Youth Council - Regular Meeting

I'm going to call this meeting to order. It's the monthly youth council meeting. Today is September 29th, 2025, and it is 5.32 p.m. And I will go ahead and call the roll as well. Chair Lucida LaCour. Here. Vice Chair Ella Garcia. Here. Council Member Sofia Vitoria. Here. Council Member Sophia Chavez-Syker? Here. Council Member Isaac Pack? Here. Chair, you have a quorum.

Hi.

Okay. Do it to re-take it? Okay. Council Member Jack O'Malley, please. I was doing the roll call. Okay. Right outside.

Okay. So, first, does anyone have any comments on the minutes from last week's meeting, any changes? Okay, if not, then I would be able to move for a motion to approve the minutes from last month's meeting.

Second.

Who will make the motion to?

Okay, I'll make a motion to approve the meeting minutes from last week's meeting.

I second that motion.

Okay.

Thank you. I know that was good. Thank you.

So the first item on our agenda is gun safety and a speaker, Hillary Goldman, who reached out to the Youth Council last year about potentially hosting a gun safety awareness event with the police or potentially hosting some sort of memorial for Aria Gray. She'll be here sometime soon, but while we wait for her to come, Ella, did you want to do the town news recap? So remember that every meeting will have a town news recap, and then at the end of Ella's recap, she'll choose someone else to do it for the next month.

Sorry, she's coming to the meeting?

Yeah, she'll, we're just, yeah. Sorry, and through the chair, everyone was in favor of approving the minutes, correct? Yes. Thank you.

Would you have two phones?

Oh, yeah, one is a town phone.

Okay, so for town news, I would say one of the important things that's kind of relevant to the youth council is that our state senator, Chevron Jones, who we collaborated with in a policy event last term, is coming down to Miami for a town hall listening tour. And he's gonna do it, it's gonna be at Bell Harbor actually, September 29th at 6 p.m. It's just today, right now.

But that's the town news.

I mean, it's cool that he's coming here

And then to your question, I know you asked about the Instagram account. So we, Vice Mayor Fall reached out to Mr. Bloomstein who said he would get back to us after talking with IT. Then I followed up and Vice Mayor Very graciously followed up as well. Hi. So right now, basically what happened was we now have access to the official Tom Sturtz at Instagram. We can post whenever we want. We don't need to run anything by anyone. But I'm still, we're still going to try to set up a meeting with Mr. Boots to better understand what the issue is with creating our own account. Because, I mean, the issue... at its core is that not a lot of people follow that account. So I think it's still worth pursuing our own account. So it's just going to come down to talking to him one-on-one, seeing what the issue is and how we can work around it if possible. Is that, do you think that's a good thing?

I think so. I mean, I sent an email because I tried it.

It was a great email. It made me so happy because when he sent that original email, I was like, oh, my

And I felt that the council made a good case for why you should have your own account, and he didn't really explain why not.

Yeah. So we'll be trying to follow up with his assistant to set up the date. And then he has his special question meeting tomorrow. Right.

Okay, so...

Hi, this is Councilmember Sissis, Hilary Feldman. So she's here to talk to us about potentially hosting a gun safety event and just sort of more about... Sure.

So my name is Hilary Feldman and I am a Surfside resident. I've been here, lived here since 2014, full-time actually since 2016. And I'm also a psychologist by profession and worked at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for almost 35 years. So I am also a member of Temple Beth Shalom and when I was, I mean, shortly after I got there, they have a social justice network, and they do different initiatives every year, and one of their initiatives was gun violence prevention. And so I wound up becoming co-leader of a gun violence prevention task force, and I've been doing that since probably like 2017. And our mission is really kind of education, advocacy, some community involvement, And in order to do things, what we were trying to figure out is how we could actually do something that was concrete. And we learned about this program that is through something called Everytown Under Nobody and Moms Demand Action. People know about that. It was established after Sandy Book, where there was a shooting back in 2012, and a lot of children, unfortunately, were killed. But they put together, in about 2016, a PowerPoint, a nonpartisan program for trying to teach about safety and how to secure... guns and really be a responsible gun owner. One of their main pieces is that they want to make sure that adults are the ones that are responsible and they want to teach parents about safety and the program is called be smart and smart is an acronym for securing guns modeling responsible behavior asking about guns in other people's homes recognizing the role of guns and suicide and then just telling people about the program and really also starting conversations and realizing that this doesn't, you know, we're all here to be hopefully happy, safe, healthy, you know, and I know you as kids have grown up at this time where You see this, unfortunately, on an ongoing basis, and I know that you have active shooter drills and all kinds of things that you've had to deal with. So we have been presenting this Be Smart program lots of times to parent-teacher organizations, to community, and I did it for the Citizens Police Association. Academy a number of years ago and then recently in Bay Harbor they have Pizza and Cops and they have a community-wide event and then presented it there in the spring and shortly after that I came to your resiliency group, and I thought, oh, wouldn't it be great if maybe, because I wanted to present this information or try to figure out a way of presenting something in Surfside, but I thought, wouldn't it be great if we could partner together, and we kind of found this natural allyship and partnership, and so I guess the question is how we can maybe do this with your lead in order to promote, you know, the importance of safety, the importance of responsible behavior, issues around gun ownership. And sort of fast-forwarding, I also talked to Jerry, who just recently, who just, like today, got in touch with, I don't know if, do you know Aria Gray, or of Aria Gray? Okay, so Aria Gray was an adolescent who was, I think, 15-ish, 15 years old in 2020. And it was during the pandemic. I think it was in May. It was April or May. And she went with her sister to somebody's home. And the person whose home was at that point almost 18. And he had a gun that actually I think was stolen. But he was brandishing it, pretending that he was going to shoot somebody. They tried to say, don't do this. But unfortunately, he pulled the trigger and he shot Aria. And she died. he's in jail. But we also have a, I mean, there was, the community was pretty active at the time, and there was a vigil at the time of her death, and then there's also the scholarship in her name for seniors going into college, right? Yes. And, you know, we thought that one thing is maybe that might be a good, also a way of honoring her, letting people know also about the scholarship, but being able to maybe do something to, again, just create information about gun safety awareness and what people can do.

And when Jerry spoke to the family today, did he speak to them or just reach out?

I think he may have spoken to the uncle. Yeah, the uncle. And the uncle is actually interested in even participating. I think the uncle, you said, is a firefighter? He's a firefighter. So he, yeah. So I think there are lots of ways of doing this, and I think it would be a pretty, you know, it would be a great thing for the community to honor her, you know, and just do something in relationship to that. against it, so.

So right now it's sort of, so there's the idea of having a memorial and then having the safety component tied into that, so it would be like hosting an event in the memorial of her and then also carrying out gun safety, is that sort of what you're thinking?

I mean, I'm thinking, I mean, I don't want to be the one to, I think you guys should be the one that, you know, I'm glad to present some of the Be Smart materials. I actually have a little bit with me so they can ask them out. And I would like to do, you know, to do something educational, but I think, yeah, the idea would be, you know, what would you feel like you would like to do? I mean, I think that would be my...

I think it's the five-year, it'll be the five-year anniversary. Right. Or maybe it was.

It was just the five-year anniversary. Yeah, so... But she will be, oh, her birthday would have been December 10th. Oh, so maybe... So... That, yeah. So Jerry just found that out, that it was December 10th.

Yeah, I think it did happen April or May, so we would have passed the five-year.

Right, right. But it was, I mean, honoring her and doing something in connection with that is just something that I'm feeling more than glad to work on.

I think, yeah, at the time, I'm not sure which one I would say as a real girl.

I think depending on sort of the family's wishes would be my only concern. I wouldn't want to host an event without their active participation in it and sort of just be remembering someone who you haven't gotten to know through family. if that's the case that the family doesn't truly want to be that involved which is so understandable i think it would be best to maybe present it as like a gun safety awareness sort of talk with the police and then maybe then we can be mentioning the aria gray scholarship and sort of have like we can talk about her but it's not the focus of the event now the uncle said but he did say he'd be eager to take part

And he's willing to say a few words based on his professional and personal experience.

I have a question for Larry. I know you said that where you work, there's a focus on adults in handling.

Right. And to me, the Be Smart program focuses on adults. But the issue is that everybody is involved. you get older as, you know, and really thinking about Arya's experience, the whole piece is that you need to know what do you do. I had an experience, I visited with a group of teens and we were doing something in preparation for talking with legislators. And as we were talking about gun violence and asked people whether they had experiences with them, one person remembered, had forgotten, but when she was younger, when she wasn't that much younger, she was, because she was 17 at the time, but a year, like a year prior, she'd actually had a party at her house parents were not there, a friend brought a friend, and she found that the friend that was brought actually had a gun in his waistband. And she said she didn't know what to do. She, you know, she said, freaked out. She never thought she'd ever be in that position. And she did the absolute right thing, which is to say, I'm not feeling well, and we have to, everybody has to go home right now. But people need to know what to do. I mean, the rabbi that is our head of our social justice committee, she works a lot with college-age students in the same kind of thing. So I don't think that it should, you know, it's a direct, you can't talk about this because you're affected by it all the time. You have, you know, you have active shooting drills in your schools and all of those kinds of things. So the idea, though, is that it is the adult's responsibility to keep guns out of the hands of people that shouldn't have them. And that includes people who are in distress. Sorry.

Vice Mayor Paul, do you think this is something that we should also talk to the tourist or the resort tax board like that, like another committee about just that, Also, I don't know, like including adults in it as well, or like another committee?

I'm thinking maybe the community relations board. It's not really a resort tax thing, but I'm not sure how we tie it into that. I mean, I'm sure there is a way.

Yeah, no, that's okay.

And of course, I'm sure the police will be very interested to be involved. Right.

You know, when I thought I had this partnering, it looked like a piece of food, you know, for the cops, and then we couldn't have a broader audience.

Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure we could get the sponsorship from the police for this.

Just so that we have more time to plan, would you be open to doing it on the anniversary of her passing? Or do you think it should be a December?

I mean, I don't think it has to be the exact day. We'll see what the exact day is. But I think if we do it sometime like in December before the end of the year.

December 10th is a Wednesday. So it's a Wednesday of...

and then you get into the holidays so right so the beginning of december is certainly a possibility and that might be a day that we could do it you know as long as her family feels comfortable with that okay so and i already said you guys are still like thoughts um

an event is the best way to do it and like with the education maybe with the part with the presentations and all that that would be really helpful to time with more like interactive things like the memorial of the families opening that and education and awareness i think all of that would help and yeah the like awareness about the scholarship and all that so that's actually the scholarship is park and rex so it might be something they want to be involved with as well okay

So for now, sort of the thing that we can be doing is maybe reaching out to Parks and Rec about the scholarship. Ms. Waldman, if you could reach out to Jerry or if Jerry could continue the conversation with the family to see sort of what they're comfortable with. Or we can talk to Jerry and say sort of this is the idea that we have. We're thinking early December. Is this something? I think it's a good timeline. Yeah, we have a good time to plan. Okay, so, and then should we reach out to the police or is that something that you want to do as we're following?

Yeah, I could do that. I could reach out to Chief Press and let him know that Youth Council is planning this event. And we'd like their sponsorship.

So it's like pizza, pizza with the police, like that educational component, but also like bringing it back to service, having gravity get something that actually happened here.

Is the pizza workplace usually on like a Saturday or is it?

No, they've been, I know that the chief said he was going to alternate between the coffee with the cops and the pizza with the police. And he's looking for a way to engage more of the community, because he was noticing the same people come every time. And I said, well, that's good. But he said, how do I reach? So he really wants to reach the young people. So the piece with the police is generally in the evenings. It could be Wednesday or Thursday. So it could be.

Yeah, I think, like, it's like a pizza with a place for, like, special editions, but we can change the title, obviously, instead of doing that as the regular thing for that month of the week.

Yeah, and it would be, you know, it would be nice pizza with the police and the youth council.

And it's good that they have all of that. And the first Iraq and the community. Yeah.

We're all coming. The tourism's going to want to get on that. Who are we missing? Okay, so...

So how do we proceed? I guess that's it.

I think just reaching, just keeping in contact with, like what do you think is the best line of communication between us? Do you want to, should we be in contact directly with Jerry? Or should you be in contact directly with Jerry and sort of relaying information? What is easiest for you?

Well, I guess the question is, how much do you guys want to take the lead? Or do you want me to sort of, I mean, I would prefer that, I don't want to take the lead. I would partner with you in taking the lead.

I don't want to take the lead. I mean, you're the creator of this thing. Right, I know, I know, I know.

So I'm like, but yeah, yeah, yeah. And Tina, you're in foot too. Just in terms of, you know, I mean, I can see it, like, Well, the format that you had for the resiliency was a really good format, I thought.

The way that we had the speakers?

Yeah, I mean, you had speakers, you had a little bit of dialogue. So, I mean, that may be one way. of doing it.

So coming up with like a timeline of what we want the event to look like. Not a timeline, but like sort of a way. Right. Okay. Run a show. Yeah, run a show of what we want the event to look like.

Right, right. So, I mean, we could start like having Eric Ray's uncle talk if he's comfortable and talk about, you know, and then we can talk, segue into gun violence prevention and, you know, and we can talk, I mean, or have a, you know, have a question and answer kind of session.

I remember when we met last term, you said something about a nonprofit that makes bracelets out of bullet casings.

I thought, yeah. I think it would be a lot to do that. But I think it's another piece that we, at some point, like with the community. So there's a woman, she's I think from North Miami, and she She had friends who unfortunately had children who had died as a result of gun violence. And so she started this project where she collected bullets from particularly high risk neighborhoods. And then she sponsored, sponsors and people sponsor, an activity where you make bracelets with bullet casings. So you destroy the bullet so it never gets to be used. So it's, you know, you're destroying something that could be dangerous, and you're making something beautiful out of the bullet casing, and then she has beads, which is wonderful. And she also has parents and children who have died, and they will tell their, talk about their stories, if they feel comfortable. But that's another, I think that may be something for if we ever do, you know, not if we ever do, but when we do a community event.

Is it like a business that she has, or is it something that she sells, or is it only that she comes and walks people through the process?

It's most impactful if you do it.

Yeah.

So it could be a workshop where people could make the bracelets. And it's for people of all ages, kids to adults.

That's something you could work in maybe with the resort techs board. I don't know what they have planned. I missed the last meeting.

It seems like for now, like the action item is just that for the Youth Council and in conjunction with the U.S. Homeland comes up with a run-up show. Vice Mayor Paul, if you could reach out to the police and then later, like those would be the things we do for now, later we'll reach out to Parks and Rec about the scholarship and confirm the run-up show or whatever with the family. Mm-hmm. And then maybe talk to the Community Relations Board.

Yeah, because I think they didn't have a scholarship winner for that this past year. Oh, really?

Because no one applied?

I'm not sure, because we gave away one scholarship at the last commission meeting.

I saw that, yeah.

So that may have been the only scholarship.

So they may not have it this year?

Well, maybe they could. put it in the middle of the year. They always tend to do it at the end. It's interesting because they always do it at the end of the year and then most of the kids that do, they're good if they're already in college.

So you're saying actually present the scholarship at this event?

Or announce that it's still available. Announce its availability maybe because...

I have the application up and it's dated 2024. Yeah, I mean because if they didn't give that out this year, we could still potentially give it out if we get some applications. Does anybody else have anything? What do you guys think?

I think it's...

I think we should restrict it. Yeah, sure.

I think the youth component is that Ari Gray was younger, and she had, like, she was our age. I think that that's, like, it's just, like, honoring someone like that, and I think maybe that will draw a younger crowd, but I think at the end of the day, it'll probably be, like, mostly older people, but hopefully, like, because it's the youth council, maybe some different people will show up

I don't know. And if it's, like, an extension of the pizza place or coffee with the cops, then they're going to have their regular audience that hopefully spreads the word. Like, we already have that audience that is kind of more prone to becoming, and they can tell their kids or something. I know a lot of parents go to the coffee with the cops, but don't necessarily bring their kids, so it's maybe just...

The pizza one is also a little different than the... Well, not very, but...

But it's also a time when more people can come. I mean, you're obviously not going to coffee with the cops. I know LRV asks this, but is it normally like a Friday or is it like a weekday?

No, it's a weekday. It's a weekday, I think about 5 to 7. I mean, if we...

okay and if we potentially wanted to make it like a friday some more youth could come yeah i'm sure they'd be you know or it could just even be a special edition like maybe they're going to do coffee that month so they could do the pizza special edition i'm sure they'll be happy to accommodate what the council wants

And is there a way that you can get out the information? I mean, like, how did you do it with the Resilience Day?

Now that we have access, we can do it more rapidly.

Yeah, what we did with the Seeds of Change event last, we did a lot of, we had the graphics that we posted on the email blast, and then also on Instagram, and then also on the Gazette, and also we had Chevron and all of the participants in the event push out So I think definitely the ton of Instagram, the email blasts. We always talk about doing flyers and putting them in Starbucks. It hasn't happened yet. Maybe now we'll do physical flyers.

That could be nice to put. They used to put flyers at the hotels for the resort to export events, and I don't know if they still do that. It would be nice, if you have flyers, to also give it to the hotels.

And I know middle schoolers form Starbucks.

How about, yeah, some of the ice cream places?

Yeah, the Starbucks, Moralia. Okay, awesome.

Should we talk a little more so we can help, you know, kind of plan them?

Yeah, and I think probably like two or three of us are going to focus on this event, and we can sort of make a group chat and stay in contact in that way. Okay. Thank you so much for coming. Oh, thank you.

I'm so glad that this is going to work out. I may have somebody else that will come and join, too, who's my other co-leader for the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. just trying to think if we can advertise it in our council.

Yeah, I was going to say, I know Bastard's Lump has their own youth group as well, right? They have a pretty strong youth community too. So maybe encouraging them to come on that end might be helpful as well. Right.

So do we want to open it up? Do we want to? Should we open it up? I mean, we could open it up even to like Bay Harbor and Ballard Park. Yeah, for sure.

This is the temple in, this is Miami. I checked the website. It's Miami Beach. Yeah. I'm sure there's kids in like Miami.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, definitely.

Do you want me to have chief press contact you?

Yeah, that would be great, yeah.

So I'll do an intro, you know.

Awesome, yeah.

So I'll talk with our rabbi and see what we can do from our end, too.

Yeah, I think opening it up would be great.

Yeah, we may have, like, lots and lots. That would be great. Anything else, other questions, or... So when do you think, when should we, do you want me to reach out to the business? To Jerry?

I think, yeah, I mean, I think we should maybe come up with, like, some sort of outline of what we want the event to look like, and then maybe have Jerry communicate that to the family and see if they... Yeah.

Right, now I can do that. Or you do it. Okay. Perfect. Okay. Excellent. Okay, so we're looking, and then we're looking to see whether we can get a concrete date, I guess, with the police. So if we can do that, like the beginning of that Friday in December. So you're looking at December, that's the 12th, I guess. If the 10th is a Wednesday, if we want to do it on a Friday, that's the 12th. Okay. December 12th or the 5th.

You don't want to do it much later than that. I think our tree lighting is the seventh.

Just a weekend of community.

Yeah. Oh, I like that.

OK. Awesome.

OK. Great. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for coming. We really appreciate it. OK. The next item is Ella's new item. OK.

Oh, I just actually wanted to pass these out, some information. I don't have enough for everybody, but you can look at this. And this just tells you about the program a little bit. I can go to the website, right?

Mm-hmm.

So the next agenda item is the virtues and popular collaboration.

Vice Mayor Paul very nicely reached out to UK Broad about three weeks ago. I followed up with them. I called them about exactly a week ago to follow up on that. And I mean, as expected, it's really slow progress because apparently the email goes directly to the principal. I guess she just hasn't gotten to it. When I called the office, I just gave them the date of the email and just to send out the message because when I called, the principal wasn't meeting. I think I'm going to try to get in contact with someone's mom that is involved in there and see if she can push it in maybe a different way, maybe through the PCA or something, because I know this is huge. I'm going to ask.

Does anyone know who the PCA president is? It's not sold. It's online. It's not sold?

It's online.

There's no one else I know who's, she just joined there.

I'm going to text her and see if she... Because I... It's online though. I know what the name is. There's more.

Giovanni?

Giovanna?

Ella, were you looking to do it during the school day or as an after school thing?

It was really, the email was to meet with them and see what would work best for them. So either way, I know that I'm able to leave early because my school also ends early. So I'm able to leave early from school for my seventh or eighth period maybe once a month or maybe every two weeks. if that's something that benefits them, because also with kids at 3 o'clock, my school is at 2.20, so that would work, but yeah, I'm really just like, I'm waiting on just one meeting to discuss what they would like, but yeah, we'll just have to figure out our outreach and communications.

If there's anything you need me to do, let me know.

Then the next thing I'm going to do next is

So we were talking about the recurring event and we established that we wanted to do the college presentation first as the first event and then we would have the pickleball tournament and all the other sports tournaments after. So we thought that we could do it in the 96th Street Park building or the community center, depending on the space. And I think, I don't remember who mentioned it, but about the Miami Beach, they have the college club, so we were thinking that we could have that club come and talk. I don't know who would fit with the college counselor's schedule, but I know Denise, she's on the board, I think, so maybe we could talk to her about that, too.

You want the high school kids to come talk?

Yeah, the club, maybe, with the college counselor, that's the sponsor. And then we were thinking we could do a Q&A with the speakers and maybe seniors, too.

I like the seniors.

And then we're also thinking like for the advertising, like the Instagram and the flyers. We were thinking of doing sponsorship with some of the Harding stores, like the ice cream or like the pizza place. Maybe the crumble, I don't know. And then, yeah, that's most of what we got for that. We were thinking like mid-October. and obviously after school because the audience is both high school students, so maybe like 5.30 to 7.30. But yeah, we have to establish about the exact date and about the sponsors and how to go about that. So that's about the college. And then for the sports, we also wanted to do sponsorships for prizes maybe, and we would have age divisions for everything. The only thing is, would we need waivers for an event like that?

Yeah, that was one thing we were thinking about.

So we don't know how that would work.

Is that a question for Parks and Rec?

Whether they need waivers to have kids compete in a sports tournament?

Yeah, that would probably be a question for the town manager or town attorney. Yes.

And Ella and Sophie, I don't know what your guys' emails are, but I can show you the doc that we have. Like, we wrote down all of our planning on the doc. I'll send it to you. Yeah, so you guys can send it. I can send it. We can send it later.

Through the chat, but can you also send it to me just so I can find it?

For sure. Do you want me to talk about the pickleball event a little bit, Sophia? Yeah, a little bit. Okay. Yeah, and everything she said, that was pretty much everything we wrote down for the recurring youth event. So that's what we're thinking, like the first entry in a series. And we were thinking that could be like a good soft open, have food there, but also like a topic that people do actually want to come learn about, and then we can use that. at the end of the event to advertise for later events. And with the Q&A with seniors too, it doesn't have to be seniors just from each time, we're just thinking seniors in general. So even if you guys wanted to be on the panel, you guys might end up being on the panel. But just like... Just because we, you know, underclassmen, like it's kind of fun. Like, you know, they hear things from teachers all the time, but to actually hear advice from peers, I think it's different.

And I think you have an interesting angle, like if you're applying for scholarships, you can help, like you can, people can ask you questions about that.

Yeah. Because it's kind of like, especially for a posse, because I know it's like there's a lot of confusion, like do you do this, do you do that? I think having a posse scholar would be interesting. Yeah.

So, yeah, so that's what we were thinking with that, and then we were thinking about seeing Denise when she was here, but now she's not here, so that's fine. So we can just get in touch with her. But, I mean, I don't know, I mean, I don't know how busy that college counselor station is, but is it like a specific college counselor? Yeah, we only have one.

We have one, and... He was quite busy. He's quite busy because we have one for the entire school.

There's a counselor that comes to talk to me, Shalini. But I also have a relationship with her, so I can see if she would also be available for that thing. So if you're still counseling, yeah. I also know, doesn't, I'm not sure about the study group college counseling.

Oh, I think there's something about that, yeah. Oh, no, we have 16. Oh, okay.

We are SAT.

Actually, this is a little off-topic, but one thing I was thinking about, like an idea I had, is kind of tying into, like, we want to take this route of, like, kind of preparing youth for, like, college and things like that. Maybe having a program where we have, like, one or two free SAT kind of classes, just in general, like a blanket class for people. Yeah, because I feel like kids would just come, kids would really come to that. And I don't, like, I don't have a connection with any kind of SAT tutor or something. Like, I don't know anyone who I could ask.

You can also peer tutor.

If there's a strategy that works for you and you have proof, kids will come to you anyway. I know kids at high school that don't necessarily have a professional strategy, but they do well on a certain section and they can tutor that way. And it's like, it can't hurt. Like, parents are going to be like, oh, no, don't go to them. They're not credentialed. It's like anything. Be grateful it's free for them.

Right, exactly. So I feel like offering free SAT prep sessions, like even once a month, for like the next couple months and we can even like announce that at this meeting because kids would go to that i'd go to that yeah i would i would love to be involved with like talking to kids and helping them prepare groups the one thing that everyone is like is on their minds yeah and and we're trying to like encourage the youth and help the evening that's a great way to do it because it's still like kind of like a serious more civic path it's not like you know because people when they think of the town they may not immediately think of fun things we'll get them there but not yet so like it's an easy kind of soft intro because it's something they have to do anyway so that might be something we want to pursue just in general it sounds nice like it takes the pressure off of it yeah

And in terms of sponsorships, you mentioned you wanted sponsorship maybe from local businesses. Is that a thing we're allowed to sort of reach out to these businesses and ask?

Or is there... We don't need to go through any permission or talk to anything else?

We can just reach out directly? I think we could. I mean, you can also check with Frank Chigueras, the tourism director. Yeah. Because he has relationships with a lot of businesses.

Oh, yeah. Oh, I also have a business from the internship database. I have a list of local businesses if you'd like to go through that.

Okay.

But I mean, I'm sure, I'm guessing you already have some in mind, Moralia.

Yeah, we have Serendipity, Vito's, Oakberry, and I mean, oh my god, this one.

Yeah, you were thinking stuff kids would want to eat. Yeah.

And then, all right.

Sorry, and we were also thinking of getting those specifically for that first youth meeting, like to get maybe Momchief to give a couple pizzas or something like that. Yeah, like they need to put those speech action on their Instagram, which they made this year, and they have two posts. So I think they could. I think they do.

Yeah. For the soccer and volleyball, it's the same thing. I think we have a question on the waivers. If we do that, since it's physical, it'd be open to, we have divisions, we're thinking 7 through like 18. Yeah.

Like that's one division?

It would be like 7 to 9, 10 to 13, 14 to 18.

Actually, maybe you can ask Park and Rex, because they must have the waivers for... Oh yeah, that's a good point. They would already have that.

I don't know, did you bring it up? I remember someone brought it up to me, like, people also go in the bathhouses and things like that, and you don't have people sign wafers for that, so I don't know if this is the same, so.

But I think when they take a class, they need a wafer.

Right. But I mean, this wouldn't necessarily, it would be like a one-time event, so. I mean, if they already have the wafer on file, I don't know, I don't know, but it's worth asking.

Not sure, but yeah. Yeah.

And...

We have like online sign up and like a pre-day you come to the event before you start to sign up. And some type of like prize, right? Yeah. I don't know if we have, like, drinks or water.

Yeah, I mean, we're also thinking, like, the gift card contains the sponsorships. Like, it could be one of the, like, Monty's could be, like, $25 gift card to Monty's or $30 gift card to Oakberry or something like that, too. So if they don't want to donate, like, actual food, maybe they'd be willing to donate that or something like that. So we could leverage that as well.

So, like, would it be, to start this, should I, like, message Denise to see if she can get any information about the days of the club might be available to her.

Yeah, so it's the three of you that are on this, right? Yeah. So I think that someone should be reaching out to, I think you're right, the first step is to reach out to the club, that's what the event sort of hinges upon. So yeah, reaching out to Denise and asking when they'd be available to help her sometime in mid-October. Once you have a couple of weeks that work, and hopefully that would be, like, this sort of needs to move quickly, because we like to have at least, like, three to four weeks of advertising, I think, to make sure everyone knows about this event. So if you know sort of some days by the end of this week, then one of you should reach out to Parks and Rec and see if you can secure the space, I think. I know you mentioned the community center for the 96th Street Park. I think just because more kids our age go to the 96th Street Park, I think that's more intuitive to just do it at the fishbowl and it's a really nice space. So I think if you reach out to Parks and Arts and say, hey, do you have any, what's the availability for this room on the dates that the college club proposes? Then from, really once you have the dates, you reach out to Parks and Rec, start reaching out to the sponsor, to the heart of the sponsors. And then if you want, I can take care of like buyers, like marketing stuff, if that's helpful.

I mean, I think, like, is there, like, a universal town calendar that has, like, to make sure we don't schedule it on the day that there's another important event?

Yeah, it's, sometimes it's updated, sometimes it's not. But on the town website, when you go to the main page and you just scroll to the bottom and there's a calendar. Yeah. And it would have most of the events. Yeah, we put, like, the public notices on there.

Okay. I mean, it might even be good to, like, throw out a few dates as a group now because we also all want to be available.

Yeah, let's do that.

There might be some stuff that's been scheduled that's not on there yet.

Right.

It happens.

I think it's all words, just a hug.

Do you guys have more experience scheduling stuff than stuff like this? Do you think it's realistic?

I think mid-October to late-October. Yeah.

I don't want to get too close to Halloween.

Here, I don't really remember, but we plan maybe October 21st to Tuesday. I don't know if it's better for the weekday or weekend. I feel weekends, Saturday mornings are always good for girls.

Or I feel like a Sunday afternoon. Yeah, or Sunday. Oh, yeah. Because a lot of kids are Jewish, right, so they don't go to the... Yeah, they wouldn't go on Saturday. Oh, they wouldn't. Yeah. So I think, I like the idea of, I just feel like weeknights are always so hectic. I feel like a Sunday afternoon... Would be, so we have, that's like the three is.

You can do the 26th. It's the 26th, Sunday, the 28th. You know, Sunday, Saturday.

19th. Maybe the 19th. But also, no one's going down on a Sunday, right?

Probably. Probably not.

Next school.

The spectacular is scheduled already. For which day? 24th. 24th, yeah.

Is that too close?

No.

No, I think we can throw out the 19th and maybe the 12th.

So the 19th would give us like three and a half weeks until October 19th.

Seven and a half.

Oh my god, we're in September!

Oh my god, wait, no, sorry.

In my head I was thinking like, if we have a month plus that time. Wait, no, I think that's way too soon.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

When I was saying three to four weeks in my head, I was like, it's seven weeks. Yeah. Okay, so yeah, I think maybe November is going to be a better shot. Oh, I forgot November 1.

So we can do it earlier.

That happens. So yeah, I know there's an event on the 16th. Yeah, Singer Fest. Oh, it's on the calendar. Wait, November?

What is Singer Fest?

It's Isaac Basher, the singer.

Oh, my mom is really excited about this.

Oh, cool. Oh, yeah, it's going to be good. They're going to have a customer band. So they can do this. A book club where they're bringing in a guy who's going to give a speech about it.

Yeah, a community relations board is sponsoring the book club.

Yeah. The other thing we want to, I mean, if we're doing this event with Aria Gray in early December, we don't want to do a late November in an early December, because pushing out marketing from both things, well, it's not that deep, but we can try for early November. Should we try, yeah, November 9th? You guys can try second or the 9th. I think the 9th.

The second seems a bit... Thanksgiving is what week of November? Later. Okay.

And throw out the date, November 9th. November 9th sounds good. November 9th, and if not, then... Yeah, we can't do it Thanksgiving week, so it would really have to be the 9th or the 2nd, but preferably...

It gets tricky once you get into the holidays. Yeah.

I don't have anything.

We might do that, but we'll try to go sooner.

Yeah, but literally in two days. Okay, so now that I have the understanding of how the months are of the year, so yeah, try to get an answer from Denise as soon as possible so that once you have an affirmative yes or no, definitely, well, we can keep talking during the week, but reaching out to the businesses you want and reaching out to parts of the network about securing the space And when you, and once Denise says sort of yes or no, I'm guessing on the document you have sort of a run of show, like an outline of what you want the event to look like already?

Like, yeah, like more or less. We can make it more formal. We just wanted to bring you the overall picture first. By the way, 42 crumble cookies are in the information $164. So that's less than $200 for 42 cookies.

Those are regular, but you can cut them.

I mean, how much do you think we should budget? Like, do you think we should budget, like, $200 for food?

I think you should, yeah, I think, I mean, it depends on the sponsorships. Like, if you get sponsorships, then certainly you can spend more on the couple. I think, like, If we want this to be a recurring event, then we don't want to, like... Yeah, I'd say 200, 250.

Is that reasonable? Yeah. And what about, like, the audience size? Like, how much...

I think the fishbowl... Oh, my God. We toured it, and he said, like, 60? What is it?

We've never gone more than, like, 30 people.

No, I don't... I think he said maybe it was, like... I don't remember. We can ask Parks Center. You guys should ask Parks Center.

Now we'll reach out. The park. The one at the park.

Is it? Yeah, I don't remember. It was like more than I expected.

It was nice for the sweetheart dance and they put nice lighting in there.

If you guys are going to present this to Parks Center, are you going to make a run of show similar to the... Do you think that's the best way to do it?

I think you guys should do it.

I'll help you do it too.

So we'll just, I'll reach out to Denise, see if we can get a date on that confirmation. If not, you said, do you have another counselor?

I think still we should. talk to the college club, like if the school counselor, if the school counselor can go, which I doubt, they can always, and they can always go, exactly, so it should be fine, and then get the space, reserve it, with all the drafted stuff,

And then if you guys have any ideas besides the Q&A, besides the speakers, if there are more things you want to add to the event, definitely reach out to us.

My favorite thing is the Q&A. I like that aspect of it.

How do you think we should get the seniors to look at it?

I think it's going to be, to do the Q&A, I think it's going to be reaching out to Denise's college partner to see if she has any recommendations of seniors who would be willing to do it. Ella and I are willing to do it, I think. But I would love to do it. And then just seeing, like you only need three, four teammates. And if you always have any senior friends, which I'm sure you do, but you can look for them.

And where do you guys do other? Oh, that is true. I mean, even if they don't necessarily live in Surfside, but if they live in any place in general.

Were you guys thinking Surfside residents? No. Everyone. Everyone. Yeah.

I mean,

we can position it as a serve side, but it's not like exclusively serve side.

Yeah, once again, like the whole teenager thing, most people's friends are outside.

And then just the last item before we adjourn is, yeah, so this is...

I've done that in 5D, the Chief Resiliency Officer recommendation. When we met with the Sustainability and Resiliency Committee in a joint meeting to kind of discuss our goals for this year, We decided that it was a good first point to push for the position of a Chief Resiliency Officer. So I would like to make a formal motion to recommend that the Commission, the Surfside Commission, that we hire a resiliency officer. And I wanted to state that as a youth council, we're willing to offer our time and effort to gather information and or data from citizens to see if there's support for this idea. So essentially what we talked about in the joint meeting was that as a youth council, we'd be willing to go out and survey the community to see if this position was even a viable option or a viable option. was just supported by the people. People thought it was necessary, they think their tax dollars should be going to it, and if they don't then it makes sense for it not to be considered, but we just wanted to help gauge that so that it has more support if it's supported.

I just want to say the final budget meeting is tomorrow, but you could still do the survey and bring the results to the Commission because It's something that could be considered, you know, could be considered even though we're finalizing the budget now.

Is the budget meeting at the same time as the town manager?

It's right before. The budget's tomorrow at 5, so then the budget's final for next year. But if there's a lot of support for the resilience officer, it's something that could be, you know, the budget can always be amended. So, you know. Yeah, but just so you know, it's kind of, it's time, but it's still, you know, if public opinion wants the Resilience Officer, it's good for us to know that.

Yeah. Does Ellen need a second? Yes, I was going to ask if someone would second Ellen's motion. I second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opponents?

Do I need to mention something tomorrow night? Um,

I don't know. It's whatever you think. If you don't think it's necessary because you're finalizing the budget.

I brought it up in past meetings, but it didn't go. So the public question would be good.

Yeah, I think that if you could just mention that, that we're going to survey the people to present a more concrete consumption of if it's a good idea.

Right. Okay. Sorry, before we adjourn. So also, do we want to move forward on the SAT idea?

I... Through the chair, we also have the next meeting item as well. Thank you so much. I thank you. Also, like for the college in general, I mean, this could probably be a separate event about like explaining financial aid and capstone, because that's an entire process. And I remember, I have like quite a bit of information on that, because I would join a bunch of like webinars and stuff and write notes about it. So maybe, it'll probably end up being in 2026, but I could think of PowerPoint or something.

I think maybe one thing we could definitely have at the college event is if you have any questions, like write down questions you have for future meetings. And we could even bring up a portion of that in the college meeting. We don't have to restrict it to certain topics. That could be something that comes up in the Q&A, and if a lot of people have questions about it, we can really share it. Yeah, exactly.

I think with the SAT stuff, I think that's something that, I feel like we need, because this is such a new thing, because we have never done this before, and actually had the youth come to our events, I think we should focus on this event, and then go from there to do the SAT events, to do FAFSA, to do Posse, or whatever, any of these other formations, but I feel like trying to do too much at the same time, we might . Right.

I mean, the only reason I was thinking just specifically SAT is if we want to advertise at the end of that meeting.

Well, I think, yeah, I think we should. We should mention it or sort of.

I mean, I don't mind taking that. I can take that. Like, I can just pursue that. I don't mind doing that. Like, concurrently, while I work with them. I mean, we can also, like, work on stuff as a group. Like, if Jack wants to take more of the sports stuff, I can take more of that stuff. You know, like, we can work as a group. Or if anyone else wants to help, too.

Yeah, we'll be helping you and Denise as involved. Yeah, yeah. Honestly, I think that... Do you guys already have the group chat for it? Yeah.

Can you just add me?

I guess we can, yeah. I can just make a new one. We can just use the, yeah. Try to add.

Sometimes it doesn't work. Try to add. And then also, okay, so I can work to pursue that. And then also for the pickleball tournament, another thing, do we want to then, we focus solely on this college event, and then once we get past that, we move on to the sports events, or do we want to also start to organize those concurrently too so we can advertise them?

I don't know. What do you guys think? I know that it's sometimes... Like to me, I'm hesitant to put too many things out there at once. But I mean, I don't see why we can't start I don't know.

I don't know. I could start with your help as well. Instead of planning a more concrete kind of thing, but not have it out yet.

Work on this first, and then... Yeah, I think you should start talking to Parks and Rec about this, so that by November-ish, once we're done with this event, you have everything ready to go for an event in February or January or whatever, so you have everything on the ground more clean.

Okay, so I guess we can figure out, we can figure out as a group how we move forward on that. I mean, do you think we should talk to Parks and Rec?

For Pickleball?

Yeah.

For Pickleball, you should talk to Parks and Rec about your question about the waivers. Okay. They've hosted tournaments. I think it would be best to do like a Parks and Rec times youth council event because people make sports, they make Parks and Rec, and it's good. They have the equipment. They have a lot of the equipment. They have...

I don't know.

So, okay, so yeah, so the, you guys know your first steps for the college meeting. You're going to be working on SAT sort of alongside this, and then, like, Jack sort of reaching out to Parks and Rec asking about waivers, equipment, have you done this in the past? Do they have any tips? Or you can even set up an in-person meeting with Jorge or...

Yeah, and we also got, like I said, costs for nets and things like that, so we can discuss that with them. I mean, one of our ideas was we could literally buy nets from Amazon and use them for the ad and return them. I don't know.

I'm just not sure how that whole thing works with the suppliers. So that's definitely a question. Definitely a question for them.

And then deciding on a date, I guess that would probably best decide with them because they have all their events too. Yeah.

And I think maybe for the tournaments it's going to be a 2026 type thing just because now once we have the holidays it's difficult. Yeah. And the weather's better in February, January.

And we all have midterms and stuff for school, like December as well.

Yeah.

So like in January, February. Yeah. and then for me at least i'll i can help you guys with the run-up show for the university college event and i'll try to find someone to physically push for the full pressure that we paper off any specific engagement and Oh, the gun safety event.

Oh, who wants to be sort of a lead with me on the gun safety event? Yeah, give a lot. Are you sure? Uh, give a lot. Okay. Awesome. Um...

Do you think, do we have another meeting between now and November 9th? Like another council meeting?

Yeah, through the chair. The next, the 7A, that's the next meeting. That's the next meeting.

Oh, okay. About November 5th. November 5th. November. So right before.

Yeah, and I mean, we're going to have to meet now.

Yeah.

Just to plan it.

Yeah, exactly. I would need... I would need a motion to approve the next meeting date for November 5th. Yeah, it's going to be Wednesday, November 5th at 5.30.

I make a motion to approve the next meeting date. Second. Second.

Second. Second. Second.

And then all those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, any opposed?

Okay, so I guess we can just pick a date like midway through this month to check in.

I think, yeah, I mean, this is sort of coming up quickly, so I think we, once we find out we need to text in the chat, and we'll sort of be texting every day, like, making sure that we're all caught up and stuff.

I mean, I know, like, for us, it might be good to meet, like, that homecoming week, because we don't have, like, a lot of, like, mid-this month, we don't have a lot of academic stuff. Yeah. It's like that week, the week of the 15th. So it's like two weeks from now.

My homecoming is a week after, but... Yeah, same time there. Thank you. So, motion to adjourn. I would look favorably upon... Sorry, through the chair. I also wanted to ask if someone can provide me with the brochure with the... Oh, yeah, you can have it. So I can send a copy to everyone? Yeah.

Okay.

I have a favor to leave for my motion to adjourn.

Second. She can't make the motion.

Say so moved.

I wouldn't.

Because it's so moved.

Ah, okay. Still moved.

So moved.

So moved. I'm very moved.

I'm so moved. I suck. Okay, so who made the motion? You made the motion. I made the motion.

I'm very moved.

So moved.

Thank you.

The motion is adjourned. Thank you. The meeting is adjourned.