Much of it is on a slope, so it's difficult to be able to do a big event, especially a big footprint on the beach. But regardless, I included it as an option maybe to keep in mind for the future. And it still has a 30% footprint in the community center because I think it would be cool to utilize both. For example, host in the event of this first one, this first option, host the main festival on the beach and then do like a reception or a master class and things like that pre-festival in the community center. So that's a way to utilize both. The second option, which I think would be the most likely to be able to do, is using the community center with a 70% footprint in the community center and then a 30% footprint on the beach. So what that would do is kind of invert it and try to do a master class or something like that on the beach, smaller stage, smaller performance, and just kind of more intimate feel. and then do the main event in the community center.

Now, you might, hmm? Yeah, I guess my question, like where in the community center?

Okay, so you might wonder how we would do this in the community center. So you have the inner part of the community center that you can use for, you know, I don't know, food or whatever else, a small area, seating areas, things like that. As far as the outside section of the community center, you have the green part in the back, which is completely usable. And then you have the entire pool area and deck and all that area. So what we would have to do in order to make it possible in the community center is in order to be able to utilize some of the spaces on the pool, and this is doable, I mean, it's done, is putting platforms like a stage Stages have legs that you can adjust the height of. So we would have to, in order to be able to utilize the entire area, for example, if we have a stage that part of it is on top of the pool, or even all of it on top of the pool, we would have to create a platform on top of it. And it is something that is done. It's not impossible or anything like that. One thing I will say as far as cost, both The first option and the second cost, I would say, are relatively the same because there are a lot of challenges with doing an event on the beach of this scale. Just because while you, for example, might not have to cover a pool, you will need portable bathrooms on the beach if you do a big event. We'll need special permits with Miami-Dade to be able to close on the beach. So it's, you know, as far as cost, I would say they're, They're similar in price. Each one has its own challenges. But as far as the space, we would utilize the community center in that way. And I would want to make it so that it feels as if you're not in a community center. So we would, between decorations, structures, an event of this size, we would need, whether it's tents or trust structures and things like that, to be able to provide shelter in the event that it rains or something like that. And then we would also create a, like panels and things of that sort, to be able to cover, for example, the slides in the community center and things like that. You can go ahead.

And in the park, also, you have the option to do that.

The park is an option.

It's just, it'll feel... Because we have the intercoasters there. I mean, it's more complicated. Last time in that big event was really amazing. In the park was really nice. And we feed the people very good. A lot of people fit in there. I don't really check.

Yeah. Well, and again, this is, I mean, this is.

In case that it's too complicated to do that there. I would.

This is at the scale that I'm proposing it.

Uh-huh.

We can play with that. It's on a final.

Yeah, exactly. And how much you say is that?

Well, I'm going to get to that.

Wait, through the chair, I have a question. Okay. So I'm. Still coming. Through the chair.

Why we don't let him finish and then we make questions.

They're getting the money part. I don't care about getting the money part yet. I just wanted to ask a question.

Okay.

I'm very protective of the community center. It's hard to maintain it. It's a lot of wear and tear. You can't close it to residents. There's spring break. It's spring break. That's people who don't go anywhere are living at the pool. We run a spring bay camp that's at the pool that the kids are there all day run by the Y. the kids are gonna be there swim, we can't put a bunch of stages for a music festival. I'm fine with the 70% on the beach and the 30% at the community center. But when you went to the 70% community center, 30% beach, I was like, that's not gonna work logistically. And again, we are the tourist board and we're trying to resort tax board and we do wanna encourage outside but not at the expense of damaging, decimating, excluding our residents. Because at the end of the day, the residents are the people that are living here after the tourists have gone, and a lot of music involves drinking, and drinking and water, not a good idea in the pool, and the liability issues are gonna be a problem.

The pool is gonna be covered.

The pool is gonna be covered, so we're telling the residents it's spring break, but you can't use the pool because it's gonna be a day of setup.

But it's gonna be one day, Ileana. Sometimes they close it.

It can't be one day. It's gonna definitely need a day of setup afterwards, a day of that. You're not closing the pool for three days during spring break unless you wanna be driven out of town. When the pool is closed for one day, the residents riot. Somebody poops in the pool and people are ready to strangle someone. So other venues like the park would be great. We did a great event at the park. The beach is great. Use the beach. And we don't just have the area in front of the community center. We have eight blocks of beach. We have the whole beach. And we have the hard pack and you have the green space by the community center. So I like this as an idea. I like it. I liked it smaller. I don't think we can jump into we're running a whole. I know that the mayor will freak out like this is not going to be, you know, that's not going to go over well. But starting off with doing something with ground up. And I actually thought of it more as the Thursday where you have a big, much nicer, fancy party. But with the great headlining, you know, bands and stuff. Maybe that's the way to start it and see how it goes. Not jumping right into, we're closing the pool for three days for a music festival for bands. That's just.

I suggest that we, thank you for telling that. It's your opinion and we are not deciding right now. but we are, let him know. Let's finish, please.

Well, just one question. Is spring break the week of the festival beforehand, like on that Thursday, or is it the following week?

I think it's the whole week. You have to look it up. The spring break, anyway, depends on the district here. It's not the same time every one. Right. I mean.

Spring break, all the schools close at the same time.

No, here, no, it's not true. Broward is different.

Broward, we're not, we're Miami-Dade, but we're only in Miami-Dade.

I know, I know, but it, okay.

The residents are off for Miami-Dade spring break. That's when the residents are in the pool. That's when people come down.

Through the chair? Yes. I just want to say, I think you do have to consider the scale of what you're trying to build here, because... You know, I don't envision large crowds on the beach like there are over there, and they have a bigger beach than we have, which I believe you have taken into consideration. But I think you have to base it on being in Surfside and what kind of scale do you want this to be to understand capacity in terms of residents, hotel guests, and the VIP. So just something to consider. I don't think you want to go... full scale with something like this.

So spring break is not even that week.

Spring break is not even that week. Spring break for Miami-Dade school calendar for 25-26, that's this school year, is March 20th to the 28th.

It's a week, 20 to 28th a week is eight days.

It's a different week, I'm saying. If this ground up festival is March 16th, 13th, 16th, that is not spring break for us.

Then that's good, because the residents will be.

Correct, but you're saying spring break.

But it's a spring break.

Internationally. In general, in general, for some places, yes.

Okay.

And just to mention. So as far as the scale, you know, we can move it around. One thing I will say, for example, as far as like a Thursday, you know, somewhat event or footprint. So in order to get the – it's kind of a balance. In order to get the festival on board and have them interested, I don't think that they're going to bring – world-renowned snarky puppy with five Grammys to maybe a more community, smaller event, if that makes sense. Yes. If that makes sense. So that's, you know, I think we can still tweak the... the scale that I'm proposing. And just to be clear, what I'm proposing is much smaller still than Ground Up Music Festival. Ground Up Music, it's a three-day event with roughly 2,000 attendees per day, which is small for a music festival. But it's nowhere near what I'm proposing also. So then... event access and attendance. So projected attendance would be between 400 and 600 attendees from my estimate and based on the space and stuff. And then, okay. And then as far as access, so who's going to have access to the festival? I kind of mentioned this already. But it would be free access for a Surfside resident, hotel guest, and a select number of ground-up VIP ticket holders. If you decided, hey, this sounds good. Let's continue developing it, and we want to see more information in the future, I would, for example, ask the CEO of the festival, hey, just to get an estimate so that the board knows, how many ground-up VIP ticket holders is it? just to get an idea. But I think regardless, just having this big event, I think it would be a draw for many of the attendees to stay in town, to be able to go for free, especially if we charge a ticket price and an elevated ticket price. Even if no one buys a ticket, it would make it seem valuable, more valuable. So those are, you know, some of the things to consider. And then I'll say again, the scale we can definitely work around and what we provide, what we don't provide. I'm just presenting Pretty much, yeah, the overall idea, what I think would work really well, but it's up to you, you know, to decide which route you want to go. If, let's say that, you know, you want something much smaller or just entirely different, we don't have to do it with Grounded Music Festival. We can do a much smaller event, just like a kind of Surfside Jazz or even a different event. But yeah, this is just... this specific event at this specific scale with Ground Up Music Festival. And then this is the cost. So this is obviously a specific breakdown and I'll kind of go over it just to give you an idea. of the price, but first, you know, I'll go over some of the different things that for an event of this scale, money would have to go into. So stage, stage would be, you know, a big part of it because we would need a stage much bigger, much bigger.

Me too, because she was in the cell phone. Are you serious? This is the money?

Yeah. But let me go over it.

Okay. Let's finish, please, because we're going to be here at 9 p.m.

So as far as stage, you know, we need a much larger stage than we're usually used to to kind of compare. So this is the festival's main stage, what I would probably be going for. is something like this stage, which is a park stage that they do. It's a much smaller stage, but it's still much bigger than anything that we've done. And then we would need tents and other structures. A big cost in working with a festival of this scale, musicians of this caliber, is light and sound. The sound for something like this is very expensive. Then another cost would be artists. This proposal also includes the possibility for including food and drink. Obviously, you know, all these things can be moved around. And this is just an overall estimate. You know, as we go into it or, you know, if you ask me for more details, I would have to go and analyze each individual thing, get estimates, and, you know, it can all change, go up and down. We would certainly need or might need some type of security. I know that we have... Service like cops, they usually handle that for our events. But if it's a ticketed event, we would need some more enhancement because we would need to make sure that we're not going to have our cops dealing with that. And then power and event production. Power would probably be a big one in this one too. Unlike our smaller events, because the power, the sound and all that, I doubt that the community center or the beach or whatever is capable of that. of that. And then as far as the cost, to kind of go over the range, which I know it's much bigger than anything that Sound has done in any of the other events. So I would say a fair estimate would be $120,000. The $100,000 is you know, assuming that as I come back, I would bring you different options. So for example, I don't know, for structures or for things like that, I would say, you know, these are some cheaper alternatives and these are some more expensive alternatives. I would say that if we go with cheaper alternatives, we could land somewhere at 100,000. This is including food and drink for that amount of people as well. So it's, you know, If we take or move things around, the price can definitely go down. If we lower the scale a bit, the price can definitely go down or change locations. But it's just to work with these musicians, this festival, I would honestly say that it'd be very difficult to do under $100,000. Could an event? be done, yes, of course, but it's just, like I said in the beginning, you know, the option of doing jazz and oysters or a jazz festival in Surfside, we can do it under $100,000. It just most likely wouldn't be with Roundup. And then the reason I put it up to $140,000 is assuming that, you know, we need the same way that we can go with cheap options and land at 100,000, we need some contingency for either changes and things that might be unexpected, or simply better options that we might come along. So that is why you have that range. If the price is too much, but you're still interested in the event and the idea, what I would suggest, if it's not in this meeting, at a future meeting, is coming back with a price that you think the whole board would agree and I can see how I can make it work with the festival. However, I really believe that between sound, stage, artists and all that, under 100,000 is very difficult to do. But it's up to you.

Okay, I think we are not deciding right now about this. Personally, I like the idea for the 90, years event we spent around that amount I mean to be honest and we didn't have any international or any famous people nothing like that was very I mean compared with something that was very simple and we didn't spend that much but almost was kind of close and it's I understand that it's something that we're going to do something big, and we were thinking about that. When we began talking about this, we were thinking about that amount of money to spend to do something very good. We already talked about, but I think we're not deciding today, but I would like everyone to say their opinion about that because maybe Javier can work with that idea and work with something else. For me, I think that is my point to let them speak, Cynthia and Judy and Eliana, of course. Do you want to say your idea about it?

Yeah. Just my thought. I mean, I like the idea of collaborating with them. I don't think the weekend before, I really don't think people are going to come before. It's the busiest, most expensive time to come down and spend at our hotels are not cheap. So I don't really think that's realistic. The Thursday before evening, maybe something smaller, possibly sounds interesting to me. And I think we just don't have any other ideas that we really do need some other ideas to consider. But I if if it changed to like the Thursday, I think it's a yes, maybe it sounds interesting Okay, so I'm so bad such a bad actress.

I'm sorry. I apologize I can't I can't control myself and I get so emotional. So that's just how I am. I I love the stuff that you do. I loved your night in Italy I hate this so much because it's so much money and that if you look at our budget for the year, this is like, we're sitting here nickel and diming going, let's cut $10,000 out of that. Let's take away one of those things and let's not give Sarah five more dollars and let's do this. You're at $140,000. The 90th anniversary of Surfside was an amazing party. It was like a wedding or a bar mitzvah, but you didn't have to bring a gift. The food was incredible. It was beautiful. It was lighting. This is essentially a concert. It's a music festival. The bulk of the money goes to the performers, the stage, the music, whatever it is. If we lived in a bigger town and we were hurting for, you need to draw people, then you do something like this. The people coming to this music festival are not gonna be dropping the money to stay at the surf club. Our hotels are very expensive. They're not gonna come in, like Cynthia was saying, they're not coming in four days early, right, for something, to hear a band that they're already gonna hear four days later. I never heard of Snarky Puppy before tonight. I'm sure they're excellent, and I'm sure they deserve their Grammys, but I'm, you know, that's not gonna be, when you tell residents that we just spent 140,000, or you tell the commission that we spent $140,000 on a Grammy award winning, we have amazing musicians that, are local, that are fantastic. I like the idea of putting together a music festival, and we can do it for a fraction of the cost if you eliminate... We don't need the ground-up collaboration part. I love your idea of bringing a music festival or making one of those third Thursday nights, you know, part of the thing, but this is so much money, and it doesn't feel like we're going to get anything lasting effects on the town from it. In fact, it'll be a big clean-up afterwards. It'll have more of a negative impact than a positive impact. And we nickel and dime so many things. But I do like the idea of having a nice signature event, more like what we had last year, but maybe we need a different theme. But this, where you're talking about putting stages on top of the pool, that is not, we're too small of a town and we don't need the draw of what we're talking about. You're talking about 600 people. That's $233 per person. And it's not going to be a fancy event like the 90th celebration. It's not going to be, all this gourmet meals and food and hors d'oeuvres and all that stuff. It's basically going to be a music festival.

No, but he's saying food and...

Right, but it's not going to be the same kind of food that you're talking about.

Could you let now Judith speak? Okay.

Thank you, Javier, for taking your time in presenting. I like the idea a lot. I like myself music festivals a lot, and I think it's it's something that people really travel for, right? Not only food, but also music. And I think if we can, from all, I see some people get, you know, a little bit, like, hesitated, like, oh, my God, this is going to be a great impact for our city, and blah, blah, blah, blah. But we can make it happen in a way that if we balance things, it can happen. It can happen, and it can be beautiful. And we've seen images, like, from, as you mentioned, three days, different type of people, about this is going to be something amazing. completely different, and if we use our mind and our creativity, I think we can really nail that. So thank you for bringing it.

Thank you.

Okay.

Dina, do you want to make a comment?

No? No, I had commented throughout. So, yeah, but thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, but thank you, Javier, for presenting.

Yes, of course, and I'll just say, yeah, it's an idea. I know that it goes outside of what the board is comfortable spending. I still wanted to bring it along because I think the collaboration would have, unlike doing something on our own, would have a big impact on our tourism and our hotels and our businesses. And I think, quite frankly, even though the cost is high in comparison to many of the other events, I think it would be an event that would you know, standing next to all the other ones would bring a direct impact into our tourism industry and into our hotels and into our businesses. And as far as the cost, I mean, it's it's it's a high dollar amount, but to do, even if it was less known bands, just to do the production that it takes to have any large band or anything like that. it's very costly because it's equipment that costs several times that amount. And not only that, if this festival was offering this option to any other city with a price tag attached, I think it would be much higher. Because for starters, it's not something that they do or that they've done. But even outside of that, It's a group of musicians and everything that is very elevated and very expensive usually. So I'll just say that, you guys can keep it in mind. And if there's any interest or anything like that, or if you want me to revisit it and get more information, I definitely can. Or if you want to adjust the scale in any way or see how we can adjust it then. I'm open to that as well.

Yeah, and I think, like I mentioned before, maybe we can adjust. We are going to spend a lot of money in the event that we are trying to... Yeah. It's not that... gonna be 50 or 30,000, like that little events that we have always. And anyway, it's not cheap, because we pay 30,000 and really no good things. We were thinking to spend already money for that.

This is not a signature event.

That is why we were, we talked before that we would be spending more money, we want, because we want something with quality and everything. But you can, I would like to revisit this idea and make some modification taking into account all the comments that you hear here, maybe. And you know the town, and you know the board, and you know the people, but I mean, if we can, I think make a combination and revisit, but we are working in that idea. And also, like Cynthia say, we are going to invite more people to bring events, ideas for that, because we need to be ready. We have been talking and talking about this, since last year. That's why, but thank you. Yeah, we keep you in mind. Okay, 7G Community Center Stereo Power.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair, for our last item. Basically, there is no exterior power outlets available on the front part of the community center, which is going to make the lighting accents that we selected for the community center impossible unless we can have those outlets installed. So it's something that the Parks and Rec team has previously looked into. We've asked if it could be done in-house, but it's not something that our public works team can do. I think in the agenda packet I sent you all the different steps and all the different things that need to be accomplished. So yeah, this is a request to see if the board would like to fund, I think it's $8,200 to be able to make those electrical upgrades, which obviously will be permanent. so that we can add exterior lighting. But in addition to that, it'll also facilitate certain things like cleaning the facility because right now there's certain tools that they can't use because there's no power outlets out there. So it'll give them more versatility and more options to do that. We have a lot of money this fiscal year that's going to be unused. So I think it would be nice if maybe the board funds it so the residents get that benefit and they don't have to fund it themselves.

So much is the cost of that?

8,200, it's in the agenda packet.

8,600. I would like to say my opinion. I don't have a problem doing this, but I think we are already funding a lot of stuff for parks and recreation, and it's something that belongs really to the town more than tourists.

I think you have autonomy over your budget and they don't. That's why it comes to you because they can't decide that the Parks and Rec Committee that they're going to fund it. It would have to go to the commission. But you can decide.

Can I ask him a question? Sure. Okay. So this is what I'm talking about is that we have the tourism money, right? And we are legally allowed to use it for stuff to improve the community center and things like that. That, to me, is a great use of the funds because it's important. So for tourist events, like you said, we can plug things in, et cetera, but it also beautifies the town and is an upgrade for residents in general. There's additional, and I know that from being, I was on Parks and Rec for 10 years, and it was a very frustrating position to be in because they don't have the discretionary money like we have. There's other things that the community center needs Like it's kind of gross right now, like dirty. Like there's stuff, people leave their earplugs on the floor and they melt into the thing. And I don't think the lifeguards think of themselves as cleaning staff. And there's this one person who works as cleaning staff. We need to be, if they need more money to be upkeeping over there, then that's something I'm absolutely comfortable doing because that's what tourists come to and go look at. And that's a reflection. And if it's gross, the bottom of the pool is stained with all kinds of gross things. They're going to be like, oh, I'm not going back to the surfside pool. We want it to be a great experience.

We don't have really tourists in that community. We do.

No, a lot. I meet them all the time in the hot tub. I'm telling you. I'm at the pool all the time, and I meet people in the hot tub, and they're in town visiting from whatever. Yeah, they come from the hotels and stuff. They stay in town.

Okay. I would like to see the statistics, but what I'm meaning with this is I think the town, we pay a lot of taxes. and they have budget also for that thing that is required.

But I'm really bringing this because this is our holiday lighting package. I agree with this.

I agree, but like Eliane has mentioned, now they need this and they need that. I mean, what about the budget from the town? They need to be.

But a lot of the impact of, for example, with the beaches, right? The impact that it has on our environment is from the tourists, the garbage on the beach, that stuff. the garbage at the community center, it's from the tourists. So the tourist money should be used to also clean that up. That's a good use, that's what the tourist tax is for. Tourist taxes.

How should we fix in the community center?

Well, listen, if we're sitting here talking about $140,000 on a concert for four hours.

Okay, that is my opinion, Ileana, and I think there are budgets in the town that's supposed to be using also for that. I agree with this, and maybe we need to do a motion to approve this. Right? But I think if they are going to start asking for this or that or make it beautiful, I mean, we have the vote at that time.

And you can always, you know, again, we don't bring this kind of stuff too often. And if we do, you know, you can always vote no, I understand.

Yeah, okay. I'll make a motion to approve the estimate for the community center exterior power.

I second the motion.

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