we are going on air in 5 4 3 2 1 good morning everybody my name is Laura Dominguez I'm vice mayor and chair of the public safety and neighborhood quality of life committee today is Wednesday May 22nd and I'm joined by Vice chair commissioner David Suarez and the other Committee Member commissioner Joseph magazine uh commissioner Christen Rosen Gonzalez will be arriving later today but we are joined joined by commissioner Tanya bot and a little later by commissioner Alex Fernandez and thank you to the city Administration who is here um assistant city manager Mark taxes and also um from the legal team uh attorney Mark Fishman and the liaison for the committee The Fabulous Stephanie Ray Brooks Stephanie are there any announcements yes we have a couple announcements we have one item that is going to be deferred item number eight discussions regarding Beach concessions regulations and layouts to ensure that sufficient areas remain available at all times for public enjoyment of the beaches and we have two items that have been withdrawn they are items number 27 discussed Normandy said homeowners association's 2024 priorities including renaming the Normandy said's neighborhoods and item number 20 discuss whether the city Charter should amend to provide for a strong mayor of government and this meeting is hybrid you could dial in or use zoom the dial in number is 312 626 6799 or 888 thank you much Stephanie so we'll kick it off with item number 23 item number 23 has a Time certain of 10: a.m. which is discuss designating the city of Miami Beach of Blue Zone City and all the benefit and costs associated with embarking on the undertaking and this will be parks and someone will be presenting from Blue zones this is sponsored by commissioner bod and commissioner Suarez would either of you like to uh tee anything up yes please commissioner bot thank you um so I'm sponsoring this item um because we are undertaking a a Monumental change in what we want our city to be and you've all heard me say plan for the city you want to be not for uh dealing with the city that you are and we are talking about changing the way we are perceived around the world the way our residents get to enjoy our city the way our businesses and and visitors um are able to to enjoy our city um we already have a lot of the makings of what um makes a Blue Zone City work um we have ample um outdoor public uh recreational facilities we have strong sense of community in some in some respects um but what what the Blue Zone city is and I I've got um Sid STS from Blue zones to and and Danny Butner to um to talk about it in more detail but it is the opportunity to really craft a cohesive um way of living that highlights things that we really care about here as a community and there are there's a way to do it in conjunction with the blue zones group and to do it in a way that doesn't have a huge uh drain on our budget in fact it can very easily be done with uh sponsorships uh to get us started and um the net savings on things like Health Care uh for for people who live here people who are city employees um and the increased revenue for restaurants and uh grocery stores and businesses who participate in this um certainly uh add some Financial incentive to doing this but moreover or more importantly rather the reason to do this is because we are trying to shift away from a party till you drop City and to be a city that has entertainment of all Stripes but is really focused on quality of life and I can think of no better quality of life than feeling fit and connected and healthy and part of a a blossoming burgeoning Community which is what blue zones seeks to do with with its um proven uh path forward and with that um I would like to turn it over to Sid Stoltz who is on zoom and Danny Butner who is with him to um introduce themselves and talk in more detail about blue zones PJ if we could unmute them I think I'm unmuted now yes we can hear you okay T Tanya this is Sid I'm not sure I can't see you all now but I can see my name and I hope you can hear me can my name is Sid souls okay thank you Tanya for that introduction um I know a few of the Commissioners and personally I want to thank all of you for all the hard work that you've done I've been a resident of Miami Beach since 1996 uh I live at the Morano at porino and um have been very excited about all the changes that that you the commission have have implemented since you've been on board so very excited to have this conversation about potentially assessing Miami Beach to become a Blue Zone project as Tanya said um uh we are focused about increasing the well-being of the entire population of cities and we think Miami Beach is a perfect place uh to assess and then potentially become a Blue Zone City so I will um I will be a big part of the team here I I know many of you Commissioners be able to answer questions and I'll turn it over to Danny Butner uh who is um the head of our business development and our chief growth officer to explain the process that we are recommending for Miami Beach Danny thank you Sid and thank you commissioner bot everybody can hear me yes we can all right um I'm Dan Butner Jr I uh Chief development officer I have the privilege and honor of working with an amazing national team that um gets to lock arms with communities that are already on a journey of reimagining what their Community narrative is today and going forward um and a lot of that as you might not be surprised is how do we create one that um leads with quality of life leads with well-being Economic Development how are those Dynamics um brought together into a coherent strategy that's accountable and that manifests uh for people and we get we get the call at Blue zones to come in and not do something to your community um but be jet fuel uh bring an evidence-based model bring a brand and some media and some Sizzle um and uh some national experts so that the end result is not just another Blue Zone story or Blue Zone Community uh but a Miami Beach story uh a Miami Beach so although we've done this blue zones thing 90 times Across America over 10 million Americans uh we've never done Miami Beach um and so we uh have a process we have a process that U for the first six months is to get to know each other uh it's a little speed dating it's a little is blue zones a good fit for Miami Beach is is Miami Beach a good fit for for what we do at Blue zones um what's the the voice of the community so we have a we have a qualitative process in our assessment to to get a sense of schools and employers and people and a faith-based community and policy uh what's the quantitative profile of well-being so we have third party partner at Gallup to to Baseline and measure well-being so we get a sense of of of of the subjective um and then what could a Miami Beach blueprint look like that would be unique because of course Miami Beach is um is frankly its own animal um so how would we co-author that for outcomes uh the deliverable of that six-month assessment is the report right qualitative quantitative report uh around well-being so really focus is on the dimension of a well-being strategy U for the entire Community um the second deliverable is recommendations if you guys want to go do this here's where we would start uh the third is a proposal for five-year partnership to to do it with blue zones and then the final deliverable is our team works with u probably a couple of you but a couple members of the community to develop sponsorship ship so at the end of the day this is not taxpayer funded work uh this work is um uh resourced by uh not predominantly not for-profit Health Systems and health plans uh as you might expect they have um a lot of value capture that comes with uh um improving the health and well-being of an entire city thank you um I'm gonna pause there yeah thank you commissioner bod uh Vice chair Suarez uh would you like to move this to the full commission I move it second sure okay all right so on to the next item thank you so much for the presentations and we'll hear this at the full commission thank you guys yeah next item is 28 thank thank you item number 28 is to discuss a request for resolution to notify City via LTC of any demolition application applied for Within historic districts it's a planning item this is my item trying to concentrate um I lost my place I'm sorry okay um thank you Debbie um if you would te this up I'd appreciate it absolutely thank you madam chair um members of the committee um so this um discuss is regarding uh the demolition of buildings within historic districts um as I think most of you are aware in March of this year a state um bill was signed into law which uh is very specific it it preempts the city from our normal demolition process for a very specific portion of the city um our normal process is when a building within a historic district is proposed for demolition that they would go through the public hearing process at the historic preservation board what this law does is for properties that are partially or in whole seaword of the coastal Coastal Construction Control line um it preempts us from that public hearing process it requires the city to review these demolition permits only in terms of the Florida building code the fire prevention code the Life Safety Code and other applicable requirements that would be for any other similarly situated property um we have outlined in our memo the areas that it would affect it it affects portions of five local historic districts as one as well as one local Historic Site um and what this discussion proposes is to because we can't have the public hearing process to to create an LTC when a demolition permit when a demolition permit is applied for in these very limited areas um that would be posted on the city's website to increase transparency for all affected parties thank you Debbie uh did either of you have anything to share yes uh just quick question Debbie uh certainly fully supportive of this but uh my understanding from the unsafe structures Act is or bill is that um a a property in one of our historic districts could be uh demolished with a demolition order from any building inspector wouldn't just have to be in the city so this could come from the county or things like that is that correct that's that's actually been the law um for for as long as I've been here if there is an unsafe structure through anywhere within the city and that is ordered to be demolished it can be demolished without the public hearing process however ever if that property is within a local historic district and this will continue uh for properties that are Westward of the cccl um we do notify the historic preservation board at a public forum and then the after the fact requirements for demolition are triggered which does require that public hearing process so a demolition order for a life and safety matter that hasn't really been affected by this law what this law does is it looks at certain properties that that are along the ocean basically and says you don't have to go to the historic preservation board even if it's not an unsafe structure if it is an unsafe structure you don't have to go to the board if it if it's not you still can bypass the board which means you're bypassing the public process I guess where I'm going with this is uh it wouldn't just have to be a Miami Beach building inspector that could issue uh uh a demol not a demolition permit but but essentially say this structure is unsafe that then would allow the building to be theoretically demolished so is correct when we're talking about this here will we only be notified can the demolition permit only be issued by our city I just want to be sure that we're capturing any type of demo permit um of course this will uh capture if we get one from our city but could this actually be uh a permit granted from a jurisdiction outside of our city so that's a very good question so the Miami date County can issue a demolition order however Miami date County cannot issue that demolition permit that order would then go through our city building department process and our building official would would approve the permit okay so we'll be capturing everything so correct yeah certainly fully supportive I move great thank you um I'll second that and uh Stephanie uh commissioner bot would like to co sponsor this item I'd like to co-sponsor as well and co-sponsor commissioner Fernandez and um commissioner I just put on the record Madam chair with this because one of the things that's concerning about this as commissioner magazine has mentioned is the unsafe um building aspect of this the unsafe structure aspect of it and that a simple unsafe violation um could yield a demolition permit uh and and it almost for me it seems it seems like you know perhaps we should be more aware of when a property reaches that unsafe threshold of when a property might be issued an unsafe violation because then that all of a sudden now becomes almost like for like a better term like the lwh hanging fruit for someone to come in or a developer to come in or some predatory person to come in and take advantage of the situation to circumvent uh the regulations that otherwise a um a responsible property owner uh would have to abide themselves by uh so I just you know want to put that out there because it's just something that we may want to consider thank you so we'll move this to the full commission and then we'll go on to item number 32 item number 32 is discussion regarding possible restructure of the Next Generation Council this will be presented by commissioner mag aine and his Aid Comm magazine thank you so much um certainly it's been a focus and priority of mine of getting younger people uh involved in our city I think uh you know in any democracy you need to be represented by a large and diverse uh array of your residents and I think often times in our city uh it's been more skewed um away from some of uh the younger uh people that are living working in our city so I think we've had challenges in getting this committee uh real traction and just want to give this a chance to see we're not going to force a square peg in a round hole but to the extent that we can uh revive and actually make this meaningful um I can promise you we are not just going to do this ceremonially or as a waste of time uh if I could just give uh one minute over to my uh leaz on Lewis my Aid that uh will be the leison on for this committee thank you madam chair thank you board members um so there's just a couple of proposals that as Leon like to make just to make sure that we have this continuity um really quick ones standardized term limits to what other committees have two years and maybe four years term limits just to make sure that people can have a longer term there um lower the Quorum maybe to six and also you have discussed in a commission meeting prior to expand age requirements to 40 years old now I'm going to give you for and against for this um four this is basically because you have rising life expectancies across the developing world and on top of that if we want Beach residents to participate actively then well basically with uh with individuals needing you know more money to live here you would need people that are a little bit farther along in their life and well a good point against would be um that the UN definition for young people is from 18 to 35 years old so you have a couple of points for and against and um currently we have four applicants and two appointees um the people are there and last but not least we had also a a proposal to have like a sort of an event either at Cafe Beres or at medium cool commission magazine and I'm sure the other Commissioners would also like to either participate or help that occur and yeah if we want my be to be better than um the Next Generation to be better than the this generation we need the support from the current and previous ones so please help us out with this thank you wonderful uh commissioner magazine would you like to move the item certainly I mean I would just add that uh you know 40 is young very young um so so I'm very supportive okay so move by commissioner magazine uh seconded by Vice chair Suarez um and I'm in favor so we'll move it to the full commission and then now we'll go on to item number 14 we have 14 or 12 12 12 12 okay item number 12 is discussed Citywide survey of alley conditions specifically but not exclusively lighting pavings and drainage issues commissioner bot and it's co-sponsored by commissioner magazine so um this is an item that I brought um because we have lots and lots of alleys here in the city and lots of Nefarious doings in those alleys um it it came to light no pun intended as we were doing um some work in North Beach and talk to business owners uh about drug dealing that's happening in the alleys behind their business so as we um Revitalize the area around the Normandy fountain with new businesses and people coming in from all over the city and actually outside of the city to go to some of the restaurants um and stores that have opened up there that part is great but behind those businesses it's not great at all and um you know the the grading is questionable so after a rainstorm it it it pools for a while it doesn't drain as quickly as it would like to so it's like straight out of Central Casting you know it's like flickering lights and you know shiny pavement and and and Asault and um lots of hidden nooks and crannies for people to do things that they're not supposed to be doing um and we would like to make the back alleys of North Beach and the city as a whole as safe as the the front storefronts are so with that um I will turn it over to our uh inestimable colleague Joe Gomez to talk about what he's doing and then maybe we can have a quick conversation about it thank you um commissioner bot uh Madam chair vice mayor um Vice chair Suarez and Commissioners so um in the memo we've detailed for you uh some of the activities that uh our Public Works uh team is is conducting Citywide for that that includes pavement assessment of streets and Alleyways as well as conditions of sidewalk uh throughout the city uh lighting enhancements and also uh drainage enhancements I I'll just briefly touched upon each of them in terms of lighting enhancements as you know uh we've been diligently working on a uh total um Citywide uh Street uh smart Street uh lighting enhancement um our current uh project uh which will be let um the summer of 2024 which is Phase 1 C and that's geobond funded includes about 1,400 uh lights that will be retrofitted Citywide in different areas including North North Beach uh mid Beach and South Beach as well and that'll be just part Phase 1 C there'll be a second phase uh phase two uh later on when tranch uh two geobond funds are committed uh that will take care of approximately another 8,000 uh uh lights uh Citywide um pavement condition uh and and that includes sidewalks in and and and and and streets uh we had a consultant complete a assessment uh com combined between the sidewalks and streets of over 300 miles that uh were assessed Citywide um to look at the condition of these uh sidewalks and streets in terms of what would be the priorities uh We've included those reports uh for you uh in in the attached memo but in essence we've ranked those in terms of the the worst conditions um sidewalks which are cracked that need full replacement those will be prioritized if we have a priority 1 through 5 and same thing with resurfacing I did want to mention that based on the assessment that was done of of the sidewalks in the streets um our our general condition overall uh is a favorable condition uh but there are specific areas that we need to address and that's been prioritized and we'll be doing that again uh a lot of it is geobond funded so we are continuing that program we started that program under GE under tranch one and now under tranch two we're going to continue those uh improvements and lastly um uh storm water and which I I know you brought up as a as well as you know we have a a we updated our storm water master plan which was approved by the full commission that includes uh 20 projects of Citywide um that are what we call critical needs that'll be done over a 10-year period in addition to that our Public Works team um goes out in specific locations where we seem to have a spefic specific problem and address those on an as needed basis as well so that is kind of a summary of what I've concluded um I'll be happy to address any questions you have so um if there is a problem area identified like beer Court um that is not high enough necessarily in the the planned work that that is scheduled out that can be elevated to your attention and a team go out to survey and say here's what we can do you know as we're waiting for the bigger Improvement absolutely commissioner we we certainly can do that and and and and as a normal course of business our team does that um in specific areas that we're called upon in Alleyways we get a lot of uh residents sometimes that'll reach out to us about an issue on an Alleyway and we'll go and address that I should also point out that most of the lighting not all but most of the lighting on the Alleyways is are FPL lights so we work closely with FPL when when an issue has brought to us that there's some lighting issues to address with FPL um I don't want to put you on the the spot Chief aosta but I'm going to put you on the spot um just a ballpark um is there a sense of the the ratio of crimes that that happen in in Alleyways I mean drug dealing and that kind of stuff for sure is there a sense of is it 5% is it 50% is it even tracked it might not even be tracked it's not tracked in that manner ma'am um Paul aosta deputy chief on behalf of the Miami Beach Police Department it's not tracked in um in that manner and arrest is an arrest and we just track the location um uh in terms of an address so for example if something's occurring in the 1,000 block of ocean Court that'll come out on the arrest form but we don't specifically um look for Alleyways across the city in particular um but we certainly can well in in our experience um you know folks look for dark and hidden places to do nefarious activities sometimes not just out in the open so there is um there is in our experience um folks that do partake in those particular areas of the city yeah not just for Narcotics activity by the way what else happens in alleys um other other stuff that's not related to this particular topic well this was a good discussion thank you for the update um there's no vote here or go back to the full commission but I know that I call Joe Gomez for different areas all the time I appreciate your responsiveness um same for mdpd so I really appreciate it all right so let's close the item out and then we'll go on to item number 14 item number 14 is discussion regarding the potential adoption of an ordinance regulating excessive vessel noises with a certain distance of residential areas obesity attorney and please okay so uh this item uh was sponsored by mayor Miner and it was back uh in 2022 so um if I could get an update from uh City attorney's office and mbpd on this yes thank you madam chair U Mark Fishman Office of the City attorney so as you aptly mentioned uh mayor minor then commissioner minor in 2022 brought this item forward uh because he was getting and I believe some other elected officials were getting complaints from residential waterfront property owners about excessive noise emanating from vessels uh at the time unfortunately uh the only mechanism that our Police Department had to enforce these violations of this loud music was 7- 26.1 of the Miami dat county code however that is really meant to address engine and exhaust noise because it's measured by a decel meter um where they're in violation if it's more than 90 DB at a distance of 50 ft that was problematic I won't speak for the police department but it was a little problematic to use the decibel readers out on the water however they did a good job of gaining compliance uh just through other means um nonetheless as this commission I'm sure recalls um this commission unanimously approved uh modifying the city's noise ordinance 46-1 52 and Miami Dade County actually did likewise with their noise ordinance 21-28 to specifically include music noise emanating from vessels to be captured within their ordinances so what it does is it now gives the police department that ordinance those enforcement mechanisms whereby for music that's you know in the residential uh neighborhoods that's disturbing the peace quiet and comfort of neighboring inhabitants if they should get a complaint or even if they note it on their own valtion they can either arrest the individual physically take them to jail or issue a promise to appear uh pursuant to the County ordinance or they can issue a civil citation notice with an aine uh pursuant to our ordin so I think uh this commission deserves credit for getting that done I think I think it was in February of this year that that uh ordinance got uh adopted thank you Vice chair Suarez um Paul how how many um from what Mark just mentioned how many issues of citations have we've how many citations have we issued for that uh noise ordinance since it got implemented by our commission sir I don't have that exact number um my apologies for not having that exact number for you today um I know it's a new or um from from what I understand the um the Marine Patrol has been gaining compliance whenever they approach and they identify a vehicle or a vessel that might have be exhibiting excessive noise and they get compliance by asking folks to turn it down um that is my understanding of where we're at currently today um but we're going to continue to monitor to track and then of course enforce whenever we observe it um occurring in our waterways it's a great tool that the commission adopted um and and we generally have problems in and around um Monument Island as it pertains to this particular matter um which a lot of our focus on the weekend is around that particular area so um I'll be more than happy to get you that feedback as soon as I know do you do you think you can bring back to the next yes sir I can neighborhood meeting great absolutely um yes sir okay well thank you um I'm so happy that this item's already implemented and in place we can close this item out and then move to item number two well I if it's possible just leave it open because I want him to come back with the data for do you want it with an LTC or do you want it that's fine LTC fine so let's uh an LTC in 30 days or sooner 30 days okay LTC in 30 days we'll close out this item and then go to number two item number two discussion regarding persons promoting public disturbances and Lessons Learned From the experience of other cities and this is a police second okay so this item uh was sponsored by mayor Miner in May of 2022 um and update from mbpd please good morning again Madam chair Vice chair and members of the committee um back in 2022 you know of everyone um here is a witness to the experience of spring break and how difficult it was for us to uh manage the large crowds and the influx of college students from all over the country um and we did have a um some issues that we had to contend with so after spring break was concluded we took a look at different cities across Florida to see what they experienced during spring break and how perhaps some of those measures can be instituted and brought to our city on top of what we do and to see if we can manage spring break a little better um but since then you know 2023 came about and a course Spring Break recently 2024 and we've been able to uh really wrap our our our heads around in terms of strategy and planning and have been able to really kind of put a lid on Spring Break um for this year so we've been successful but one of the things that we did enact and we got from a city across Florida which was Daytona Beach was the special event Zone that they created and proactively we did our research and and and worked with our legal department in creating one um we we uh modified it um in the second week that we had the special event Zone and that proved to be successful for us is a send a message a strong message to the community and folks coming here that if you commit violations um of law then there's going to be severe penalties attached to that so those preventive measures and and marketing and strategy and and and uh combination of um law enforcement support from our partners across the state uh truly contributed to the success of spring break so for us in our research across the state we're we're we're done with it um we think that we have a very good model we're always learning always trying to improve from one year to the next and we feel very confident that we have a lid on it so to speak thank you thank you for that so what I would ask is if you would uh meet with mayor Miner to ensure that he knows that you've concluded um the research with other municipalities and with that we'll close this item and continue to number 17 number 17 is discuss the process for determining the appropriate Baker Act received receiving facility to deliver a person in need of involuntary mental health examination item hello again excuse me so this is something I um I did right after I um got elected back in January at the January commission meeting um because there seems to be maybe an opportunity to do better um for the folks who get um brought into mental health facilities when they're picked up off the street and they need um they need mental health care um I know that by law we are able to take our um those residents or people on the street um to either Mount saai and or to Jackson um I would suggest all things being equal it's probably better for everybody to get them to Jackson that where they are better equipped to handle folks with really serious um comorbidities mental health and addiction than Mount Si may be um it also you know I lived in that neighborhood for a long time and I'd run out to Walgreens or CVS to do an errand and see people wandering past with hospital gowns on and a bag plastic bag and nothing else so I can't I can't really imagine that that is a great outcome for the people who need the care that we're trying to provide so um I'd love to hear from the experts to talk to us a little bit about why why decisions are made the way they are um I I've heard some anecdotal information that um that perhaps um well I'll stop there thank you ma'am um the expert is is right to my left but I'll open it up by saying that um you know every police officer on the street has the opportunity to evaluate the conditions on the ground with that particular um person um what would fit that person at that particular moment and also based on our history of encountering the same person over and over again the team develops a rapport with them so they kind of understand where they're at mentally um with with their issues that they may have or whether it be substance abuse and choosing the appropriate facility that best fits the needs I think is what gets evaluated on the ground and what's most appropriate at the time keeping in mind that we want our officers to be back in service as quickly as possible so whenever possible we utilize Mount Si as our first choice as a receiving facility for all things Baker Act but Jackson has a more robust program as it pertains to the substance abuse help and and um and programs that they have available to them so it really really depends on what's the issue in front of the police officer engaging that individual Sergeant B good morning Madam chair and members of the D I mean I can't say it any any pler than that um he's absolutely right the deputy chief is absolutely right the decision is made at the time on the street by the officer who encounters the individual who's experiencing some sort of uh psychotic or or or or mental issue at that time um often times we'll get calls from residents or business owners uh complaining about an individual they may hear this individual make certain statements or act in a certain manner but when the officer gets there that officer has to be the one to observe that same behavor Behavior or hear those same statements before we're able to take that person into protective custody once we're we make the decision that we're going to do that we do a quick analysis of a how severe is this disorder how severe is the the the behavior that we're seeing and we make the determination whether to go to mounts at that time or to go to Jackson if it's something that's very severe they're going to Jackson uh if it's something that's kind of minor a few statements that are made a bit of odd behavior we're going to take that person to to M and that's just how we make the determination so the officer who is um going to be transporting the prospective patient cannot let the reported statements or behavior influence his or her decision making is that right so if we if we're given that information by a witness we take that into consideration but then we start to ask questions of the individual who who's exhibiting those behaviors or making those statements to see exactly where they are sometimes people act a little differently when police aren't around obviously right um but if we're doing our investigation or our our analysis of the individual and none of those things none of those statements are made or none of those behaviors are exhibited then we we cannot take the person into protective custody we can make uh hey you might want to go to Mount Si we can offer our services that we do we can do a lot of things but we may not be able to protect them into protective custody and take them to a facility and how much pressure do the officers feel to um go to mount siai instead of um Jackson because the time constraint issue I mean traffic is always a bear I don't know how different the intake or drop off process might be between the two I I just fear that that in the in the the quest to do the right thing lots of different factors obviously play in I don't want the time off the street to be one of them if the person would be best served even if it's less convenient um to be at Jackson so just a quick answer to that is there's no pressure put on the officer to make a decision whether to go to Jackson or to go to mount in terms of time and getting back on into the streets the supervisors worry about those things like that but the officer that's on the scene they that he or she will make that determination to where they need to go because they're they're going to be the best person to do it and they'll let their sergeants know if they need to go out of out of the city that go to Jackson they're not going to be under any pressure at all have we ever tracked the outcome of where people go whether they go to mount siai versus Jackson what the what the resulting actions are if people are getting better help from Jackson like there's not as much recidivism they're not caught up again do we have any of that information or is that something we could put together so I don't know that we track that the way you said it um is it something that we can look at I believe so I would I'd be interested in in getting that information it you know it's not super urgent given everything else is going on but in the next you know couple of months whatever is a reasonable time frame to pull it together I guess as an LTC and then excellent and then you know if if it warrants a further conversation it could be referred back year thank you and thank you for the op update officers uh commissioner Fernandez we're going to wrap this up um would you like to speak yeah yeah I I want to thank commissioner uh bod for for bringing this this item forward I have to say as someone that lives very close to the hospital uh you know there's a public RightWay an Alleyway right next to to my house between my house and and Alton Road and there's been a number of times that you know we've woken up to find uh an individual that either escapes the hospital or is released by by the hospital is you know found there uh or you know you see all their papers there left behind and release I think it's from the sixth floor uh Ward over over at Mount Si and and you know we have to consider is this what is best for our community and I support what commissioner bot said somehow being able to track this the recidivism uh that we that that that that is experienced and do we get perhaps better results by sending this population at their time of most need for most help to the place that perhaps can give them the best support if it's Jackson maybe we should be considering Jackson so I support you and support your approach and would love to be a co-sponsor with you Vice chair Suarez thank you how many thank you madam chair how many Baker acts have we done in this year I don't have that information handy right now that's something I can get to you it's not a problem to get that ballpark I don't I don't I don't know I can't tell you how many because I I deal with my people we got the whole department that uh that does bake racks throughout the entire shifts so I don't want to give you a ballpark figure was I'm sorry I didn't catch that what was that sir what part of it the last the last comment you made I don't want to give you a ballpark figure of yeah I don't know and would it be possible to know um how many of the baker acts you do are repeat offenders yes we can find that out okay so can is I guess that's another LTC that this committee can request okay that's not a problem so ideally it would be for the last three years and this year okay for Baker acts committed three years and this year yeah the yeah got sir no problem thanks and through the chair if I could just one quick question and this isn't scientific Sergeant this is more just uh asking for your anecdotal uh observation seemed to me uh in years past that we had somewhat of a static population of people that clearly weren't mentally well on our streets and maybe in the past two years or so uh there's a I don't want to say an increase but a different population right it seems uh not the same static population of oh there there's this person again uh the ones that we were familiar with it would you share similar observation so we you know I I often say that we are getting a more aggressive um population of homeless folks of folks that are experiencing um Mental Health health issues in our city um and we're more aware of it so they're coming from cities close by they're coming from cities far away and they're coming from other states uh we have people coming in from California and New York and all those different places like that um and they're when they show up they are experien they're in the in the midst of their psychotic episodes and we we deal with it that's helpful feedback I think to tackle any problem you first need to identify it and then tackle some of the root causes so given that information uh hopefully you'd be okay if uh if our team follows up on that to try and you know collectively work on addressing this absolutely thank you so much thank you so we'll close out this item we'll look for ltc's um with the information requested from the body here and we'll move to item number four item number four discussion regarding the status and potential enhancements to the city ring doorbell camera program which pursuant to anou signed in 2019 seeks to make neighborhoods in Miami Beach safer by incentivizing residents to install and utilize ring doorbell cameras thereby allowing residents and the Miami Beach Police Department to share critical crime and safety events and information via the ring neighborhoods platform so this item uh was sponsored by mayor Miner uh in 2022 so commissioner Miner and so mbpd welcome back thank you ma'am I'll I'll open it up for for major Campbell but back in 2018 we proactively looked um at a partnership with the ring company bring doorbell company that everyone is quite familiar with in terms of um providing an extra tool for our investigators to be able to um decrease the amount of time that they're knocking on doors looking for video surveillance pertaining to a crime um with perhaps utilizing the ring platform in being able to gather video um electronically from potential Witnesses in the community that have ring doorbells um so that program was introduced back in uh 2018 um I'll turn over to Major Campbell Who currently oversees the investigative division as the commander yes good morning Madame chair uh Commissioners and everyone else in attendance major Javon Campo to M Beach Police Department's criminal investigations division here to speak on this item as deputy chief aosta mentioned this initiative started in 2018 where it enabled our detectives to be able to identify residents who have ring doorbell cameras and asked them to upload their videos uh via the ring platform to try to gather any evidence um the initial intent of the initiative the initial intent of the program was great and we still find it beneficial because the more tools we have access to the better that being said since 2018 technology has evolved and there are several other companies who offer doorbell cameras in addition to ring fortunately for our detectives through axon we're able to provide a link for any Resident or anyone to upload a video regardless of the manufacturer or provider of their camera for our detectiv to be able to uh view so while we appreciate the ring platform and we do plan to utilize it as needed uh we are committed to accessing and all methods of video regardless of who the provider is and we're committed to uh solving every crime that's committed in our city to make everyone feel safe thank you thank you for the update uh so we'll close this item out and um deputy chief aosta when you meet with mayor minor if you will update him specifically since this was his item absolutely Madam chair uh Vice chair Suarez what what is the potential enhancement do you guys have any requests no no sir not at this time we currently have a contract with with axon which is our our company that provides um tasers and body War camera for us so that ecosystem that we currently um have under that contract provides um uh the latest and greatest ability to get this information from um from potential victims or Witnesses out in the community but it ties into everything else that we do um on our other platforms within within our organization so this is um uh currently the method that we use most because it's um it's just easy to use and it ties in all of uh everything reports video and things like that so okay thank you so we'll close that item and then move to item number 15 item number 15 discussion with possible action regarding the city's implementation of noise meter and Camera pilot program okay this item is from 2023 and it's from mayor Miner um and deputy chief aosta um good morning again Madam chair Vice chair members of the committee um this program uh um is um you know it it was a a phenomenal opportunity for us to really take a look at what's happening across the city in terms of what's causing the extra noise and then Focus resources in those particular areas to try to mitigate uh the noise coming from vehicles and things of that nature uh the program has taken on many iterations it's very very complex in terms of the technology and the partnership that we have with this particular company um major Garcia who oversees the technical um div Technical Support Division um him and his staff have been leading this pilot program that started a few years ago and is here to provide an update good morning Madam chair and Commissioners um I've learned a lot more about noise uh than I ever wanted to learn but uh through this program but um as as uh to provide the latest update um unfortunately uh there has been no legislative change in the state allowing us to do any enforcement from uh by using a camera system to enforce enforce noise so uh throughout this pilot program what we've done is take the opportunity to try to learn as much as we can about uh when noise is occurring and what in how how these these products can uh inform our enforcement efforts so um as you can see there's a thorough memo that's been provided um I will I will say that one of the most uh astonishing findings that we that we've come across is that the incidents seem to be a lot less than what we all think so um I think what happens is the few cars that have loud uh that are that are exhibiting loud noise are heard by many different people at the same same time so that comes across as many incidents where in reality it's uh we found that there's very few incidents per day and per hour um in fact uh when you look at the excessive noise over 100 DB uh we're looking at in all three in all three areas where we've deployed the cameras an average over time of about one in of less than one incident per day and what what less than one incident per day on average that's one in what less than one incident per day on average okay um so uh as a as a final update we uh the the noise cameras were updated to a third generation earlier this year right before spring break we are in on the verge of uh reinstalling those to try to get uh a look at what the third generation does they the company has made incremental uh improvements to their system their platform and their uh Hardware so uh we'll take a look at that last at that last um update upgrade um they've signal to us that they want to end the pilot that has been extended you know over is it originally I think started as a 9 month or uh want to say maybe it was uh I forgot what the initial term was but it's been extended over uh a year and a half so um I think we're going to end it this summer at some point um but we come back with a final report if that's what you desire um I think I'd like to move this to the full commission so it could be a discussion with all of us um and it is interesting that you're saying that there may be one incident heard by many people one particular area that I hear uh complaints about loud cars often is South the fifth uh they do um have that um and I also was a concerned to hear that no legislative changes have allowed us to move forward with some items and I do know that mayor Miner um would probably want to hear that and he has been in contact with the governor on other items maybe at the full commission it would be a decision that whoever our lobbyist is for Tallahasse for next session could potentially bring this item as something uh to Lobby four on the city's behalf uh is everyone Vice chair Suarez thank you madam chair uh so we have a program now where we have sound uh detection devices throughout the city and where exactly are they placed our original locations were uh 41st Street and uh Indian Creek a Indian Creek uh second the south location was uh 8 Street and Washington Avenue and uh the north uh the area three Loc was 1 12200 block of 7 uh I'm sorry yes 12200 block of 71st Street okay and those those those locations have been there since the beginning of the program we've we've changed loc we changed the original location on 41st Street when we found that um after a few months we saw the data that the camera was at an intersection that intersection 41st Street in Indian Creek where every fire truck goes by every ambulance goes by every dump truck that was working on the beach R nourishment project was going by and they were causing uh uh excessive activations and we were not able to identify exactly uh we weren't able to isolate uh the target which was ex uh cars of excessive noise and who sets the threshold for what the the there's there's no threshold per se um the the the the we just have to determine what we had to make a decision of what we considered an excessive uh a noise versus just general traffic noise and if you look at the scatter graph the the way we did the way I did that was I looked at the scatter graph on page uh three of the memo and you can see that there's kind of a a a a dividing line where um most traffic is below that line and then you can see that there's these outliers above a 100 uh Deb that we consider that to be a quote unquote excessive noise uh event so the the the thresholds are set by Statute okay so uh we before we got elected the three of us on here there was a there was an ordinance passed for excessive noise I think commissioner fernanz did that item um where you know we can site uh a vehicle for a modified exhaust system how many citations have have we given out for that commission I don't have that data in front but we do track that data that comes out in a weekly report yes yes so can that be another LTC that you you give out I'd like to know uh the last three years or since the the ordinance was passed and the rest of this year yes sir and if we're going to be bringing it to the commission yeah you definitely guys want to be have that data with you okay one other interesting point that I'll make to the chair that she uh alluded to noise south of fist street is that we one of the things that we found is that um almost almost 35 to 38% of our excessive noise activations are from exotic Vehicles so south of fifth a place where you find a lot of exotic Vehicles it stands to reachon that you get a lot of complaints okay thank you so we'll move on to item number 22 perfect and just to recap we're going to have an LTC with the data and take this to commission for full discussion thank you and item number 22 discussion regarding mbpd officers being delayed while transporting prisoners to the Turner Gilford Knight Correctional Center this is also police item thank you this item was from 2022 uh mayor Miner and mbpd for the update morning m'am one second so M um in the course of Duties um the Miami Beach Police Department DET Detention officers and police officers have to transport prisoners to a TGK ATT of Guilford Knight Center um which is outside of our city limits in um believe it's unincorporated Miami day County or Durado and um during that process sometimes depending on the amount of prisoners um that might be processed at that moment ahead of a Miami Beach police transport van um there's sometimes uh an opportunity where we experience delays in uh in that processing um this is solely at uh the control of Miami day County correctional facilities um it all depends time of day is it is it the weekend is it a busy um holiday weekend and things of that nature where more folks are getting arrested around the county um um and then Here Comes Miami beach with a set of prisoners to be processed as well so what we do have is we do have ongoing communication with uh with uh Miami day County Corrections and from time to time when this pattern of delays becomes really really eccentric in nature or over a period of time we connect with them to kind of find out maybe there was a change in process that we need to adapt to or be aware of so we can um um you know uh create a different strategy when it comes to transporting our our prisoners um we can't help it all the time um but what we are concerned about is the amount of time that our officers are at a facility waiting to processed prisoners we we'd rather have them here um working on the roads um uh currently as it stands detention offices are the ones that transport prisoners um sometimes they might be in a company of a police officer sometimes it's a police officer that transports the prison dependent on the type of arrest circumstance whether injury or the prisoner's violent and things of that nature um but um you know all of us have served in this capacity um throughout our careers and have made AR rest and sometimes you can get to this facility and it's a quick In-N-Out and sometimes just stuck for a while and it's just the nature of the business but nonetheless we try to communicate effectively to try to mitigate it thank you and in the conclusion of the item it said that um at the N next Association of chiefs of police meeting um you would schedule time so or time would be scheduled to discuss this to see if there's a way to streamline it uh more committee members any comments thank you deputy chief uh sir you over the years uh observed uh several police Chiefs uh before our previous one all men I respect very much and they would uh one of the things that they would say and obviously uh paraphrasing here these weren't the exact words but one of the challenges with making arrests especially in high impact weekends is because of the amount of time it takes police officers off the street um so we've identified the problem but we never took it a step further and said okay what can we do for a solution here uh you all are the on the ground experts right please let us know what we can do because we can't just have a a problem that we've identified and not address it so please come to us and say Here's the problem we want to fix this this is the support that we need from you is it throwing things against the wall I I don't expect this but just as an example uh the um the equivalent of a park ranger that could you know be uh uh for transportation or something along those lines come and tell us what legislative uh support that you all need to fix this problem and you'll get it from us commissioner thank you I just want to add one quick thing when it comes to high impact weekends we partner with Miami day County Corrections and they actually send us support staff so that when we make arrest they can receive and process them and then take them over for us um it's not something that they are uh willing to do on a regular basis they have their own functions and responsibilities but that is where we lean on them um as a county to help us during these high impact re uh uh weekends it's sort of a a way to help mitigate it as wellion U commissioner spot um commissioner magazine to your point um I've actually submitted an item um can't remember where it is wending its way through the process but to hire two um or to look at hiring two additional jailers I think they're they're called and and chief please um correct me if I'm wrong but so that we don't have to take our police officers off the street it's um you know the arrest is made and then they're transported to our jail facility uh here in town and then they are held there and we don't have to call somebody back off their their beat to help transport that group of people to to um the County facility so hopefully when that item comes up before us we'll all be like Yay yes all right uh Vice uh chair Suarez thank you madam chair um you know David wallik actually had a great idea I don't know if he shared this with you but if there was possibly a way where we can have like a correctional bus um somewhere on Miami Beach where you know the officer doesn't have to necessarily go to tjk it get they get processed on a bus it it goes through you know the bureaucratic process and then um then there's a transport vehicle that takes all of them after everyone is sort of um processed have you guys considered anything similar to that idea well commissioner we we have that as it pertains to our high impact weekends is what what I was referring to so like for example Memorial Day weekend um or spring break we bring the prisoners to the station as we typically do because we are authorized as a temporary holding Facility by the state um we can only hold prisoners or or arrestes for six hours and then they must be transported by law so this helps us alleviate any backlog of prisoners being processed and gets them to the facility um a lot quicker but um on a routine regular basis we don't have that process in place um we have not explored what it would cost um as it pertains to having one of their full-time folks over here on a regular basis but um quite frankly with the amount of arrest that we have per year is something that we can manage with the process we have in place so an officer makes an arrest out on the street brings them to the police station there's a processing um steps that that have to take place and then that person is prepared for transport by a detention officer and another detention officer or police officer um over to the uh TGK facility where they get processed there and then they ultimately released so we have a process in place that we think I think the idea was more so for the drug dealers on the street you get them off the street and you make it very cumbersome to because like you know there's a there's that saying you you arrest them they're back on the street the same day if you put them through some sort of bureaucratic nightmare yeah where they're they're physically off the street and they can't do anything and you know that's less money to their uh to to to the people who hire them to sell the drugs I'll tell you something sir you know it all all depends on the time of they as an example um somebody that does get arrested can end up being in custody for quite a bit of time between our temporary custody um and the time to get transported and um the custody time over at the Turner Gord night Center so sometimes it could be very uncomfortable Depending on time of day and how quickly people get processed so okay okay well thank you we'll close out this item and move to number 18 item item number 18 is to discuss the polic Department's implementation of the latest crime prevention technology such as the realtime crime Center security cameras rapid DNA testing and drone utilization and it'll be a police item okay uh this item came up in 2023 sponsored by mayor Miner and mbpd yes ma'am good morning again um I have to my left um the commander of tech support um division major Garcia that can provide an update good morning again everybody um I will go through each of the uh each of the four categories and give you an update if you have any questions please fire away uh far as the realtime Intelligence Center as you all know this is an high priority project for the city um we have hired one full-time realtime crime specialist we have uh we are in the process of Hiring Our second we also have one police officer working in the realtime Intelligence Center uh as an assignment while he recovers from an injury um as far as a construction timeline uh so there's four uh there's four units that need to move out of that wing of the Police Department headquarters in order for construction to completely begin three of those four have already moved out um at the last Commission meeting you all approved um our lease for um our uh space that we'll be moving into so uh we anticipate we'll be there by June 1st on or about June first and that will clear out the space so that the contractor can begin uh full demolition um after that it should take a few months of construction hopefully and before the end of the year we should have uh be able to to uh reoccupy the space including the realtime Intelligence Center being open full-time uh drones uh we uh recently renegotiated our contract with axon that begins uh later this year as part of that uh contract we've expanded our uh drone Fleet by five additional aircraft and we've uh now deployed uh full-time drone operators not full-time we' we've deployed drone operators to all three shifts so there the there's someone always available uh to uh deploy a drone as needed uh the types of CA the types of calls where we deploy a drone are listed in our memo and those include shootings and homicide scene mapping traffic crash scene mapping uh spring break and high impact crowd assessments protest monitoring and assessments as Allowed by law homeless outreach program uh one of the things we do is we check the vegetation for encampments we do that on regular basis uh we check the SE to make sure uh there's no encampments in the seots uh we also respond to various types of in progress crimes uh CCTV cameras as you know we have a very robust CCTV camera Pro uh program in the city uh we have approximately 1500 camera views with many many more coming online uh in the near future including the completion of the beachwalk uh hopefully by next year and uh a large project to cover City parking garages so um that program continues to expand and finally rapid DNA so rapid DNA is a crime uh is a crime scene uh tool that they used for many years uh back in 2017 um unfortunately due to due to the pandemic and other budgetary constraints that program was discontinued but I believe there's an item now to renew it and put that back into uh into use by our crime scene unit thank you commissioner Fernandez has a question or comment thank you madam chair um just wanted to touch on uh on on a few points um first and formost with the co um a concern a recurring concern that I have is the amount of homeless individuals that we have in the SE I know that the department on a regular basis does and you just mentioned using the technology using drones how often are we doing this uh I think Sergeant baring will be best uh suited to respond to that again good morning all uh so we were doing it every week uh at one point in time now we're probably doing it every two to three weeks um and when we do it we obviously we see that there's a need to continue it so we're doing the so we're we're we're searching the seals once every two or three weeks once once once every two weeks how could we do that a little bit more frequently because here's my concern um and again I understand it's all about the allocation of resources uh and that's why for us it's important to hear this from you all um as as we become more proactive as as you all are and this organization as a city is in its enforcement of of its policies having to do with individuals who are camping in public or as we go about engaging more proactively with our homeless population the population will move correct and so if they see you guys on Ocean Drive they'll they'll move to Lincoln Road and they see you guys on Lincoln Road they'll move to Washington they'll move to North Beach to Northshore open space park or they'll move to 71st Street they'll move to the SE I see it on a regular basis we have individuals who are living in the SE and not only living in the se but damaging uh this this area that's supposed to be protected and supposed to protect us and our residents and our Islands uh what can be done to more proactively uh or on a more regular basis be leveraging this technology that the department has to search the cosos uh for individuals that shouldn't be in there so as you know um we we've made a ton of arrests for folks in SE those folks seem to come back it doesn't matter that they get arrested they come back and we rearrest and we rearrest uh we can go back to trying to do this once a week it's just about coordination because it's not just uh police we got to get sanitation there Beach operations so that as we move and we find encampments um we can uh address those at that time same time also with the staff of 771 so it's a it's a pretty big operation that takes a while to do to complete in a daytime what can we do I mean I think the expectation is for for for this to happen on a more regular basis I don't uh I get you're doing what you can with your resources but what instead of doing it two or three uh every two or three weeks what can we do to do it on a weekly basis let's say at minimum and it seems I'm I would feel that probably even on a weekly basis is not enough because I'm sure we'll hear from residents that you know see this deputy chief I see like comments sorry I I guess my my facial expressions you know when you just want to jump at something um the answer to your question commissioner I don't want you to belate that there is more opportunity that we can do um this is something we can do and we'll work with the other departments to to see if we can get everyone together to do it at least once a week but from us from our standpoint if we could throw up the Drone once or twice a week um we'll be in a better place so we'll work on that thank you and I just want to one one other point Madam Madam uh chair uh you know ever since I got elected the realtime crime Center has been a priority uh I'm excited that last year we were able to bifurcate the real-time crime center from the contract for the rest of the construction project at the police station and now it's kind of like its own Standalone so they can move at a more expedited Pace uh following the will of the city commission you all heard that message and you all moved quickly uh to uh to make that shift um do you feel that you have all the technology that you guys need uh to support uh the intent of this facility yes commissioner as a matter of fact uh thanks to the commission uh of I want to say I for I forgot if it was the April meeting or maybe March uh but you guys did approve a bid waiver for constant Technologies to do our technology implementation that was a major step that uh we needed to get across the finish line and uh thankfully that is all done I think we're all set we have our we have our temporary Bridge space that we can move to I think everything is in place uh to get this uh moving and uh done and the delivery date for the for for our R new CRI it's expected to be this year yes this year that's expected yes I'm excited for it so we sir thank you thank you uh Vice Suarez so I don't know if Sergeant bear wants to come up one more time um when you say we arrest them and we keep on arresting them for sleeping in the Sea Oats what are you arresting them on what charge for being in the sea it's a it's a crime to be in the sea so it's trespassing so how many this year have have been arrested or what are the St I can get that number to you I don't have it in front of me right now but I can get that to you okay can you give me the last three years and and the rest of this year as well please absolutely okay LTC right okay so we will uh get an LTC with uh that information please give an update to Mayor Miner and then we'll close this out and move to item number three okay item number three discussion regarding the Marchman act and Baker Act framework for assisting persons requiring temporary evaluation ater treatment for mental health or substance abuse issues and the city's comprehensive approach and strategies for providing assistance to such persons protecting the community some of this stuff has been here since for hour um so this was uh from June of 2022 uh sponsored by mayor minor and mbpd TI up good morning again ma'am um so two areas that we concern ourselves with as it pertains to State Statute and that's the enforcement or the Baker Act provision and the Marchman act provision as well two separate things um the team quite frequently encounters folks out there in the streets on a daily basis when they connect with them that might qualify for either or um I can tell you that um um as it pertains to the marchment act the facility for us that works the best and we think provides the best Services is Jackson um the Baker Act has the option of both but we generally transport to the nearest facility which is um Mount siai hospital um the process is uh for us is ongoing as the team develops and develops a rapport with each and every one of these individuals um out on the street there comes a time where there's a success story um do the constant contact and and perhaps you might catch that person on a day in which they are really really fed up with the conditions or what's in front of them they do take us upon uh take us up on the services that we provide them or have um readily available to offer and there becomes a success story and over the years we've had a few of those and that's the ultimate goal of what we do each and every day is to get our folks off the street get them the treatment that they they deserve that they may not be aware of um and then get them into a better place in life generally so Sergeant baring if you can talk to a little bit of that maybe perhaps some of the success stories in the Ala all right so obviously we we didal with two different things we deal with Baker acts we deal with Marchman acts Baker acts deal with mental illness uh and psychotic episodes and our Marchman acts deal with substance abuse um problems and issues so back in 2016 we we we had we came up with a strategy of how we can better utilize the Marchman process to assist us with our homeless folks on Miami Beach so back in 2016 uh several of the laws changed which allowed the police department to become a petitioner uh before that it was the family member so if I had a brother who was under the influence of something I could go to the judge and ask the judge to commit my brother into a facility to assist him once once the law changed it allowed the police officers to be able to do that to be that petitioner so what we've done over the years is we've identified five folks that are on Miami Beach who are under the influence of some substance um and we become the petitioners we go to the judge we we we develop a report with that individual get some background information on we see that they are a constant strain on the services that we have whether it's police whether it's fire whether it's Cod um they that we believe that that person may die on the streets if a judge doesn't intervene so we create a folder pictures all the times that they've been engaged or interacted with by the resources that we have we present that folder to the judge and we ask the judge to place them into a treatment facility we have not been denied yet over 65 cases we haven't been denied yet um that person goes into the facility 90 days is the initial order and we monitor them along the way meaning my team goes out to visit them we keep in contact with the case managers so forth and so on if we see or if we're given information that the person's not ready upon their 90-day completion uh we can go back to the judge and request an extension another 30-day extension if by chance that person in the initial you know 10 15 days or whenever they do if they abcon from the facility chances are they're going to come back to Miami Beach because that's what they know we see them uh we can take them to jail or we can take them back to the facility uh the program has been very successful I've been allowed to travel the country to talk about the program and it's success um and we are here now right now we currently have four people in facilities and they're coming along just fine thank you um colleagues do you have any questions appreciate the update um Alba did you want to say something quickly no just Alba office of Housing and Community Services our team works very closely whether it's with the homeless resource officers or the mobile crisis units we've also invested Heavenly into contracted specialized providers for specialized Outreach as well as pre-treatment treatment beds Residential Treatment beds to help those as they transition up thank you for the update so we'll close this item and move on to number one item number one discuss a potential Statewide legislative proposal to provide additional mental health evaluation support and services for persons in need uh this was uh from 2023 from mayor Miner and uh mbpd morning ma'am more along the same lines of um of the constant amount of services that that we provide both on the mental health side and the substance abuse side um there is no magic um potion so to speak to effectively uh deal with the homeless population and just simply um you know uh get rid of it so to speak for lack of better term um but there are things that perhaps that can be added through legislation that will bridge the gap and provide more services um to our homeless Outreach population um we don't we don't know what the outcome of that would be but they are suggestions um as an example a discharge plan with an evaluation by a clinician or doctor uh within 7 days after their initial treatment um a link to community based service and community health centers use of a peer program um uh facilitation of other barriers that that they encountered to include Insurance equipment um Wheelchairs and things of that things of that nature that they might need upon um discharge from a facility and also basic life needs which include you know housing uh food um water and things of that nature because if they don't have that continuance of care once they're released they're going to be back on our on our streets um in the same pattern of repeat behavior um so you know the city provides an array of services that support the individuals in the community for mental health and and substance abuse um we realize that each and every day we're making strides in the community but it it truly you know is is not enough so perhaps with some of these suggestions if some sort of legisl we are in support of legislative uh any legislative process that would help bridge the gap and and provide more services okay thank you um commissioner Fernandez thank you madam chair um Chief in in the memo provided by the administration I see a reference to the use of the peer program could you expand on that a little bit please I'll I'll I'll touch on it and I'll turn that over to Barett so the peer program for example and I think we have our best example um here um that works with bar team a person that has experienced the the homelessness in the past that has been through the trials and tribulations of getting their life back in order um is now a a proponent is now that example to other people going through that program and they encourage and they me and they Mentor them throughout the program I think this is something that if it was codified in um some legislative process um would help us out a bit Bear yeah so obviously we know who ball is and Bo has that lived experience and he he's a direct conduit between us and the folks that are on the street the one of the problems with when you deal with uh bakera at through a hospital facility is is going to be Hippa and how much information can be provided to that Pier so the pier would probably have to come from the hospital side of it uh in order to deal with those folks where there is no Hippa uh concern between employee and and and patient with the discharge plan through the chair um evaluation of a followup with a CL with with a doctor within seven days after the initial treatment is that required now or is that something that is being that you all feel that might so that is not required at this time so the things that that are on this list are things that have to be codified it has to be legislated through maybe Mark Fishman can can touch on it a little bit better sure and and so and and and I would imagine uh Mr attorney that these would be State policies that need to be amended it wouldn't be our policies that need to be amended that's exactly right commissioner state law would have to be amended not and are there other jurisdictions for example when we talk about a discharge plan uh which which it seems something that that makes sense but are there other jurisdictions that do this uh other parts of the country perhaps that have something similar uh is there a measure of their success so not that right now that I'm aware of you we have uh you know a lot of Baker acts more so than a lot of other places local places that we that we're aware of so to our knowledge there's no other uh jurisdiction or no other agency who has the issues that we have and or are trying to come up with Solutions the way we're coming up with again these would have to come through uh State legislation okay um committee members any other comments so here's what I will ask um when you have your meeting with mayor Miner we're going to close this out this item out here but if he his intention was to have a legislative change that needs to be a deeper conversation and we can bring something back so this will be closed and then uh leave it for you to discuss with uh mayor Miner okay so um item number five item number five is discuss options in order to address the police department's concerns regarding the case dispositions data provided by the Miami Dade County Clerks of the Court okay uh this was sponsored by mayor Miner in 2022 mbpd morning again ma'am um this was a a a process this was a a difficult process back in 2022 and getting outside entities on board with us to provide us with um disposition data um and I'm going to turn it over to Major Garcia in a minute but what we learned quickly um was that the since we don't manage this data the data coming back to us was not comparable to what we had in terms of arrest data so um there was ongoing dialogue there was a process in place to try to get this cleaned up um and I'll let major Garcia provide the update on it thank you Chief uh again Eric Garcia tech services so this particular this particular item we're dealing with we're we're discussing case dispositions at the end of the prosecution process specifically there was a lot of data things that uh a lot of data items that we've been discussing but this particular item is only dealing with what happens at the end of a case and what the final uh result of those cases are so uh back in uh back in uh 2022 we started working with the Clerk of Court's Office the way that they the way that uh we made the request and they required us to make the request for this data was through a public records request we tried to tailor it as specifically as possible to the data that we needed obviously we only need uh data for Miami Beach we did we don't need data for all the other agencies in in Miami dat County uh so that's what we were looking for um the data ended up being provided at at some point we we tried to validate it and verified against our information that we have internally it wouldn't match up we tried to uh work with the county Clerk's off so it's a complicated process because the clerks the county clerk uh uh has their own it they have the county itd department also um uh provides services to the clerk of court um and we have the prosecutor's office which is completely separate so all these entities um have this mishmash of data and we were trying to get uh we were trying to get a source of disposition data that was accurate to Miami Beach cases uh we worked through we worked very hard including with our own it Department to try to um uh ensure that the data that we were receiving was accurate and we were never able to do that um so there's two problems that we there's two problems that we that we ran into number one they would not provide us uh they they could not provide us with Miami Beach only arrest uh CA uh information meaning we would get a big data set and we would have to then parse it out to figure out which are the Miami Beach cases what we ran into is that there's other agencies in Miami Dade County that use our same case number format that would cause a big problem we ended up with cases from City of Aventura in our disposition list and we just couldn't we couldn't end up fixing that uh a second big problem that we had uh was figuring out how do we continuously update this data because as you know in Miami date County a can last from a few hours to several decades so how do we how how often do we receive updates what do those update look like even when cases are closed they can be reopened if if an offender um uh violates their probation and they they get a Bene warrant issued so there was a there's there's many complexities to figuring out uh case end of case dispositions by us and again we'll never going to own the data so we'd always have to get it provided by the clerk's office so after after much frustration and we have uh Frankie Tano from it who can uh uh describe some of those things that uh I'm not technically Savvy enough to describe um what we recommend to the commission is Reach Out is is let's try to have the clerk provide this as a standardized product okay so this um the urging said for the administration to urge the appropriate County agency or Department um and I'll ask the attorney Mark Fishman what does that mean do we need to send this to the full commission and the urging would be in uh that formal manner can somebody pick up the phone and call yeah no that that's a good question obviously the mied county clerk of the court uh is the owner of this data it is it is their data um you could do it either way we could certainly um you know move it to the full commission and the commission could adopt the resolution urging them to provide this data I do know there are certain um Commissioners who are who are also um working on this data along with other data complete set of data uh with the clerk's office um so e either way would work okay um uh commissioner Fernandez did you want to speak yes thank you madam chair so let me let me ask you uh Captain Garcia um so there's been communication with with with the clerk of the courts as recently as over you know as recently as in the past month um on a variety of of of information not just thisinformation but other in information relating to habitual offenders and and that type of stuff where are we in our conversations uh with between us have we provided the clerk of the courts with all the information that uh that we're requesting so that they can produce for us the what we're requesting that's a good question commissioner I know that there was recently a meeting with uh with the new Clerk of Court who uh seems to be a lot more willing to work uh with providing data and a lot be a lot more open with their data so um I I really if if you if you prefer to to to pass on this item and just uh defer it we can maybe reach preer I would I would prefer an answer because I facilitated that meeting I coordinated that meeting and and there was supposed to be communication between our city and and and the clerk of the courts as to the information that we need from the clerk of the courts so I need to know where are we and asking this is an item that's been on the table for two years we finally have a clerk of the court that is willing to collaborate and to cooperate with our city in providing us the information that we need to support the city's law enforcement efforts and so and so where are we where are we in providing the information that the clerk of the courts needs to so that so that so that we can deliver on this uh I can't answer that I was not at that meeting but I will tell you that um as far as but there was supposed to be followup after that meeting staff was supposed to follow up after that meeting so I can facilitate all the meetings that I can in the but I'm only a policy maker it's up to staff then to follow up so where are we on the followup I see we have our Chief Information officer Madam chair if I could recognize him hi good morning Frank inana uh CIO for the city of Mii Beach uh responsible for the IT department uh the meeting that we had a couple weeks ago with the clerk uh although for related matters was more specific to a parallel initiative to track repeat offenders and some additional uh awareness that we were looking for for uh that meeting came um we had the discussion with them about some of the things at a high level that we were looking for uh the discussion ended with a effort to coordinate between the police department information technology and the clerk's office and representatives to put together a list of data that we would require from them uh that was not specific to this particular uh topic here which is the disposition part there are a number of items that are in parallel there are similar conversations but they're just they're all related they're all interrelated correct they're all interrelated however to Major Garcia's prior point about the complexity of some of these things some information comes from one location some information comes from three so it's part of an ongoing discussion um we have every intention of reaching out to the clerk's office again and resurfacing this particular topic I think that there was a perception at the time that this was closed out with the language that's in the memo that the clerk's office believ this matter to be closed because it's not something that has a simple solution to it um understanding that this is something that we want to revisit I will take that on and most certainly you know rehash that discussion with them to make sure that they understand that we want to discuss how we could potentially handle the disposition portion of that um but there is some intra agency related things that major Garcia mentioned as well with duplicate case numbers and that adds a level of complexity that's not a clearcut this is how we get you information so it may be more of a regional discussion more so than just the clerk's office it's going to require a number of agencies to have a stake in that I Madam chair I just want to make sure that whatever information the clerk of the courts needs from us that we're providing it uh I uh and and I would like for us you know as a followup to you know whatever that information is that the city of Miami Beach needs whatever department is in the city of Miami Beach needs to deliver on this or any other related matter that we have having to do with Prosecuting individuals and delivering Justice to our community that we submit that request in writing and that that request be transmitted to us in addition to whatever conversations you all are going to have I need to see the request in writing I need to make sure that we're moving forward with this and I would like to see an LTC delivered to us in the next 15 days showing that this information has been transmitted over to to um to to the clerk of the court we can't make directions at committee but this is I this is something that I would like to see I can't direct you to to to do that but um but that would be my desire at least thank you all right so committee members um and David had just had said yes uh we want to follow the conclusion that it's uh the resolution where the city commission will urge the appropriate County and other departments to make disposition data available to municipalities um if we could move forward with that and David had said yes before he left um move move forward to the full commission so we'll close that out and with that we'll move to number six okay item number six discuss enhanced mail notice requirements as it relates to the special events guidelines and this will be presented by tourism and PD will get a break thank you um commissioner Fernandez was the sponsor would you like to Tee It Up thank you madam chair um I think I I I think this this item the title kind of uh speaks for itself it's an intent to ensure that our residents and our stakeholders are well aware of the uh special event um review meetings that take place uh for for different events coming into our our community I think a lot of times um in the past uh residents sometimes were caught by surprise uh when when special events were popping up in their surroundings and their in in their neighborhoods it create it created um the necessity to enhance the way that we communicate with our residents and their ability to participate in these uh special event review committees uh we passed legislation on this and we've asked our our tourism Department to uh work on enhancing this and I'd like to recognize the set our G to tell us where we are today as opposed to where we were perhaps even a year ago in our Outreach efforts and our uh efforts to engage the community in these uh meetings so Madam chair I'd like to recognize lad thank you commissioner good morning Madam chair committee members Lis Garcia rante director of Tourism and culture City of Miami Beach uh we have been working as commissioner Fernandez mention for over a year now in enhancing our notification for special event Community review meetings for our residents uh we last up provided an update at the March 2024 meeting where we shared all the steps that we have taken in the past year which is now we publicly notice all of our monthly Community review meeting um um events uh we also have worked with our it Department to create a link where residents can subscribe through during our main page right now we have close to 3,000 subscribers to our newsletter uh we also worked with uh neighborhood Affairs division when we have a much bigger event to kind of do a webinar series we did that last year with the national cycling league so that we can kind of share the information of these higher impact events and since the March update based on your feedback we've gone even further now and done even more Outreach and so I'll share that with you today uh working with our City's uh marketing Communications Department we've added the sign up uh information to our dat their database which has about 36,000 residents we have shared this uh sign up page as well on our City's face Facebook page it has about 56,000 followers our own arts and culture distribution mailing list which has about 11,000 subscribers and our department directly has sent a signup information to uh the Oda so be safe adna wava uh Espanola Way Collins Park MBNA so that they can share within their own um networks in addition to that what we're doing moving forward with uh assistance of our colleagues in marketing communication and the neighborhood Affairs division is to even further uh send Outreach for this sign up to the Mii Beach ZIP codes of 33139 33140 33141 uh and we're also sending it to the database of Miami Beach homeowners association so we're make sure that we're covered uh that we really sent this information everywhere so that our residents are able to participate in these uh special and review Community meetings thank you Lett and through the chair I'd like to ask you so before we implemented this what were we doing a year ago what were we doing a year ago what we had is we had the the special event Community review meeting however um we had not implemented since your leadership we have implemented uh publicly noticing it and done more Outreach but we didn't do any of of this a year ago wonderful and have we seen an increase in Resident participation and Resident feedback in these meetings yes absolutely and we've even noticed uh Even in our comment chat that uh residents have mentioned I learned about this through the Collins Park neighborhood newsletter how can I sign up and so it's really uh getting out there to our residents wonderful with that um ma Madam chair um I'd welcome any feedback from the committee on any other enhancements that they feel we might need to do to the notification but I want to thank uh the the department and the administration for seriously taking this feedback on the necessity to well notify our residents and our stakeholders on these events that go into their neighborhoods that often times impact parking or traffic noise or just the general quality of life of our residents by getting our residents and stakeholders engaged from the conceptual uh beginning of these of of these events were able to better mitigate uh the challenges that in the past we were only reacting to now we can prevent uh these from from occurring in our residents neighborhoods uh I'd welcome any feedback from the committee thank you for your leadership commissioner Fernandez uh the city Administration recommends uh that the Commission accept the revisions to the special event guidelines so with that I'll move the item to the full commission all in favor correct okay thank you madam chair turn off your mic item number 13 item number 13 discussion regarding the viability and IL of enacting atten additional sentencing alternatives for use by the City municipal prosecution team as to criminal Municipal ordinances violation and offenders and this will be a City attorney item okay so this item is from mayor Miner and it's from 2022 and the City attorney is going to speak on this or the city attorney's office is going to speak on this yes thank you madam chair Mark Fishman City attorney's office uh as you all know of course the city has its own Municipal prosecution team uh consisting of three three full-time attorneys two a full-time legal assistants and one part-time weekend and holiday uh contract uh attorney uh to prosecute criminal violations of the city's ordinances as you know we're the only city uh in all of Miami County of the 34 municipalities that does so and prosecutes their own offenses I'm very proud to say of of our team um that they prosecute us successfully in excess of 85 up to 86 87% uh of the cases before them um with that being said uh since this item uh was was initially put on the agenda um there are a number of additional sentencing Alternatives that have been adopted you know first and foremost of course one sentencing alternative is someone can be incarcerated and put into Jail uh for upon being convicted um our police department and our office of housing uh and Community Services Department also uh can offer services to individuals whether they're in custody and maybe that's the low point they hit and they're willing to that that Point accept Services whether it be housing or or help for a mental health uh or a substance abuse issue we've off offered that um the commission has also enacted a pre-trial diversionary program uh we do that through a provider called court options and that allows firsttime offenders if they want to accept responsibility for what they did and enter that pre-trial diversionary program uh and complete specific conditions uh to then get their case uh dismissed so they don't have a criminal record although the the arrest would stay on the record um the commission also adopted probation as another potential sentencing alternative um it's it's it's not utilized um it has some difficulties but it can be uh advantageous when there's like restitution due in a case or if we want to get a stay or order probation allows the court to retain jurisdiction over that defendant uh to keep those items restitution and stay orders in place the only remaining sentencing alternative um and I did speak to the sponsor May or minor very recently or more apply he spoke to me um maybe a couple weeks ago um would be minimum mandatory sentences and minimum mandatory sentences would essentially be that if an individual uh commits a certain number whether it be three or four repeat violations of a criminal city ordinance they then would be required as a minimum mandatory to serve a certain number of days in jail whether it be five or seven or 10 or whatever the number is I do believe we have the legal authority to do that um it would it would definitely be uh questioned and disfavored um by by by the system you know again we're the only municipality in myia county that prosecutes Zone ordinances a couple in Broward I know Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood do so but they don't have minimum mandatories yoy Lopez over there helped me uh help me look at that and and they don't have them that we can find um and the problem with those are it might not have the intended impact because we rely on the judges who have a great amount of discretion in all our cases from setting bonds and keeping someone in custody to how they rule on motions or objections or how they even decide the trial guilty or not guilty and this might be something that like I said might not have the intended impact but that would be the only real sentencing option it is viable the utility I I I think it may end up hampering our ability to effectively prosecute and even secure first or second convictions on individuals who who should be convicted due to the fact that they know what's coming for the third or fourth but that is that is a remaining option that minimum mandatory option okay uh did you have something commissioner M uh thank you Mr attorney um one I put an item on one of the agendas several months ago uh talking about enhan sentencing uh in 2017 uh in Florida enhan sentenc ing uh guidelines were enacted which essentially say that uh any sale or distribution or caught with intent to sell of uh drugs within a thousand feet of school zones um uh colleges but most importantly for us is a state county or Municipal Park could be meant uh met with uh enhanced sentencing uh upgrading uh Mr meaners the felonies uh things like that um I don't know if you're familiar with that legislation we put forward uh and where that stands but I I guess I look for a vessel to which we start implementing that because in some of our most problematic areas in our city uh we're actually under this premise we'd be fortunate that a lot of it does occur within a th000 feet of a Municipal Park anything in our mxc district is going to be within 1,000 ft of uh lum Park uh a lot of uh stuff happening with the Thousand ft of Flamingo Park up in North Beach um in parks there as well so we'd be able to we have the discretion to uh really start enhancing some of our sentencing for uh these drug related offenses uh do you know where that stands and could this be added to essentially this guideline here yes through through the chair thank you yes no you are I I remember that item very well commissioner uh and I did speak to our Police Department you're referring to state laws pursuant to chapter 893 the narcotics um and it enhances if you sell drugs uh or narcotics within a thousand fet of a school a park a daycare facility Community Center there's a number when you brought that item that is state law so when you brought that item forward I went to our Police Department uh chief aasta chief Jones we spoke to them and our officers are aware of that and I just reiterated to them as they know that when they catch an individual selling drugs within any of those prohibit areas to identify that on the arrest affidavit so ultimately those cases when they go to the state attorney's office they'll see that charge because they wouldn't know necessarily where the state attorney where our parks are where our dayc carees are but our officers are are doing that I think they have done that um we reiterated it so then ultimately when the state gets that case and they file their charging decision by way of an information they don't usually use a grand jury but by way of information that enhancement will be there so in state law it's happening and I remember your item and we we it to the to the officers um but for our but for our own ordinance violations it's it's a little different but for that one we're we're moving forward excellent and I appreciate that it's great to hear from the police department as well um but our Municipal team we are Prosecuting drug offenses correct we are we are we are not in the traditional sense the only real drug offense we're Prosecuting would be the smoking of uh cannabis or hemp on public property and the only reason you do that is cuz the T so we're not it's that wasn't the intent to capture something like that under enhanced sentencing yep take it to the full commission yeah yeah is if there's viability for enhanced sentencing maybe we vote to send it to the full commission Madam chair yes uh commissioner bot so um it seems like this is a a new approach at the three strikes are out um sentencing standards um that were tried a decade or two decades ago with limited results and in fact um some data would suggest that it actually makes things worse because if a criminal knows that they're um it it might encourage a criminal to engage in worse behavior on that third arrest um I my concern is if we're trying to curb drug use and sales which we are um and I I appreciate the intent of this you know Mar Recreation marijuana use is going on the state ballot this month and it's going to be federally approved almost certainly within a couple of years it's not a question of if it's a question of when so to put into place sentencing guidelines which will Fe make um judges feel disempowered will perhaps exacerbate um a nonviolent crime to what could become a violent crime putting our police officers at increased risk putting um nearby passers by pedestrians residents visitors at risk I'm not sure this is the solution that we seek for the problem that we're looking to address again I I very much appreciate the intent I don't know if um chiefa can address this or um City attorney um Fishman can address this or this is just something to chew on as we all think about what we're going to do if it moves forward um again I appreciate the intent I think it is going to have consequences that we're not going to be able to unravel so easily which will have bigger impacts on other things we're trying to improve with our court system with our Judiciary System and with our police staff who are already stretched thank you well the committee has already voted for it to go to commission so it'll be something to chew on further um at the full commission all right so that will go to let's see Fernandez stepped away um and then for number 19 commissioner Rosen Gonzalez wants this heard at one um let's move to number seven item number seven discussion regarding ocean terrrace and surrounding neighborhoods and the impact to the area due to the lack of progress on the Ocean Terrace Redevelopment project and requesting an update from the administration and city attorney's office as to the timeline for the project and City's rights and remedies under the agreement for the Ocean Terrace project this item is from 2022 and commissioner Rosen Gonzalez said that this update could be given um without her uh being here yet I did good morning Madam chair Commissioners David Gomez interim director for CIP um this item as you know has been uh coming back to committee for updates on a regular basis the last time we were here was in March um I'm pleased to uh advise that the construction continues to proceed um at the Ocean Terrace Public portion project uh and they are projecting a completion date of January of next year we are approaching 90% or exceeding 90% of completion of the beachwalk portion and we hope that in the next week or two we'll be able to complete the inspections that will allow us to put the beachwalk into service and and remove the detours that currently exist um the developer was asked to be online I think he's online uh so that he can provide an update on the private portion of the project okay um Stephanie at the developers online to give an update uh Jared okay Jared if you could please un unmute yourself hi there this is Jared green with Ocean Terrace Holdings hi Jared we can hear you can you hear me okay yes uh great um so yeah we were requested to be uh present today to just provide an update on the on the project component of ocean terce uh as uh David Gomez mentioned we've been uh very busy with the the park component uh working closely with the city and our Contra our GC to get that built and delivered to the city and the community as quickly as as possible uh there is a fair bit of uh motion on the project side uh but there's some things I've been working on since last summer uh we should have an update that we can share uh probably before the end of the summer uh but at this time can't really give much more detail than that obviously we are more motivated than anyone to move this project forward uh we have a ton of time and also uh resources invested in uh in this 2acres site so great um so can you provide the commission with an LTC in 60 days so that we all see what the update is um then and see if we're still on the same timelines uh happy to do that for the public portion that's underway uh as Jared mentioned there may be some details that I I won't be able to provide a whole lot more but we we will include it for sure thank you commissioner bot yeah I am obviously this project is near and dear to my heart I'm very very eager to see it successfully completed I'm sure not quite as much as the folks at uh um on the project themselves sandor and Jared but I I walked through the park site um three or four weeks ago with sandor share the developer um it is going to be beautiful and one of the things that I just for my colleagues to know what I um encouraged him to do um which he had done very successfully to get to the second iteration of the project was to invite the neighborhood community in for to see what was going on and answer questions because um there is a lot of speculation and distrust and fear about what is going on and so he had indicated and Jared hopefully you're you're uh apprised at this as well that when the park was ready to be reopened or at least the pass through part of the park because the park still has a lot of work to be done but the the pathway to hold host an event um to welcome the neighborhood in show them what the Park's going to look like in the time frame and uh give updat as possible on the the overall project um I'd also asked him to um consider you know take a look at trying to clean up the facades that are facing The Pedestrian areas of the project the beautiful old buildings that were part of the historic preservation that we have all fought for because right now they look like um you know crack houses for lack of a better description they look absolutely awful and so clean that up at least cosmetically for um the next couple years while the rest of the project takes place would be uh very welcomed by the community we will be happy to work with the developer on an event for the opening of the beachwalk thank you all right so on to we're going to skip 16 until uh commissioner Rosen Gonzalez gets here we'll go to nine okay item number nine is discussion regarding limiting vehicular traffic on residential street streets and neighborhoods during high impact periods that was from 2022 uh mayor Miner and mbpd to give an update good morning again ma'am um this is in collaboration with our partners at at uh Transportation um whenever we have a high impact weekend or high impact period um or a special event that occurs at the convention center um there are measures that we like to um put in place and have research to put in place um in cooperation with um Uber um ways and and uh technology facilities like that to um alleviate or remove traffic in and around certain um neighborhoods within the community Bayshore Bay View South of fifth Flamingo Park uh neighborhoods and things of that nature currently as it pertains to Spring Break and Memorial Day we already do that with um the um implementation of barricades and Security Services to prevent um the the normal um uh tourist type of traffic to come into the residential neighborhoods and disrupt the normal flow of of of Peace in those neighborhoods so we currently have that in in place um this is an old item if I can grab can you give that real quick this is an old item um and we have since uh evolved from that um to the point point where we're at now it comes back it waser back in 2023 um we also in the process of completing our training um of our new psss uh we have eight on board now and um we're in the process of continuing to hire two more that would complete 10 and the idea would be to deploy them during high impact weekends or or conventions and things of that nature to those areas that impact the traffic the most keep in mind that when we close off neighborhoods um it does force traffic to to the main arteries and any other resident that might not live in those particular neighborhoods will feel the impact and delays of getting to their homes as well so it's a delicate balance that we have with Transportation um but know that we stand ready as as the commission and the committee directs um for any implementation we might have in the future okay thank you um I think we're good to thank you for the update we're good to close out the item the next one is 25 item number 25 is discuss take action on West AV lower Alton Road South of fif Street to South Point Park speed mitigation measures and traffic calming options that is uh commissioner magazine co-sponsored by Vice chair Suarez thank you madam chair uh at recent neighborhood meetings for both wava and sofa uh the resounding message was loud and clear that there are pedestrian uh safety concerns material ones uh specifically along West Avenue and uh the south of fifth area Jose you and I have talked um about perhaps having some pedestrian enhancements West Avenue is challenging because uh we have um a large comprehensive uh infrastructure and resiliency project that is planned so we don't want to essentially recreate parts of the roadway that would uh you know hopefully sooner rather than later then be ripped up but we do have a portion of West Avenue that is already completed and I think there's some low hanging fruit that we've talked about uh that can really enhance Public Safety in that area very dense family area there's a 3 Acre public park right there so it's accessed by a lot of children a lot of families uh in South Point uh you mentioned that there is going to be a more comprehensive project that is uh uh not only in the works but is forthcoming so maybe if you could just talk to where we stand uh specifically on removing a lot of those orange cones that in talking with your team in talking with uh Public Works that seems like they're just forgotten about right we don't know who put put them out there they're uh blocking crosswalks so I'd really like to uh get an inventory of where that stands um and then perhaps having an elevated crosswalk uh going from the west side of West Avenue into the entrance of canopy Park that will also serve as a speed mitigation measure and then some of the projects that are forthcoming in South Point sure I'd be happy to good afternoon Madame chair Mr Vice chair committee members Jose Gonzalez transportation and Mobility director and interim parking director so we are working on both short-term and long-term measures to improve pedestrian safety calm traffic in the neighborhoods West Avenue as well as the the south of fifth I'll start with the West Avenue uh neighborhood something that we recently completed uh was to restripe the uh uh crosswalks the lane lines and the stop bars at all the intersections along West from 8th Street to 13th Street uh for many years we've been waiting all of us are waiting for the West Avenue project but we know that's been delayed but it it got to the point that those that pavement striping was essentially non-existent so we've we've gone back and with one of our contractors restriped as I mentioned the crosswalks the lane lines and the the stop bars at various locations between 8th and 13th and then something that we're in the process of of exploring as you mentioned uh commissioner magazine is the feasibility of a raised crosswalk on West Avenue between 6th Street and 8th Street to provide access to canopy Park it's currently a midblock crosswalk it's at grade just simply striped and what we would like to do is to to raise it to construct a raise crosswalk there we've got Capital funds for that Improvement and um it would be great to just get a motion from the committee to proceed with that and then we'll we'll work Full Throttle to get that raised crosswalk in between 6th and 8th to improve access to uh to canopy Park um and then of course the West Avenue project itself will introduce bike Lanes it will widen uh the sidewalk it will introduce canopy and all those are elements that will help to calm traffic and just make the street more more livable if you will so that's the update on West Avenue and then in terms of the lower Alton Road South of fifth neighborhood that I know you're interested in as well something I'll start with something we recently completed we restriped the crosswalk at South Point Drive and Alton Road um there were concerns with safety there that's a a little a bit of a quirky intersection there are two crosswalks that meet almost like a V and so uh and they were they were red brick uh crosswalks but not highly visible particularly at night so we our contractors and restripe that that's already done something that uh we're actively working on as you mentioned is the traffic calming for the entire south of fifth neighborhood we're actually uh going to be going into Construction in the summer in just a couple months we're already working with our contractor on that that project which has gone through uh Community meetings with sna it was also a commission uh uh directive um that project proposes to um Implement 11 uh or speed cushions at 11 locations throughout the neighborhood and there is a map that's attached to this item where you see the the 11 uh speed cushions that are osed you know at all the streets um through pretty much every street is covered within the south of fifth um neighborhood and um on a parallel path we're working on the long-term improvements so the short-term improvements are actually rubber they're modular they're rubberized speed cushions the permanent project which will um follow the the the short term will will basically implement the the traffic calming Improv movements but on a permanent basis using asphalt or or concrete and that's a capital project um and it's it's going through the capital budget process for for funding because that's a major investment but at least we'll be able to implement the the short-term traffic calming by the summer this summer and um the other thing I'll mention is we've got another capital projects lated for the um the south of fifth neighborhood as well as the Flamingo Park neighborhood and and the Entertainment District and that's a what we call a pedestrian priority Zone that project is essentially just clearing sidewalks moving poles out of the way to try to really establish a clear five to six ideally six feet clear path along all the sidewalks with no you know no poles or any obstructions to to that pedestrian path and then as part of that project it'll be uh we'll refurbish all the the crosswalks we'll reconstruct a a curbs to make sure that they're ADA Compliant so it's really a a project to promote walkability in the south of fifth Entertainment District and Flamingo Park neighborhoods excellent thank you if I if I could just follow with one question Madam chair uh I think in possibly our first meeting uh that this uh new committee um convened we had a decision on Alton Road uh further up north I want to say somewhere in the 40s 50s or 60s because of the noise that was being produced on altim with some of the rubber speed humps uh we actually faced the difficult decision of removing that um I'm going to guess but I'd like your expert opinion uh because the speed in some of these areas south of fifth is much less than it was on a hi traic High Velocity area like Alton Road it wouldn't create some of those noise issues but is that something that we're at least cognizant of well it's a different device so let me clarify that we are not proposing for West Avenue or south the fth the rumble strips which is what you're you're alluding to that were installed by fdot on Collins Avenue those rumble strips are actually asphalt material and they're they're they're intended to create a rumble noise if you will as as cars travel over them and the faster they travel the more noise they create but they have that quality of life issue because of the noise so you'll never see the city proposing that that treatment on our roads that's more about DT on the state road and as you mentioned those were quickly removed yeah on two roads they were on pine tree at one point and they were removed because of the noise and then on Collins in the 50s Vice chair Suarez did you need a motion for the rais crosswalk on you said that would be great yes I'd like to make a motion I'll second that all right so with that we'll close out this item and then we'll go to item number 21 item number 21 discussion regarding the creation of elected neighborhood advisory councils in the city of Miami Beach and commissioner Fernandez this is your item thank you madam chair in our community we value very much uh resident input resident participation uh feedback from those who who ultimately have to live uh with the decisions that we make and and that our our government makes several communities um throughout our country uh even around the world have created this form of uh of neighborhood advisory councils that that are elected by the people and provide advisory guidance to to the legislative bodies uh I know in uh in La they have them uh in Seattle uh they have a version of it I believe in DC they have their own uh version uh of it and what I see here the intent is truly to enhance our Democratic process our our our our residents voices to provide a voice for neighborhood specific concerns uh in our larger City Planning and the decision making process uh and to help push for resources that uh that that different are as may need whether it be improvements in public safety or improvements in infrastructure or in recreational and and Parks facilities it it helps further enhance Community engagement um and I see it as uh as as supplementing in part kind of the work that our neighborhood associations perform but in a more formal way in a more democratic way ensuring ensuring that there are defined boundaries uh you know Fair elections so that everyone feels properly represented and uh and proper noticing of meetings uh so that so that so that um everyone is able to attend discussions uh and Ne never feel left out and so it's been done in other areas I wanted to bring the uh the idea to the table uh to to to get feedback from from from the committee uh and from uh and from our city attorney and our city clerk I see we have our our city our chief Deputy City attorney Nick cerges here I think Nick uh together with the city clerk have been doing some research on this and I'd like to recognize you both through the chair to speak to us a little bit about the research you've done and what findings you may want to share with us hi thank you and I think Coconut Grove might have a Village Council that's also elected uh by the people interesting um Mr City ATT thank thank you madam chair Nick cerg with our city attorney's office um we looked at a couple of different models primarily the Washington DC model for commissioner Fernandez's item and in Washington DC um 5% of the of the residents of a particular neighborhood can petition for the creation of an advisory neighborhood commission um these commissions are elected from what I can tell they have between seven and maybe 11 uh elected members each and their purpose is to make recommendations to the DC uh to The District Council on issues that impact their neighborhood ranging from you know planning issues uh streets and sidewalks sanitation Public Safety um the the DC Charter specifically provides for the creation of these advisory neighborhood commissions um and they're also there's there's an office that oversees them and and has a budget um so so they do have access to to uh to funds uh to to perform their work um the the uh each individual commissioner on an advisory neighborhood commission is elected to a two-year term and uh as of as of as of today there are 46 advisory neighborhood commissions um throughout DC I'm aware also of of Madame chair of the of the organization in in kog Grove and I did a little research on that and the It's actually an independent it's an independent organization uh that has petitioned the city of Miami to conduct elections for them and then the The Village Council makes recommendations to Coconut Grove something that the that the city of Mi beach has done over the years is to appoint ad hoc advisory committees sometimes standing committees to to look at uh particular neighborhoods such as the the mayor's 41st Street committee uh the the mayor's Ocean Drive task force and adcd committe committee um and we also have right now the North Beach uh the ad hog north beach advisory uh CRA committee so there are a couple of different forms that this can take um at this point we're seeking initial direction from the committee of where you'd like to take this thank you and uh Mr clerk I don't know if you have anything You' like to add on to that Nick said it perfectly but my research indicated that the reason that DC went into went towards this model is because there was a lot of duplication with the neighborhood associations with the groups so they were having the same meetings giving you know people belong to two or three of the same in their neighborhoods so this is this was the way that DC thought it was better to just do it one time and and and thank you for that because that that certainly is one of my concerns when you have overlapping stakeholders and O over overlapping interests and so which one becomes the official voice of of of the neighborhood and we've seen that happen uh throughout our City at different times you have competing uh associations representing the same geographic area and they they they claim to be the voice for that area and it leaves us then in a in a difficult position ultimately we are the voices because we're the ones that are entrusted uh by by by by the public but on a Citywide basis um I you know I think also of of the community councils in Miami day County uh that besides the districts that they have in Miami day County and the board of County Commissioners you know all of unincorporated Miami Dade County is divided into into different community councils and those Community councils are uh are divided into different sub areas to ensure that throughout the community you have uh fair fair representation I think this is a little bit different though like for for example to the north beach CRA or to the 41st Street uh ad hoc committee or to some of these others in that we appoint the individuals to these committees the whole point here would be for the community to be able to select who they want representing them on a larger scale like for example in North Beach let's say we create one for North Beach then North Beach be able to elect from from their own area individuals to rep present them there who can then you know you know give us some feedback on Planning and Development matters or improvements that might be necessary uh they need better roads or they need improved trash collection or they want to see a change and the use of public spaces whatever it may be that it be more organic uh and more democratic from from the community so I'd I'd love to hear some feedback from this from this committee regarding in this if it's if you all fear it's a good idea we can research it further and come with a more formalized proposal if if you all don't feel it's a good idea we can leave it here but I'd certainly welcome the feedback of thank you commissioner Fernandez Vice CH Suarez Fernandez for for the well-intended intent of this um of this idea um you know I think uh one of the issues is um there was competing interest of HOAs and it's my understanding that they have a certain HOA has to go to the state to get uh approval to be a neighborhood association is that correct then HOA can take a number of different forms uh they're not required to you know voluntary HOA of of of neighborhood residents is not required to go to the State uh but if an HOA wants to be a mandatory HOA with dues with you know restrictions on what you can and can't do on your neighborhood um that may require State approval yeah so my my concern is that you know we we have these longstanding HOAs like sofa wava um Flamingo Park and they do a great job already with uh representing the neighborhoods and I certainly don't want to try to usurp their their their influence that they've that they've earned over the many years years in advocacy for residential rights um you know to a certain extent you know Miami Beach is a very small little island I mean we're only 7 square miles um I don't I don't know if it would be in our best interest to make more government and more elected official positions for different neighborhoods considering we have we're such a tiny little island um but again look I understand the intent of it it it's it's better and proper representation and I understand that but you know I think I think uh the the HOAs that we have now they work and I certainly do not want to um you know usurp them in any way um through a bureaucratic process I'm and I'm curious to know how the rest of my colleagues feel about this thank you Vice chair commissioner magazine yeah Madam chair um I'm probably uh going to bridge the Gap here I actually really like commissioner Fernandez's idea of having an elected process right I I've thought about this over the years where it's like well this is the neighborhood association like you're speaking on behalf of a bunch of people under what Authority but in the same regard uh we do have a lot of long-standing community groups that do a lot of work and I I do worry about having too many cooks in the kitchen if you will say or a lot of competing interests or usurping their Authority uh and Mr City attorney maybe you could uh Deputy City attorney uh opine on this what if we so some of the HOAs and neighborhood groups do things differently what if would there be appetite to essentially say to be recognized by the city commission as you know an advisory stakeholder this HOA or neighborhood group has to have uh some sort of election process I think we could look at that as far as do you mean as far as like if you if you want to register with the city as an official City recognized HOA you have to meet certain qualifications we we could look at something like that I don't think we could prohibit the inverse right if if uh if a couple of impacted residents uh you know organize and incorporate an association I think they can still appear before you and and appear before their government but as as part of a city recognition something we could look at yeah and I think that's where I'm at where unless we would be willing to change the entire system and say we're going to go to this model and discourage or not recognize any HOA or neighborhood groups I think we'd be getting into too many stakeholders and too many cooks in the kitchen but to your point commissioner Fernandez about the Democratic model if you wanted to explore um urging or even requiring our neighborhood associations to have some sort of uh elected process I I'd be uh interested in exploring that further um and I'll make a comment here so I to when I first read through this was thinking well we already have neighborhood associations a lot of them have bylaws they have elections the people in their neighborhoods are electing for them to be on that body and they meet with us and have uh representation at City Hall and that's for each of the neighborhood associations then there's mbu my United encompasses the entire Beach and then if we were to have this process then they would be bound by Sunshine laws that it would change and maybe bring more bureaucracy which is not the intent the intent is we want to make it um better so um colleagues what do you want to do with this item maybe I could maybe we could even ask uh the sponsor after hearing our feedback where's your head at at this point commissioner do you want us to hold on to it for another month or two and see if you can come back commissioner bot yeah from commissioner bot and then before um I hear anybody it's 12:30 um at 1 o00 I have two items for commissioner Rosen Gonzalez and it's Spring Break Stuff and we still have about six items that we need to do and I'd like to get those wrapped up commissioner bot thank you so can I just understand better um that how this would work would this be a quasi judicial role no no these would be as proposed by the sponsor these would be advisory committees and um I think you said that um the elections would be held with assistance from the city or did I misunderstand that right it would these would be elections held I mean I don't know how how DC does it or how Seattle or some of these but I believe is through the city yes that's right or the county in our case the county they' be on the ballot when our city commission and mayor were being elected okay and so um and then would City staff be required to provide briefings and the same kind of inclusion in dissemination of information be available to the city to the neighborhood councils in the way that they are to elected officials and neighborhood associations I mean I would I would say we could craft it to be anything that we want want it to be uh we want them to we could if we decide to move forward with this if we don't want it to we don't so my you know I again I think the intention is completely fabulous in trying to get people involved in a way that they feel is representative of their needs and desires I have a lot of concerns about um adding an additional layer into the process I mean it's one thing if you're saying we are going to get rid of the neighborhood associations in favor of this I don't think there's appetite I don't think that's your intent at all absolutely not so so I have so many concerns one of you know we can't even get people to volunteer for very time insensitive um board or committee positions where you only require to be at a meeting once a month um with very prescribed set of interests I don't think the staff is structure our city government is structure to have another layer of government you know if you take a neighborhood like North Beach um there are so many any neighborhoods within North Beach and to have somebody who might live in a walk up apartment on Harding in 85th um competing for neighborhood wide so North Beach wide awareness um against somebody who might live um along the golf course and somebody else who might live in a condo on the beach I I think it's it's it's like a mini Citywide election asking for people to put their own time and money into this in a way that makes things wildly unfair there and it for that to be which is already a problem when you're trying to find good candidates to run for office um it is it's very challenging um and so to do to be asking for that for people who are already strapped and for time and um would need to try to combat some Deep Pockets I I don't see how this would work I definitely see how it would work in some place like Seattle that's got a million residents or close to a million residents or unincorporate at a day County where there's no real conduit to um their City to their County government as I learned firsthand trying to deal with something for my employer in ois there was nobody who would take accountability for it so that there would make a ton of sense but here where we're you know around 80,000 residents who all of us have you know everyone's cell phone has is in everybody else's directory so I appreciate the intent but i' I'm deeply concerned about how this would work in practicality and and and that's and that's fine through and and through the chair um I like some of the feedback that that I've received today you know especially as it relates to you know facilitating a process perhaps for noticing homeowners um neighborhood association meetings uh and and some of the other feedback so perhaps can we keep this item on the agenda just so I can bring back something that incorporates uh some of the feedback that we discussed today I do also want to put on on the record the state does have a process I think it's chapter 720 uh that talks about homeowners associations but that's like when you're creating a development and you have doc you know you have docs that you're creating and all that that's usually when you're about to build not in an ass built Community like ours so so like for example you know my my homeowners association the Bay Shore homeowners association that's not governed under 720 which is the homeowners association Act that's a neighborhood association a volunteer group it's like a Civic group and that's what we have right now we have Civic groups that aren't truly formalized but we can help them and that's what I'm going to work on with some of the feedback from you all thank you madam chair okay so we'll defer this for next meeting and then item 26 item number 26 is to review and discuss the city's 2015 Modo prioritization strategy commissioner Fernandez thank you madam chair I placed this item on the agenda because a number of years ago um I think it was almost 10 years ago um there was a workshop uh to discuss the hierarchy uh of our modal options and um and at that time um it was it was determin that that our our top priority which I don't think it's it's it's wrong but our our our top priority in our in our modal and in our Master plans for for for Mobility uh would be pedestrianism and then and then bottom on on the list uh was vehicular traffic I've placed this on the agenda because I have concerns I don't know what type of unintended consequence this has had a traffic in our city over the past 10 years I think if we look at traffic in our city over the past 10 years I think we can probably all easily agree traffic has gotten worse in our city over the past 10 years and you know while while perhaps we shouldn't be taking priority away from pedestrianism perhaps we need to be putting some more priority than what we are right now on vehicular traffic in our Master planning as we go about uh planning our our city and uh and approving developments and otherwise and so with that uh mener I'd like to recognize Jose Gonzalez uh to guide us a little bit with this thank you commissioner uh good afternoon again so uh just by way of very brief backgrounds uh and at the risk of stating the the obvious we know that our roadways are constrained with little to no opportunity to widen our our travel Lanes our roads are operating at or over capacity every morning every afternoon particularly during high impact periods so one way that cities have have um have approached this to increase the capacity of the roads is to try to shift trips from single occupant vehicles to other modes of trans Transportation such as walking such as biking scooters other micromobility devices and Transit primarily Transit Transit is the most efficient way of carrying a lot of people at the same time so that was really the thought process back in 2015 when um we were embarking on a transportation master plan and we had a decision to make which is what do we prioritize for and so we felt that was a policy um decision that needed to be made and back then we brought that before the city commission after a workshop we held a commission workshop on on transportation and the um that's really what led to the creation and the adoption of the current modal prioritization strategy which is pedestrians First Transit uh bikes uh Transit and bicycles second and private vehicles uh last again the the intent uh being to to try to fulfill the vision of being a less car Centric City so that was really the impetus and I just want to mention we were uh and I believe still are the only city in Miami date County and in the State of Florida that has such a modal prioritization so that that uh policy uh which was adopted by resolution of the city commission was the framework for our master plan we then developed the master plan that has a robust project Bank it's got over a 100 projects and those projects are prioritized uh per the adopted model prioritization um let me ask you this so for example and I'm sorry to yes and we have public comment that's what what I was going to call next but go ahead commissioner Fernandez thank you yeah because part of the reason why I sponsored this and placed this on the on on the agenda because you know those projects like for example you know we have a number of Gob projects like for example like the 40 First Street project would that be one of those projects uh that is Guided by this master plan I would say to some extent yes because it's a project that is prioritizing the the widening the sidewalks trying to make it more make the corridor more walkable so it would be a project that would uh align with the motor priorization so that would mean like for example there when we're talking about when people tell us that they're concerned about the removal of parking spaces on on 41st Street because of the winding of the sidewalks is probably related to this uh to this master plan to this prioritization that we've established it prioritizes pedestrians yes and that's and that's the concern that I have that we have to be balanced about this because it does it it does have unintended consequences I'm not saying uh that we should look at taking away prioritization from pedestrians but perhaps we need to look at look go back and look at our prioritization of vehicular track of of of private Vehicles is right now we're prioritizing freight trucks over over private vehicles and that's that's putting commercial interests ahead of the interest of our residents that are sitting in traffic every day trying to to to navigate our city so it's something that I think we need to be mindful of that we probably need uh some feedback uh from from from the administration on how to fix this and how to add addresses properly and with that M Madam chair uh I thank you for for the opportunity thank you uh we have public comment on zoom and in person okay we have in public comment if we can please hear Joanne Mo uh PJ if we could please unmute her oh Johan good Johan Moore thank you very in the committee staff Johan Moore um I feel like one of the issues with this proposal is the perception of it I know some of us were alarmed uh initially at basically along the lines of what you're going to downgrade pedestrians but I think if the intention as I'm seeing is in fact to increase focus on reducing the problems associated with traffic then this is not in that case misguided uh I think we also have to distinguish between short-term and long-term effects if we take away parking clearly in the the short term we risk increasing traffic as people drive around looking for spots but in the long term that may incentivize or in the medium-term incentivize people to use other modes of transportation I want to just reframe it briefly by saying too many pedestrians is not a problem too many cars or as the commissioner just pointed out heavy vehicular truck traffic is the problem so I think if we can focus on ways to mitigate especially that truck traffic and getting us back to this earlier idea of Passenger fairies across the bay maybe in fact uh cargo fairies across the bay is a good idea my final comment is think about cars and reducing them in the context of public transportation though my idea that I mentioned on Chris commissioner Rose Gonzalez Town Hall the other day of hitting up enough developers who want to build Mega projects urging that those be incidentally mixed income but then requiring them to pay into a Miami Beach Transit fund to finally get us a street car system that may not then subject us to the County's override if bailing comes here might be a way forward so I just urge you all to think critically about how we best address reducing car traffic while not of course inconveniencing people uh any more than need be thank you very much thank you so much uh Matthew did do you want to speak well hi good afternoon everyone thank you so much for taking public comment I just I'll be brief when I saw this item I was very concerned it's it's not a good look uh first of all to be the only city in Miami Dade County perhaps the whole entire state with this priority on looking to relieve traffic by promoting pedestrianism by promoting public transportation bicycles and micromobility uh the one thing I'll say is this City's always been a leader in the State of Florida and around the country and this is a place that despite slow implementation of some of our Master plans we' made a lot of progress in shifting mode and especially in South Beach for example uh we don't have the same amount of traffic concerns that we sometimes see in mid Beach and in North Beach and a lot of that is because of the multimodal nature of the community whether it's the residents the visitors the employees so I just ask you all to look at this very closely there was a lot of community buyin when this was developed there was uh workshops there were charettes there there was a big push for this and if it's going to be reversed or perhaps removed or changed there really needs to be that same buyin from the community thank you okay and we have one more public comment Dave if we could have Dave be unmuted thank you good good morning everybody good morning everyone um or good afternoon everyone thank you for hearing this item and continuing to dig deep on traffic my name is Dave grizer um I live at um Meridian in 18th Street um I think that when we talk about the efficient ways of moving people and the way to reduce traffic I think we all know this is a puzzle um a puzzle with you know difficult and perhaps non-existent Solutions in in certain certain respects I always like to think of the three um neighborhoods of miy beach as sort of three different experiments um and if here I think South Beach actually has had some successes as a resident of South Beach when I move within South Beach whether that's in my car on foot or by bicycle we don't frequently have a traffic problem here yes the streets are busy I mean it is a it is a large um population city but we're not usually choked um with the exception of the entrances to the bridges and if you look at the sensus data um we're both the highest population um the highest number of visitors and then the impressive feat um and I think for a large part the reason we're able to escape some of the worst of 5 bees traffic is because such a high percentage of our trips are presently made on fo fo number one um and then by bike scooter and other micr Mobility devices so I think that you know in however we want to re-envision this moving forward we should just really be um really be data focused and looking at some of the successes our city has already had implementing um the early stages of the bike um pedestrian master plan which in South Beach I think has worked so anyways thank you very much for for continuing to dig deep on these projects have a good day thank you madam chair Mr Vice chair Mr Vice chair did you want to speak um yeah um you know traffic is bad let's let's not kid ourselves um but I don't think it's necessarily because we've prioritized um pedestrians or ebikes over cars I think that has a lot to do about people can't afford to live here you know um and if why is there why is there so much tremendous traffic in the morning or particularly around 5:00 during rush hour it's because everyone's leaving they're leaving the work that their jobs here in Miami Beach because they can't afford to live here and so you know I think that's where my colleagues you know should really focus their attention on is building Workforce housing where people can actually live here um and specifically Workforce housing that doesn't involve cars or um or or parking where you're Bas you know you incentivize places to be built that that is geared for people that actually work here and want to live here and want to walk or use micromobility to get to to work you know May beach has 2,200 employe you most of them drive into Miami Beach and and you know that causes a lot of traffic issues imagine if we had real Workforce Development where they they're not I'm not talking micro units perhaps you know you you have something dedicated for even the city of May beach employees where you know they can work and walk to work which which would be a tremendous uh relief on our on our roadways and and for our residents on the road so um I like the plan as it is now where we we we have pedestrian um priority I think commissioner Fernandez I commissioner Fernandez walks in the morning I walk at night um and you know I I I I truly enjoy my walks uh in in the evening and I I know you enjoy your walks in the morning um and you know that's that's I think our priority are straighten that but look I I totally understand that there there's definitely concerns with traffic obviously it was like the number one issue talked about in in my campaign Trail um but I think the root of the problem is people needing to to to want to afford to live here so that they don't have to take a bus or a car to the mainland mam chair thank you uh um so a lot of the TR traffic I feel as well is um the commuters yesterday I had an event uh with the gmcvb it was over at the Port of Miami terminal and it finished about 5:45 and then I was driving back I breezed onto the beach and then it was bumper to bumper traffic it's all the commuters people that work at all of the different hotels and restaurants uh the hospital that don't live here and have to drive off the beach so uh I'm I agree with having better housing options for everyone but something has to be done about the commuters commissioner magazine did you have a comment yes and then commissioner F do you want to pop in or hear my comments from no I I'd love the PB of the committee yeah I think I love that we're addressing traffic I I think the overwhelming majority reason why we have it is just an a colossal urban planning fail we have 50 people maybe 60 people in this room today I I don't mean to turn this into a circus but quick show of hands if anybody walked here anybody one person this is City Hall where hundreds maybe thousands of people come to work every day and we have no housing in proximity that allows employees to work so those are hundreds of cars just from our Municipal employer traveling back and forth across the causeway every day and we are built for that right we have maybe six parking garages within eight blocks here uh so I I'll save that Soap Box for another day I'll continue to hit that a quick question Jose more related to this item what are examples tangible examples of since 2015 where we put forward this master plan and we've prioritized pedestrians over Vehicles we did that and perhaps how that is negatively impacted traffic everything so a lot of the projects that we've implemented we we haven't we haven't come to a decision of uh do we sacrifice a travel Lane for walkability I think that we're we're facing more of that when when there's a potential bicycle lane for example that could be implemented but in order to implement it it would require uh potentially either eliminating a travel lane or eliminating a parking and we've had a few of those over the past of several years one example that comes to top of mind is Meridian Avenue Meridan Avenue right here next to next to us here in City Hall used to have more travel lanes and we eliminated one travel Lane in order to accommodate the uh you know the green bike Lanes protected green bike Lanes with our millos in both Direction that's that's one example of a project where something had to give something had to be sacrificed in in order for in in order to align with our modal prioritization we don't have too many of those but the next or perhaps the next item is one where we're going to be faced with that question and it's about Collins Avenue and in order to accommodate a bike lane we would have to remove a either parking or traveling and those are very difficult decisions and we're at that point because I think we've done a lot of the low hanging fruits those projects pretty much have gotten done now we're at the crossroads where in order to get more bike Lanes in in order to close uh gaps that we have in our Network we're going to need something's going to have to get but let me can I just jump in there m just as a followup question to that does our transportation master plan and this you know Transportation mode hierarchy and does it in any way influence our comp plan does it influence our comp plan sure does the comp plan and and the transportation master plan plan um have a lot of synergies if you will comp plan has and and the comp plan Mr attorney or or Jose you could you probably answer this the comp plan influences Our Land Development regulations is that correct that's correct and our Land Development regulations determine development and the the amount of parking requirement that we're going to have and the you know the amount of density that we're going to accommodate in in our city does it not it can have those ramifications and so and so and so you know that's important for us to consider you know that you know sometimes when we see certain things certain developments that you know are proposed certain ways or we see you know certain things in in the way that our city is being shaped that then we complain about and we don't understand or the public complains to us about and we don't understand is because is based on the master plans the master plans that we commission that we adopt that later on get incorporated into the comprehensive plan and that you know larger visioning document that is our comprehensive plan directly impacts Our Land Development regulations and if we're if we're saying we're going to be making private vehicles that our residents Drive in even Le lesser priority than than frayed Vehicles even lesser than frayed vehicles then of course we're going to you know end up with a city that properly doesn't consider the impacts of vehicle traffic in the developments that we're approving and I think that that is a concern that we all have to be aware about because I do think that there is a Nexus between this and the city that's being shaped for the future thank you uh great discussions uh commissioner bot and then we'll close this item out um so thank you for the way mentioning Freight traffic because I think one of the things that we've looked at the least as a city um is the fact that we let trucks of any size stop wherever they want to I mean I drive from North Beach to City Hall every morning and there was always a bottleneck on on Indian Creek heading south Ron Collins um where some delivery vehicle has stopped and that effectively blocks off a lane of traffic for maybe as little as 5 or 7even minutes but it causes a a a jam that goes back to the 71 Street intersection so if there if there is a way for us to enforce that Freight vehicles have to pull off the road um that would help you know that's a that's an executional operational thing that would help a little bit in the short term that's not a long-term Vision plan but you know you guys have all heard me say everybody's heard me say ad nauseum we've got a plan for the city that we want to be not Patchwork the city we are um and we will never transition to a city with more affordable housing with more multimodal options if we don't make the hard decisions now and it's transitional and it's messy and no one's going to be happy with every decision but you know one of the other recurring complaints is that we have people you know driving the speed of light and especially on some of the main corridors like Collins and Indian Creek and Alton Road and West Avenue and by encouraging more multimodal opportunities more protected shared use or bike Lanes by removing a lane of traffic so not deprioritizing cars but making them feel more thoughtful about um how fast they're going to grow in these residential areas that maybe that's a way to kill two birds with one stone um so I you know we definitely need to make sure what we're doing is holistic my question is is something that was planned or envisioned in 2015 you know here we are nine years later is it still relevant I mean the world has changed very significantly since 2015 and now there are plenty of additional options that that that might not um get us to the same place as where we might have been in 2015 so maybe it is a conversation that needs to be had just to make sure that what's in there is still what we we want to prioritize whether that is reexamining the role the cars play in our transportation or reimagining how to speed up something multimodal so there are better safer options for cars um or for people who would otherwise be taking their cars Madam sherff I me yes just to that point and this conversation is is actually very timely because because our master plan is 10 years old now or almost it's eight and change we're in the we're we're going to be updating it it's due for an update so the conversation about what to prioritize and how the next uh iteration of the master plan should look like is is actually very very timely and the way we did it in the past um as Matthew alluded to is through a lot of workshops we held Community workshops meetings commission workshops to try to get that policy Direction and so so and when is that scheduled to begin because I'll tell you just my concern is I don't want to see us deprioritize pedestrians or transit or bicycles but I do think it's unfair to our residents who are sitting in traffic saying that there are lesser priority than Freight Vehicles you know I'm sorry it's just it's just it's just a total disconnect from the reality that our residents and our constituents are are are living yes the reality is you know pedestrianism uh bicyclist that is certainly priority Transit but that doesn't mean Vehicles should be last and that's what I think we need to reexamine is the prioritization of freight Vehicles versus versus personal vehicles because that's how we all get around I mean frankly we all uh live in the city and I think probably on this day there's probably the only one of us that uh came to City Hall today on micr mobility and and aot other other than a car actually probably also Mark Fishman two two two of us so um but but we're still not there yet and Workforce housing is going to take decades before before we're going to have the workforce housing that we need in order to truly accommodate this uh so in the meantime we have to deal with you know the reality also of climate change is hotter and hotter out there we're already getting heat advisories and it's just not conducive to a lot of people to get around this city by bicycle or by foot so we still need to be prioritizing prior Vehicles what's going to be the next step on that master plan so then the the chair needs to move on with this meeting because uh so what's the next step for the master plan well we have to engage a consultant we have the funding for it this fiscal year but we haven't we haven't engaged the consultant yet so it's still it hasn't even started the update hasn't started okay what and what can we do to ask like that because I'll tell you you know as you well know Transportation Mobility it's a top concern in the city at the moment so our goal is to adopt the the transportation Master Plan update at the 10 by the 10 10th year anniversary of of the current one but but it is a long process um the prior one took well over a year to uh to complete and all the way to adoption so uh now is the time to begin okay so will you keep us informed through LTC yes okay thank you uh great conversation we'll close that out and item number 19 welcome commissioner Rosen Gonzalez you had to work today and very happy to have you here thank you item number 19 discuss whether the city Charter should be amended to provide for an evene election okay so I know that no governmental reform is easy and I'm actually not asking you to weigh in on on this I'm asking you to allow the residents to weigh in on it which is a very different thing this is an item that I would like to take to a vote of the people and let me explain the various reasons why number one if we move to even years okay and if we put it on the ballot so that people can weigh in um we would have an increased voter turnout Raphael Granado could you enlighten me as to how many people come out to vote in an even year versus an odd Year yes commissioner good morning everyone it I have statistics regarding even numbered years uh again in even numbered years the elections are held with a primary in August and the general election is in November uh in 2016 the primary had 20.48% voted turnout the general has 72.4% turnout in 20 18 the primary had 21.35% turnout while the general had 56.92 per turnout uh in 2020 the primary was 2827 per turnout while the general was 74.5 %. uh last general election that we had in 2022 the primary election countywide was 19% and the general election was 46% thank you for those um statistics so as you can see we're already in a little bit of a quagmire because our election supervisor has told us that we can no longer have a two- week runoff it has to be a four-week runoff which means that there will be all hands on deck and our poor city clerk will have to work through Thanksgiving in order to hold an election um I don't think that well we we did not agree on that we have not changed any dates to date we might be changing it to October an October election needs even less of a turnout I am not asking you once again to make this law because we are not making it law what I am asking you is to allow our residents to Simply weigh in on this and allow them to determine um if they would like to be able to vote when you look at the numbers in the runoff the runoff then if let's say you have an August primary then the runoff becomes 56% of our general electorate versus in the odd year how I think it's like 10% that shows up in a runoff election it's it's a little higher than that uh it's the lowest we've had in the past few years has been 2015 where we had 1164 uh but usually it's between 13 to 177% in the runoff okay so we might have 13 to 70% versus 50 6% and we would not have an added cost to our city if we follow the August and November um elections so what it does is it takes a runoff that has an incredibly small turnout with 12% of the electorate deciding everything to really every resident of Miami Beach or the majority of our electorate actually weighing in and deciding now I know that this is controversial and it's difficult and even if it passed at referendum that does not make it law it could pass and then we could choose not to make it law and at that point you can kill it you know if you don't want this type of Reform but I don't see any harm in at least allowing our voters to weigh in on this and I don't know how you feel about it but I mean having 56% of our electorate would represent how many voters right now you those statistics were from countywide not just Miami Beach we extrapolate um um we could uh Miami Beach we have roughly 45,000 between 42 and 45 uh 42,000 to 45,000 registered voters of miam B now many of you are concerned and you say wait this would increase the cost but actually it will not because that the general election in August in a primary and by the way that saves you August and September and October our hottest months on record from standing outside it would instead it would shift everything if if we um if we made this change and I forgot my line of that you distracted me commissioner Suarez with your giggle um it was a really good point I believe you're referring to the cost what the cost oh the cost no I mean the cost would decrease dramatically but oh the cost for a candidate we're only having in the primary election uh 18 to 20% of of the voters turn out so you're really hitting the same group of people do you understand what our what our even years are and so anybody who's concerned about the cost um it would be the same cost it you wouldn't even have a different cost because in the August election you would get something akin to um OD years and by the way we've we're spending a tremendous amount of money on on on Capital um you know on education the cost Savings of that election why not just apply it to to some of our educational initiatives or maybe some of our multimodal initiatives but at any rate this is not once again I will say it is not about asking you to approve this now it is about allowing um the voters of Miami Beach to weigh in thank you commissioner Gonzalez first I saw uh commissioner Joe magazine thank you madam chair uh City attorney ceris um voter election items have been discussed at the charter uh advisory committee did this make it on um no commissioner magazine the the charter review board discussed moving to even numbered years and ultimately did not recommend it but yes it was discussed but it was discussed okay there yeah I'd be hesitant to just say Okay this board that was tasked uh to look at this um recommended against why I personally don't like this is it partisan ises nonpartisan elections right that's exactly what it does there's a reason we have these in odd years and it's because our positions are nonpartisan it's not Republican or Democrat of how you want to fix your sidewalks and your city streets and moving it into an election cycle aligned with partisan races partisan ises a nonpartisan race and that nowhere was that more transparent than just this past election cycle you saw seats flipped that were traditionally held by um Democratic Mayors across the c or or across the state because without um uh the Democrats going forward with uh presidential primary it depressed Democrats turnout right and it skewed the election result results from long-standing held uh positions across the state and that is because when you have it in line with your National politics your National races your state races it partisan ises what are nonpartisan seats and and that is my biggest reason uh why I'm against that is because uh I want to do what's right for our local residents and I want nothing to do with national politics one way or another and I think that this really part of izes uh our races she wants uh commissioner Rosen Gonzalez wants to respond I have a solution to that and you want to hear what it is commissioner magazine yes there is no letter next to your name so when a Democrat goes to vote or a republican goes to vote they don't know what your party affiliation is they don't because it doesn't say it on the ballot which in effect allows for a fair election uh Vice chair Suarez um thank you madam chair but to that point commissioner Gonzalez is that uh sure there may not be an r or D next to your name but there will certainly be mailers in your mailbox you know saying that you are I don't know a rhino or a dino or anything to do with national politics and they will attack I mean they attacked me for being some you know magga uh nut gun toing uh criminal um and and I can only imagine what that would be like during an even year uh during a very partisan heated partisan election and so uh I definitely have concerns that it would turn our uh small little island uh nonpartisan elections into basically a a partisan race um another another couple issues I have with this is you know right now I mean one of the biggest complaints in campaigning was you got your mailbox flooded during the odd years I mean imagine how much more marketing you know uh pollution that you would have if everything was just bunched up into the even years and um it would be nauseating to the point where you're having to compete with a president itial election to get your message across and I don't think anyone here wants that uh another another issue is um you know I think the the data suggested that it's much much higher turnout with the even years however you know the way I look at that is that should be the same but it's not I mean the same amount of people that vote in even year should also be voting an OD years and the reason why that is is because the the Delta of the two they're the ones who don't really follow Miami Beach politics where they don't go to the mail to The Ballot Box on odd years and either they're they don't care uninformed uh a mixture of the two but you know what I've realized is that the people that go to The Ballot Box in odd years really care about Miami Beach and you you know they are the ones who are engaged in the process and you know they they move what they think is best for Miami Beach forward not a you know not just the people who vote in in presidential elections because there's literally a billion billions of dollars of marketing that goes on on a national scale so you know I I don't think it would be wise of us to move forward with that for for for many of those reasons stated thank you um before we take public comment I I will say I ran in a special election and it was in an even year and the turnout for voting in my election was about it was either 15 or 18% Which is higher than normal in Miami Beach it's 11% I was on the same uh ballot as the mayor and other and the governor and not the mayor the governor and other um senators and and things of that nature but what happens is people don't vote all the way down like they do Republican or Democrat and then the rest they throw it out so to your point they um the turnout was about the same because those people that care about Miami Beach are going to vote in the evene elections but it was only a slight uptick compared to our regular Municipal elections okay we have public comment we have two public comments if we could hear when Roberts you have two minutes and if you could unmute yourself thank you very much ladies and gentlemen uh I respect all your opinions um I think uh the current situation has its advantages in the sense that um that uh people that really care show up but we live in a democracy and the higher the count the better whether they're you know educated and involved uh on a local level I think they should have a say and they don't today um and the election turn out is horrible it's terrible for the for what exists for Commissioners today relative to the percentage of of of active uh registered voters um so if we move to the even years we would have two times the voting counts um it's and I I love Laura but I disagree that 60 70% more turn out that average is still a higher turnout and a Herold ran an article that there would be a lower turnout because of the lack of time to uh to uh engage the community so you know there was a lot of you know false statements and and positioning for this and um I would also um say that an a counter statement to Joe's statement that the reality our streets aren't clean our investments in our public buildings aren't made that education is lacking uh for not only the county but the city and um if special interests that are very interested in in the politics and and voting during commission years is not um so strong that you're that the commission and the city will have to answer to a larger audience and that they have a say that will inflict uh a change change that's positive and that investments in the streets and the and the police then uh will be more relevant than special interest uh objectives so I'm a strong believer thank you for your comment if we could hear Bruce Bachman if you could please unmute yourself thank you uh good afternoon I strongly agree with uh Commissioners Joe magazine and David and Laura uh for one thing this past mayor election taught me the vicious partisanship nature when actual party officials get involved I'll not name names but they absolutely did it was horrible I totally oppose the idea of opening of trying to get uninformed voters to vote the whole point is to you should get those voters informed and encourage them to participate in the elections as they are currently strugging we should try to keep our elections nonpartisan please keep the system as it is thank you thank you it seems like uh there is no support but I will tell you that in situations like this I feel like this could be a call to arms for me and others to put this on the ballot ourselves I need to find out exactly how many petitions that I need to have signed how many petitions would it be uh right now if I were to if I were to start now it's 10% % of I can't tell you it's 10% of the registered voters as of the last general election I would have to look that up so you know I am committed to working even if I have to stand on um you know a public myself and get these signatures recruit other people to get these signatures because for all of us to say that less voters is better seems very odd to me about the odd years I just don't understand why in a democracy we would want fewer people to weigh in so I'm not saying I'm going to do it because I don't know how many petitions it is but but but I'm thinking about it and I would like to recruit people who believe in democracy to help me and sometimes you know when there's a little anxiety or possibly some fear surrounding something uh we just need to take the power to the people and I think that might be the case right now I see some of you nodding your heads like Daniel Caldo has a agreed maybe he'll get some 100 petitions there and a young gentleman here in the green shirt you're nodding like you want to get some petition signatures so I am not going to give up on this and um I hope that I can I don't think I can get it on um on this ballot but I you know and and the stakes will be higher if I don't um because then the if if I wait to the presidential and then you know so I I could potentially I think my best bet on this if it's 10% of the electorate and I wait to the August election and we get 20,000 people and I need 10% of the electorate then that could potentially be no no it's 10% of the general election as of the last General 10% of the general election as of the last general election so it could be as many as 7,500 signatures but it is not impossible it is not an impossible fee because I saw Jonah wolson do this once and uh put the Convention Center Hotel on the ballot and um I'm going to take this is a challenge similar to the Lincoln Road and I think that you will see that the popular vote will be with me and this is something that I have to consider um making a a massive effort for I could potentially raise money for this and uh you know I am serious about this you know you would save me a lot of sweat and a lot of um conversations that are going to take place around this city if we could put it on the ballot so um I don't know what the resolution is here commissioner do you want to move this to the full Comm yes I would I would like to have this conversation again and I know that you can there's companies out there that get petition signatures so anybody out there who's listening who would like to donate some money to put it on the ballot I need your help and I need it for Miami Beach because we need the majority of our residents to weigh in in our elections thank you commissioner so this will go to the full commission for discussion with an unfavorable recommendation and with that we'll move to number 16 thank you and Madam chair just for clarification Was the vote uh 22 is that right or uh yeah so that it could go to the full commission um yeah got it thank you uh one three so in order for it to go to the full commission for a discussion I voted for it to go to the full commission and okay two two you're not even going to let me discuss I can put it on myself okay and just just to clarify with it 2 to vote it will go to the full commission but with an unfavorable recommendation unless by majority vote you'd like to go am fine with that I'm taking my message to the general meeting if I would have voted know then it would have died thank you commissioner Dominguez okay on to item 16 item number 16 discussion regarding a resolution of the mayor and City Commission of the city of Miami Beach Florida establishing the ad hoc nightlife industry task force advisory committee for a period of one year subject to earlier or later sunset by City commission to advise the admin ad ministration and City Commission of nightless issues and to provide a forum to address quality of life affecting our residents and nightlife business owners and prescribing the purpose competition powers and duties of the committee so this item first came up in December of 2022 it's sponsored by commissioner Rosen Gonzalez uh TI up I have brought this this is not the first time that I have brought this item before the board but I do think we have a willingness now um to have these conversations there is a disconnect between the policies that we pass here and um our nightclub industry and actually as a matter of fact it's hard to get the nightclub industry together to have any discussions because they're probably sleeping while we're having meetings because they work at night but this task force is crucial because when we do pass Spring Break policies so that we don't so that we're all on the same page we can actually refer to the nightclub industry explain to them what they're doing have them let us know how they feel have a dialogue about it and when we have incidences like the one that happened last week with the shooting that we had last week we can have that conversation it provides us a forum to have that conversation and it actually allows the nightclub industry to tell us okay this is what you know my beach is this is what our cops are doing good at and this is what where they could you know step it up or do some work maybe they'll have conversations about you know the price of off duty but we're never going to be able to have those conversations if we don't have a forum now I know that the composition of this committee is very weighty with 15 members um we could between now and when I pass it to um if if it passes to the full board I mean I can change and simplify the composition but to get 15 nightclubs there I think would be very robust and I would actually shoot for it um and see I don't know what the Quorum is on this what is the Quorum for this Mark are you sleeping on the job what were you doing during this conversation when I need legal advice out I'm not being heard um that's how I always feel it's okay um okay so so Mark um what is the Quorum right now on this board that we're proposing do you know I I don't know the answer let me don't know the answer take a look at it it's majority do we know how many members would be seven or eight we'd have to have seven or eight majority um you know I could make it smaller you know maybe make it 10 people yeah yeah so if it's seven it would of course be four and if it's eight it would be five for cor thank you so but I do think that it's important to have to refer this stuff to because we never have the nightclub industry here we impose all sorts of restrictions on them without getting their feedback and um you know and then we can have this conversation like for you you commissioner bot you mentioned for example um the amount of money generated versus the expense of all of it I mean that's something that they need to know because if we are going to impose restrictions on them then we have to say to them hey you're not passing muster we're spending more money than you're bringing in in terms of taxes so I think it's a positive thing I don't know how you feel thank you commissioner I think it's a a great idea too particularly at a time when there's been past discussions on changing and evolving the type of night life that we have and just like it's important for us to hear from them it's even more important for them to hear from us and what the city and residents want out of their establishments uh colleagues any comments yeah I think it's a great idea um the one feedback that I've heard uh even over the years as this has been kicked around is that it could create some potential potential Sunshine violations um and I just maybe want to get legal's opinion on that uh because if let's say the owners of club a and Club B are on this ad advisory committee uh it could put them in some uh unforeseen situations where even when they're not at the committee if they are just talking about General Industry matters or general city matters uh away from this committee that it could uh they could be constrained or caught in some unintended consequences so fully supportive of the idea I I just want to make sure that we're uh considering all things thank you thank you madam chair and and yes uh commissioner magazine that's that's correct um if the members were speaking of some item that's likely to become to come before them in their official capacity that could be a violation of the sunshine that's correct Madam chair yes um just one point to to um pop into thought is um expand the the notion of night life because there are now increasingly number of clubs that are daytime operators um and so it doesn't need to be a club that is only operating literally at night so it's more sort of the entertainment slash night life at Haw okay so with that okay to move to the full commission all right so we had a Time certain sorry that we're behind um we'll move on to item number 24 item number 24 is discuss the potential implementation of a bicycle lane on the west side of Collins Avenue as a part of the upcoming Florida Department of Transportation resurfacing restoration and Rehabilitation project on State Road A1A Collins Avenue from Sr 907 West 63rd Street to 75th street thank you I didn't realize that commissioner Fernandez was not here and that's his item um okay uh Jose Gonzalez I'll call him thank you madam chair committee members uh so F the Florida Department of Transportation recently approached us with an opportunity to implement a bike lane on the west side of Collins Avenue from 63rd Street to 75th Street as part of an upcoming resurfacing project that fot has and so they they um they they conducted a planning level analysis if you will and determined that in order to accommodate that bike lane on the west side of Collins it would require the elimination of 75 on street parking spaces along the along the corridor um clearly we have concerns with the loss of on street parking however this is a once in a many year opportunity to incorporate a bike lane along a primary North South uh Corridor and again it's a project that was recommended in our bicycle pedestrian master plan in our transportation master plan as we know there are a lot of people that commute by bicycles in North Beach particularly it's um an area of our city where there are households that have no vehicles and so B bicycle Mobility is a very popular form of getting around in North Beach uh this project would certainly facilitate that but we just wanted to have you know to um bring this to your attention and have the conversation with regard to the the impact which is potential loss of u s 75 on street parking spaces what we would do to try to mitigate some of that is that we would look at the cross streets to identify any opportunities to squeeze in accommodate um additional spaces if if they're feasible and um we would do that analysis u in in the immediate future because we would want to and the last thing I want to say is FD actually requires a resolution of the city Commission in order to move forward with the bike lane thank you commissioner Fernandez this is your item yes uh thank you madam chair my apologies I was I was grabbing a bite for lunch so my apologies um but you know I this is a good opportunity for our city um the fact that FD is going to be doing this work for us to be able to expand our our bicycle Network um I I think it's it's important for us to consider certainly the impacts uh that this could have on on on street parking but see what could be done to mitigate that um I you know we we've been advancing so much so from 26th Street to 41st Street uh that's almost completed uh by by FDL where we're going to have bicycle Lanes or they're already there the bicycle lanes are are are are there from from 26 to to 41st we're going to be going from 41st to 63rd uh that that's a project that's already been conceptualized it's it's it's approved it's got great uh input from from the community to be able to go now Beyond 63rd up to what is it 75th Street correct up to 75th Street it doesn't get us to the very you know end of of the city but we're getting there uh I think I think it it's it's an opportunity that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be exploring uh other local roads uh further Inland uh that uh that that that that could accommodate this that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be you know seeing parking demands what other local roads uh may have less parking demands uh but in the meantime this is a this is an option that we have on the table uh to expand the network complete uh this port or not complete but further expand the Collins Avenue bicycle lanes that we've been advancing on and perhaps provide a release valve to uh to to some of the congestion that we experience on the uh on the beachwalk so um so I'd love feedback from from the committee on this uh commissioner is there any public comment uh commissioner bot you speak and then we'll take public comment thank you madam chair um just for put this to put this into context why is this so once in a forever how long opportunity to jump onto with fot well the um the fdot project is currently in the design phase or they're about to start design so the timing is right once that project once colins Avenue is resurfaced we probably won't hear from fdot again at least to redo that section for another 10 15 years and we would need them to approve if we were going to do it ourselves we would need to sort of reopen the conversation and say we want to do this anyhow and can we get your permission to do it that that's correct and they they're am minable and so um and we already have the lower part of Collins Avenue where this there is a bike lane already in place in the lower part of Collins Avenue so from 26 to 41st it's in construction it's in construction from 41st to 63rd it's in planning still very preliminary uh that's part of a major reconstruction of Collins Avenue in the mid Beach area which is um it's major capital investment and that project is not fully funded for construction yet ft is still in the you know preliminary design phases if you will but but it's the other parts of colins are going to be made into have bike Lanes or multimodal option Lane so bike or E scooter or whatever it's coming eventually yes okay so um it's not a question of if we should do it it's a question of how we should get it done and if this opportunity presents itself to get it done done efficiently without additional headache then then that should be seized upon um is is there an opportunity to in addition to investigating the um side street parking options which should be done post haste I mean that should be the next time this comes up for conversation we should have a sense of of the 75 proposed um lost parking spaces we can make up for 30 of them without even doing anything major whatever the right number is um because that will influence res president's concerns is there also an opportunity to investigate um again going back to this idea of the you know if you reduce one lane of traffic that makes speeding less of a concern we don't want to slow we don't want to tie the city up in gridlock that's not the goal here but um is that something that could be investigated as part of this this proposed action I I believe it could be uh commissioner that would require a separate analysis that EA would need to conduct they have not conducted that that analysis I think from their perspective between eliminating a traveling and parking they feel that parking I'm sorry uh yeah parking is the lesser of the two evils well I understand if if I may so just to I understand that's how they would feel because their concern is how do we move the flow of traffic however for residents and businesses who live who are operating there or living there um it may be nice to have slightly slower traffic and still be able to park and have people come patronize your restaurant or shop at your store so I don't know how big of a deal it is to have them do that analysis even if it's a pretty cursory one so that we can make a better informed decision about what our options are and how to best proceed I think my guess is that there's going to be appetite to to take this opportunity as it presents itself but it may not be completely clear what the best you know if you could even even just minimize the lanes of traffic by a foot or two on each side um which wouldn't remove a lane but might slow things down a little bit and then also find 30 parking spots in the neighboring streets maybe it's some combination where it's not all of one or all of another that would actually yield the best possible outcome which is sufficient parking slightly slower rates of travel um and a bike lane thank you all right so uh public comment and then um we'll hear from Vice all right if we could hear Valerie naret you have two minutes and please unmute yourself thank you uh thank you all um I would like to propose an alternative um how about the medium on Indian Creek uh that would means not taking parking space and not taking a lane from uh cins and also that median could start it at 41st Street so we can have that all the way to 41st to 71st on the medium and then the streets slowed down after that that's all thank you uh Vice chair Suarez that's it for a public comment was one oh okay if we could have Dave unmute himself Dave you have two minutes hello everyone um Dave grizer um South Beach resident um I think this is a really exciting opportunity to connect South Beach to North Beach uh via sort of a continuous Spike Lane we're getting there you know you can go from South Point through the Ocean Drive bike Lanes all the way up to 15th Street and we're starting to see this Patchwork grow north um this would be uh an important component of that to get us to to North Beach and really make that connection for the people that commute between the two areas and you know for the incredibly busy traffic times being able to hop on a bike and skip the traffic is an attractive uh an attractive option for a lot of people the um the beachwalk has you know comes up in conversation a lot this is a great opportunity to get the fastest users the people riding um their devices the fastest on the beachwalk to move them over to Collins um so there's just a lot of synergies and a lot of multiple birds that can be gotten um with this Stone so thank you for your all consideration have a great day thank you Vice ch um yeah can we do public comments hi good afternoon thank you everybody my name is William quinland um so I'm a resident of Bay Shore and I commute up to North Beach where I work at the B shell um and I almost without question if I can I take my electric bike I find that regardless of the weather circumstances the time of day the traffic conditions it is faster more efficient than driving um recently I've had to cut back on that path because the the the conflict points on the beachwalk are what they are and the the the traffic enforcement on that road is is sort of changing my own commuting patterns so I am really pleased to see this plan um I would like to make one recommendation for the uh for the commission when you make your own recommendation to fot as I look at their proposal the biggest failure point that I see in their design is that it's not protected by Lanes maybe that would be protected with Lane of parking and getting rid of one of the traffic Lanes or maybe be protected by uh taking away the parking the the on street parking with 30 m hour design speed traffic has a lot of conflict points there's always somebody getting out of their car where you have to you know swerve out of lane or whatever it's pretty bad um but if you have a bike lane where you won't have any protection from the the vehicular traffic what that will turn into is something like what we saw in the Venetian Causeway lots of without the armadillos like lots of conflict points whichever poor terorists are brave enough to ride their city bikes on might you know um get struck by traffic um and then of course eventually it'll just turn into a loading zone for ere eats deliveries right like we need if we're going to do something with bikes please don't have as it like really put in good facilities that will keep bicyclists comfortable safe efficiently moving traffic north to south on our tiny little island it is the most efficient form of Mobility um and I'm really excited I think this is going to be really good down payment on connecting the other expanses of of Collins Avenue right thank you hi good afternoon I'll be I'll be brief first I want to thank commissioner Fernandez for bringing us forth and being the sponsor as you know a resolution is needed from the city commission for this to proceed I just want to talk about a couple of things that were mentioned I heard safety and speed if you look through the scoping report from fot which is a planning document as they begin these these long-term Rehabilitation projects they note the speed limit is 30 m hour on the stretch of Collins Avenue but the design speed what the road is actually constructed for is 45 miles an hour that's the reason why you have speeding so in addition to perhaps looking at a bicycle L on here you can try to uh you could ask them if they can design the road as they rebuild it so that people don't feel comfortable speeding because the other hours of the day when we don't have congestion you have people who are speeding and then lastly U we heard about uh parking and and that issue there I did note in the memo it talks about there's a $55,000 potential uh impact so we take $55,000 a year divided by 75 spaces these spaces are worth $700 each that's nothing in a city of this size uh so U just want to thank you I'm going in circles here thank you and uh you know the bicycle Lanes they will connect to other lanes under construction and safety is important as well thanks again thank you Vice chair thank you madam chair you know I I I I think it's um I think it's funny that our first item on on this committee was blue zones and um you know a big tenant of blue zones is not having to drive and walking and biking to to where where wherever you want to locally um and and and becoming more healthy and active uh in your community and the best way to do that is to really encourage more walking biking uh and and really getting out of out of your cars um that's my first point the second point is we've we've seen a lot of of issues on the boardwalk um and why do why do ebikes and bicyclist and scooters use the boardwalk because it's easy it's a straight shot it's safe and unfortunately that doesn't mix well with pedestrians especially elderly pedestrians on the boardwalk so I don't necessarily like the idea of moving it to Indian Creek I think it should be closer to uh the nearest road which is Collins Avenue um you know there are other cities in the United States that are leading the charge on this uh for example Austin in DC Denver uh you know I looked up in DC mayor Bowser and DDOT celebrate 100 miles of DC bike Lanes on bike to workday you know and so you know there are other cities taking us out to lunch on on resiliency uh and and walk walkability and P and and and micromobility um across the country you know really being 7 square miles it's really a no-brainer for us to really Embrace this this sort of uh way of life and and lastly you know what our parking director and our transportation director said you know this is sort of like a once in a-lifetime opportunity and I I I'm not sure if it was uh colleague uh bot who said you know we need to make the hard decisions now M and I think you know this certainly is a hard decision um for the loss of parking but I think it's true it it really is the right step forward for um for progress in our city so I'm going to I'm going to have full support on this um and I appreciate commissioner Fernandez putting it Forward okay um we're running very low on time uh colleagues what would you like to can I just chime in just for just for a second uh because I I completely uh number one appreciate the feedback from from the committee um you know to uh Commissioners uh Suarez's and and bot's point uh we I think we lose a tremendous opportunity not moving forward with FDT in this in this in this opportunity I do agree with commissioner Bond perhaps what we could look at is a redesign of Collins Avenue in this portion uh so that we can achieve slower traffic having a dedicated facility for for for bicycles and still preserving uh you the uh the parking that's needed for for for for the businesses doing that type of of redesign kind of gives us that hybrid that we need uh that preserves parking gives the bicycles some sort of facility but we do the the infrastructure redesign necessary in order to slow down traffic and make it overall safer uh for people in general so uh is it to bring back the item for June 5th um uh with suggestions well when is the deadline they fot begins con uh designed in I want to say September of the this year um so we've got only a couple months what we can do is we could approach fot uh with a potential see what opportunities there are to to redesign uh along the corridor and come back with with with their feedback because I will say so uh commissioner bot lives in North Beach and she gave all of her feedback all of the emails I received were from people who live right there and were they were a resounding no and all of the people that we had in public comments none of them live there so they're not affected um so I i' really want to make sure that we come back with something that the people who actually live there and are affected are comfortable with it but Madam chair if I may the notes that I got and I agree with you we got emails saying noes their concern was loss of parking right but if we can somehow reconfigure the roadway so that you can still preserve the parking and provide this it could be a win-win solution so let's have this come back June 5th and see what progress you've made on the redesign fine okay so with that we are going to call Item 31 11 33 10 29 and 30 and the first one that we'll hear from those after they're called is 11 because U Melissa needs to leave okay uh Stephanie okay so item 3 I'll read 31 and then 11 as well since they'll be combined review the measures implemented during spring break 2024 to see which ones wored and which ones did not item number 11 which will be presented by Melissa will be discussions regarding future spring break marketing campaigns she's calling them all but we're taking them one by one so first one that we'll hear is 11 and uh 11 is sponsored by commissioner bot co-sponsored by Comm uh Vice Cher Suarez commissioner magazine commissioner Fernandez and um Melissa berier if you would tell us the uh any up sure good afternoon everyone Madam chair Commissioners um we hope not to get back together with spring break so we want to continue the breakup um not go through any rebounds um and just open to your feedback thank you and Madam chair if I may um so it we are finding ourselves in this weird um dialectic opposition where uh this was a tremendously successful campaign numbers were off the charts um it got a lot of attention good and bad but it certainly accomplished the goal um what I would um encourage us to do as we move forward is to and I know that that the team went through the agency's DI Dei um review process which was great um but I think there might be some additional sensitivities here in our South Florida Community in our Tri County Area that we thought we would get covered by national de I um um review that we just didn't and I think that um unintentionally we've um I wouldn't say burned Bridges but there are Embers and I want to put those out before they before they grow into a roaring fire um I think the idea of we're breaking up with people until you get your act together is great and is universal and I think it's just a tweaking um of how we massage the language and maybe some of the the tropes that we use and that is a conversation you know speaking as a former branding and and marketing person um I know very well the campaigns designed by a committee are destined to fail that's not what I'm advocating here at all I don't want to I don't want to put that fear into anybody but to at some point when um it's pretty well baked but there's language and semantics and visuals that could still be adjusted um so that we you know our own in our own immediate Community um the black fairs advis committee or designated Representatives thereof and also our larger um Miami day County Community Representatives get included in the conversation before it ships um so that if there are any any landmines that we um can avoid that we do because the unintended consequence in this case was that we um you know the the Goodwill ambassadors were held back this year and we definitely need need all hands on deck that was a short term but the bigger impact is we want to make sure that everybody understands that this is a wildly welcoming community and we don't care who you are what you look like what you believe how you know who you choose love any of that stuff as long as you play by the rules of engagement and so I think it's a very fine um Nuance conversation to we have and not everybody communicates the same way so I want to just make sure that that's the message that everybody is hearing but I love the campaign thank you commissioner bot um colleagues anything to add yes Melissa incredible job incredible what do you need from us what can we do one thing that I'm thinking is do we wait until so long next year you have such momentum continue it on drop another little uh ad that we hope to go viral where it's like hey just reminding yall we're pretty happy here with our new boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever it may be I I'll leave that to the expert won't step in your lane but maybe we don't wait so long and we let you continue on this fantastic momentum that you've already built thank you well we are working on a tourism spot um that's again a little more positive this summer but when you said you know what can you do to help we would love to get direction as far as what are we implementing um what are those parking restrictions are we saying expect curfews what can we say because we would like to launch with this campaign in January as opposed to March 1st when the video hit this year um um so really we would love Direction um at least my team we would love to start developing the campaign this summer um so whenever you and I guess where I was going with emis is do we almost start our campaign now right it's not talking about oh there's not going to be any parking restrictions but just planning that seed month by month quarter by quarter that we have no intention of going back to our previous fling of spring break I'm good with January for for that um but again we would need to ction in terms of what's the messaging um and we would love to have that pretty baked because making changes you know is difficult once we we have that production thank you Vice chair thank you madam chair whatever you guys did was great um you know we're still broken up okay don't call don't text me whatever message um you know I think the firm that used go ahead and use them again will be hopefully and and and give them a bonus okay um whatever you need to do to do what you did last year I think was great and effective um and you have my full support thank you okay commissioner uh Fernandez and then one last time and then we'll close this out or bring it to the full commission I should say thank you and I and I get the the the intent of my colleague because we certainly need to walk in the shoes of of of the diversity in our community and understand the experiences of individuals that have that that have had experiences that aren't the experiences we've had and so we need to see it through everyone's eyes I do think the success that we experienced last year is that it was professionally driven not politically driven all that we did last year was that you know I placed a resolution on the agenda asking all of you to leverage a relationship that we have uh to get funding and to do this advertising campaign and the rest of it was nonpolitical it was no advisory committee it was not the city commission it was just creative driven professionally driven and we had already taken some decisions like you know by this time last year we had already decided to proactively endorse a curfew for for for for spring break we did that a year in advance we were already talking about some of the parking restrictions and so that was able to be baked into the messaging that was put in that in in in that commercial I think that's where we belong setting the policy that's going to be implemented uh during during spring break with with professional guidance but not getting in the weeds too in the weeds of the messaging because that's just best handled in the hands of these large firms that understand Dei issues well that understand public perception well and that already delivered us success I think we need to continue in that path thank you madam chair thank you okay commissioner bot and then we're just uh two very quick things first of all um um some of the things that we've talked about over the the last six months or five months since the new commission was formed was this notion of you know adhering to our rules every day of the year every on every corner and so uh not to derail what you're doing for spring break but if there is an opportunity to sort of and this may be a budget conversation for next year not even this year but you know maybe we should start thinking about this idea of of reinforcing that message throughout the year not just in advance of high impact weekends but that's just a conversation for later second of all I will say that what I'm suggesting is not politically motivated I will tell you that I've worked on M many Multicultural campaigns that were handled by national agency and we got the Spanish language wrong because it was reviewed by somebody New York who's from you know the focus on Puerto Rican stuff for a campaign that is in Texas and it's Mexican based Spanish and it's a very different thing so this is not a political thing at all this is not trying to do anything other than than to make sure we're hitting all the notes we're supposed to hit to make everybody feel welcome and that's all thank you thank you very much um and then you'll keep us updated some of the other items are probably going to help answer messaging and if not in a future commission meeting it will but keep up the great work thank you so much know that you need to head out the next item that we'll hear is item number 31 and um it was mayor miners item from January co-sponsored by commissioner Fernandez so if you would te it up please thank you madam chair um so in January uh the mayor placed an item on the in on the agenda there was a comprehensive item that I think encapsulated uh a lot of the initiatives that we saw during spring break a lot of it was uh professionally from from the administration other was stuff that we had already discussed on throughout the year but it all got en encapsulated into into one item and it almost became kind of like you know the guiding documents uh the help talked about police about parking about um you know good ambassadors and and a host of of other issues um um you know I when when this item was adopted in January we made a referral to to this committee to review each one of these items and see where where we wanted what where we are with these items were they successful last year do we want to recommend all of these items again for next year do we want to tweak some of these items for for for for next year I think we need to do that sooner rather than later I think I think we should be sending uh from this meeting recommendations uh back back to the city commission that can be adopted that can help shape the messaging we sent out there like for example curfew the curfew I felt was was something that we proactively endorsed last year and the administration together with the marketing company was able to properly package it so that we weren't saying that there would be a curfew but we would be saying expect for there to potentially be a curfew uh so that people knew that that was in the toolbox I think that that was very helpful and we should probably be continuing that for next year uh I think we all agreed um you know not to fund City sponsored special events and we were able to redirect those $3 million towards enhanced uh law enforcement that's something that I think we should continue doing re continuing that enhanced investment um in in in law enforcement I think we learned also from some of the some of the parking initiatives I think that um the garage closures on in the Entertainment District certainly uh were very successful I think they had perhaps some unintended consequences on the workforce that we need to that we need to figure out uh so that so that we don't hurt the workforce and the and and the and the industry uh while still meeting our our goals but you know we may want to revisit what we did in mid Beach you know do we want to extend these parking restrictions all the way in mid Beach you know perhaps that was something that was too broad too own us and we can you know draw that back in a a little bit more um you know one of the things that I feel that uh we certainly should be looking at is the implementation of the DUI checkpoints and the license plate readers I think uh they those started Friday nights uh and I strongly feel that you start to get a feel of a change in Dynamics on Thursdays and that's something that I feel you know that we uh that we should be doing differently next year if we're going to be doing these DOI checkpoints and these license plate readers which I think we should if anything we should be starting them earlier and not waiting uh until until Friday night um you know this is these are some of the points that I think we just I think we had a very successful implementation of everything I think these are some of the things that I would like to see tweet as part of our feedback back to the city commission and I'd love to hear the feedback from our colleagues so that hopefully something can be sent that I am an commissioner Fernandez thank you so much for bringing this forward and mayor Miner I um agree with you on every single point um so I think everything that we did this year worked well with the exception of closing the garages I think it was too broad and it brought on so many unintended consequences especially in the Sunset Harbor neighborhoods all of the exercise places people couldn't Park and uh exercise there and then Live Nation had concerts going on and there were people with tickets and then exceptions had to be made and um same thing with New World Symphony and some of the museum so the parking part became a nightmare one thing that I also liked was that we had endorsed the curfew at your suggestion and it it made the curfew when it occurred not political because it didn't point to the Commissioners okay you vote for a curfew the city manager and the police chief saw what was going on they made the decision I thought that was amazing um so I think we should bring this back to the commission with some of those recommendations uh so that we could discuss it as a body yeah very commissioner magazine yeah very much so uh agreed just about every Point agreed with a lot of uh the chair's points um for the parking I think the parking the mxc was very effective but agree with you in areas like Sunset Harbor uh may have been overburdensome so I think yeah so I think some of these uh just around the edges are think that can be worked out all right so if we're all in favor we'll move this one to the full commission and then we'll move on to commissioner yes on item number 11 what was the outcome um so we're going to close it out because she is going um is it going to go to commission or not we don't have the it so will'll she'll know what our action is when item 31 is heard at commission got so uh 11 is closed but 31 will be sent to Commission and Madam chair can I just say one last point and and it goes back to commissioner bot's vision of this not being you know targeted or or or anything like this um you know in in in the future when this does go back you know this is spring break but this is also year round and at some point we need to have a conversation on how we get elements of our spring break plan and we find ways to randomly implement this year round so this is not just about spring break these are enhanced public safety measures that we need to be doing year round as part of our uh Public Safety uh efforts that that is the thing that is the goal over arching goal of this city but that's a sidebar topic thank you so much commissioner Fernandez so the next item that's already been called is number 33 and it's commissioner bot co-sponsored by commissioner Fernandez do we have any public comments so far on any so far we have not had any public comments commissioner B thank you um so you know the Goodwill ambassadors are such an important part of any high impact weekend where they are put into place um it takes an enormous amount of of uh person power um whether that comes from the county or from our own staff who volunteered to get trained and then and uh stand out and uh be the welcoming face of Miami Beach it is such a great resource and program to diffuse things that could escalate quickly um just by having a friendly face in uh basically friendly civilian clothes sharing information before it becomes anything more than that um I want to compliment the city staff and employees who um stepped up to the plate this spring break when when we were forced to scramble um and hopefully some of them will come back even when we don't have to scramble like that but um I love the fact that our our city employees and staff are are so willing to to step up in times of need um I I also uh am really hoping that we're going to be able to um restore our Goodwill ambassador program with the county um and I know that the administration is working on that and um in addition I think that it would be really a great way to reach out to um higher education uh uh colleagues uh universities maybe even high school students you know older high school students anyone over the age of 18 um to see if they would want to be trained to volunteer as Goodwill Ambassador bassadors to um have a broader mix of people who are in that role U to offer volunteer hours um who knows what else can come of that but I would love to see that all of those things happen um thank you so much uh commissioner bot uh yeah I agree with you it was very unfortunate that the county had um uh turned their back on the city of Miami Beach uh during spring break and what the city Administration did under those conditions was unbelievable and the C team also stepped up to the plate my Aid Aaron Sorano took the c training program for two days and he worked as a Goodwill Ambassador uh that entire month he was so exhausted um and he did a great job so I'm in full support of this and I think that um what needs to happen do we move it to the full commission yes please with favor we'll move it to the full commission um all in favor with a favor recommendation with a favorable recommendation all in favor yeah yeah okay so then we'll hear item number 10 please and that is commissioner bot co-sponsored by Vice chair Suarez commissioner magazine commissioner Fernandez and it's uh parking uh I think we covered most of this in the previous conversation um just so that the unintended consequences of shutting down parking options on 41st Street 17th Street Sunset Harbor and any other sort of anecdotal outreaches that we got um it might also be useful to let people know let residents know a couple of months before spring break as soon as we know so that the folks who had weddings or B Mitzvah or bought Mitzvah plan and didn't you know aren't thinking about Spring Break um don't get swept up in this so that we don't have so much scrambling at the 11th hour I support you to make that motion yes pleas okay what ever commissioner B just said I make that motion okay and uh Albert Jose anybody want to make any comments good okay just want to move it on thank you for all of your hard work uh it was you and Monica we unbelievable thank you very much yes all right so we move back to have Monica come back for just spring breek to answer all those questions favorable yeah and uh night item number 29 please item number 29 discussion to adjust Beech closures hours by 1 hour during spring break to account for time change from Standard Time to Daylight Savings Time okay and that is um commissioner bot co-sponsored by commissioner Fernandez so this is um a weird thing to contemplate but it was pointed out to me daylight savings what um daylight savings um starts very early next year March 9th and for those people who are not here for spring break in particular or people like so many of our tours who are here for a a family vacation from other countries and have no clue about the weirdness that we call daylight savings and they want to go to the beach at 5:30 with your smaller kids because the sun isn't as strong and it's a little less crowded we're like yeah no you you I mean you can stay on the beach but you can't come onto the beach so I would like just as we contemplate the very many details that we're going to be putting together for spring break next year and going forward that our beach closure time and and again compliments to whoever thought of the idea of letting people stay on the beach this year instead of forcing them off all at one time that was such a big win over last year it was really remarkable and just to tweak it slightly so that um we just follow the daylight savings hours and stay open an hour later um so that people um can make their way on in one of the nicest parts of the day thank you hi Liz how you doing good how's everyone so basically there a exactly right it would be to during high impact instead of closing at 6: p.m. we would close at 7:00 p.m. yes if I could add one thing I say this somewhat in justest but uh in years past the sutnik hour I've brought up that we all the resolutions and urgings that we do that we should urge uh uh Tallahassee to consider keeping the state in daylight savings time year round uh perhaps we discuss if that could be a legislative priority it would be I think fantastic for our quality of life and for our tourism industry as well thank you all right so we'll pass with a favorable recommendation um the 700 PM uh all in favor I I'll get signatures for it if I need let's get Kristen to do it while she's do okay last item item number 30 okay item number 30 discuss financial and Manpower impact of extending law en enforement officers initiatives to Thursday nights during the two middle weekends of March 2024 this item is commissioner bot co-sponsored by commissioner Fernandez again I think this might have um been covered in the previous conversation but the idea of the very effective um uh enhanced police presence on the causeways on Friday Saturday Sunday to started on Thursday because um we know that people come in and start doing silly things on Thursday for a long weekend good afternoon Madam chair members of the board um yes that's correct um we did notice I obviously every year is different with Spring Break um uh with small variations between the weeks but we know that we staff up for week number two or three generally um as it pertains to intelligence that we receive from um the schools around the country that are coming to Miami Beach or that planed spring break periods during that that time adding Thursday for us we're in agreement is not uh an an issue for us um there is a cost to it I just want to make the the committee aware um that for police Staffing um overtime during that um added two days of those uh particular weekends and additional services that we um that we ask for in terms of outside agencies that cost comes out to about $90,000 each Thursday on average so we're looking at about between 180 to 195,000 for those two days to add that if we were going to have the same resources including outside but would you through the chair if I may um would would we need the same level I mean it's not you know could we do what we need to do on a Thursday night with like a 75% Staffing level versus a Friday and Saturday or like Thursdays and Sundays or 75% and or something to mitigate it because there's a Friday and Saturday are probably the high EST issues correct so Friday Saturday and Sundays are our most challenging parts of the weekend um what we know what we do do on Thursdays is enhance Staffing um but it's not quite the amount of police officers and visibility that you would see on Friday Saturday Sunday as you did this past Spring Break season but but there's there's we can we can always adjust numbers here and there and we'll figure it out that's the bottom line um Thursday for us is not an issue in adding enhanced Staffing I think money well spent I mean we the the data that you provided of what was stopped and intercepted before it came into the city drugs guns you know booze it's all good yes ma'am okay thank you uh commissioner Rosen Gonzalez um I think also that maybe you know when we form this nightclub task force now let's just throw out to them midnight so that we don't have to go under a curfew because if it's midnight now and they know that they're going to be Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday closed at midnight they can mitigate they can choose that weekend to go on spring break themselves someplace else you understand but like what we did last time which is like waiting and then implementing this curfew I think that doesn't work so and by the way you might end up saving money if we roll back the hours you did try last year and it was unsuccessful but I would say that let's get them to agree with it through this nightlife task force and say Here's what we're asking you for we're asking for these four nights we need you to do this we need you to know that it's going to happen and then you know if you add the extra police like I think all together it's just but I think that is a key component and we didn't have any restrictions on the Thursday night and by the Friday night we were obviously in curfew M um thank you yes commissioner Fernandez and that's and that is a great feedback and I think you know I think we all agree and we agreed on on the Thursday night you know you start to see the change of the Dynamics on Thursday night the issue with us saying now you know midnight that we're going to close that we're going to impose a a midnight curfew is that you can only react to it as as as we all know you can't tell people right now starting now they're going to be closing them down during spring break at midnight uh that's the challenge that we that we have and if we say that now we're going to be getting ourselves in in trouble in fact it was it was so powerful to see the city manager the police chief having to sit on the stand and having to describe what it was that they saw what was the change of dynamics that they saw and that firsthand experience that they saw to justify to legally justify and create the rationale to uphold a curfew uh that was that was implemented and so I think I I agree with you it's that we can't say right now that we're going to uh do that um because I think we risk we risk the success that we had this year with the court would have otherwise overturned it I'm sure and I can't I'm not an attorney I can't you know speak but Mark I mean I mean we would do it that way I'm sure we're you're correct commissioner we can't declare the emergency or the curfew in advance the most who could say is potentially uh based upon the circumstances and conditions as they warrant it could be implemented but you can't do it in advance you're correct right okay thank you and a question for uh Mark Fishman um do we just close this item out do there is there a decision we need to make here this is also going to be heard at neighborhoods it was um sorry at Finance it was a dual referral okay so we'll close it out here and then it'll be heard on Friday okay um so with that that item is closed out before we adjourned the meeting Vice chair Suarez uh has a comment um we got an email today for a possible um June commission uh move uh per commissioner Fernandez since we're all here could we discuss it here um it's a sunshine meeting I think we can discuss um ask the city staff uh June commission meeting or neighborhoods meeting the so the June 26 commission oh would actually be something the city clerk and the City attorney still well can we just discuss it up here cuz I we can't discuss it between we can't discuss that was noticed okay can we just a motion to discuss it good afternoon I would suggest you hold off and discuss this afternoon when the mayor is present yeah okay thank you all right with that um thank you to uh my colleagues U for I'm sorry with the mess with the change up date I can't okay meeting is adjourned thank you everybody for your attention thank you