Resort Tax Board - Regular Meeting

We can start, Madam Chair.

OK. Madam Chair, you can start.

You have quorum.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Since Chair Gonzalez is not here today, I'm going to be the one who's going to call the meeting to order. So I call this meeting to order.

Vice Chair Martinez?

Yes.

Board Member Callaway?

Yes.

Board Member Díaz-Deal? Yes. Chair, you have a quorum.

Okay, so we start a call to order, then Town Commission liaison report. I think Ms. Paul is not here. Vice Mayor Paul is not present today. Yes. Any public comments?

Madam Chair, I don't have any speaker cards.

Okay, approval of minutes. So who will make a motion to approve the meeting minutes?

I can make a motion to approve the meeting minutes from July 7th. Is both these dates, Genesis, July 17th and August 21st?

I second that.

There is only one set of minutes, August 4th. That's all I see.

August 4th minutes only.

August 4th, 6 p.m.

I'm sorry. I make a motion to approve the August 4th meeting.

I have a question for you right here. I was here for that meeting, right? Was I not here for that meeting? Maybe I wasn't.

And I second that approval.

I may not have been here.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

Okay, so resort tax collation and legacy report with Frank.

Thank you madam vice chair I will pull it up here on the screen I was trying to print it but was having some issues with my printer but. Okay so last month we looked at the collection for the month of April and we are now going to fast forward to May. So if we look at our categories, as has been the trend in previous months, we are down a little bit in the food and beverage. 17% is what it might look like versus last year. However, I know that there's a lot of key restaurants that are missing. As I always mentioned, there's quite a bit of a lag in when the restaurants pay. So I think once they do complete their payments, we're not going to be in such a deficit. The hotel side, of course, remains very strong. We are up five and a half percent versus last year, which was already very strong and up a lot versus twenty six point four. Some of that can be attributed to just higher cost of everything. Nowadays in the business district we have had a couple of openings children's boutique not sure if you say Bebe or Bebe Sweeney and that's at 9480 Harding Avenue. And then I think this has been open a little bit longer but I just noticed the Brookville design and cabinet which is a high end cabinet showroom. They're based out of New York. So those are our newest openings.

Can I ask a quick question regarding why the restaurants are so late or how late are they and what's owed to us and what is the expectation?

Well, finance has a process. It all goes through the finance department. I don't, you know, check on the collections, but there is a process. So once it's, I think maybe two months late, they issue a penalty letter and then they have another grace period to pay. And, you know, eventually they all do come in and pay, but it's not atypical for some of them to let it go maybe three months and then they'll come in and they'll pay everything that's owed. So.

Well, that's terrible. That is the process. OK, that's all.

Thank you.

OK, thank you, Frank. Discussion items. We want to change the order. And we will start with letter 6H.

But I'm turning you to motion to be able to change the order of the agenda.

Somebody else has to make the motion.

I'll make the motion to move up 6H.

Yes. To start and then 6F.

Okay, so 6H would be first and then 6F as in Frank. So someone has to second that, I guess.

I'll second it.

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

Okay, so... Today is a little bit long night, and I please ask all our vendors to be a little bit brief. We already know you, so you don't really have to present yourselves that much because we know your backgrounds. Just go on point, and we're going to start with the Singer Fest, November 16, Isaac Bashevis Singer Celebration.

Perfect. Thank you, Madam Chair. We will welcome Charlotte up to the stage. And just before she begins, we'll just remind the board that this is the idea that came to us a few months ago from Commissioner Valdostegui. And this event will be in tandem with the Community Relations Board. It's really an effort to shine a light on one of the greatest authors and a novel laureate, which is Isaac Bashevis Singer, who I think was born in the month of November, and obviously is an acclaimed Surfside resident. So this event will be a two-part component. The first will be a book club where stories by Bashevis Singer will be read. And that will be sponsored by the Community Relations Board. This will all be held at the community center. And then we will segue into the reception portion and the short film screening, which will be sponsored by the board. And that's what Charlotte is going to present. What's the date of the event? Sunday, November 16. The time?

Start at five with the book component, and then at six, I think the celebration that we are, and it's in the community center. Yes.

No?

The button on the side.

Okay okay so I am Charlotte also known as Sheru. I have relief designs which is I'm a Surfside resident and I think hopefully you might remember me from the the event that we did in May.

I apologize Madam Chair. Can you please say your address for the record.

Oh sure 320 88th Street. that was the 90th anniversary event. So for the Singer Fest event, to go along with the book club idea, I put together some ideas for what it could look like. I really want to focus on the Yiddish and how he is very celebrated for his love of the Yiddish language and most of his literature was in Yiddish. Um, so the concept is that we will use the, um, the community center and then do the event in the garden and have it to be sort of a enchanted type, um, garden gathering where we have, um, light bites, like Yiddish, Polish, like appetizers, Prosecco for a toast. There's a live klezmer band. We will have basically just, I'm actually really excited. I have a lot of ideas about doing the different, the little, the book pieces to really sort of bring to life the literature. So we were thinking to have a red carpet garden, like the path in the garden to be a red carpet. We'll have a stage for the klezmer band with garden chairs. We'll do the sea grape trees and fairy lights and bistro lights. We can have different prints of ideas like some of his quotes from his literature and just different things to make it to bring it really home what this is about. We thought that it would be good to do the roving servers again to help with the light bites. And what I looked into was the pierogies, which are Polish. He was a... very staunch vegetarian, so pierogies actually have, there's a variety that we can do from, there's a vendor, Pierogi One, downtown. Unfortunately, it's not kosher, though, so I thought maybe we could do half pierogies and then half other kosher hors d'oeuvres. And then I budgeted for one glass of Prosecco or kosher wine per person. And this is a budget that we put together based on those ideas. So you can look it over and ask me any questions.

Can we, I have a question. Can we get kosher pierogies? That's a pretty kosher food.

I, the, so I'm open to, if you have a, if you know of a, of a kosher pierogi dealer, I found one in Boca. Yeah. There should be the pierogi one downtown, which is the, like the most famous one. They don't really do kosher, but, um, There is a place in Boca, so that's the one I found. But I'm totally, like, I searched.

So, like, if you have a... Well, I see them at the supermarket in Costco, like, frozen in giant things. Well, blintzes also. Blintzes is a good, easy, kosher, vegetarian, delicious. I don't know if you know what a blintze is. Yeah. Yeah. That's also an idea. If you want to keep it, like, Yiddish-y, Jewish, and kosher, you could do blintzes as well. If we can make it all kosher, that would be more in keeping with the celebration and people won't have to be like, is this one kosher? Is this not kosher? If they're all kosher.

Okay.

Um, I mean, let me know, like if you have,

The pierogi one also, they don't usually do delivery, so there's some issues with it, but I think we should be able to find something.

I mean, I know they sell them. I don't cook, so I don't know. I stick them in the oven.

Yeah, we can probably figure that out. I don't want to serve Costco food. I have a question. I mean, I don't know. But if there's somebody who can do it, we can do that.

There's got to be kosher caterer because that's like a standard. There's definitely. No, like.

Okay, that's really expensive. So let's.

It's not. It's not expensive because it's potato with. It's just. No, no, no. I'm just saying. Potato.

It might be more costly if we try to do everything kosher, and the cost is usually much higher for kosher food. The budget will then be out of whack.

I just want to say, if it's meat.

But let's not go down the rabbit hole. I do have a question. So when you say $150 and then $10, it's $10 per pierogi? What am I missing?

No, it's $10 for, no, not per pierogi. I forget how many. It was like four to six per person. OK, thanks. or assuming four to six appetizers per person, so that also factored in the half just regular kosher.

Okay.

I just want to mention to your comment, Eliana, that when the 96th anniversary happened in the park, we had kosher and no kosher food, and there was no problem with people getting confused because it was served. No, no, no, I know, but what I'm saying is meat is very expensive.

Like when you go kosher meat, it's crazy expensive, but the dairy... Like, pierogies is basically potatoes.

I know, but what she's mentioning is she hasn't found. It's her thing.

Fine with me. I mean, I'm not...

If we can find one, I'm open to it. I liked the pierogies.

So while we have both options, it doesn't matter. Actually, for me, it's fine if... If we, of course, address the Jewish community and the regular community, so it's like whatever you are able to find, I think we will be fine.

And they're vegetarian, so it's not that big of a deal anyway. Yeah.

Do you have more questions? Any other comments?

Is it possible for us to give out maybe copies of one of his short story collections or something like that as a giveaway?

Through the chair. So that will be a part of the book club component that will precede the reception. So that will be sponsored by the Community Relations Board. And we're going to be getting a collection of short stories that feature Miami or Surfside. And yeah, we plan to have those available. Oh, great. And another component of this is also the community partners. So Commissioner has been in touch with the Shoal, Books and Books, also the Jewish Museum of Florida. And we are also talking to PR for the Miami Book Fair, which takes place in November. So ideally, we can leverage that and be cross-promoted. That would be a wonderful thing and the idea for this event. I think is to have it maybe annually, and it doesn't always have to center around Bashevis Singer. It's kind of named after him, but it can circle back to him every couple of years. And it's just the cultural, you know, literature focus.

Sounds good. How are we going to, because the community center is going to be open at that time, how are you going to limit the number of people that come to this event and that aren't coming in off the beach to the community center?

Yeah, we'll have to think through that. But yeah, at this point, we haven't thought through it yet. I mean, I did give the date to park, so they're going to block it off and make sure that we have the whole facility and that we can set up in time. Because the idea is to use, obviously, the fishbowl, but also the pool deck area a little bit. Maybe we can set up some of the community partners. We want to do a nice step and repeat, again, knowing that We're going to have community partners, possibly elected officials from neighboring municipalities also attending. So we want to create a nice atmosphere, but that's a good point about the control. We'll think through that.

How are residents going to get tickets?

I don't think it's going to be ticket-based. I think it's just going to be open. I mean, that's up for discussion.

No, I think open is great. I just want to make sure we have enough stuff for everyone because we may get a lot more than 150 people.

That's one of those things that we've never done an event like this, so it's hard to say. I mean, I think 150 for something kind of niche. For a book club? Probably.

The other thing is, if it's an issue, we can always close the pool. It wouldn't be the first time that we close the pool when necessary to host an event. We can do whatever. I think we can just explore it as we get closer and as the committee begins to flush this out.

Yeah, we can explore that, obviously. We'll loop in the town manager and make sure he's kosher with everything, but I'm excited for this event.

I'm also very excited about this event. I think it's our first cultural big event that we have the opportunity to be seen and recognized as different than the the city that the building fall or something negative, it's positive, it's cultural, we can have the Polish consulate here. I've already made contact with the person who runs the consulate. So this can be something that we do really need a lot in our community. So all the effort that we can make to make this happen in a very nice, elegant, upgrade way, I think it's It's beautiful.

If there's going to be like a talk or something, can we make sure that we record it so it can be on our channel?

Yes. So if you'll remember, this board sponsored the flight and the stay for Professor Godesman, who's going to be coming from the University of Texas. And he's an expert on Bashevis Singer. So he'll be a part of both events. And yeah, we can try to get a recording so we can share it on our town channel and other channels as well.

Okay, do we need to vote?

Do we have to vote now, right?

Yeah, I think we need to approve the proposal.

I vote to approve the proposal. I'll second it.

Who's second in the motion, I'm sorry?

Clara, I said I vote to approve the proposal. Who's second in the motion? Eliana. Eliana.

Thank you. Board Member Calloway?

Yes.

Board Member Diaz-Leal?

Yes.

Board Member Silsower? Yes. Yes, Mr Martinez, yes, motion carries.

Thank you. Thank you. Sure.

Hello.

I have a comment to make regarding the event itself, but. If I'm not wrong, would we consider at some point maybe do a plaque or something in the community center or in the bench or something to name it after Isaac Bashevis?

That's right. Yes, we did talk about some kind of... Yeah, erecting something, whether it's a bench or something dedicated to Bashevis Singer and making that a part of it. I think we still have to flesh out some of those ideas. We're researching whether the bench can be labeled or dedicated somehow. So we might come back next month with a couple of options.

What about that butterfly garden where we have the book? You know where we have that flamingo, whatever they called it, the flamingo garden? Yes, yes. Where they have a book reading box and stuff?

Yeah, but the idea will be to do it by where the event is taking place, because who's going to go to do that over there and come back to the event?

So maybe we can do the bench that is under the... Yeah, there's an existing bench that's already there under the big sea grape, so maybe we could dedicate that. That might have to go through commission and stuff, but I think it's a nice touch.

Thank you. Okay, so let's move on to... To number 6F, movable surf site sign.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will welcome the cloud team, and I will help you with the computer in a second. Just before they're up here, I just want to set this up. But you're all familiar with the big oversized surf site letters that we've had, I think, since 2018. So they're now like seven years old. They've been refurbished a number of times, and soon after, The way they're designed, people stand on them. They step on them. So they don't have the longest shelf life. So since the fiscal year is expiring at the end of this month, they thought it might be a good use of the funds to create a new, dynamic, beautiful sign that people cannot stand in. So we can use it at all of the different events. And this is what.

Yeah, I remember for the last event, it was kind of like a nightmare to work with that sign because it was completely torn apart.

Where is it?

It's by the park.

It was in the community center, now it's by the park.

But those letters are... That's what we did. That's what this is.

I don't like the wheels.

The old one is ugly. Oh, I have to look at me, just being honest.

I like your jacket. It doesn't match what I have on. It's cool.

It's always cold here, so.

I should have brought my jacket.

I was wearing one all day, and I took it off to come here. I'm like, what a silly girl.

Bueno, mejor si le das aquí, sabes, ahí, by clicking. Aquí?

Sí, clicking así, uno para abajo, para arriba, para abajo. A ver, déjame.

Sí, a ver, con esto, you just click on the one you want.

Okay.

Good afternoon. Alicia Vallejo, 7031. It's Northeast 138th Street, North Miami. Well, good afternoon. Thank you. I'm going to be very short because I know you're busy and I'm very nervous. So that's the, yes, I am.

We know each other already, so.

Yes, well, my team and I, we've been working in this proposal for you to make a very beautiful and unique piece of art for Surfside. So today is my turn to do this presentation because Antonia and Luciano are here. As you can notice, English is not my language, Spanish, It's not my language. My real language is art. And I'm going to let art talk for me. And I am here, so you know us. So I don't need to do the presentation. So I'm going to be directly in what we want to share with you. We, as Frank said, we design a unique piece of art for Surfside. So you can read, because I think it's better quickly. And it's going to be clear. So that's the introduction. So if you're done, I can come. to our proposal, we have three options with different designs and different colors. So the first one is this, the project overview. Here you have the measures that we are proposing to do the mural. and the kind of supplies of materials that we're going to use to make the letters and the part of the the mosaic. And in this part, I want to share with you that I have here some of the mosaic we've been printing with a company, Iberia Tiles. They are sending this. They're working with my mosaic. They're a company from Italy.

I have here.

They're one of the pieces of my art. They printed by Iberia Times. So it's a huge company that has everything to make the warranty for more than 10 years. Yeah, it's a PVC. And the letters will be, you have here the kind of supplies that we're gonna use. So what we are looking is to be very environmental responsible and to have the supplies that can be under the weather, raining, shining, and you have a real piece of art that you can have for a long, long time, more than 10 or 20 years more that you can put and move everywhere you have a new special event. So that's what we designed for you. And there's the supplies I have here to some of the wheels.

Very nice.

I couldn't bring the other supplies because that's a, we're gonna send it to a special company to do it. But there's a suicide here. I think I need your help. Yeah. No. Here.

Yes, here I am.

So some of the impact that we, I know you know the importance of art in the community. I am an anthropologist and I've been working a lot with art and the community. So why to put not just a saying, it's a piece of art that people can feel that it's a part of the town, it's part of the self, and be very, very proud of what they have as a sign. So you can have there. And here we have different options and colors. You can choose what you want. The first one is just like only two colors. Here we put yellow and orange. And we have this one. I really like that one more. Yes. Yeah, that's like very colorful with the turtle, the fish, and the reefs. And you can choose any color of the letters that you will really like. And here we have the budget and how it's going to work. how long it's gonna take for us to make the piece of art. Is that clear?

Where does it say how long?

Sorry. I think around six week, let's go 45 days, is that correct? You can see it?

That's what it says in here, okay.

45 calendar days.

And here we have the timeline. So you were asking for the time. It's like when you approve the final design, it's going to take around 45 days. So as I promised, I'm very short. And I'm done. If you have any questions.

Two questions. First of all, this is beautiful. I really like the samples there. They're very, very bright. It's probably just the printing jobs that we have, but is there a way to make sure that it's going to be brighter? Because some of these, the colors look sort of flat, but are they going to be super bright on those samples? Of course.

Can we make it bright? Yes, we can do it. bright you want and we have to work like a digital and make all the this is just the beginning so when you say this is the final design we're gonna work Antonia and Lucia they're gonna work because I think you're I mean your art is amazing and that stuff's beautiful I think this is really nice but I think you could probably do something even more spectacular with corals and like really

Beautiful.

Yes, we can.

And if we're paying the same amount, if you want to take some time to come up with, because this is the nicest, for me, I mean, everyone has their own opinion. That is beautiful, but I do think, like, looking at your samples and stuff, you are clearly very talented and could do something even more bright and spectacular. So that was my first thing. The second thing is, how much does it weigh? It doesn't say anything here about what the weight is.

It's around 150 pounds.

Pounds? Around. And do we, this is a question for Frank, do we have a place to store this?

Yes, they would be stored where we are currently, or where they were storing the other letters, which are... Like by the Santa?

By the pool?

I think they're on the other side. I think they're on the northern side. Those were usually parked on the northern side of the community center. Santa's on the southern side.

Okay, and then what does the back of this look like? What is the? Like the back, on the back side. Is it finished on the back? What does the back look like? Both, because you can put it in a place that you can see it's double-sided. It's double-sided? That's what I was asking. Okay. Well, how would it say Surfside going the other way in the back? It would just be a different design, right? You're right. You can't say Surfside going backwards. Yes, you're right. But is the reverse side finished? With colorful tiles and stuff, or is the backside?

No, only the part that is down the layer is going to be with tile. The letters is going to be like a PVC, a special PVC that looks like fiberglass, but it's not fiberglass, but it looks like that.

Okay, but the back will have some kind of, it'll be tile.

Yeah, so I think if I'm understanding correctly, sorry, through the chair, is the back is going to have the mosaic, the mosaic.

Vamos a ver, yes.

Yes, but not obviously the surf. So the back will have the, it'll be finished with the mosaic.

Okay, and the surf side letters on the reverse will still be the same material, right? Yes, yes, the same material.

So you can see the letters, the right way to write surf side, only one way. But if you are down back, you can see the art in the part.

And it's going to be blue in the back as well, right? Like if we chose the light blue, okay, so.

And I would assume you would see that in the final renderings, but it was a good question. Yes, correct.

OK, those were my only questions. But I think this is beautiful, but I would like to see,

Yes. But I think we should, if everyone agrees and we want to move forward, to choose which designs that they have presented we would like better so they can give us another presentation with the final renders.

Through the chair, just remember that the fiscal year ends in September, so if we want to pay for this item... Now, we should really select the design.

Here's my question, though. Because we can pay, but then change the design?

Yes. Yes, of course. You can say yes today, and we can start working on the design that you think is going to be the better. And so we can bring you another proposal with the final details, all that you need. Right.

So we just have to approve the money, and then you can come up with... the design later.

I think Cynthia has a question. The only question I had was just Frank. Is this going to live outside in the sun on a regular basis, or is it being stored somewhere and then brought out for events?

Yeah, good question. I think it would be better to store it and bring it out for the events. By the way, I have shared this with Parks and Recreation, and they love it. They love the sign, so they would be really excited to have it. I think if we display it the whole time, it'll lose a little bit of its luster. So I think we can get a lot of legs out of this. I mean, we could use it at all of the parks events. We can even roll it out if we need some type of a photo op, and it's sort of in the area.

Do we need for the wheels, do we need wheels that are more that could get it to the beach or could get it to the park. We may need wheels that are more off-road wheels.

Like all-terrain wheels. Yeah.

So that we have to find the correct wheels to put it on the beach.

Because we have events at the park. We'll want to get it there and put it in the dirt and the grass and all that.

Yeah, that's a good point. Maybe we can have some kind of cover on them so they're not too visual. Yeah, we can continue working on it. But that's a good point.

Don't worry. We have two architectures and a designer. industrial designer on the team, so I am the artist.

Sorry, one more question. The materials that we're using, though, they don't fade in the sun, or they do fade in the sun?

No, there is going to be a good finish until 10, 20 years. I think so. I hope.

Yeah, if it's not regularly, you know, if it's not out there all the time.

I asked my question. If it was sitting in the sun, I think you'd have to, like, know. But if it's going in and out, it's probably going to be fine.

I mean, at some point, it may fade out, and you might need, like, to touch it up somehow.

Well, that's what I'm saying. It's always better to go brighter because, for example, my sofa is three different shades depending on if it's in the sun. like it fades with the sun, so.

So before you vote, I do have one more thing. So Alicia, she showed you the design concepts, which if you notice are three different mosaic tile bottoms, and then obviously a variety of different options for the top. My personal favorite was the more gradient inspired one here at the bottom. And I wanted to know what it would look like with different letters at the top. So I had our designer do This version, in case you prefer the white outline, maybe you like the other one. Do you prefer the colored outline? Okay. Wonderful. So we'll just go back to that. Perfect. So, yeah, just let us know what you prefer.

Okay. So how we will do this voting? Number, like, one, two, three? Okay.

So I think you need to identify the base. It seems like there's consensus on this base, although you want to give some feedback for some tweaks. And then, yeah, so if you choose the base, let her know what kind of feedback you want on the base, and then your preferred color option for the logo.

I'll make a motion for option three, which is I would think what everyone said they liked.

For the base?

For the base, yeah.

Which is that one, yes. Yes, this one. Awesome.

Okay. And then for the lettering, I mean, I like the darker because I think it's going to get lighter over time. The dark blue looks really nice with it. It's going to look good in pictures, especially against the blue sky. The darker one will be better. I mean, I'm just one person, so whatever you guys want. Is that part of my motion then? Is that the darker lettering? OK, the navy blue lettering with that, the first one there on the screen, the navy blue with the thing. And then my only feedback was to make it as bright as possible. And if you want to throw in more corals or colors, whatever, you're an artist. So whatever you want to do would be great.

Who will second the motion?

I will second the motion. Those are my two favorites as well.

OK, perfect.

Member Calloway?

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Motion carries.

Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Beautiful design.

Okay. Now let's move to 6-8, Symphony on the Beach. Oh, no, let's move to summer, Sunday's samba. No.

Is this the recap?

Yeah, it's the recap. Sarah's not able to be here, so would you like to defer it, or would you just like the board to discuss the event without her?

Are we just discussing the samba one, not the kite one?

Yeah, because, right, because when our original date, you know, the other one hadn't happened, so now we could discuss both.

Okay, whatever you want. I haven't been able to make it to the last event. I made it to the Samba one, and I think it was a success.

It was like... Madam Chair, which item are we discussing?

Sorry, 6C.

Thank you.

OK, since she's not here, but I think all the events have happened already. I don't know if any of you have any. Yeah, I do.

I was at the one on Sunday. It was fantastic. It was packed. It was amazing. There was people flying kites. The people love the food. There was ice cream. You know, our beach is really short and it. She couldn't have, I guess, the big tents or anything like that, but there was music. It was fantastic. It was, I think, one of our best yet. And I was a little bit sad when I was like, is this the last one?

You've got to keep people wanting more.

I know, but I would do... I mean, it was so great. I would do another one. I just think they're so amazing. They're so much fun. Everyone comes out. Everyone attends. Otherwise, we have nothing from now until... When does our next event even start?

I think for next year, we have to start this series earlier if we want more, because now the weather really... It's like we're in the middle of a hurricane season, so it's hard to really make them happen with the weather... helping us. So if we do these events, as I mentioned before.

Yes, we can start earlier in June this year. We had a lot of stuff happening late in May for the 90th anniversary. So I think next year we can do a June event early in June and then go through September.

Do you want to quit while we're ahead and before we get rained out?

But I will say it was a really nice event on Sunday, as Eliana said. The footprint looked really good. There were a lot of attendees. The beach is really nice. The water, the seaweed is gone, thankfully.

The other thing that I noticed that I think is fantastic is that the youth council kids, the volunteers, and my son is doing it too, they love to go and they volunteer and they sit at the table and they talk to everyone who comes. It's really a wonderful way to build community. So I don't know, I can't remember how we, I think we came up with that idea because we didn't have the budget to pay for people to check people in, but it's been the best thing because they're really connecting with their neighbors and it's really nice to see that.

It's wonderful. We have an item to talk about something for them later in the agenda, but yeah, that's a wonderful touch.

Okay. I think we can move forward. Then we'll move to 6D. Sorry, we have changed this Hennessy, but... Yeah, some of our vendors are not here, so we have to...

Thank you, and I will welcome Javier to the computer. I'll help you in a second. And just to give a little bit of background, Javier, of course, did last year's The Night in Italy event. That was a huge success, and I kept getting requests to have more nights in this, nights in that. But because the calendar is pretty tight, I thought it might be a nice idea to have him present for the third Thursday series, which is going to be a modified concept of The Night In.

Hello. Good evening.

You are in the email. I think it's this.

Yes, 6G. No, it's only the cover page. No, the presentation is not here.

Yeah, there's nothing in here either. Yeah, because it was recently.

Javier Valmana, 8851 Abbott Avenue, Surfside, Florida.

Good evening. Hello, everyone. I hope you've had a great summer. So I introduce you to hopefully next year's third Thursday block party series, and we're calling it Cruising the Globe series. So the idea, you know, building on the Night in Italy event, which based on the feedback I got both from the community and all of you, and, you know, it was a huge success. And based on that feedback, you know, the night of the event, we got a ton of residents that kept asking giving suggestions of countries and places that they would like to see featured, similar to the Night in Italy. So we came up with a series that I think not only meets those expectations, but really evolves the Night in Italy event into a full-on series that I think is going to be just as exciting, if not more exciting, for the community. So just to go over some of the content that you'll be seeing, I'll go over the vision and objective of the event, the themes, which will include the Americas, the Mediterranean, and Asia, and a sustainability portion, and the budget. So event series, vision, and objective. And in the background, you can see some of the photos from the Night in Italy event, specifically our photo station. So our vision for this series is to recreate the same warmth, energy, and joy that our Night in Italy celebration brought to the community while expanding that spirit into a truly global journey. Each event will invite guests to experience not just one, but several cultures in a single evening, surrounded by their music, flavors, traditions, and artistry. Our goal is not only to entertain all ages, but to ignite genuine cultural connection, leaving every guest with lasting memories and a deeper appreciation for the richness our world has to offer. So this idea to kind of do, instead of just one country, and turn it more into different regions came in part from the fact that we had a lot of different people suggesting different countries that they wanted to see featured. And based on some of the feedback I heard, or got from the board on watching last meeting and some feedback I got from Frank. This board for next year wants to do three events with the possibility of maybe a fourth one, but wants to pretty much shorten it. And there's so many good options for countries to feature that I think if we did just two or three, it might be limiting it to just a few places. And one of the things that I didn't really make it known, but I did with the Night in Italy event, was that I separated the layout of the event into two sections. And in my mind, it was kind of portraying the south and the north of Italy. So if you think back on the event, those of you that attended, as you walked in uh on the stage or like everything that was on the street uh everything had uh like yellow uh blue and and just kind of like amalfi colors if you think about it if you think about the bar um while the in the inner part was a more traditional Italy, which was like red and white, some greens. So I kind of divided it into that. And it also gave me the idea for this event to have these different sections. as we feature all the countries that I'll be going through in each event. Uh, what I want you to keep in mind and in mind is that it's not going to be, uh, like disorganized and everything happening at once. So what I'm thinking about doing is dividing, uh, the space that we have available into different sections for each country so that the same way you walk into the Night in Italy event and it kind of felt like you were in Italy based on the decoration, the music and everything, it kind of feels like that, like a journey through the world or in this case through these regions as you go through the event. So we'll feature music, food, entertainment and all that from each individual country. So to give a small description about the themes, the first region or the first theme would be the Americas, and featured countries would be Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru. And this is just kind of like a... preliminary selection of countries. It's what I could find to be the countries that culture-wise had the most to work with. But at the same time, we can work on it if there's anything that you see that you wish to change. So in A Night Through the Americas, guests will dance to the infectious beats of Brazilian samba, be serenaded by lively Mexican mariachis, savor authentic Peruvian ceviche, and embrace the passion of Argentine football all in one unforgettable evening. For the Mediterranean, featured countries would be Greece, Israel, and Turkey. So in a night through the Mediterranean, guests will journey into Greek mythology brought to life through storytelling and decor, savor the timeless flavors of the Mediterranean table with Israeli favorites like hummus and falafel, and be mesmerized by the elegance and energy of Turkish belly dancing. So as I read this, I want you to kind of imagine walking through an event and kind of feeling that in each section you're in a different country with all the different decorations and components that we showcase for the night in Italy. And for Asia, we featured countries would be China, Japan, India, and Thailand. And in a night through Asia, guests will immerse themselves in the world of Chinese heritage with graceful dragon dances and rich flavors, experience the elegance of Japanese artistry through tea and calligraphy, savor the bold spices of India with dishes like curry and samosas, and be enchanted by the culture and rhythm of Thai dance and cuisine. So let's start off with the Americas. In these pictures, you can see kind of the general idea and some of the components. You have the Brazilian samba dancer. You have some of the mariachis, some of the food. And you can kind of start to see and put together what an event featuring all these different cultures might look like, still keeping in mind that since they're all one region, these countries will have similarities and will have a shared culture in a way, but at the same time, the goal of the event is to also showcase all the differences and all that each individual culture has to offer. So to go through some of the components and entertainment, food and drink, and the core. One of the things I want to explain because I provided a lot of different options is that I'll go deeper into it once I talk about the budget. But what I did is that I created a range of things that we can do. Depending on the budget, we might be able to do more or less. However, regardless of that, pretty much at the minimum of the budget, we have the Night in Italy event. And one of the things I want to make clear is that if you choose to go with the minimum, it doesn't mean that we're going for less quality, just that we're somewhat going for less components, if you will. But in entertainment, some of the options and ideas we have is mariachis to showcase Mexico, Brazilian samba, Brazilian drumming and follow along, samba dance and prop photo station, demonstration, which is a Brazilian martial arts, a Mexican hat making activity. And these are like wrestling masks that that are very popular over there. For Argentina, we have a tango performance, a football activity. And for Peru, we have an artisan market, and obviously, in addition to food and all that. For food and drink, we have Argentinian parrilla, and this would be one of the kosher options in this event. We also have tacos, which would be another kosher option. We have Brazilian street food, which includes cheese breads that they have and things like that, ceviche. And then for drinks, we have, as possible ideas, margaritas, ,, and ,, which is a Peruvian drink. So if you think back on the Night in Italy event, what we did is that as you went through the event, you got to try not just one, but every single food and drink option that we had available. For the Night in Italy event, we had pasta, we had pizza, gelato, we had a charcuterie vendor, and we had the prosecco for drink. So I think one of the things that made it really exciting is that you didn't only get to try one thing, but you really went around and tried different things. And for this one, I think it's even more exciting that you're not only trying different dishes, but different cultures completely in one night. And then as far as the core, some of the components would be flags, Argentinian football jerseys. I didn't include it, but Argentina and Brazil are big rivals, so we can also have Brazilian football jerseys. We can have authentic Mexican hats. Day of the Dead colorful skulls, as you see there in some of the previous pictures. And Day of the Dead paper strings, which are some of the things you see there. And one of the other things that I want to accomplish is that both in this series and as people look back maybe to the Night in Italy event, I want each event to feel individually, I don't know, spectacular and exciting and not to kind of carry over the same ideas and things. So the goal would be, and that's one of the reasons I think doing different countries even in one night, which gives us so much to work with, would accomplish that, and it's because we would be able to really showcase an entirely different layout for each individual event and just different components. So for the Mediterranean, you can kind of see the general vibe that I'm going for. On the left, we have Greece. We have the very, I think just Mediterranean overall, the evil eye. We have some Turkish rugs and cushions and things like that on the right. We have some Jewish or Israeli hats that you would see in a market or something like that, some of the food, and some of the Greek mythology on there. So for the Mediterranean, for entertainment,

I have a question.

Yes.

In all of the other ones, you have four countries. But in this one, you have three.

Yes. It's just I did it on purpose. So one of the things with this one, again, going back to the idea of kind of not every event being a similar layout or a similar thing. One of the things that is cool about these three countries is that as they're all in the Mediterranean, there's a lot that they have in common compared to, let's say, the countries that I mentioned in the Americas. So my goal with this one is while still having different sections and showcasing each individual culture, I want this one to be a little bit more, have like a center stage kind of thing, while the other ones, my idea is to have, in each different country, individual performances and things like that. So yeah, this one I did it three just to be able to, I don't know, work, expand more on some of the entertainment and some of the food, but it's three on purpose. Wait. So yeah, for the entertainment we had pottery painting activities. If you think back on the Italian one, we had the tiles, the tile painting with the pottery vendor here in town and that was a great activity. So one of the things that I think would be really cool for this one would be to do a a kind of like Greek pottery activity. We could have Greek mythology storytelling, a photo booth with togas, helmets, laurel crowns. For live music, we'd have a Greek harp player. We could have Turkish belly dancing, as I previously mentioned, Turkish henna tattoos, an Israeli marketplace, and then evil eye bracelet charm station and backgammon boards, which is a game. For food, we can have Greek gyros Mediterranean dips and delicacies baklava kebabs Falafel rice bowl and then for drinks we could have Turkish like drinks for people to try out Turkish coffee Greek and Israeli wine and Turkish beer And for For for the core we'll have flags, Greek white columns, similar to the ones you see on the picture to the left, Turkish rugs. So as you imagine, each individual section As you walk into Greece, you'll have an entrance with the Greek columns and things. Oh, I did forget the hukas. We could have a kid-friendly version of the hukas. But yeah, so as you walk into Greece, you'll have an entrance with the columns, while, for example, in Turkey, you might have a lounge area with the cushions and the rugs. So this way, we'll make each... area entirely different so that and the other thing it will accomplish is that as you go from you know for the first third Thursday to the second and the third you'll have you know different seating different arrangements so it'll feel like an entirely different concept while still keeping the same series you know theme idea. And then just to finish off we'll have some Turkish lamps evil eye pendants and torches. And then lastly, I think Asia would be a strong one to finish with. We'll have, just to go over it, on the left, we have some Chinese lanterns, which are very typical and I think would really set the mood. A huge dragon. We have some henna tattoos for India. We have a Buddhist sculpture. We have some Japanese barbecue and some Japanese dressing. are closed. So a night through Asia. As far as entertainment, we would have a Chinese dragon dance, which I think would really set the mood for the event. Martial arts demonstrations, calligraphy drawing activity, some live music performances, maybe featuring some elements from the other different cultures. a tie beaded bracelet making activity, henna body art, Bollywood dancers to feature India, a Japanese zen garden photo station, a Chinese dragon photo station, and an origami folding activity. For food and drink, we would have a chicken katsu, which is like a chicken sandwich, very popular in Japan. We would have fried rice, which would be one of the kosher items. We would have sushi, which would also be one of the kosher items, samosas, curry chicken, Pad Thai. And for drinks, we could have Japanese sake. We could have Thai beer and matcha. And then for some of the decor, for example, China, we could have calligraphy scrolls, Chinese red lanterns, and some gold accents. For Japan, we could have some hanging umbrellas, as you see in the picture to the left. some Japanese cherry blossoms and bamboo structures. And then India, some Garigold garlands, which are these kind of very colorful necklaces that are very common over there. Some Rangoli designs, which is like an Indian pattern. And Thai temple chimes and incense. So for example, for the Thai temple, what I'm thinking is similar to Japan, creating an area that is like a Thai temple. We have some chimes and some incense, so it kind of gets you in that mood. And then sustainability-wise, one of the things that we did partially for the Night in Italy event is that we provided most of the dinnerware and cutlery and things like that for the event. So for this one, I would try to do it entirely, or I would do it entirely, and this way we can control and make sure that no one's providing plastic or styrofoam or things like that. Not that it happened in the night in Italy, but just to make sure that we can control that. And it also provides a cohesive and elegant look as we're able to provide all of that. And for the night in Italy, for example, we provided the paper or leaf plates for the charcuterie. We provided the plates for the pasta, for the ice cream, and things like that.

I have one question regarding the sustainability. For the 96th anniversary, I think there was a company who was in charge of composting all the recyclable items. So I don't know if we can be cohesive and go with that through all our events.

Through the chair, I think that's a really good suggestion for the ones that have a substantial food component. I know Sheru has the information for them, so we could connect with her. And whether that's a part of their budget or something supplemental that the board can pass in the name of sustainability, I think it's a great idea.

Yes, because it's not only being able to provide the great material, but also composting it. So we really completely run the thing. And since we're so close to the water, I think, and we already did it.

And we get all the great analytics about what we saved and what we are doing and accomplishing. So, yep.

Thank you.

Sounds good. And then as far as the budget, so first I want to focus you on the right portion. And I provided, as I said, a range. So at the minimum, you have $27,000, which is what you spent on the Night in Italy event. And then on the right, you have $35,000, which is the equivalent of what would be the fourth Thursday. spending it on evenly on these three in the event that you wanted to do that. Or I also provided a breakdown of what we're spending in each portion of the event so that if you don't want to spend, I don't know, all $35,000 but you still want to enhance a specific portion of it, you can do that as well. So just to go over the general amounts, for entertainment, first I'll go if you spend $27,000, and then I'll go if you spend $35,000. For entertainment, you would spend $7,000. For food and drink, you would spend $10,000. For decor and props, you would spend $3,000. And for production, you would spend $7,000. That is almost exactly the same amount What's it called? The same proportion or allocation that you spend on the night in Italy. So I just want to explain that. And then for entertainment, I mean, for the $35,000 budget, you would spend, if you go all the way to $35,000, you would spend $9,500 on entertainment, $13,000 on food and drink, $4,000 on decor and props, and $8,000 on production. So one of the things that I want to point out is that if you were to increase it, regardless of how much you increase it, most of the allocation would go to entertainment and food relative to production or decor. The least amount that would increase percentage-wise is production, just because a lot of the production components that we would use as far as equipment, furniture, things like that, it's pretty much a fixed price. The only things that would really slightly increase if we add more things is staffing or things like that. Overall, it's a better bang for your buck if you increase it, since most of the money goes to entertainment or food and drink. And then just to go over the specifics, so for entertainment, we have on live performances and demonstrations, 2,500 to 3,500. Again, the minimum adds up to 27,000, which is relatively the same proportion that you spend on the night in Italy. And then the max is the 35. So 2,500 to 3,500 on live performances and demonstrations. interactive activities for at least 100 participants. So in the Night in Italy event, this would have been the tile making activity, which was in collaboration with a vendor here, a business here in town. And then we also added later on, which we didn't initially budget for or pitch, the pasta making activity, which is also very popular, and it was great to have two options. And then for support equipment, like stage, sound, and lighting, and things like that, you would have between 2,500 and 3,250. And just to kind of explain that one in specific, one of the reasons that support equipment like stage, sound, and lighting goes up a bit is because as we do more entertainment, or performances, we obviously have to provide a bit more sound or lighting. And specifically for this series, one of the things that I would like to do when you think about especially the first and last themes is having small platforms or performance areas in each different country. so that nothing like a big stage, but small areas. And for example, if we have mariachis and we have a tango performance, each one will require lighting and sound and things like that. And one of the things that I'll say that it's a benefit to doing that is that usually if we do everything in one stage, and it's also one of the reasons why for the Mediterranean, I kept it at three. If we do all the performances or entertainment in one stage, then every time we have to switch entertainers, we have to allocate time to setting up a new band or a new performer or something like that. Well, if we do it independently, we can kind of keep the entertainment going back to back. So then for food and drink, we would provide, as I said, portions for every person to be able to try from every single station. And the idea overall, even if you spend the minimum, is to provide food for a sample product from each individual country so that you can try something from each one. And then for drinks, it would be limited depending on the budget, but we would like to do at least one drink per night. Obviously, the more the budget is, the more that we'll be able to do, and that's why I provided different types of drinks. And then for authentic drink samples, for most countries, the budget for that would be between $2,000 and $3,000. For event and for decor and props, I didn't provide specifics just because it's very specific amounts for each individual thing. But just to give you an idea of what the money would go into, it would be event signage, decorative elements. So if you think back on the Night in Italy event, we had the flags. We have in each individual table, we had like a... bosses or different things to liven up and pretty much demonstrate each theme. Then we'd have support structures for lights and hanging the core. For the Night in Italy, we did the string lights, which really sets the vibe to the event. And I think it's a great component. And it also allows us, for example, if for any of these that will be hanging the Chinese lanterns or umbrellas or things like that, it already provides a structure for that. And then variety of props representing each culture. For production, we have staff cost between $2,000 and $2,500. We have prop design and building. So for prop design and building, we have, as an example, the photo station that we put together for the night in Italy. And then miscellaneous, which is things like water and ice for the event, or a generator, or things like that that don't really fit into any other category. And then production services, which is between $4,000 and $4,500, depending on what we do. And that is all. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Javier. Any questions?

Yeah, I do. All right. Through the chair. Cynthia left? Yeah. Oh, okay. So a couple things. This is, it looks great. Thank you. It really looks nice. When we did Night in Italy, I think people, maybe because pasta isn't expensive, but people really feel like they had a meal, a real meal. And that's a lot of why they really liked it also. So I just want to make sure that if we have food is the place to put a lot of the, because that's what they complain about when they don't get enough food. We're not using bottles of water, right? No.

Okay. So for all the events we've done, we've used, I don't know if you remember, but we set up the,

The flavored waters?

No, it's like a station where people can refill their own cups. So we provide paper cups, and they can just come, and it's like a dispenser. It's like a water dispenser.

All right, great. And then the other thing, I was thinking through the Americas, the more interactive, the better. So dance demonstration is nice, but dance lessons is like? A better way to engage the community maybe?

For that one, one of the options, just to mention it, one of the things that I included was, for example, for the Brazilian beats and stuff, having a drum along. So having drums for people to be a part of it. But that's a great suggestion.

Yeah, but if the dancers are coming anyway, it's not that much. You just put on the invite dance lesson at whatever time.

Yeah, it's a great suggestion.

And then people show up. I didn't see a lot of desserts. Maybe it's because I'm hungry right now. And I remember the ice cream or the gelato from Night in Italy was amazing. Yeah, it was. I did see baklava, but that's one out of three.

That's true.

I mean, the other events need desserts also. Um, and then, uh, uh, the only other thing is I money wise night in Italy was 27,000 that, and you did a great job there. I don't, I'd like to keep it at under 30. I just, for some reason, I don't want to personally, I don't want to be like, look at, we bloated, we bloated and all that stuff. I think that you did an amazing job with that. And if we can, you know, keep it, that's just, I'm a cheapskate, so that's me. I'm consistently a cheapskate. And then the other thing with petai, just because I, my kids are adults now, but having been a parent of kids with allergies, peanuts, petai, peanuts is like, if we could replace that with something that's more friendly for kids so we don't have to worry about anaphylaxis ruining the party. That's it. Those are my only, there's a few more. Thank you. Oh, Morocco. I thought Morocco would be a good country to add to your Mediterranean if you wanted Casablanca in there or whatever.

Okay. You, any comments?

No, it looks good.

Okay. I want to thank you for all the effort you put into this presentation, first of all. Thank you. I think it was very neat and I think the idea of having regions more than just one country, it was amazing because For example, the Americas. I can see in our neighborhood all the people feeling like, oh, maybe I'm represented there. And they're bringing, as you said, their Brazilian frog or their Argentinian number 10 sweater or any other thing that represents you. The Mexicans. And we are co-hosting. living together, coexisting, right? So it's beautiful. I think it's a very social event that embraces all of us, because then we're going to have our Mediterranean night and the Asian night. So on that creative part, you nailed it. Thank you.

Although I would have added Spain. The food's great. We can dance.

But we've been having paellas, like, we can do an extra night.

We can add. I just... No, I got it. No, I'm just saying, you know, we can work on it.

I wanted to be represented.

Money-wise, I wouldn't mind adding in the food portion, because as Eliana mentioned, people are really happy when they have the food. I mean, when they are fed, and even we've tried to make it like in... More about the entertainment. People like the entertainment, but like the food as well. So if we have to allocate more money, I will go. I don't know if we can go to the budget-wise. For example, if it's in food and drink, $10,000 to $13,000, I will happily... agreed to go to the 13k because I know, you know, the cost of life is like really going up and up every single day. And Eliana said, you know, pasta is not expensive, but maybe for the other things, it's not going to be as cheap as it was like the pasta night, right? So, and also entertainment, I, you know, If we are really having a good night with good musicians and good presentations, we have to go a little bit on that. But for me, the most important thing is always the food and drink.

I'm comfortable with 30 and adding 3,000 to the food.

As am I. And I do have, you mentioned something, like people have a point of pride and they might wear their jerseys. Why don't we encourage that?

Yeah, that's a good idea.

So why don't we encourage in the invitation that you wear your gear for something that makes you connect with, whether it's Asia or one of the countries that are being represented. And they can have a lot of fun bringing, you know, their togas or not just for the photo op, but like people can come dressed up.

I know. I do. I have it. Can we also, Frank, when we give the giveaway, maybe have a themed giveaway that matches with the theme of the night? I think that'll be fun.

Yes, we can, yeah, we can think through the different regions and identify a cool gift. I could come back with some options at the next meeting. Yeah, sure.

Yeah, and I support the additional money for the food and drink as well.

And the kids love when they make something and they bring it home. So always keeping them busy doing something is...

One of the things I mentioned just in general when it comes to the budget, I definitely agree that food is the main one that if I had to increase, I would definitely increase. Not only for the variety, but also for the amount of portions. But overall, my only suggestion or comment when it comes to the budget, and one of the reasons I really provided the range in the first place is that It's a theme that overall we have a lot to work with, as far as entertainment and decorations. So that's the only thing that I would have you keep in mind, that like I said, it's not that an event at 27,000 or 30,000, it's not gonna be good. It'll be even better than the night in Italy, just because we have all this to offer. But how much more you wanna spend will just dictate how much better you want it to be, so how much more entertainment you want it to be. I'm just saying entertainment-wise.

I think $30,000 should throw a pretty good party. We've been doing it for 25, 27, I think for 30. And again, we can revisit it after the first one if we're like, oh, ma'am, it wasn't.

I would support the additional $3,000 for the food and drink. I think the entertainment is fine as presented. That would keep us at $30,000. If you wanted to do something super exciting for kids, All you need is a little paper that they go and they get stamped or something like that.

Have a passport.

Like a passport like they do in, you know, in Disney or something like that. But I mean, it's really, they bring kids, but it's not a kid's party, right? That happens at the park. I think this is fine. I agree. Sounds good. I second that.

Okay, so who's going to make a motion?

I make a motion to pass this bill. Third Thursday series for three Thursdays, increasing the budget for food and drink to 13, bringing the total to $30,000. I'll second that.

All in favor?

My apologies. Can you repeat to increase the budget to?

The food and drink budget from 10,000 to 13, bringing the total to 30,000.

Thank you. Board Member Díaz-Leal?

Yes.

Board Member Salazar?

Yes.

Vice Chair Martinez? Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you very much, and well, first of all, thank you for the opportunity, and it's gonna be a fantastic series.

Do we have the dates yet?

Yep.

I didn't provide that.

This time we're sticking to the third Thursdays, which I think is nice. Sure. The dates are January.

It doesn't start till January?

January, yeah, that's always when it starts.

We're in September.

We're running out of time. January what? January 15, February 19, and March 19.

I don't have my thing in here, but that's not a holiday week where the schools are closed and everyone's away? February? Or January?

Let me see. One president says...

I don't have my calendar, so just make sure it's not.

But even if it is during that holiday, there's a lot of tourists during that holiday. It's one of the busiest weekends for tourists, so I would actually leverage that. Yeah, the 16th is the holiday, so this would be after President's weekend.

The 16th of February.

The 16th of February is when it's President's Day.

All right, great. And there's no Jewish holidays that conflict anything there, right? The only one would be March if it's Purim. I think that's the only holiday that would be.

Yeah, exactly, in March. But usually we don't have a conflict.

Okay, great. Well, it's Ash Wednesday, to be honest, on the 18th. So that would concern me.

But this is 19.

Exactly. So we're good. Okay.

And then what else do we have?

But I mean, it's important.

Yeah. What else do we have party-wise between now and?

Well, the annual event, right? The annual, the signature.

Yeah, we're going to bring next month, we're going to bring signature event ideas. December? Yeah. Timing depends. It depends on the different proposals. They'll be for different times of year. Community Relations is doing a few events. We've got Singer Fest. We are going to talk in a minute about maybe doing an orchestra on the beach. We've got plastic fishing. What about the Christmas party where we have... The Christmas party, yes. We scheduled that for December 7, so we'll be doing that.

Is that a Sunday again?

Yeah, that's going to be on a Sunday. We may have a chance to squeeze in another Miami Film Festival screening in the winter. So I'm talking to them. So, you know, we're going to the calendar is going to be busy. Maybe not just our events, but overall between us, Parks and CRB, it's going to be.

And when is the election? Not to put a bummer on it. No, no, March. I'm talking about the Surfside election.

It's usually like the third week.

I believe it's on, I have that written down in my book. But it should be.

It doesn't matter right now. Okay, so let's move.

Did we finalize the vote?

Yes, we did, right?

Okay, let's move on.

Okay, so now that you are here, the 6E Farmer's Market replacement earnings.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair, and that is with Javier as well. I believe you have the photos and information in the packet. I'm just going to pull it up here on our screen as well. Javier, if you want to maybe start chatting about it.

So so in I think two years ago already or two seasons ago we introduced when we moved the farmers market from 95th Street to to the beach we introduced these yellow awnings that are now kind of our signature thing for the market. It's. the one thing that makes us unique in comparison to other farmers markets throughout Miami. And it's, it definitely adds a lot of character and it gives our farmers market a very European and high end look. The ones we currently have, which we bought in September of 2023, are currently in very bad shape. This is already, they've already been through two market seasons, which is eight months, and their last market season was the first one that was Saturdays and Sundays. So they got even more use. Right now they're very rusted and the majority are not even usable. We would not be able to even open with them next season or this season. We start very soon. So at the time, the board sponsored the awnings and the tents. Since then, we've actually, this past season, we bought all new tents for the market on our own dime, but we would ask the board to help us in sponsoring this so we can get all new ones for this season. So let me see if I can set that one right. So this is pretty much the total that we spent in in 2023, which it's about relatively the same now, which comes up to $2,000. And these are the awnings in the market. As you can see, they not only provide shade, which is very necessary on the hard pack, especially as we get closer to the summer months later in the year. But yeah, they also give it a very signature look and, you know, As far as the market that's on the beach and that really represents our town, the farmers market has gotten us a tremendous amount of attention and just we've been featured on different magazines, articles and things like that. So I think it's definitely something worth investing in for the image of it.

Okay, so let's make a motion if you wanna approve the motion. Which will be amounted to $2,000.

I make a motion to approve the purchase of the awnings for $2,000. I'll second that motion.

Board Member Diaz-Leal?

Yes.

Board Member Salazar?

Yes.

Vice Chair Martinez? Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you very much. Have a great night.

Okay, so now we go to 6G, visitor guide update.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That'll just be, or should we go with the plastic fishing since Genesis, I mean, that was technically first on the agenda because we had moved it. Okay, so we'll invite Rodrigo.

Which is 6B, clean for cones and plastic fishing events. So you are here.

Your Nemesis, the desktop. And then for the video? The video will be there. It will play. OK, cool.

Hello, board members. It's good to see you again. Rodrigo Buturi, 9517 Carlisle Avenue. I'm here to talk about our event on Oceans Day. This was in June. This is like a long time ago, right? Yeah. Before summer started. Okay. So we're going to review the event. We're going to quickly chat over the learnings that we got from it as we do with every event we organize, and then we're going to talk about 2026 event proposals, a quick run into that too. So starting with the review, we had a really fun day at the beach. It was a very hot day on that particular day. It was a World Oceans Day. We had a lot of kids from schools actually from South that came join us. These were some of our marketing materials, promoting the event. People really seemed to like it, you know, not only the theme of the event, but also how it was promoted. So we got a lot of positive feedback for that. People also really, really liked the names that we gave to the cones, all the way from, you know, buckets and creams to cake no caps or chocolate chip rack and all kinds of funny names.

Surfside Berry was the best one.

Surfside Berry was, yeah, actually was a good one, yeah. You had it right. We also brought the promised tower, the plastic fishing tower made with plastic from our previous event. So that's also available for pickup. This was something we showed during the event. And this is the video from it for those who couldn't be there.

PET is plastic number one, right? So usually what we do is we separate from this type of plastic, which is a different type of plastic, plastic number two. So see this? And with this plastic over here and some of that plastic over there,

All right.

So this was our very, very hot day in June. We got a lot of cones enjoyed by the folks over there. 100 pounds of plastic, more or less. It was 95 to be perfectly sharp on it. The numbers, you can see what types of plastic, what much metal and how much wet trash we got out of there. It was a clean beach. I mean, I got to say, our beach has been more and more clean with time. It's something that I've been noticing as we have our events only if you were taking the rough stuff, and then it's getting better and better. So that's really good news. Learnings from it, the first one was something that we learned the week off, that there was a beach closure. So we were supposed to have the event at the beach at that location, But the beach was closed on that week without us knowing about it. Therefore, we had a nexus problem. So we had to have the event on the path. And then we had to use the other entrance. That wasn't ideal. But that happened. We had to deal with it. And then the positive side was the variety is good. This is something that you've been talking about throughout the past year, which was try to do new things. And this was something that got quite a lot of traction because of that. And that takes us to 2026 event proposals. I don't know if you want to talk about this particular event or should I move into 2026?

No, I think it was a great event. It was very, very hot, but it was very sweet.

It was very sweet, yeah.

And I think it's good for kids and parents to teach them how to really value the beach, how to keep it clean and and then to have your ice cream after.

Yeah. The ice cream was delicious, I got to say. It was delicious.

It was a very nice event put together as always.

Thank you. All right. So for 2026, we are coming back with three events as we have this year, so we're not changing anything. The order of the events or the dates themselves, I'm leaving them open because I understand that there's some thoughts that are happening, some construction that's been happening on your end on where events should go. But the only one that we have a date for, I would say, is the Earth Day Plastic Fishing Festival, which is kind of a staple, along with the event that happens in the community center, right, along with Parks and Recreation. So Earth Day, big day, and that's the only one that we are attaching to that particular date. Cost is exactly the same. We're not raising anything. It's the exact same number, same everything for next year.

April which, 18, 19, which day it is?

Oh, 18, 19, I mean, because it's the week off. So it falls on a Wednesday. So we can do the weekend before or the weekend, which 18, 19 is the weekend before and 25, 26 is the weekend after. You know what I'm saying? So it's like right there in the middle. Yeah. So we decide which weekend we prefer to do it. The next one is something that I was speaking with, sorry, with Frank about, which was Pedotopia. April. April, yeah, it's in April.

We don't have to decide now.

I don't have a keynote, sorry.

We don't have to decide now, Frank, do we?

Through the chair, no, but parks may have already scheduled their resource fair, so I'm checking now. We want to have it on the same day, so.

Right, it has to happen with them together at the community center.

Correct, and let's see if there is, no. April 19th is what they have scheduled, so we'll go with the 19th. So then the 19th.

And if they move it, then we move it.

Fantastic. So 19th is, I think it's a Sunday. Then pedal for plastic. Frank mentioned Pedaltopia, and he suggested this idea of doing something in the bay, using the kayaks, using the stand-up pedal boards, which I think is a great idea to take from the beach to the canals. I mean, we've been looking at one side of Surfside. There's the other side of Surfside, which is the canals. And you guys already have a fantastic event with Pedaltopia. So we're thinking, OK, what if we do a pedal for plastic, you know, as part of the Pedaltopia weekend? So the idea here will be to invite residents, you know, to jump to launch, you know, from the 96th Park on boards, SUPs or even kayaks and compete, you know, again, to see who gets the most plastic. in the bay that's basically like a weight competition just like we did with like do the dunes will be a similar mechanic and then they will be the catches where we brought back for weighing and the prizes can include you know top angler off trash or whatever like most unusual catch and those kind of fun things that we can think about but it's all about like cleaning the bay and enjoying a day in the water i we might bring a boat so we have some kind of a boat some kind of a you know people on the water just to provide some kind of extra security, but I think we also need to talk to the cops and make sure that we have security available there. I mean, we'll talk about this on the side, yeah, since it's a water activity. Same thing as everything else, same cost, same structure, same giveaways. I mean, we're just changing it from the beach to the bay, and I think it could be a real plastic fish. I mean, this is actually like the fishing fishing because it is to bring the nets. Also, I'm going to provide nets that they can use to pick. So it can be a really, really fun day in the water. Now, which day would that be? It's a Pedotopia weekend whenever that becomes a reality.

So that's that.

And then lastly, just pushing to the other end of things, we call it From Shore to More. And this is the recycling event. We talked about this last year. This is something that I have a lot of heart for, as you imagine, as you've probably seen many, many benches and things like that being talked about for the last year and a half. But the idea here is to have a day, be it in the 96th Park or the community center, to be decided. The idea is that we're going to invite people to bring plastics from their home in exchange for giveaways. We're going to have t-shirts, we're going to have bottles, we're going to have giveaways over there. They're going to give us their plastic and we're going to teach them how to recycle. We're going to have the machine over there, we're going to have the grinder over there, and we're going to be making, how do you say, beams for the benches. We're going to have some of the benches that we made over there. We're going to have this bicycle for people to grind their own plastic. But it's basically an educational day on which we invite the community to bring in their plastic and talk about which plastics are recycled, which ones are not, the benefits of recycling, what could be done with plastic from the beach, and all the good stuff. So this is not so much about cleaning as much as it is educating them about the potential of recycled and the potential especially of ocean plastics and what we could do with them. Again, it could be a very inspiring day, and I think it closes the loop on our mission, not only in spreading education, talking about awareness, education, action in terms of cleaning up the beach, but then what do you do with that plastic that we're cleaning up? So this is what's closing the loop. So that's that. That's what we have for today.

No more cleaning for cones?

We could. I was told to bring different, you know, I can add it as a fourth, absolutely, or change it for Clean for Cones. I love Clean for Cones.

I mean, if it was a success, I think that really likes, people like that.

Yeah. It's up to you. I can add a fourth event.

Well, actually, how about, would you be able to combine, which is what I was thinking, the last event with perhaps the paddling event? Because we have the park and we have the ability to bring in items that we're fishing and share them at that point. I don't know how many people are going to bring things from their house. They could, but you might not have enough at that point. Whereas if we're fishing and we're bringing it into you, you can teach us how to recycle. That sort of could be one thing. And then that way we can have another day with ice cream. And not create a fourth, but rather, you know.

I think it's a very good idea. The only challenge is maybe, again, if we do this in two days, maybe we can. Because you need to clean the plastic and let it dry.

Well, Paddle Topia is a two-day event. That's what I'm saying.

So if you pick it up on one day and then the next day you recycle, that's okay. What you cannot do is recycle the plastic because it's wet. Wet plastic does not work for recycling. Water is the enemy of plastic recycling.

I like that. That's a great idea to combine it and then do the third one would be the cones thing again.

Yeah, I definitely like the cones. I think the kids really enjoyed that. Could be.

Yeah, I like that too. So we'll do a two-day in Padultopia, and then we will add the cones, right?

Does that increase the cost of $13,000 per day? Well, we're just bringing the plastic.

Bring one more day. It's not going to increase it because it's going to be two days, right? Padultopia, let's say... Okay, I'm sorry. So let's say it's a Saturday. We paddle on Sunday. We do the recycling.

Correct. Correct. My question is, will that then turn into a $13,000 Saturday and a $13,000 Sunday?

I don't think it's 13-13, but it will increase the cost, absolutely. Because it's two different setups.

I have to make machines and then everything. So it will be like we are adding one more event. of three events is gonna be four events. The thing is that two events are gonna be together.

I don't think that was the idea. I think what she was saying is we don't want to add a fourth event. We want to put the education component into the paddling on the water. The plastic, yes. Not increasing another, not having another event.

Right, but what I'm saying is if you put this in two days, from a logistics perspective, right, the first day we have bottled water, we're cleaning up, we have all the machines and everything like that. The second day we have to bring all the machinery, plug in, and it's a recycling setup. So it's two different setups, two different crews.

I think that the education part of it is great, but we can maybe just put a little of that into the paddling event and lose that one as a standalone because the cone one is much better.

Yeah, we can use the recycling. What I can do for the paddling event is bring some of the benches. If you go on Saturday on our Plastic Fishing Festival, we have an area dedicated to recycling. We're showing everything. We just don't engage with our locals and our community in asking them to participate. We don't have the machines grinding. We don't have the mechanics of that. It's just the outcome.

All right. That's okay.

If that's okay, then yeah. Okay.

With me.

Then we just do pedotopia. And then we, what I would suggest then is to make the, the clean for cones on the ICC weekend, which is this weekend in September, just because again, it's, it's a warm weekend. You know, I would, I would say that, you know, on the, which weekend this weekend right now, we have one this weekend. We have one on Saturday. Yes.

Oh, great.

Yeah. So I would move the, the, the clean for cones to next year's, uh, September September date because it's an international date so there's there's a lot of pool okay so it's part of the same 3 3 series exactly we'll have.

The April one the ICC September and then pedal to appear whenever that is you know okay great so through the chair we would be combining merging the paddle with the recycling.

Yeah, just having more of an education component to that.

It wouldn't be a recycling event. It would be just bringing some recycled objects and things like that, and we can talk during that day of, like, hey, this plastic that you're bringing right now.

Got it, got it. So you bring it from home already dry and ready to go. Oh, yeah.

I had actually, sorry, an idea. I can't remember the name of it because I have menopause brain, but there's a sneaker recycling place.

Say it again.

There's a sneaker recycling company that sends you a bag for free and you send mail back your sneakers. I just did it twice. It's amazing. They turn it into playgrounds and things like that. It's free. You may want to partner with them for the education part of it. People can bring their old sneakers or whatever. It's free. There's not a cost to it. I can look it up and give you the information. I saw it profiled on the news as an organization.

It's a Miami organization.

It's in Miami. They take sneakers. If they're in good shape, then they find them a new home. If they're not, they recycle them into playground equipment and stuff like that. But there's no cost at all to the users. So I'm sure they would come for free because people would bring their old sneakers. That would add to the recycling cost. And reusing.

If you can bring flip flops, even better. Right. We have so many of them. Yeah, that's great.

Yeah, because people can continue to do that throughout the year. Yeah.

You just go to the website. Yeah, anything that educates people on the importance of that came on, yeah. Cool.

OK.

So do you want to make? Do we have to vote or? Yes. Oh, do we have to vote? Yes.

Oh, OK. Want me to do it? Okay. I'd like to make a motion to approve a series of three plastic fisherman events where the first one is the, hold on, I wrote it down.

Plastic Fishing Festival.

Plastic Fishing Festival. Then we're going to have one that goes with Paddle Topia. And then we're going to have the Clean for Cones. There you go. At the same, all the same rates that you were talking about.

Absolutely.

Okay. I second that.

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

Nay.

Motion carries.

Thank you very much. We have a fantastic evening. Thank you. Thank you.

Are we not doing 6A?

We're not doing the symphony discussion?

But the people is not here, right?

I can present it for him.

OK.

I mean, the information, which item are we doing? I'm sorry. The symphony or the visitor? OK. So the symphony, I believe the estimate is in your agenda packet. And basically, we're just talking about cultural events with the town manager. And we thought about if we had anything coming up that was focused on music, and we didn't. So I thought it could be interesting to explore the idea of adding something like a symphony on the beach, given that we are going to be doing literature-focused event. We've done the film screenings. So we have a nice broad spectrum of cultural events, the museum tours and all that. So there's a little opening late in October. I think October 26 could be a date where we could do. We have it presented as Symphony on the Beach. However, as you saw last Sunday, our beach is a little bit narrow. So I'm You know, it's probably still big enough, but it's something to think about. If you all like the idea, you know, we could also do a concert at the park, if you'd rather not do the beach.

Park is probably a lot more room on the park.

there is a lot more room and obviously easier to set up and all that. But obviously the beach has, you know, its own appeal and people love the beach.

Well, how about thinking about leveraging the space that we discussed with the fairy lights and the whole bit with the sea grapes, that's a beautiful space and it's actually roomy enough and it's cozy. The green space you mean? Yeah. Yeah. That's nice. So especially with music and something like that, I think that would be like a really nice way to, showcase the beach without being On the beach?

It should be easier to set up a band there.

It should be very easy to set up.

Who's the one that's producing it? Is it like New World Symphony would come? Or who's coming?

This would be, it's through Alan. Alan and I, I'm not sure where the musicians, but I know he has often done the Symphony on the Beach for Ball Harbor as well. So I know he has really great musicians, but I don't specifically know where.

Yeah, the band that he brought for the next date of New Year's, it was fantastic.

When they do it at New World Symphony, I used to take the kids when they were little, they have a petting zoo, like a musical petting zoo, meaning you come ahead of time and you get to try out all the instruments. And it was amazing as far as education-wise. My kids had never seen any of these instruments. And so if we could incorporate something like that so it has more appeal for the whole family, it just adds sort of an hour to the beginning. And it's like, this is an oboe, this is a this, this is a that. Instruments.

I'm just trying to understand the demographics and the timeline, right? So if it's a classical concert or if it's serious music, and if you actually want to enjoy it, do we really want to create the environment where we're saying, let's bring a ton of kids?

No, the way that they did it is, let's say the event started at, let's say, 4 o'clock or 5 o'clock. We can't do it at night. We don't have lights. So we already got shut down at the community center from being able to have a movie in the pool. The dive-in movie night got rejected by the county because we didn't have legally sufficient lighting to have an event on the pool deck. So I forgot to mention that. That idea about using the pool deck for the Isaac Bashevis Cinder event is going to be a no because they already rejected the other events that Parks and Rec was trying to do.

Yeah, but for example, that event, they are going up. Light it up, everything.

Yeah, we're going to get lighting. Right, but there's the pool deck does not have.

We don't want to use the pool deck. We're talking about the green space in the back.

For Bashevisinger, we were thinking of using the pool deck maybe to set up. But I mean, if it's off limits, we can put it towards the front, some of the tables.

You would have to talk to Mark, because I know that the county was just being poo-pooing everything else.

Good info.

Anyway, the idea with the symphony was just to make it. I don't know that we're having it at night. How did Val Harbor do it when they had it?

You can't do it at night on the beach. 6, around 5.30, 6.

Yeah, so it's still light out. Like afternoon.

When do we change the time?

Yeah, when does it get dark and all that? Maybe we need to have Alan present this with all the details.

I don't mind listening to music when it's evening. That's what I'm saying. It just depends on what we're trying to accomplish. Right. It sets a different tone.

I don't know what Alan had in mind, though, because he's the one putting it together.

Well, I reached out to him, I mean, for really like a symphony on the beach. But again, I don't know if you all would like food to go along with it, or did you want just the musicians? Now we're talking about potentially some different spaces. We could certainly bring Alan back and talk about it next month. We probably wouldn't be able to execute for October 26 next month, because we're going to talk about our meeting date, but it's going to be October 15 or 14. So it would probably have to be a little bit later in the calendar, but that's okay.

I thought we wanted to stay away from outdoor events in October because of the weather problems. We just talked about that.

Not necessarily for October so much.

I thought we just said it rains. It's like hurricane season. That's why we didn't want to do another beach event.

Well, it is still hurricane season, but it's towards the end. I mean, it ends in November.

But also, you know, the garden area is more protected than the beach itself.

But it still closes. If the lightning detector goes off, you have to clear the whole thing. Like, there's not... No, no, for sure.

They throw you all out. If there is lightning, yes.

Yeah, so, I mean, you might prefer maybe, like, February. We were talking about what did we do last February, the...

Or January. January is an amazing month. Or January, right. Like we have it, that's it, you know, like after. Yeah.

I think that time frame is much better because as a swimmer, I can tell you that alarm thing goes off all the time. It's so annoying. I hear it in my house. Yeah.

I hear it in my office. Okay, so we'll bring this back next month with Alan and we'll talk more concretely about it.

Okay, sounds good. Okay. We have one more item. One more to go. Let's go.

It's very fast. So our visitor guide, it's been a couple of years since we have updated it, and it needs a little bit of love and updating. So I have gone through the document. It's pretty robust and written all the changes and made all the recommendations. I'm just going to need to work with our designer you know, finish it up and get some of those sections redesigned. I recommend that we, in the previous versions, we would list all of the different businesses like one by one. I think we should stop doing that just because it'll quickly become obsolete. The business is closed so frequently that, you know, you end up with an outdated printed copy. So my suggestion is to do like a nice overview of each section, have a QR code that'll lead to the website where everything is always up to date. And, you know, it'll shorten the publication a little bit, but it'll ensure that it's always up to date.

Yeah, it sounds great. I was going to suggest that a QR code because the businesses keep going. They come in, they go out, they come in, they go out.

Exactly. So just letting you know, I'll be working with our designer end of this year to get that done. Sounds great.

Okay, perfect. So the last one will be the recognition for teen volunteers, right? 6i.

Yes, thank you. One more. So as Eliana mentioned, we have our teen volunteers that are wonderful and are really, you know, great to connect with the community. And it's really a lovely welcome to the event. So one of the parents mentioned The possibility of doing recognition for them, so whether that's a luncheon or something else. We do have eight gift cards from Flanagan's currently that we could give to them. I've identified 13 teams that have helped multiple times. We've had others that have helped for one event. So maybe if we want a criteria, it's if you've helped multiple times. Three events. you get whatever it is you all decide on, whether you want to do a gift card or you want to do something else.

I was thinking a seven-day cruise for the whole family.

No.

I think that the kids love Flanagan. They go together and they love that. So if we already have the eight cards that we haven't used, then we buy the additional ones that are missing and that's it.

Okay, perfect. And do we want to maybe invite them to a board meeting to take a photo or something like that?

Yes, yes.

Okay, let's invite them to the next one. Okay, I think that's a nice touch. They'll appreciate that.

Yeah.

Cool.

So I'll make a motion. Oh, no, I cannot make a motion. You can't make any motions.

I'll make a motion to just end the meeting.

We have to finish this. What are we approving, though?

The Flanagan's. My kid's a volunteer, so I'm not sure if I can vote on this.

Okay. Well, I make a motion to proceed with giving the children that have been volunteers at least two times in recognition with the current gift cards from Flanagan's, and purchasing the ones necessary to complete and recognize all of the children.

You have to second it. Okay, I'll second the motion.

I can second?

Can she pass the gavel and second? She needs to pass the gavel to somebody.

Okay, you can pass.

I pass the gavel to Eliana, and I second the motion.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye. Any opposed? I'm recusing myself because my son is one of the volunteers. So we don't have enough people. No, we do have enough people. Yes, we do. We're good? Yes.

Majority of the vote, which is you two. Okay, so we're finished.

Okay, so I'm done.

Before we adjourn, just while the mic is open, I just want to make sure we invite everybody to our plastic fishing festival this Saturday for international coastal cleanup. It'll be from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the community center. So please come and help out.

Are you putting that on Instagram?

Yes, yes. It's been all over and it'll be pushed out.

And the good thing is that Rodrigo is really very good at posting on Instagram. I have friends that come even from Kendall to do the cleaning here because they love the event. And because he's so good in advertising because that's his...

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BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKGROUND BACKG The Wednesday? Yes. We have no more available dates. We have tried everything. Due to Jewish holidays, we had to move a lot of things around. Even the commission meeting has been moved twice.

But that's also a Jewish holiday, because it's Simchas Torah. It's another Jewish holiday. It's the last day of that holiday. So the 15th doesn't work because it's still Simchas Torah, which is after Sukkot, which is what starts on the 6th. And then we're done with the holidays after that. What about the 16th, the Thursday?

The 16th, we already have a meeting that day.

Would that preclude us from proceeding?

We could have a meeting on the 16th.

I can do the 16th, and there's no holiday there.

On 6 p.m., that should be fine.

I cannot. I can do it. You can do it? I can. Okay, and I can.

Through the chair. Eliana, there's no chance you could do the other date?

Let's not have meetings on the holidays because it's just people can't participate. They can't watch. It's just no reason by a day. And then we're done with the holidays. There's nothing else after that. So the 16th is Thursday.

If we are realistic, Eliana, I don't know if you've seen people participating in our meetings or watching the meetings.

They watch. They watch it. These meetings? Yeah, they watch it. They don't.

The only point I would make is that we're going to do the signature event presentations. I hope Clara is there because we're always talking about you when we talk about that topic. But it would be nice to have everybody in attendance for that.

On Thursday, unfortunately, I can't. I have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I can't.

What about the 20th, Monday the 20th? I would prefer not to do the 20th. We have a meeting that day as well.

I don't want to do the 20th.

So you can't make the 16th?

You cannot.

Okay. But I can make it. You can make it. You can make it, right?

I can.

Okay. And I can. And probably one of the other two will make it. So we'll have a quorum.

I can go ahead and make a doodle and send it to the board, so it's better to see who is available.

Yeah, but the problem with the 15th is it's a Jewish holiday. So even though the board is not religious, some of the presenters, like, for example, Sarah Liss, right? Her family is observant. She might not be able to be here. The residents will not be able to watch. By one day, I think we should just, out of courtesy, not have it that day. There's a million other days in the month of, and in fact, there's days during Sukkot that are Chol HaMoed, which means not Orthodox. You can do whatever you want. So, for example, on the 9th, we could have a meeting on the 9th. It's not a religious day. Even though it's in the middle of Sukkot, it's fine.

It's a Thursday.

She cannot do Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Yes.

And I'm straight struggling with Mondays.

I think. I can check whether Wednesday is... Wednesday might not be... Let me see. Sukkot begins here, so it's going to be here. No, Wednesday is going to be also a holiday. Why don't we Google that or ask ChatGPT? They're super smart. No, I'm pretty sure it is. The first two days of Sukkot are Yom Tov.