Sustainability and Resiliency Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Sustainability and Committee Meeting. Today is June 18, 2025. I'm going to go ahead and call the roll. Committee Member Cannava? Here. Committee Member Manos? Here. And Committee Member Omos-Garcia? Here. There is a quorum for today's meeting. The next item on the agenda will be to choose a chair and vice chair for the meeting, as the current chair and vice chair are no present today. I nominate Patrick.

Okay. I'll take the nomination.

You second that one. You also have my vote. Will somebody second the nomination?

I said it, yes.

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

I know next summer I'm going to get it.

So I'm going to give you the minutes for today's meeting as well. So if they do pass, when you do sign them, you can just put your signature and then next to Chair Stite's name, just put four, just so you're aware.

Put what, I'm sorry?

You got it. Next to... His name. Yes, so his name, just put four. And then on top, just your signature. Okay. If they do pass, whenever they do pass.

Okay. I do have one, I guess two things for the minutes, and a little corrections. Just...

Okay.

Let's go ahead and do the order. So the next one will be agenda and order of business.

If the committee member that submitted two, three discussion items, do we still have those discussion items if he's not here?

Yes. They are still on the agenda, and they are to be reviewed at title time by the committee.

Okay.

But it's up to you if you'd like to discuss them or not. And we can say push it to the next meeting. You could if you'd like. But it will have to be majority of the vote. Right.

So for agenda order business, am I reviewing the discussion items?

So agenda order business is basically to include, either change the order of business of the agenda items, or include any walk-on items that you would like to speak.

I don't have anything to welcome, to add on. Vice Chair, do you have anything to add on to the agenda today?

I would like the walk-on item of the Indian Creek issue coming up because that is an impact to sustainability if there's a sewer issue in the water. I don't know if we can just discuss that. Are we allowed to discuss that?

You can discuss anything you like. So it will be Indian Creek.

Subject to sewer.

Subject to sewer. Subject to sewer. Subject to sewer. And then you would like to have that as a walk-on item? As a discussion, just to understand. Okay. Will anybody second that motion?

Second it. Second it.

Let's just do Ms. Karina.

Yeah.

All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. That will be as item 7A, under new business.

Okay, and then I think we can go over our discussion items.

Chair, the next item was the Town Commission Nation Report.

Yeah.

Okay.

Just for the agenda part, just to say that we're going to move forward. We won't go, you know. No changes. No changes, exactly. So Town Commission, Vice Mayor, Tina with us?

Yes. So Commission Nation Report, I didn't prepare a written one, but offhand, At the last Commission meeting, we were notified that Commissioner Valdostegui, he was applying for a grant for I think in the right-of-ways, in the public right-of-ways where the circles are in the little park on 92nd, and his grant was approved. That was good news on his part. I thought he would be here to share that because he usually comes here. It's on the agenda later, but the commission is still not willing to hire a chief resiliency officer. We can talk about that during the item. It was brought up at the budget meeting and Tiffany came there as well.

And I just, I have a question about how that happens, the budget meeting. So I guess, I don't know, do we save that for that?

Yeah, I guess we can do that. I just mentioned that. And I wanted to also not hear Vice Chair Sahil Charu. did an amazing job with the 90th anniversary celebration of Surfside at the 96th Street Park. She was in charge of all the vendors and she had them composting and also using sustainable materials. So there was very little waste and I think that was a great example that I hope the rest of our event vendors will follow.

Excellent. Thank you. That's a great update. And thank you to her for those efforts. We hope that that continues into our vendor market when it restarts. I know that we've talked to our vendors and we're keen on making sure that we... have that throughout any events in the city.

Right, and she had another service for composting, so I think that's something we can explore to try to have some work with.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Okay, any public comments?

I did have the information on recycling. Would that be with the item later, or public comment?

Will you like to speak now, or will you like to speak during the item?

Either way doesn't matter to me, it's That's an easy question earlier.

Okay.

We can do it now.

They can move up the item if you like. Yeah. That's okay. Who will make a motion to move up the item to be discussed? I'll motion it. I'll second it. Thank you. The chair can make motions.

I motion.

Thank you.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. So that is to, I'm sorry, I apologize. That's to discuss item 60 right now.

Excellent. And I just have a very small part of that. with someone from Florida Beverage Association who might be able to help with some grants towards your educational outreach and container labeling. So I don't speak for that organization. I have met with the representative and they're very interested. She asked me which city might be a good target for that. I mentioned Surfside because you're a relatively small community and we can measure before and after with your materials because they're collected separately. So I kind of So if we can show this video, I think that's a good kickoff right there.

Is there a deadline or is it rolling?

This is where we sort this stuff here. And you see those people standing there. The only reason they're there is because the wrong stuff is in the stream. They have to pull it out before it tangles our machines. The plastic bags melt on those streams. We've got to shut down the plant. And some poor guy had to go out there with a knife and cut off the plastic. That shuts down our plant three times each shift. Meanwhile, the materials are still coming in the back end. We gave it to her yesterday and people couldn't believe it.

Would it be helpful if the town separated the paper from the bottles and cans?

You don't necessarily have to do that. The key is getting the right materials in the bins. In the old days, when we had little square bins, the collectors could see what was in there and they'd leave it behind. I think you're somewhat unique even though you have the larger carts in your residence. system with railroad trucks it's not flipped with an arm on the truck automatically so they can flip the lids and look so i can work with franza to you know increase that so look if it's dirty leave it behind leave a note on the cart why it wasn't picked up because if you get heavy contamination it can really create problems with the rest of your load so i've discussed briefly with franza we have some tools that can do that and a lot of it is education some people don't know any better and some people don't care We tell people, look, collect it in a plastic bag if you want, but then dump the bag into the bin and throw the bag away. Or better yet, don't even use a plastic bag. Use something like this. We have the same issue.

We have that issue in our building because we bring our recyclers downstairs in the bins, and I go and I see one plastic bag.

I'm constantly having to go in and pluck out the plastic.

I was going to say, my building is horrible for recycling. I don't think even 99% of people know that we do recycling. Because you have to bring it down and sort of just throw it in the chute.

I looked at the flyer off of the town website and posted it like right there next to the bench. Right, which is helpful. I tried posting a few of those. But we do have a maintenance man that he has to sort through it because there's so much waste. That's what's really incredible is how much, you know, I mean, I know that if I have to go down every day to put things there, it's not... But I want to ask him if he can remove the plastic bags, because he does have to go through it to take it out and make room.

Anything in your bag needs to be thrown away. up the machine. And we encourage people, look, if you want to collect in your kitchen, use this, dump that in there, put it in your plastic bag, empty it out, but just don't give us the plastic bag. So we came up with very simple messaging because it's kind of a trade-off between telling people what to put in there, what not to, cans, bottles, and paper, including cardboard, that's 95% of the battle right there. No food or liquid, that's pretty obvious, and no plastic bags. So that's the simplest of all messages right there. We actually did this one in English and Spanish. You know, we give them to other trade shows and people can use them to go to the store.

Those are great for everyone. I was going to say, if everyone would get one of those, like in the mail, they'd be like, oh, okay, this makes sense. I got one of those at the trade show.

We were at your event here a couple of months ago. We had a little standard theorem there. And then you have the more complex messaging, which goes into detail that includes more specific items. And these can be made into decals that can be put actually on the containers, on the carts, that people can see every time they lift the lid.

So we used to get that in the mail. And I used to put it on the recycling. We haven't gotten one in years because ours is all faded and we can't even read it.

That would be from the town. But we have templates for all of this stuff on our website. In a trash room, like in your buildings?

So the town used to print those and put them in our mailboxes.

Or the county, because you had the county at one point.

Yeah, I don't know if it was the town. Because when we moved our recycling, because we used to have the maintenance guys to come to every floor and remove the stuff. And it took like all day. So when we switched it where people had to bring it downstairs, I went to the town website and printed it out. I printed a flyer for each bin, but it wouldn't stick on there, so I ended up putting it just on the wall.

Like a fridge magnet?

I got one of those, but I couldn't find anywhere to stick it in the building.

You know, in my experience in health leadership and nursing leadership, this is something that nurses deal with every single day. We have one of the largest issues with wage management, and we find that the most effective way is literally at the site of disposal. more so than you know any kind of reminders that you have at home it's where is the person so in the case of the buildings are having to go downstairs that's the most effective place to have the placard and color coding and I mean it almost has to be very very simple so that people are not thinking and when I worked in California that was the one thing that I did really admire and all the healthcare systems they had 10 different holes for shoes and colors and the placard or the signage saying what goes in it. And that really made it so much easier for me where I'm rushing and most people are rushing. They're not wanting to actually invest time and think and separate. So I don't know if the sustainability, like if this issue is larger in our condos, I don't know if the sustainability committee could have members go out to condo managers and help bring these signs, right, instead of relying on them to print it, because it just may not happen, or they may not have the knowledge or the education that these signs are available on the website. If we as a committee could do some legwork, bring these signs to the building management so that we can meet it at the place of...

And there are templates specifically for multifamily properties. We have even email templates that a property manager can send to new residents telling them where is the recycle, how to recycle. All that's on our website at wm.com, and you're welcome to use any of it and all of that stuff.

I would love to do that. Me too.

Yeah, you can customize it. You can put your own logo. It doesn't have to have our logo. You can download it. But again, this is your That's why it looks like that. But cans, bottles, and paper, no food, and no bags. That's as simple as it gets right there. And wherever you have a garbage can, you should have a recycle can. Right here, I've seen one container there, there's no labeling, so presumably everything goes in there?

It's on the other side. But it's only one container.

So you should have in every workstation, garbage and recycling equally convenient. Because if you only have garbage, everything's going in the garbage. And if you only have recycling, you're going to have to put garbage in there. And there's a plastic bag in there. Well, if they empty that out, that's fine. They can empty it out, but we don't want that bag in there.

That's the problem in town hall and in town facilities where, you know, we have the recycling ones everywhere, but not the regular ones.

You need both because people are, and I'm stereotyping or generalizing, people are lazy. It's the path of least whatever's closest to where it's going. Make it just as easy to recycle the right way as it is to throw something in the garbage. system, and it's got a common chute, but there's a baffle in there. So you hit a button, one for garbage, so it sends the baffle to the garbage, and one for recycling. It goes to the other. Now, I don't know if you've retrofitted. There's some new buildings. But in your new buildings, you can spec it in your new buildings, because it really increases participation.

I really think we should go building to building, because, for example, for my building, our trash chute And, like, our trash room is a nightmare. Like, roaches. It's, like, stark and scary. No one's going to want to go in there and sort their stuff in there. So we may have to go building to building and be like, is there any way we can do this a little better?

I think you kind of almost need someone from public works to go to the buildings and assess what they have and how they can improve on it. Yeah.

But if people from this team are willing to help public works, then, you know. And I will say, I'm in a house, if we can get stickers printed up, I'll put them on all the blue cans. I'll go ahead and put stickers on everybody's blue can. Like, why not? Maybe the youth council can help stick the stickers with me or whatever.

I discussed that with Franza. Okay, if we can get you this grant, maybe use it for stickers for your containers. And then do you have a group of volunteers who can put them on? I think we can try. She mentioned a youth group and they can get community service credits and stickers.

Everybody's blue can is right there. You know where it is. So just sticker them. And then people will see a stick ring on there. They're like, what are they doing? What are they doing? Oh, hey, this is how we're going to do recycling now. Don't put your garbage in there.

Yeah, I think with the condos, I don't know the setup in your building. It sounds bad.

It's not great.

Because I know in our building, we were finding the building wasn't being cleaned enough because the maintenance worker was spending so much time collecting the recyclables. We don't even have somebody sorting recyclables.

Our maintenance worker is doing everything else, but then everything just goes down the trash.

See, I don't know if he's sorting them, but because they're collected there and it's disastrous sometimes, especially on the weekend. So he comes in and I'm sure he spends a good portion of the day putting it in a clear bag so there's more room until it gets picked up.

But that's a good segue to the point you need the training to do. So you might have that contracted out or in-house employee, whatever it is, they need to be trained. So that's really important because that could be a cog in the wheel that just ruins everything. And another thing that's really confusing to people is this logo here that people see that they're facing. Oh, that means it's recyclable. That's not what that means. It means it could be made from recyclable material. myth around that symbol, and it's often misused. It could be also on other plastics like chairs and helmets and things. It doesn't mean it goes in the recycle bin. It's an indication of what it's made out of, and it supposedly has recycled content, but it's not a universal rule. Unfortunately, it's interpreted that way, but that's not the case. and things like that. We can take juice boxes, we can take all these other things, but like I said, that's 90% and we keep the other stuff out of there, especially the tanglers, the bags, Propane tanks. We took a tour, took some people on tour yesterday. We had a whole dumpster full of propane tanks, which are basically bombs. So anyway, it's just a question of getting the right materials in there through education. I think somewhere around a third of your stuff right now is probably contaminated, or the contamination rate is around 30, 35%, something like that.

And that costs us money, right? Yes, because what happens is... So that's part of the education. If you're not doing it right, it costs... New money.

Yeah, because the way it works is we charge a fee to cover a cost to process the materials, and then there's a value on the back end of the materials that's credited against that. So the more garbage there is, guess what? It's not where it belongs.

So do we want to try to get the grant to build out, like how do we build this education plan to then write the grant? This is why we need a sustainability resiliency officer because that's who would take this, right? So who does this? Who gets the plan together and writes the grant? We do have a grant administrator.

Oh, yeah. Okay. And perhaps we could pass the information on to her.

Yeah, and it may not even have to be that formal. I mean, the person I'm speaking to is the president of the organization, so she seemed pretty anxious, and she can come back to a future meeting. I think August would be probably...

I think that's our first step, having her come to a meeting so she could talk about this.

I think if we can, as a committee, wrap our head around what is education... Like, what would we be doing? I think we'd be stickering all the things. We'd be going at, like, but this is why we need the money for the stickers, for the education piece, getting that video out, like, doing a whole campaign, a communication campaign around it.

You know if we could get a couple of those and put them in all the lobbies of the condos? Yeah. You know, and someone just takes the last one. That would be great.

And also, you can, one of your commissioners has been to our plant. Commissioner? Yes. I can't say his name. Jerry. Too many letters for me. But he's been there. I was not in the tour with him, unfortunately. I was preoccupied. But if you want to send someone else, you can have a video crew. I have been.

It's overwhelming. I went on a high school field trip. It was overwhelming. It was overwhelming, the amount of garbage.

But you can bring a video crew, and then you can film the whole thing, and then you can bring

part of it too because you know we can't give it toward everybody but you know someone can deliver the message back we social media yeah and we have yeah with our communications department yeah so how can we because i know with sunshine it makes it difficult for us to meet in between meetings are we allowed to like have a google doc that we're all dumping information in no so if someone starts the plan You can send it out and then do people send that like how can we work on this before the person comes?

You would contact the clerk or she could send out like like for instance if you want to go on the tour if Several of us want to go on the tour, but she would send it out and you reply only to her Or you can also

Oh, from across the street. Yeah, I was like, is it an earthquake?

I know. I just came from California.

It was all the time. There's always houses being sold and being knocked down. Across the street was just sold. And now I'm like, we're going through it again.

What's his name? Lansman. Lansman just sold his house.

Was he just across from you? He was across the street from us. Now that one's probably going to come down.

So I think like you were saying.

If I can just say really quickly, you can also work with the staff liaison, each other individually. Who is the staff liaison? The staff liaison is Franza. Oh, Franza. Yeah, so you can speak individually with Franza, and Franza will also be able to put all of this together. Who's Franza? Frances, the assistant public works director. The public works director? The assistant public works director. Okay, okay. Yeah, so she is the staff liaison for you guys, so you guys can also, because this will be a project that I wouldn't be doing because I'm a district clerk, but she will be working with you with the grant and all this information, and you guys will be able to talk to her individually, not together, where she will be able to receive this information from all of you and go from there.

And Franza is aware we've had conversations with her.

She's usually here. She is working remote today, but I will get this information. I'm taking notes for her.

So it's a draft plan, and then I think stickers is probably You know, and some of it's just, you know, legwork.

Maybe hiring or paying. Our communications person, is she salary? Yes. Okay, so she doesn't need extra money to do, if we're going to do a communication plan around this. Like, a one-month blitz of, like... We're going to be stickering.

Well, I guess we go through the town manager, but it makes sense to go to the plan and do a video on it.

Would that be the person who runs the social media?

Yes. Okay, great.

That's great because they could push that through there.

Right. So like in the newsletter, on Nextdoor, blah, blah, blah. Like whatever that video, this video, like kind of trickle it in for a month, like picking a month that we're going to do it that, We're going to be out stickering. We're going to be talking to the high rises.

So individually, I think some action items are to try and think of what this action education plan looks like individually. Send it to Franza so Franza could send it. Also coordinate the tour, right? We can write to the communication person to... to talk to FANZA so that we can have the tour, and then on the back end, prepare for perhaps an August meeting with the grant person so that we can listen to this person, then also kind of speak about our ideas, and then loop back around with the grant person that we have in-house so that the grant could be formally written.

We could have the grant person come to that August meeting.

All right, we'll do that.

Yeah, we feel like. Yeah. She'd hear the presentation from the funder.

Right.

And we're presenting the plan, and then any questions she would have to write the proposal, we're all here.

I will just have to check with her availability because I do know that they are a contractor with the town. So I just have to see if they're available to come. Okay.

And even if it didn't go through that particular person, again, Liz is the lady's name with the association. She seemed very receptive, so it may not even have to be that formalized as long as there's, you know, a plan. You could always reach out to our grant. Yeah, they can work through the details. One other thing, speaking of Sunshine, at a time because of sunshine.

We could also sunshine that specific tour. So anyone can go. So we can publicly announce that one or more committee members will be there yeah except that we can't really take more than 10 or 12 people at a time so yeah it's a pretty unlikely that the whole town is going to show yeah okay yeah but if you if you guys would like to get together then it will be yeah we can do multiple sources i just have to double check because i'm not sure if that is something that will have to be recorded as a meeting so i just have to double check with the chair so don't take me 100 on it so i just have to check and see all right in most cities it's not really a requirement they just go

Miami-Dade County. We do the processing for almost every community within Miami-Dade County. Miami-Dade County itself has 360,000 homes that we process. Miami's going to start delivering to us. We have Miami Shores, all the newer cities, Cutler Bay, Palmetto Bay, Doral, Sunny Isles, South Miami. So the vast majority of recyclables in Miami-Dade County are coming to our facility. And that facility is the largest of its type in the southeast United States. with an $80 million facility that's going to open up the end of the year, we should get even bigger and better, and that'll be even a better tour. But we can certainly do a tour before that one opens up. It's in Pembroke Pines. So that's what happens right there. So that's pretty much all I had to present today, other than there is one over there through the National League of Cities. recycle right that cities and towns and counties can take. And when you do it, it goes through National League of Cities. It opens up some additional outreach tools that you might be interested in. You know, if that's something of interest, you can, you know, pass those along. I don't know if that's something the town would want to do, but you're certainly welcome to do that if that's of interest. Thank you. And, yeah, if we can target the August commission meeting, I'm happy to come back.

A commission meeting or this meeting?

Ultimately, the commission's going to have to make the decision, so I'd say go right to, I was up to you, but I'd go right to commission, you know, because you already had your plans, you know, coordinated through Franza, right?

Okay. And we have a July meeting, so we can review the plan at the July meeting.

Yeah, your call. But I think it's important to get in front of the elected body.

And what are we presenting that they do? Like, what are they approving, I guess?

Well, I guess it would be the

be formally approved by the commission, right?

You can't just make it- Before we even apply, we need their approval to apply?

Well, with a draft plan, it'll give an idea of a budget. I'm not sure how much money is involved with this. Again, this is not my grant. This is through a third party, but if we know you need 400 decals and you want 200 posters and this, that, we can approximate what it is. Okay, it's $3,000, and then we can present that as a reasonable time, measure the contamination again, and hopefully we see an improvement. So that's kind of how I would see it unfolding. Again, I can't commit to the grant because it's not mine, I think it's pretty likely.

And it seems maybe the tour also, because if we want to record it, it should also maybe go before a commission for approval. To record it? No, well, to, you know, since it's going on the communication channels and all. To disseminate it.

So we record it and then they approve it going on?

So I guess the next step would be to meet with the grant, the grant... Liz, right? Yeah, Liz. Liz DeWitt is her name.

We had a brief meeting, a team's meeting with Franza. So Franza is about as aware as you are conceptually of what could be on the table.

So if she's here in the July meeting, then you can find out. What is offered in this grant? Because maybe there's more to it than just the signage.

Vice Chair, if I may chime in. I'm not really sure if the town manager is aware of this now. Would you like for me to see if it's available to come speak as well?

Yeah, that's why I'm saying it would go before the commission because it's not something that we... I guess we're getting ahead of ourselves because it's not something you can just... Definitely for the communications it would go through the top manager.

So we can discuss this all at the July meeting? You can discuss this whenever you like at any meeting.

Yeah, but I mean that's why if it goes before the commission then the commission can approve it and give direction to the manager of implementing all these things. So it goes either way.

And even aside from the grant there's other outreach you can do that essentially providing the templates for the posters, the email templates for property managers. That you can do. We can set up the tour of the recycling plant. That doesn't necessarily have to go through anybody and decide who wants to go. We can set that up for you. It is hot and dusty. We don't want you to have to sew.

But you bring the crew to film and that would go through the manager.

And if you want to spend two more minutes, does someone have access to the internet on this that you can see? yeah that has access okay so if you want to go to wm.com i can show you very quickly some of the online tools if you want to see them now if you don't have time that's fine you can look on your own but it might help navigate a little bit curious to see if maybe we can come up with some sort of You want me to move this over here? Okay.

You know, I mean, I know, just speaking on behalf of my building, and I'm sure it's similar across the board, you know, when we have, like, short-term rentals or when we have people visiting that just, this is not their community, so there's not a lot of emotional attachment to the community thriving. Maybe we can put the onus on the buildings and have some sort of, I mean, I don't even know what we could offer, but maybe we can even partner with one of the restaurants in town and maybe like, I don't know, you get like a 20% discount off your meal or an ice cream cone. The whole building, everyone in the building, you won this, you won, so you get it free. We could work it off it, but I feel like people need, and you're right, some people just, don't care. Like, they just don't care. So how do we get them to care, you know?

Yeah, it's a problem because I know that, I mean, we stay with friends in New York. They explain their recycling to us. Yeah. You know, it's a matter of, you know, but you have people that just constantly rent their place and maybe they don't care. They don't. And that's where the problem is. It really comes down to responsibility of the owner to notify

You've got people and they just destroy things. If you own a sofa, you're going to keep it for 10, 15, 20 years or something. These Airbnbs, every other year they get a new one because they're all beat up. So there's always junk out there. It's nuts. But anyway, this is the website here. This is WM.com. Pretty easy to remember. Let me get the mouse to work here. And then you can go to the sustainability recycling tab and then there's resources here. That can be downloaded here. So this is here. Let's see if this will work here. So there's the template for that. That can be printed out. That can be put in the trash room in your multifamily properties. We have templates for more simple graphics with just the big three here. recycling bulletins, no plastic bag messaging, commercial reusable recycling bags for kids, for school curriculum, for schools. A lot of times the kids can drive the lessons to their parents, so that's a pretty good start right there. And then for property managers, which you'll have a lot of with your high-rises and your hotels, multifamily tools. Multifamily is the most challenging because you have people in and out a lot more, and there's no accountability, and it's just more checklist for a new resident coming in, fact sheets, welcome door hanger you can put on there, reusable bags, new tenant welcome letter, all kinds of stuff. I don't want to bore you with all the detail, but you can just search through that and it'll give you some ideas of things you might want to look at along with the other things we mentioned. So that was really just We want your material as clean as we can get it because we don't want contamination in our plant. It's better for the environment. It'll be cheaper for you. So that's our goal. We don't do any of your collection. You do all on your own. We're not looking to take over your collection. So if that fear starts in the town, no, that's not what this is about because that might be the next thing. You can continue to do your own service. I know you have white clothes. questions I mean that's really all I got thank you Jason the only question I had is the contact information for Liz in order to set up yeah I'll email that to whoever would be appropriate to Genesis okay oh yeah yeah Franza has it but I'll in fact I'll send an email to Franza recapping you know what I presented here and that we'd like to circle back with Liz and bring this back you guys like the

Country information for this. Is that what you're asking? Yeah, so we can set up Yeah, you can send the information to me and I can forward it.

Yeah. Yeah, that way we're not having any sunshine issues. You can be the second point. Yes. Normally I am.

Yes.

So can Franza take like the I guess the lead of sending an email out to us and then we know to only communicate to her. I just feel like I worry if we don't have a plan for how to get this moving that it's we're going to be in July.

If you have any type of communication regarding this project, that would be to Franza. But if you have anything that you would like the board to know from you, then that would be through me.

But to get the plan ready for the July meeting, can Franza take the lead on that?

Franza should take the lead on that.

Okay.

So who tells her that?

that will be me taking the notes okay okay yes okay so when we email her she'll well if she starts the email to us because we can't like if she emails all of us and we know only to respond to her right does that work

Yes, she can do that as well. Or you can talk to her also, yourselves. Like we're able to individually... You guys are able to individually speak to her.

We just can't speak to each other. Yes.

Okay.

Do one of you want to take a lead on this? Yeah. Okay. With Franza. Yeah.

Okay. And then any updates I do, I'll email to her. Okay, great.

And if you do email Franza, just... Just so I know if you can just tag me. Excellent. Yes. Just so I know what's also happening.

I think if you're the one emailing her, then we know you've got it. Yeah. And then when she sends stuff out to us, we can say, oh, let's add this. And I just send that to her. She adds it. And then in July, hopefully we have, she'll send it to you, you do this thing, you do this discussion item. Yes, just copy me on the emails just in case there's something that I might be able to, you know. And then this discussion item gets on the agenda for July. If you like it for July, I can add it for July. Yeah.

Okay, we don't need to submit this. I can just keep the same item. But if you'd like the memo to be changed, then you need to send me a brand new memo. And just so you know, any items, either way, because the chair's not here tonight.

Yeah, I think it'd be good. I have also a five or ten minute presentation on what to recycle, what not to. I can walk through that, lead into the grant opportunity, which would be from Liz to Whit. And then I can't imagine anyone on the commission would not want to move forward, but I don't want to speak for your peers over there.

It saves us money, right? So if there's anyone on the dais that doesn't want to save money, I don't know.

Would you be arranging that with the manager?

I can. Should I send an email to him or through Frenza or whatever? Maybe through Frenza. Okay.

just so they can have a communication.

So if you have been speaking with her, you know.

I just wanted to add really fast, just so you know, any items that you got to submit need to be approved by the chair first, so I will let him know. that this is some continuous item, and it will be up to him to keep, you know. Okay. Which I did speak to him, Dan.

You did speak to him, yeah. And he was very excited about it. He told me he could not be at the meeting today.

Oh, he might want to do the tour. He's probably done the tour. Yeah, I think he's been there.

You know, he kind of does that for, things like that for a living, so.

Yeah, he probably maybe does something.

Yeah, and he wears a lot of hats. He used to be your mayor here, so. Yes. You know, I have cards here. If anyone needs to reach me for any reason, I can send over a couple of cards. I don't know if you all need them. Can Franza, Liz, and Patrick be on an email together? So they are all, so then you know everything. Yes. And then Franza sends it, the only one that's sending it to us would be, okay. Then Franza or me.

Okay. Yes. Okay. But I think if you're in the loop, then at least as a committee member, we know it's just moving forward. Right. Right. Yeah.

I know it's a little confusing, but we need it. We need a visual.

It's like new for me. Right. And I'm just like, let's have a side meeting to discuss the plan. It makes things so much easier. But I find like we have these great ideas at these meetings and then. doesn't happen you know and so i think this is really doable and it's not gonna you know if there's a grant it's not gonna cost any money it's gonna save the town money like this makes sense to move forward and not fall off and so i think we just have to own this stuff just listening to the budget like well you guys can volunteer and go on all this stuff or whatever and i'm like and i think the timing is perfect because if it's if it's at the committee

commission meeting in August, it's most populated, too, in snowbird season, so you're going to hit the most amount of people at least starting November.

You don't want to do this in the middle of summer when half our population isn't here. But if we discuss it at our meeting in July, then it can be at the commission meeting in August, and at least we can get approval to move forward with whatever we need approval for, the grants or... Sounds like a plan.

I think you're done with me.

Aren't you glad we moved you off on your own?

I would have been here for dinner, I think. Someone can have a free bag.

We'll let you all fight over that one.

Thank you.

The next item will be item 5A, approval of minutes. I have two changes for that.

On page four.

On page four of the minutes?

Yeah, I think so.

Liaison report.

Okay. I'm not finding it on here, but there's a word. I just wanted to change the word provided to proposed. Yeah.

Proposed.

Yeah. Okay. And then page 8, it was a little bit confusing, I guess. Yeah, it's like it says, Vice Mayor Paul stated that the town commission had started the legislation session late. But it's actually the legislative session started late. Okay. We had nothing to do with that. Okay. legislation yeah we just say that's why I prostated that sessions are late the legislative session started That's all.

Thank you. Will anyone make a motion to adopt the minutes with the amendment? Motion to adopt the minutes. As amended. Second. As amended. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

I'm sorry, so would I wait for you to give me a corrected version of this before I sign it?

No, so you can just change, sign the last page, and then I'll just correct. Okay. Yeah. So just sign, and then put for next to.

Thank you. So this, I don't know if this is out of order or whatever, but I know the May meeting was canceled because nothing had been submitted. I think if we know that, I would have submitted something. So how do we ensure a meeting's not canceled? Like just something has to be submitted and then a meeting's not canceled.

Anything has to be submitted, yeah. So I believe I sent an email ahead of time to the chair and vice chair if they had any items to be submitted. And you guys have a, well, I have to send it now to Ms. Onsmercia, but You guys do have a schedule that I give to all of you with the deadlines. So it's up to the board to be responsible for submitting anything to me.

I wasn't aware if at least we would still have items. It may not be discussion items, but at least we'd be meeting. I didn't realize a whole meeting would be canceled.

Yeah, there's nothing to discuss and there's no meeting. Okay, so...

So when you ask, is there a way to say, I have received no discussion items. If I don't receive any by this date, I'm canceling the meeting.

Well, that's already posted, is what she's saying.

That's been on the... Like it's a set date. That's on the set date. But I didn't know.

I would have submitted something just to have them.

Or can we rather, let's say that date's tomorrow, right, just hypothetically, can a member write to you and say, hey, has anything been submitted?

Yes, you can do that. Because I don't want to just submit something that I don't know that nothing's been submitted.

But also it's the responsibility of the board members to submit anything to me. So it's up to the board and up to the committee members to be on top of the states that I already have provided.

I guess for me, Daniel's always submitted something. Always, right? So I was like, what? Nothing's been submitted? I could have done something. I just didn't realize it was going to be canceled, I guess. So now it's good to know.

if i reach out and say has any nothing been submitted by the date unless you say nothing's been submitted normally that doesn't really happen like that's the first time that's happened in the time that i've been here at least in this town so it's not something common okay so and i haven't been here for long so but still um doesn't really happen much so normally even If it's like a carry-on agenda item for the previous meeting, if you let me know on the meeting, I would like this to be placed on the next agenda.

Then automatically there's something.

There's 30-something. But that meeting specifically, there was nothing discussed to be placed on the next agenda. And we'll already carry you over something. And you already carry over something.

Okay, so we're good.

Yes.

but i mean like you know you like build out your schedule to not have anything at that time and then it's like i can go ahead and circulate the meeting dates again okay um or something and then we're set but normally um so i share those dates with the dates for the next year yeah you have it right here exactly i just didn't know i just didn't know nothing like you know i just figured out daniel's winning something And I usually submit.

I mean, I usually do. I just didn't for that meeting. And I was like, wait. Yeah, you're really good with the deadlines.

I try. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even if it's coming in at midnight.

Yeah, but at least I appreciate that you follow the deadline. Okay, cool. I can go ahead and send those to you. I can email it to the board. And then for next year, I normally have them already by November. Excellent. Okay.

um so should we move along to our next to our discussion items yeah you it will be item okay um so 6a was talking about hiring a sustainability officer um i know that we haven't had any success with that and we don't have any updates from

Well, we have updates. So I guess I didn't even realize a grant person was hired, because we had talked about taking that money and moving it to hire a to a resiliency officer taking the money. But a grant person was hired.

Well, we talked about combining the hiring of a sustainability officer and a grant. Yeah, a sustainability officer that also did grants. What happened is we had a grant person previously who came back.

So we didn't get that update.

No, we did on maybe two meetings ago.

Oh, it was a meeting. It was a while ago that she was brought back. But maybe no, maybe I did not provide the update.

I apologize for that.

But I did update you that every budget meeting that we've, and these are budget workshops, so the budget's not finalized yet. When is the next, sorry. Well, no, every budget meeting that we've had, I've brought up the request for the resiliency officer, and it's been denied. At one point, the commission agreed to a part-time person, but I think you were there at the last meeting.

So I guess, so there's going to be another budget workshop. Yes, I'm not sure when it happens. And I'm getting the feeling that you and Jerry would approve something part-time, so it's really just getting one other person.

Yeah, I mean, they seem willing to part-time. I mean, I think I had all of them at part-time. So then I don't know what happened that. I mean, they were shooting down everything.

The next budget meeting will be on July 8th, but it's a special commission meeting for the budget presentation. So I believe that will be the first complete budget and the proposed mileage rate discussion for the town. So what does that mean?

It's not a workshop anymore? It's not a workshop. It's a special meeting. So how do we, so at this point, we can't get a part-time position in?

There is public comment, though. There's public comment allowed, so. You know, and I mean, I can bring it up. I don't know, you know, I haven't seen the budget that they're presenting yet. You know, other than these workshops I had.

Because there was a lot of discussion that didn't seem like it was settled at that workshop.

No, it wasn't. A lot of things were not settled.

They had previous workshops, right? No, but just even at that workshop, they were giving instruction like, send us a comparison of this and this. So when does that happen?

So this next meeting is when all those instructions come to, I will say, finalize. But then that meeting will be when it is adopted, I believe. But nothing is set in stone until the commission adopts it. So it's not open to, it is open to public comment.

It is open to public comment. You said when is that? July 8th. July 8th.

July 8th. That's before the commission meeting? It's going to be at 5 o'clock. I know. Okay.

Okay, so if I was more prepared, I just didn't know what I was walking into, you know?

Right.

So I think if, I mean, when I'm hearing the value of the properties in Surfside, 550, what's it? what's it the value and then the taxes like I had no I didn't know that data stuff and of course my things are a mess here but here are my notes but I was just like you know what to not have a comprehensive plan I'm like how here it is okay so 5.3 billion dollars is the value of the houses and the properties in Surfside, 5.3 billion, which will all be impacted by sea level rise at some point. And then the taxes was increased. So then it's $2 million increase in the budget from last year, a $2 million increase that you guys have available to set the budget.

What you have to understand is, and you'll see it probably in the next budget meeting, There's a little pie chart that shows you when we set the millage rate, and based on the millage rate is how much property taxes everyone pays. And based on that is how much each, in the little circle with the pie, how much, you know, a lot of the money goes, most of the money goes to the Miami-Dade County and the school board. Surfside gets a little sliver of that.

It's still a good amount. I guess maybe I misunderstood. The woman who was presenting the budget, it looked like the budget you all had to work with from last year to this upcoming year is a $2 million increase.

I think you're correct that that's what she said, but it's interesting to see how it breaks down. And we also try to put money in the reserves to have the reserve fund. So I'm just trying to...

Do I pitch or whatever? A part-time sustainability resiliency officer.

Yeah, I think the part-time would go over better with the commission. They just, they definitely are not going for the full-time. And I don't think Charlie and Nellie are going to be, they're not going to push.

I think it's... They seemed open to the part-time, though, when I first mentioned part-time. Yeah, they seemed to shoot it down completely at that budget meeting. Like, we're not having it. It's a waste of money. But Ruben, he wasn't speaking up. So I'm kind of thinking if I can... pitch it in a way that we've got $5.3 billion worth of property in Surfside that's gonna be impacted by sea level rise, period, at some point, right? So we need somebody who's comprehensively looking at the whole town. Like the presentation on the alleyway, that sounds amazing. Let's put permeable pavement there. Why would we spend money on an alleyway that's gonna flood the businesses? if the water has nowhere to go you know so you look at coral gables how they did that whole walkway area where they shut everything down and they literally put a drainage system in so that the water doesn't pool and doesn't flood the businesses so but we're not you meet whatever like that's not our expertise so to have somebody in the town to say any project you're doing a planting project a dune project looking at the whole town and how can we impact slowing down sea level rise in a full, I mean that's, to put, I don't know, a part-time, maybe $50,000, $60,000 to make $5.3 billion worth of property more sustainable, I don't think that's that big of an investment, I guess. I'm just kind of like, if I can pitch it with those kinds of numbers, and then maybe giving her, him, whatever, a budget, a little budget, so maybe we're looking at $100,000. $100,000 to look at a comprehensive,

You don't have to worry about all the W legal requirements. Right, benefits and all of that.

But to have me as a volunteer, I mean, I know Nellie's like, we'll pay for you to go to a conference. But I don't know. I don't even know what I'm looking at from a conference. You need somebody who's gone to school for this, that's in this, to really look at the town. in this view of how do we slow down?

I think the issue is that they had a bad experience with the previous person, but it wasn't that person's fault. The person was very good and qualified. They weren't being directed properly to what was important to the town. And that's the key thing. And I think they are amenable to a part-time person, but what's key is the direction they're being given. Okay. You know, because if they're not being, if they're not, not, if it's not prioritized what they're doing. Right. Then they're working on projects that weren't, you know.

Who does that person report to? The town manager?

They did report to the town manager. So at the time we had one. Was there a committee?

Does this committee exist when that person was hired? That was my next question.

This committee did exist, I believe it was. You know, it's a whole different commission. Yeah. Okay. And so it's about, you know, it depends on what the priorities are of the committees. Yeah. Right. If their priorities, you know, so this committee, I would say, has, you know, your priorities are pretty clear. Yeah. With... You know, recycling and all that stuff.

Yeah. I mean, I brought this to the meeting. I'm looking at it, and I'm like, how is this not a full-time job?

I'm like, there's a lot of stuff on here.

Because they're like, there's no way. We need an employee, blah, blah, blah. But I think if any of this stuff is going to move forward, I mean, yeah, we'll do the recycling. We'll work on it. But that's one little piece of what the whole town needs to be sustainable.

There's like master's degrees in sustainability. I mean, it's pretty complicated. Yeah.

Well, I think that with this committee support and then the petition for a part-time person and then a proactive board that we have right now, commissioner-wise, that it would be something that would be more agreeable to them, imposing all those things.

So this is the thing that I can take the lead on, you know? So if we're looking at the job description, do I talk to Ruben? You're allowed to.

Okay. So, like, so if... But is that job description, you may not have to look at it again, is that what you want?

I mean, this is what we voted on as a committee. This was the one that we, but, I mean, it's full-time, so I'll reread it as part-time. But I think it's very, I mean, Daniel wrote it.

Yeah, I would just ensure the items that we have here kind of reflect the duties that they're doing here. just to make sure it's cohesive.

Well, I mean, I think some of this stuff is what changes, right? This job description is what, like, what is the Sustainability Resiliency Committee identifies as priorities would be what they'd be working on. And this could change, but, you know. So if we're looking at, I mean, I could reach out to the Miami Beach one and see, I don't know if I can, it's probably a public record what she makes. She's full-time. But to kind of understand what she does in her role, and I know, granted, we're not Miami Beach, but still, I mean, we've, you know, we're... And maybe some accomplishments in her role today. Yeah, I mean, how do you look at the town as a whole? Because it's not just one thing. It's everything, right? Including recycling, including composting, including all of that. I just feel like if we don't have somebody on staff focusing on this, we're just waiting, and we're just pushing stuff ahead and it's nothing not nothing little things will get done but I think we need to be proactive about some of these things or else one day we're gonna come and you know it's a it's a what is it king tide and it's not even raining and our streets are flooded yeah well I mean because I think um from from the budget meeting what the commission was saying is that we have taken steps

deal with it in terms of we're doing the and I saw here I think there was a for the stormwater management we're doing the average and once that's complete then we look at the next critical area so so when they say that though are they looking at just that they're not looking at planting and bioswells and

permeable pavement. They're looking at just what's happening at Abbott to see if it works.

We have that project going on and we have the undergrounding utilities going on. But in terms of what you've just described, yeah, that would be great to have looked at.

Because I think to cause everything to wait for Abbott to finish... why can't we look at all the other options too?

No, and I don't think everything's being paused. Those are things that have been discussed. So it's not even being paused. It hasn't come to the table.

Right. So what I heard was that the August, they want to see the results of Abbott before they do any other drainage project, I guess.

Well, then you have to finish it.

Right.

I mean, no, we had it on our agenda and in the budget. to go to Area 4. And they said, we don't want to go there. No, we don't know. Is that the next critical area?

And if it is, then yeah.

But who determined that? We never got any...

This person probably would determine that.

Well, yeah, we never got any communication regarding that. And when we did... You know, Abbott's a... a $9 million project. When we did Abbott, we said, let's, you know, and we were told Abbott will alleviate the other areas. So you want to see the results before you... Yeah, I get that. For one, you want the project completed. Right, right. And then you want to see results before you go to the next area. But no, it is a town-wide stormwater plan. So the other areas we'll get to. But it's not, you know, I mean, in my opinion, it didn't make sense that you're going to name the next area, start the contract, and you have not finished the first area. So, you know, I understand part of it is for planning. But you still have to see something.

When is the undergrounding of the power? Is that happening? Is there a time on that? It's been in the works.

We've approved all the evaluations. It's, you know, I mean, mine got solved in the last two years. I don't know when I was in an office. It was approved by the voters in my prior term. And, you know, we haven't got all the numbers yet.

So because my whole, like, originally why I was, like, inspired to be part of this committee is, like, if we're ripping up all of our pavement everywhere, why would we put asphalt down again when we know it's not permeable?

But you... Well, I don't know that we're ripping it all up again. That's, you know... Well, if we're undergrounding the power lines, we're ripping up. Well, they're doing it on... They're going to be doing it on Collins tonight. I know. They've been in that... Eric Farina, I was like, okay, wait a second. I'm preparing. You have no idea what we've been dealing with on Collins Avenue, because I'm right on the corner, and I see... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they don't have to rip up pavement. They're just going underground. No, they're... Well, here, I think in the neighborhood...

They make a small hole, not big, but then they put those giant, I don't know what kind of material that is. The metal? The big metal.

No, they were completely digging up Collins in 92nd and putting big power banks in there. And that's not the same thing as what's happening in the neighborhood. I mean, what was happening in Collins was unbelievable to me. I was like, how is this approved like this? Like that they, you know. It's crazy. And I've not seen that with any other project like Collins. I lived here when Across the Street was built, when Grand Beach was built, and I've not seen that with any other project but this one project. And it's just mind-boggling. So I was questioning it constantly.

Yeah, they get things done suspiciously quickly there. They're expeditious over there.

And that's federal because it's an A1A?

Is that why they're able to not go through Surfside?

They do go through Surfside, but I was questioning a lot about their permits because a lot of it wasn't making sense. And they weren't providing proper notification, which is our regulation.

I got notified, I believe, yesterday. that tonight they're going to be drilling from like 5 p.m. to... No, I got the letter on Friday.

Our building got the letter on Friday.

Okay.

Yeah.

But actually, you're right, though. My manager didn't put it up. I got an email yesterday.

My manager was going to post it. I didn't see it posted.

So my point is, though, is that if we are going to be with the undergrounding of power lines, if any streets are going to be torn up, do we put permeable pavement down instead of paying for asphalt? Like... Just to think of those things.

If I'm asking you, it's a guess. I don't have the exact answer. I'm sure they're not. But it's roadways. I don't know that you can. But you're correct about the bioswales. Because you were at the budget meeting. The alleyway's been on the budget. It's been on every single meeting. In every single meeting, I say the same thing. It says papers, but the initial report... So they don't recommend pavers.

So why are we doing pavers?

So, you know, I have to point that out every time because it's like, it's still there. I mean, I went through this before with the park when it said artificial turf and I said, excuse me. It was like several months and then they removed it and put actual grass.

Going back to the item, from everything that this person's going to have to oversee, and all the meetings you're going to have to attend because you have to be pretty involved. I don't know if this really should be a full-time position. I think our biggest hurdle is going to be trying to pitch a full-time. I mean, who's going to do all of this part-time? And then you have to attend meetings like, you know,

I mean, we wanted it to be full-time, but what you're saying is you don't think full-time... Well, I think, though... Could we get you to approve full-time?

No, I can't. No, but if it went to a vote... Well, I think, though... Because Karim is an interesting thing, but Genesis, are we holding you up? No, it's okay. But this is, we're still in line, right? No, but it's the third time. But I think that a good way to approach it, if you're still going for the full time, is to combine it with project management. Because all our projects are supposed to be lead. gold or higher standard and in this budget the budget they've restructured public works to where the public works is taken over capital project management so it's It feels like it's, you know, the capital project management was important, and now you've moved them into public works, so it's the capital improvement projects really being, getting the full attention they need. So it might be good to also include a level of project management on there.

For sure. This is a full-time position.

I think you just have to make them more of a wider umbrella and say... I just don't want to go get full-time approved. That's what she's saying. She thinks part-time. So I'd rather get part-time approved than nothing approved.

That was where it went the last time, but in the last meeting it went nowhere.

But it was just the two of them just saying no. And I'm like, okay, but there's five of you. So the two of them were just literally very loud, shooting everything down. Like, no, no, no, no, no. And I was like, well, nothing's getting approved.

Well, the first time I presented it, they did seem agreeable to part-time. And that's why I'm mentioning that again.

Okay.

and i think that you know to maybe stay in that area so that we don't further dilute with a little time that they're gonna have and then give them something else it's just sustainability part-time um because right now we have nothing better than nothing right or maybe we re-market it and just say it's a wider umbrella they're gonna wear

multiple hats, all under the sustainability, just kind of overseeing project management with a sustainable lens, not just necessarily a budget-friendly lens.

Because I have to look at the job description again. You have this, right?

I think you sent this out.

Yeah, no, I have it. I have to look at it. It's not in this thing.

I'm afraid that the project management will take over and that'll become... um a greater priority in the scope of things and the direction that this person receives where their focus will then be to project management and because the care for this is obvious that it's not so important i mean i think i'm hearing you that we don't have much time

And so if part-time has kind of been presented and somewhat, so maybe we just go ahead with the part-time.

They were receptive to the part-time the first time I presented it.

But it's not in the budget right now.

No.

So we'd have to get it in the budget, which is being presented with it not in it right now.

We go through several budget meetings. The final budget doesn't get adopted until the end of September.

Oh, okay, so this July, I thought the July meeting was approving a budget.

No, no. It was presenting just one of the final issues.

Yeah, it goes, you know, we've had, this is the most workshops I've had, and it seems to be the same, you know. Yeah, because I've had other terms where, you know, we had two workshops and then you were approving to the budget. Okay. So this is, yeah, this would be the first meeting presenting the military, then I know that... I don't know how many more meetings there are. There's definitely two meetings to approve the budget in September. Okay.

Okay. I have to double check.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay.

So I know we would love full-time, but are we good with trying to move forward with part-time? Yeah.

Yeah, well, you know, I support this. I mean, I think I need to look at the description again, you know, because I'm comfortable with the direction of this committee. And again, it all depends on how the employee is directed by the town manager, because in the past, we had a good person, but there were issues with, you know, the direction they were provided, and also then... You know, because Commissioner Velasquez and the mayor did work with the resiliency officer, but it was during COVID, so then they were assigned COVID issues, and then they left the position because it wasn't what they wanted to do.

That may be even more of a reason not to include project management. True. Right. To get diluted.

But maybe to refine what, you know, that's why I kind of need to look at that again, to refine what exactly do we want this person to do. Yeah. Because I think that that's more helpful and then maybe that's too broad and too much.

Yeah, so is it suggested that we continue when we move this item to the next our next meeting so that we could come back and. And talk about what was the results of or what was the feedback from that July 8th meeting that you're going to speak at right? And then also to kind of look at this again, the job description, see if we need to amend it.

Yeah, I'll take a look at it and see what I think. Okay. Just in terms of where we are between the committee and the commission. Okay.

And I can definitely do this public comment section, like I submit the blue form again? Yeah. I know I did everything wrong, but it's okay.

Yeah.

And then I was really nervous.

Okay, so we'll go ahead and move to our next item. This is about our lobbying efforts. Tiffany, I know that we wanted to have a committee member speak with our lobbyists for the new 2026 legislative session.

Yeah, so again, I see this position really working with the lobbyist, right? Like this position would really work with the lobbyist to make sure priorities are happening that we're talking about and making sure that they're all in sync. So I guess I know 2025 is over, right? So how can we, how can this committee work closer with the lobbyist so that And are we allowed to, I guess, because it seemed like they were getting direction. I guess it seemed like they said they were working on the same stuff like the year before. So how do we, is it through the town manager? Like, how do we get the... How do we get approval for some of these things for the lobbyists to work on to possibly get funding or whatever so these things move forward?

Well, it does go through the commission because the appropriations list, which – and we submitted all the lists. And I think – Because the Youth Council met with the lobbyists of this committee. One of those meetings, they mentioned that they were working on five appropriations. In fact, we did just get, because I asked for updates from the lobbyists. Yeah, did we get any in this last? We should be getting one for the Collins Avenue water main. I think 100,000. So, I'm not sure because I have to look for the email from the lobbyists. because I was asking about what they did regarding Indian Creek, because that seems to... That's my other point, is like, how did that sneak through without our lobbyists knowing about it? No, they knew about it, and we all knew about it. It came, you know, I was in Tallahassee with the Youth Council, and the day we were leaving is when I found out about it the night before at an event, and then the next morning I received an email from the town manager. We were on it from the very minute. And the problem was because, you know, they lumped it into a transportation bill. It's in a transportation bill, and then they cleverly, you know, because it has to do with the septic sewer, and that's environmental. We support that, 100%. What's that issue is that there needs to be accountability. You can't just go to a municipality and say, sorry, you have no say-so.

It sounds like that's what's going to happen.

Yeah. And so when we found out about it, and I thought, oh, gee. You know, of course, you can't flat out oppose this. You have to try to get it amended. And that's what we were trying to do. We were trying to get it amended.

With the lobbyists. The lobbyists were trying to get it amended.

The mayor had conversations with the representatives. When I was with the Youth Council, we had a conversation with Senator Pizzo. The lobbyists was to get back to... him because he you know because i know he was a big proponent of this subject to sewer change so we all have to be so i said okay i'm meeting with him i'm not going to say we oppose it we don't oppose it but we wanted it was a very simple amendment and i have it on my phone because it was like i wanted it's what was missing in the legislation was language that requires Then to make the least destructive and impactful connection. It's also missing a requirement to pay our costs. And lastly, there should be language that maintains control by the municipality regarding timeframes and logistics. So, I mean, they've really just, you know. India could have had no more powerful people in Tallahassee than Surfside did. And that's what happened. And it's not like...

This isn't just going to impact Surfside. No, I know that.

It's the whole state. We're the first ones. So other municipalities may need to know about this. No, we're the first ones. And I mean, we've known this situation for years.

But like Coral Gables is septic.

Yeah.

So does this mean the neighboring, they have no choice, they have to take Coral Gables septic?

It depends where, you know.

But that's what I'm saying. I don't know if everybody really understands. This impacts you all too. Anybody who's in a neighboring town who's septic, now has to take their sewage. Like, stay away.

You know, Tiffany, I was in Tallahassee, and we were leaving, and I said, well, do I need to stay here? Is this thing going to be heard? Because what was happening, we met with Senator Jones, me and the Youth Council, and right after our meeting, he was running into a session. Well, guess when they introduced this? So it was after our meeting with him. But I found out in between our meeting, so we met with Senator Pizzo, I knew about that. I met with Representative Basavi briefly and brought it up. And I asked, do I need to stay in Tallahassee an extra day? Is this going to be heard? And it wasn't, so I came back. We talked about it on the commission, and so this was something to watch and to buy. And we were never given updates until the article came out. So who should have given updates? The lobby should have been giving updates? I believe the lobbyist was giving updates to the town manager. The commission didn't give updates because, you know, I have environmental groups that contact me. In fact, we did do an urging resolution against drilling in the offshores. I put that forward.

I'm just thinking there's some way, like, and I'm not saying we do need to cooperate to bring septic to sewer. We have to, because all of our waterways are going to be built with food, right?

But Indian Creek's been sitting on this. Because back when I was in office in 2020 to 2022, we... knew that they were on septic. That's when we learned they were on septic. So here it's three years. Three years, and then they're strong-arming surfside. You know?

It gives us very little leverage.

I mean, if we knew back then they were on the septic to on the septic and they wanted to go into our sewer and they i think i thought they were going to start negotiating with suicide back in 2022 when in 2024 when we got elected they didn't even start with us right off they sent us this bogus draft resolution that Basically, it's like what got passed into law, you know, really.

Yeah, as it reads, it gives Surfside very little, very little opportunity.

But it gives all municipalities and the whole entire state very little. So this impacts everybody, not just Surfside. So how can other, this needs to be, other municipalities need to know what's happening because then they'll support Surfside.

I contacted the Florida League of Cities. Yeah. Because I was.

Yes, it impacts everybody.

No, I had contacted them when I came back from Tallahassee. I didn't say anything. I contacted them because, you know, we were fighting the Live Local. I spoke against, you know, they asked for people to speak. I spoke, so I never had an opportunity to speak on this. Maybe send this to them, because I guarantee you, this is going to... Well, no, I had sent, I mean, it was, I found out it was just signed yesterday. Yeah. Santa signed it and talked all about the great aeronautics, you know, I mean. But the bill was not amended to what we needed.

I think given Tallahassee and knowing what they usually approve or what they normally try to get at, it's probably going to shake out where higher income towns and municipalities are going to switch over from suffolk to sewage and put all the onus on smaller, lower income municipalities and The objective should be making sure that they're paying for it and they're covering as much of the cost as opposed to fighting it. But that's exactly what happened here. We just have to make sure that they're paying the fair cost.

But right now, they don't have to pay anything right now.

No, that's what happened here. We discussed this back in August. So that's when it first was on our commission where we rejected their draft resolution because, like, come on. You know, our system's been in place for years. We just paid, like, over $30 million to upgrade it. And to just expect to tap in.

What would be the cost on surfside for this transition?

No, we're good. For Indian Creek? They were going to pay the cost to tap into us, but they didn't want to pay anything to our existing system. Nothing to our existing system. And then you also have what happens after the fact. If there's a spillage. And then the amount of destruction. It was going to disrupt 10 blocks of our... Ten blocks of homes. To rig it up. Yeah. So we rejected it. We wanted a better plan.

We wanted them to pay their... And they just said, well, we're going to go around you.

We wanted to pay their fair share. Exactly. They went around us.

Okay. Okay. I know I'm taking up time, but that's this other item. I don't need to discuss it anymore. So you didn't turn this off.

So in terms of what we're going to do, I'm going to speak to the town attorney to see... if there's any recourse we have. I think the best thing we have right now is the media.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's just New York Times. It wasn't New York Times.

But I think if any, through Florida League of Cities, like any municipality that's like in a state like Surfside should be totally fighting this. I'm trying to see. It's not just us. Like if every single city in the state knows, because they may not be paying attention to this, but this will impact everybody. Any city that has a septic neighbor, you are now going to be required to accept their stuff and not get any money or anything. This is statewide. They're very smart with the way they did it because it's not just Indian Creek and Surfside. It is anybody who's going from septic to sewer.

You have a point about Coral Gables.

Coral Gables is all in septic? No, I know that. So they've got to figure it out, because you know what? It rains, there's poop literally all over the neighborhood.

But this was known even before 2020.

No, I know. They've all been just not doing it. They just haven't been doing it. But whatever sewage, like City of Miami, I don't know what sewer line they tap into, but they're going to have to move to sewer.

They're going to have to move to sewer. That's what's so crazy. I mean, when I mentioned it to Senator Pinsel, he was surprised Indian Creek was still unseptic.

He's like, they're still aseptic?

Yeah. I mean, really, shame on them. It's not something they just found out about. Yeah.

But anyway, okay. Sorry. I think there's nothing. Just we're going to push. No, what are we doing with this? Nothing, I guess.

Yeah, I think Tina said she was going to speak to the media, possible media.

Well, I'm going to speak to the town attorney to see is there anything we can do now that it's been signed.

Right, exactly.

Otherwise, you know, but I think the media coverage has been good because it's really showing. Exactly.

How do we get other municipalities involved in our fight?

Maybe there's some constitutional challenge. I don't know if I can think of it.

Well, I want to know if we can challenge this. Otherwise, I think, you know, we need to hold a, like, if we hold a press conference.

I can't even tell you how many people forwarded that article to me because I live in Surfside. Like, so many people were forwarding it to me, and I'm like... But it's going to impact everybody in the state. So I feel that we're one voice, but if all the municipalities are going to be impacted by it, all speak up, I think there's a chance that there's going to be other language moved in there to protect the municipalities that will be impacted by septic to sewer. Everyone's going to be moving to septic to sewer. They have to.

There's no choice. I've been hearing about this for years. I think even Senator Pizzo was here, so that had to be back in... Like 2019 or even before then. And there were grants available to some of the homeowners. Yeah.

Well, I mean, the reality is why Indian Creek has become more urgent is because they literally have poop in their yards right now. Because the sea level is pushing it up. The septic has nowhere to go down. And they're literally having poop in their yards. So, yeah, there's like a sense of urgency now because they don't want poop in their yard. in their million, multi-million, billion, whatever neighborhood. Like, they don't want poop.

Anyway, sorry. No, thank you. So let's go ahead and move on to our next item. This was one of Mayor Deitch's items, but he wanted to, well, we wanted to have a joint meeting with the Youth Council and the Sustainability Group sometime in August.

If I may chime in on this one. So we will have a new Youth Council to be appointed in August. so I will wait until the new ones are appointed because they do have the last meeting in July but if you bring this up You might have brand new members by August. So I would just advise push it to August and then have a discussion again just to inform the new members. We have an item for July and an item for August already.

Wonderful. All right. I love that. Some security there. We spoke about 60. We had moved that up already, the recycling services assessment. And finally, 6E is Sustainability and Resilience Committee action items. Let's see, so we were supposed to get some updates from Commission on those items.

Okay, I'll tell you what I do know. Okay. The shore reef, that's, I've not heard an update, but, oh wait, there's two of them. So I'm confused now.

I just want to say I have a work call at 2 o'clock.

And I have to walk home. Essentially, I don't think too many of these have been...

Addressed?

Yeah. But we do have... We did sign a letter of support with... for the coral reef, that was done. So we're just waiting until they get approval or something. This other one, nothing was ever brought to us about the relocating the buoys. I remember we had a presentation and the town manager was here and that was going through Nothing from that has gone back to the Commission, so that one I don't know.

That would be an update from our town manager?

Yeah.

So can we request the town manager to be at our next meeting to give us some updates on these? We can push this item so the town manager can...

So we can push it, right?

So we can get some momentum on the deadlines that we've established.

Yeah, the tree giveaway, it's in the works, so he would also have that information. This one, engaging compost for life, I think that... You know, the vice chair knows another company, so I think we should probably engage that company. They may have better price points. Yeah, also the Dune management, that would also be, those are things that the town manager would... You know, we've been updated, but not really. I think he said that dune management doesn't start until, I don't remember, but it's a while from now. Okay. Because that's also tied into planting more seed grapes. Because I'm thinking, I don't remember the date he said, but it's several months from now.

I do see this last item here, use reusable wood for beach chairs instead of paper wristbands.

I think that's a typo, but... Yeah, but it would be great if we can come up with... I see those. I picked one up.

You see them everywhere. I picked one up the other day.

If I may comment on that one. The Parks and Recreation Committee just had a meeting on Monday, and they did say that they are coming up with an app, so no more wristbands. Oh, my God. So that... Their ID, everything will be on an app, and I believe you can have multiple IDs on one app if you have many people in your household. So that will be coming up. That's what I understood.

I have collections of them. Thank you for that.

I was going to recommend the committee come up with something that can be used instead. Wonderful. I was trying to think of things to myself.

Yeah, and the app looks really, for what it's playing, it looks really good for residents. She'll look forward to that. Awesome.

Wonderful. Okay. So who has access to update this action plan? Is it made available?

So I believe this was drafted by Mr. Deitch. Yeah. And he was given to me to be put on the agenda.

Okay. So would I send you an email just so some of those items could be updated? If you'd like. And then he can... Yes.

And I can forward it to Mr. Deitch.

Okay.

So he's aware. Okay.

Perfect. All right, and then 7a, oh, any, anything else on 6a? No, okay. And then 7a, we're not going to speak about any longer. Yeah, that one has been moved. Okay, any new business items?

The new business was the agenda item. That is no longer going to be discussed.

Okay, all right. And then we have our next meeting set for? July 17th. July 17th.

Can everyone make it?

I actually, I want to mention. Yes. was appointed last week very happy um but i had already pre-existing plans to be in new jersey for like the next three months so the soonest i could be back would be the october meeting with like pre-planned travel and stuff so anything i could do up there resume whatever i know you mentioned that you guys don't do zoom but if you need like someone else I would totally understand. Would love to help, but I would understand. If you just need someone with more boots on the ground for the next few months. After that, I'm here, but I had this pre-travel plan. Is it three meetings that you missed? It would be July, August, September for sure. So three meetings.

She talked to me earlier before the meeting. This is something that I will have to talk to Town Clerk and Commissioner Cordo to see for the good and welfare for the committee.

And I spoke to him about it when he first said he was going to nominate me, and I said, I would love to, but I just want to let you know when I applied, I didn't have any plans. And I just thought that...

Thank you for that.

I thought it was disregard. I was like, okay, they didn't pick me, whatever. And then he's like, cool, next meeting is next week.

So is it...

because i know after three meetings you can be removed from the board but would she be able to stay on if she's not the fourth i don't know if i have to double check the town code because i do not know if it's uh the the commission sorry the committee would decide if that person's out right committee chair or the person that appointed them yeah as i understand it's if i miss three i'm eligible for termination but if you guys need someone like here

It's been a whole process because it goes to the commission. He didn't pick, like last month he didn't make this. So it could be three months before we find somebody.

Well, whatever I can do.

I mean, you're interested in coming back. Of course, yeah.

Whatever I could do. So I don't know, do you go up to the committee?

Yes, I will have to. It's not clear on the code, so I would most likely have to ask legal for their opinion on that matter.

Well, we're hoping it's all favorable.

Yeah, me too, me too. Yeah, because I thought three is the limit, kind of.

Yeah, it is three... meetings per calendar year and then you're up to elimination from the board.

And also just so you guys know, you know, I won't be here, so if you have a quorum, you can also know.

Right.

This meeting wouldn't have happened if you weren't here, so at least that's good that you're here.

I'm super, I mean like, whatever, I'm off the record, but I went to law school to be an environmental lawyer. Oh, wow. It didn't pan out because there was no jobs. I graduated in the pandemic, so I was like, all right, I've got to plan.

Darn out if you want. I've got to do something else. Our keeper's hiring an attorney right now.

Oh, wow. But my husband and I, we live here. We have our own little law firm. We run it out of our condo. So I live here, work here, breathe here. So I've got opinions. I've got things that I feel like need to happen. So I'd love to be part of this.

Well, if there's a way that she can stay on, I guess. Yeah, let me know. I mean, it's not my decision, so...

Yeah.

For sure.

Perfect.

But.

All right. That's that. Thank you so much for that. Yeah. It's okay. Well, are you here? Yes.

Okay. There's going to be one more person. If anyone is, you know, the next thing will be to adjourn the meeting, if you'd like.

Yes. Yes. We'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting. He cannot. Oh, I cannot do that. Okay.

I, whatever, move to adjourn the meeting. I second that.