good evening everybody uh we good on all this uh I'm Chris Mancini I'm the executive director of save the harbor save the bay and we uh manage the Metropolitan beaches commission for the Massachusetts state legislature as part of that we are here we are going actually town to town from the honton nascet to uh talk to folks about climate change and climate resiliency and is that GNA is that echoing on me very distracted by the sound of my own voice it's just so beautiful and I no um should I wait or should I just go yes are understand we're live we are just sorting out the final audio issue here in the in the city council chamber on our laptop wouldn't be 2024 without some technical difficulties we've only been living with this stuff for four years why would you expect us to get it right on the very first time okay there it goes all right so Chris Mancini executive director of save the harbor we'll get into a whole introduction uh in a moment to give you a frame of what we're doing here but I really appreciate everyone coming out in person all the folks on Zoom to have this discussion about what we value about our beach especially about America's first public beach here in in Rivier so um before we do that I would just like to thank um mayor Keef um representative Jessica gianino and all the elected here for hosting us here at City Hall and uh turn it over to uh refino who is also a commissioner the representative from Rivier on uh the Metropolitan beaches commission representative thank you [Applause] Chris thank you Chris and good evening everyone it's a pleasure to be here tonight I have the pleasure of introducing the speaker uh mayor Patrick Kei but before that I want to take a moment to acknowledge some of our elected officials that have taken time out of their night to be here with us uh first and foremost I will start with our Ward five counselor who represents one of the areas that's uh primarily impacted by climate change onir Beach she represents the point of pines and the Riverside neighborhoods in Ward five uh basically all of her District TOS either rumney Marsh Riv Beach or the point of pin River Angela greo [Applause] AA we're also joined by councelor large Juan Haro Juan also chairs the uh climate committee for the Rivier city council one of the new subcommittees that uh he started up when he became a city counselor so I know this issue is really important to him thank you Juan for being here and we're also joined never want to cut your applause we're also joined by City councelor large uh who's also wearing two hats this evening so we're in uh the city council chamber so we're grateful that uh councelor at large Bob H is here he's also uh state representative Lydia Edwards District director so he's here in both capacities and I'm also really grateful uh that my counterpart in the city of river and our state delegation who I'll welcome up once he gets settled uh representative Jeff turko is here as well so uh before I offer some thoughts and remarks I want to start by introducing for some welcoming comments our mayor of the city rever Patrick Keefe [Applause] thank you Madame rep and thank you to save the haror save the bay and the Metropolitan beaches commission for being here Chris uh and team something that we T we talk about the city of R we we we think about its City and we think about its its vibrant resources we think about its people and we think about its industry U but we always um we tend to sometimes forget that we are a Beach Community and it is certainly one of our most valued assets uh we love it that's one of the reasons why many people have chosen to stay in the community that's why many reasons why people have chosen to uh move into this community and I think it's unbelievable when you go up and down the entire coast of Massachusetts you have some so many great uh natural resources and Riva Beach is definitely one of the top resources certainly in my opinion maybe I'm a little bit biased I happen to be the mayor of this community but I know that everyone in this room values it and it's unbelievable it's really exciting to have people at our state level like like lyia Edwards like Jessica jino like representative turo that value this asset as much as we all do and share in that uh Vision forair but ultimately it's important to have stewards at the state level so when Jessica jino and our representative former city councilor lifelong resident of of our community a lifelong family from our community is up at the State House State House fighting for us and making sure that we are taking care of this unbelievable resource uh it gives us uh great Solace and it makes us um feel very warm that we have someone like that championing for us but we all have to be Champions and stewards of our environment as well we we have to understand the footprint that we leave behind and uh we need to make sure that we're continuing to protect our resources whether it's the beach whe whether it's the Riverside whether it's our salt marshes we have a huge obligation to make sure that we protect our beaches and protect our our our natural beauty for a lifetime for generations to come and we're we're always committed so I'm thankful to to host we're thankful to have you here today and uh we want to make sure that everyone uh shares that responsibility together so thank you for being here today and we look forward to seeing what we can do thank you thank you mayor Keith and before we introduce our next speaker I want to take a moment to acknowledge a few other special guests that are here with us tonight and I think every Community partner that's in this room today is special because you're taking the time out of your night to be here but I would be remissed if I didn't acknowledge uh Lieutenant Don Bossy who took time out of his day to be here Lieutenant bossy is the uh commander in the State Police who's in charge of the Rivier Beach Barracks so uh he's someone that we're in contact with constantly in the city and the state in terms of um working on R Beach making sure people feel safe because without feeling safe on our beaches everything else you know built in a foundation of that so Lieutenant thank you for being here we're also joined yes love all the Applause this is great we're also joined by someone that's very special to save the harbor save the bay and the beaches Commission longtime commissioner who's now retired from the commission Carol Haney Carol thank you for being here and for always being involved our next speaker I'm so grateful that he is my partner in the state house he's a champion for the city of Rivier and also the community of Winthrop his entire district is incredibly impacted by our beach and our Coastal communities he's been a champion in helping me with our issues surrounding being an environmental justice community and all of the things that come with that including facing climate change and the variety of environmental issues that uh we deal with as a state and as a city Jeff [Applause] turo I got to get myself one of these fancy vests Mr Maya look at that um thank you very much for the opportunity to say a few words I'm so happy to be here with uh my colleague rep janino a true leader for the city and uh you know widely respected up at the state house and I follow in her footsteps as the the dean of the delegation so I thank you for everything you do um for the city and for me personally as well I thank the mayor what a great partner you've been since you hit the ground running and uh we I look forward to getting a lot of good stuff done and and let's not forget your predecessor I mean we're so blessed a community like this representing Rivier and win to have the DCR commissioner that you know lived and breathed the issues that we're talking about um for for his whole life um and now to be in a position as DCR commissioner to to make sure that we have an open ear at DCR to talk about these issues I think is so critically important so commissioner Rigo we're thrilled with him and frankly what a first sort of a um you know the governor is a first being the first elected female governor of the Commonwealth and her team with uh you know Mara and Kim um you know their commitment to the environment their commitment to environmental justice communities I think that we're going to benefit from that having a Secretariat level uh climate change um leader that can come and listen to our concerns and help us you know when I was a teen I worked for the late great Billy reinstein who's you know everyone knows the famous rep from this great City and um you know Billy all I ever heard people call him for was can you help me with how ising to help me with jobs and my family was one that asked to help with housing at one point but housing or jobs housing or jobs that th those are the calls that Billy got well today since I've been the rep I get calls for two things either help with housing or climate issues Flooding at the Riverside Flooding at the Pines flooding in win you know whether it's on the mosh Joanne McKenna calling me saying I don't want this fixed tomorrow I want to fix three days ago what we got to fix this and so when you look at what's happening to Beachmont you look what's happening on all sections of winthrip completely surrounded by water I mean the most basic of storms that are now causing massive flooding it really is an eye-opening experience for everyone even for the most uh oddent skeptic I think has to open their eyes and say hey we need to fix this stuff and we need to take this seriously and so um you know congresswoman clar deserves a lot of credit last year she came and announced a $2 million uh Federal air Mar that's going to help build a a vegetative BM down at the Riverside area which hopefully um will will help to alleviate some of those concerns once we get this up and running there's so much good stuff going on all of you Chris your team are all Partners in this and I really look forward to working with each and every one of you to to uh make this community and this area much safer and uh much more climate resilient Goble bless you all thank you thank you so much representative so before we get into the reason why we're here tonight I'm just going to say a few words because I'm really really excited that we're here in Rivier my home in the council chamber where this all started for me um it's truly been an honor to serve on the commission and working with Chris and save the harbor uh since I got up at the State House in 2021 um the work that this organization does and what it offers for the city of Rivier has been really quite incredible um for anyone that doesn't know save the Harbor started years ago and was one of the first organizations that started in the Boston Harbor cleanup so the reason why I could jump in Boston Harbor on Sunday with Chris and a bunch of other crazy people to raise money for the beaches commission and for programming on our Metropolitan beaches is because of the work that they did 30 years before that to make sure that Boston Harbor was clean that it was safe and that it was a place that we could actually enjoy that we could swim in Constitution Beach that we could you know very Beach was always pretty great but you know the other beaches that surround our community um they've done really incredible work and since you know Meeting those goals that they had they've expanded and now as Chris mentioned they cover from Nantasket to Nahant and everything in between and when we look at our community and we look at how everything from the causeway in Nahant to NASA Beach is impacted by climate change we are the heart of that Rivier is a barrier Beach and we're one of the very few barrier beaches the NorthShore and for those of you that don't realize how important that is it is incredibly important to our ecosystem we're surrounded by rumney Marsh to one side of us and B Isle to the other side and that ecosystem that surrounds our community is incredibly important that's the feeder fish that go to Boston Harbor that's natural carbon sequestration that affects the carbon that goes back into our atmosphere and all the carbon that comes out of the city of Boston and how that goes back into uh keeping the air that we breathe clean and all the awful toxins that come out of the incinerator all that carbon back out of the marsh we won't go into that tonight but um I'm really honored to be here to uh be a part of the work that save the harbor does to represent um my colleagues on the commission uh chairman moo and chairman kryon who are the chairs of the commission could not be here with us this evening but I'm really excited that we're having this hearing in the city of Rivier and as Chris mentioned they're having them throughout the Commonwealth in between nahat and antas to make sure that every Community is heard because we know everyone can't get to the state we know everyone can't get to Boston to share those opinions so today is about R for me every day is about R but this is really about Rivier it's about Riv Beach it's about what matters to you so I look forward to diving into those issues to hearing about what your thoughts are and um we're going to take all those and listen to what other communities have to say as well and make sure that when we bring these back and do our report that uh this all goes into what we make for recommendations you know come next year so look forward to getting into this I'm going to hand it over to Chris manini and I look forward to continuing this conversation tonight thank you all for being [Applause] here representative you did most of my work for me so I don't have to do a lot of my presentation now um but uh this is great I have a very brief presentation mostly what we want to do is hear from everybody here uh so I'm going to do a brief introduction and kind of frame what we want to talk about we're going to break into two or three four small groups and have people talk together for five or 10 minutes come back together share a little bit and then we're going to do one more breakout um you know we've got till 8:00 but you know if we get done early that's that's that's up to up to all of us um this is the first step of a process uh we started actually last week we did a a workshop up in Lynn um at the Linn Museum and now we're here in Riv we're going to go town to town in our in our Watershed so to speak uh go down to we'll be in winr we'll be in East Boston South Boston Chester quinsey and Hull over the next couple of weeks but we're not doing just one conversation we're not just coming and talking to the folks who were able to show up today we're going to be back um we we're just talking with osma about coming to to um an ifar dinner in a couple weeks um we're working with some of the youth groups in different uh cities linro Arts um some of the groups down here we're going to try to talk to as many people as possible uh and what we want to hear I don't know if we can pull our presentation up at this point recording in progress hey all right we uh the Metropolitan beaches commission as repino said you know started uh has been around for a while making recommendations on the Improvement and maintenance of our public beaches this really started and Carol you're very familiar with this you're were there from the beginning uh it really started with we have clean water let's tell people about it let's get people using these places um and what do we what do we need and we had groups like this Come Together We Were at the Jack sat house we were at all different places and that's how we figured out well you know we need more trash barrels DCR needs to uh empty them more often we need to fix the Band Stand we need to there's steps over here that are breaking down there are uh there's a need for programming and that's what helped create the better beaches program which brings helped start the um the the sand castle event actually years and years ago was was part of that first round of Grants um and then uh we did that for a number of years we come back together every year we we look at that stuff and then over the last couple of years we just put out our last report was our our breaking barriers report um this is what we did over Co um my daughter learned how to make sourdough bread and and I talked to you know 800 people about how to improve equity and access on the beaches and uh came up with some really great actionable recommendations that you're starting to see put into place and I can't tell you how excited we were when former mayor origo became the commissioner of the DCR already in the one year that he's been there he's someone we had a relationship with through uh and he's someone who understands these beaches and their importance and we're already seeing more action on that on some of these recommendations that are in here so this summer at the beach you're going to start seeing uh welcoming signage in multiple languages um on all of the beaches you're going to see Mobility mats um and floating and sand wheelchairs more more present and uh an increase in some of these programming aspects that people have asked for and as we spoke together as the beaches commission we said all right well what's next um well we spent billions of dollars cleaning up the water and we spent um another several million dollars connecting people to the water uh and to the beaches and now we're facing this ex existential threat of are we going to even have these resources things are changing and so we really want to come to this conversation um from that point of view that well change is inevitable how do we adapt to change and how do we enhance our relation relationship with the Waterfront so we don't have to Envision a base State without our beaches so that's what we want to hear from folks today whether you're an elected official the city council a rep you're all here in this room today and again this is not the last stop but uh we're going to we're going to talk about how how we use these beaches so that the commission and save the harbor can take all this information and we're in conversation with Folks at UMass Boston Woods Hole you you know you're you're leading the the the climate uh sorry committee yeah all right um you're all more familiar with with some of the things that are going on here than than even we are we have an idea of the principles and things like that but it's really important to us we really prioritize there's there's so many conversations about this happening but we're really coming at it from this lens of how do we think about the beach itself um and how do we how do we adapt and how do we if at all possible save these resources for the for the next many generations so yeah all of our pictures we can keep going on the uh on the slideshow because I kind of did all these slides just in that last bit but there we are with with um commissioner Rigo and some of the Reps last summer releasing this report down on Carson Beach uh all right let's let's go to the actual reason we're here today all right so what we want to do it's a little bit of an icebreaker but it's actually a secret feedback uh process so we'd love for you all you know you're all sitting in some areas maybe break up into three or four groups we'd like folks to kind of get together for five or 10 minutes and think about what's your perfect day at the beach how do you use it are you someone who likes to walk the beach every morning are you just a swimmer you want to get out there in the water is this something you just you live on the beach and you just look at the perfect day is actually just looking out at the Sunrise and it's just it's just always there um there's so so many ways so we want to um take again five or 10 minutes we're going to break up we're all going to come around and join a group and just hear from folks take a couple notes and then we're going to uh folks on Zoom are going to break up into their own group and then we're just going to kind of report back we want to hear from everyone we want to keep all these notes because this is going to be part of our our feedback process so I don't know if that's still up there but get together talk about your perfect day at the beach it's 80 degrees you wake up you look out the window I'm going to go to the beach or I'm going to do my typical routine yes yes do we not give them the paper all right this is the first yeah this is then we'll come back we'll report out and we'll go into the next part all right so you guys what's the yeah yeah so for e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e is and share out um your ideal Beach day yeah so that's what I'm trying to do is put on an U all abilities day awesome awesome beach that Constitution Beach does one every year through triangle in yes I'm trying to do the same thing with triangle so Joy oh there we go um all right so we'd love to have each group kind of pick someone to come up and just just for a minute or two share what folks in your group were we're saying and we'll have this on the recording and just hear hear how people are using this beach can I get a volunteer to to to come up first all right Tony that would be great okay well I've lived in the city for all my life 89 years and the beaches has always been very important to me it's why I stayed in rier because I live on the beach and I was just sharing my thoughts with Chris about the erosion and that's my biggest concern uh about um Riva Beach and all of the beaches and in the Blizzard after the Blizzard of 78 when the point of Pines beach was Lev um we had a group of uh citizens that um planted all the um Shrubbery and the grass and so forth and so on and now we have nice high dunes and that's helped the poter Pines on my side RI on the ocean side um immensely it's just wonderful what that how that happened so I don't know why they couldn't do that along re Beach all the way all the way down to the circle or any Beach as far as that goes and I have seen it done um just this um winter on the Gulf Coast where they had a devastating storm last year and they're renewing that beach and the walkways there and they're planting the grass all along and where they haven't finished that's where all the sand comes it's in everybody's yard it's over the sidewalk and the places in the grass is probably just this High makes a big difference my other thing that I'd like to see is um if I know this is may be just impossible um a bike path along the beach what did you say about the way you use the beach I use the beach to walk to swim and to ride a bike thanks so much next group maybe someone from our so our perfect Beach day uh let off with clean sand clean water thankfully our waterers cleaner than Honolulu so we've solved that um in sand our team does a great job obviously the biggest issue with Rivier Rivier Beach is the amount of sand that gets taken off right uh through all these storms um we we prefer a not too crowded Beach uh we did have a public safety official in our group so um it's skewed that way but our events are um perfect in the sense that we are it's a nice balance you know we're not I know people like to say that that there's a million people at Sand sculpting but that's not a true number the actual number um last year was 56,000 people on Riv Beach the Sunday of sand sculpting we used geofencing to uh capture that number and it's plus or minus a few thousand um and then we also Al talked about our vision for volleyball on River Beach um it's become a hot bed in um in the community through our high school teams and it's something that it's made for uh for that sprawling beach front uh we viewed Rivier Beach as because it's not a deep water port and it's a sound that it's a a great place for non-motorized sport um whether it's kite surfing which we already have but that's kind of run out of somebody's house or access to kayak and canoes um that's in our vision um and then we really loved um when you go to the beach to have it tell tell you a story to be able to read something you it could be wayfinding it could be plaques or markers but to walk along the beach and and to to learn about its history to and to just be able to gather information as you move um was something that was really important to us thank you thanks uh all right so uh not many swimmers in our group so uh our Ideal Beach Stay was more so on like the walk um to watch the sunrise sunset um we were more on the side of like uh things like entertainment on the beach um whether that's like food trucks um little popup shops with vendors art um everyone loves free stuff so maybe people handing out free stuff um and yeah uh people watching is always fun so uh even buying food are like sitting down uh right along the the seabed is nice so yeah was handling business always working what I'm concerned I'm the city councilor for w five which is the gist of the ocean it's basically I have Riv Beach point of Pines Oak Island um and Riverside Riverside this year Alone um the past three four storms the water has come up and over and it's actually consumed almost all of Riverside it's it's very scary so whatever we can do to help them I don't think it bm's going to work I think they need dunes or a seaw wall but whatever whatever we can start with now um would be very beneficial to them the point of pin side we had a couple of brilliant people that were working there that um started the dunes started putting Rosa regosa and all those bushes that actually keep the water and from coming up and over which has really saved saved the point of Pines area we need help over um at Oak Island from um rney Marsh whatever whatever you guys can do to help that would be amazing our perfect day at the beach is a gorgeous day in the sun um laying out in the sun playing having the kids play and um making sure that it's clean and we don't get the call that um the sage in the ocean which has been happening a lot especially last year but other than that um we love love Rivier we love the beach and thank you thank you and from our our Zoom group can our Zoom folks uh be heard if we can you hear us yeah hi yeah we have some answers hi everyone I'm Joy um I work at save the harbor as well and I'm also the the co-founder of the Boston Harbor women of color Coalition um and to describe my ideal Beach day is kind of just uh just being out there I like to head out there in the morning and be there all day um and just go from swimming and laying out in the sun and then going back to swim and then eating lunch and then laying in the Sun and then swimming like all day until the tide comes in um and that's kind of my ideal day just kind whatever I want to do on the beach awesome Ralph what a about you we had a good conversation I am Ralph uh the chico I actually from the city Rivier as I mentioned I run the commission disabilities Ada coordinator uh as of Joy mentioned uh like to be able to be able to go to the beach and relax and enjoy but thinking about not only myself uh a special day at the beach is for people of all abilities to be able to go and access the beach and be able to enjoy it like everyone else um so that's the ideal day at the beach uh so I'm thinking not only for myself but for other people so and we also had dearis if you wanted to answer too it was really nice to have you involved yeah thanks uh I think my perfect day at the beach would be uh to see everybody enjoying the beach and especially kids um for them to be able to safely play in the beach thanks excellent thank you so much all right on to the second part of our of our Workshop here are we able to get our presentation back it's all magical look at that all right so um about two or three years ago we put together a very uh brief report called uh imagine a Bas State without beaches um we looked at all the communities we've we've mentioned from nans anasa and did some using the data from from Woods Hole um this is this is the current situation at Rivier this is you all recognize the map um there's there's the beach there's the marsh behind it there's the the low seaw wall that we have um and then looking at um flooding in inundation zones and this is the kind of projections and it's a little you know like repo said this is a barrier Beach that means you know it's intended to protect the inner inner area but obviously we've got a marsh behind it so any type of hurricane um or high storm this is why we're seeing the flooding at Riverside and we're seeing um these these massive storms it's not just here in Riv I I live up on the swamp Scott Lind border and when that tide comes in the manhole covers pop right off go flying into the air um it's dramatic everywhere so again we're kind of want to have the next 15 minutes um as we as we think about these things if this is kind of the worst case scenario and this is the direction we're heading there is there are there are different options out there and I'm I'm sure folks in this we we've already talked about vegetated BMS we know there's larger seaw walls we know there is um Cobble BMS there are um there's lots of ways to address this again what we just heard from all of you about an ideal Beach day unsurprising here in River especially it's less predictable in places like say Lynn or quinsey but I'm not surprised to hear that people want to be walking and biking along the beach they want to be in the water you want to see people out there this is you know we ask the question because we have to ask the question but it's I'm not surprised so um you know we're listening to all this stuff and we're starting to put together kind of a vision of of how to prioritize the the there will be a followup written survey I will warn you about that but so so that we'll get this back up when we are asking the question but if we can go to the next slide um and we have a Google gole form as well which you can uh feel free to scan the code or or it's also on your handouts is that right so you can use that as a reference but it's a similar conversation to what we just had again we're going to take about 10 minutes maybe 15 um and we want to answer this question what do we need to prioritize as we adapt to a changing coast and keeping in mind we might not be able to have everything right so that's great you know so I want I want to break break back into our groups and I want us to to talk brainstorm think this through because it's not a straightforward answer it's not like well we want to make sure there's a beach because if that's the answer then that might mean we have to think about what happens to all the roads and the buildings right if we want to keep a beach but um so what what is what needs to be prioritized um and think about all the options there I'm not going to lead you other than more than that at the moment because I want to leave it a little bit open but um we will come feel free to ask if you have any trouble with this but again break back into groups that's the big question here what what should we be prioritizing how do we what do you what's the Legacy you know the great great great grandchildren should have you know what do you what do you value that you hope they will get to experience about the coast here in R any questions does that make sense I'm not seeing any hands all right back into groups yeah e e e for e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e for for e e e e e e e e do folks want a few more minutes raise your hand if you want one or two more minutes raise your hand if you're ready to stop brainstorming raise your hand if you didn't hear me all right just do folks want we do two more minutes and then we'll we'll come back great e e e e e all right let's wrap it up say your last final thoughts and come back up front all right we're gonna we're gonna come back together we're gonna get this keep this show moving I'm gonna start with the zoom folks this time I don't want you guys to feel like you're uh left out here so I don't know if the zoom folks can hear us but what did you guys talk about what what did what did we hear and what is gonna be the priority as we're looking at a changing Coast Joy is our facilitator good thing for joy to be here all right Joy you're the facilitator you always Wrangle the uh save the harbor staff into um yeah no we we Ralph and demarus had a a nice brief conversation and I think the consensus that we came up with is just um still uh addressing that disconnect between climate change in accessibility on the beaches so um for example uh When Storms are happening we've witnessed uh I know in in Hull even when I see a storm uh the the rocks and the sand and I know that the ramps are breaking down and people can't get on the beach so being more proactive around and having a quicker response around that maintenance around the impacts of climate change on our beaches so and that impacts the accessibility um and yeah and be more proactive around things like drainage and Etc and also um allowing the opportunity for nature to do it part so instead of working with more manpower um working with nature so that we can be kind of more uh sustainable in Solutions so that's what we came up with so far Ralph is that the gist yep that's correct awesome thanks you dearis good all right fantastic okay back into the room who would like to I'll go back to the volunteer oh right hang goes right up why don't you come on up and this will just help the folks who are watching and yeah no pressure I will do so I'll do my best hi my name is Donna Nan and um I grew up in the city of Rivier I became a teacher okay um a teacher for 24 years I'm semi-retired came back to rier very disappointed and very disappointed for my own reasons I came in late and I shared them but let's go through what our group said first first our group was concerned about what's happening in winr correct no what's happening in the marsh in the marsh okay and that was brought up by Miss McKenna I believe this week Joanne Joanna okay so that was one issue my issue was I grew up when there was a time when there was a beach and there was a lot of fun and roller coasters and then we went through a process right and it was a pretty good process many people believe that the overdevelopment that happened on the beach was a good thing you get to go out to have a drink it's snazzy It Feels Like New York but I feel like we lost the essence of a beautiful place the first beach in America am I right Jessica the first beach in America am I am I right thank you so we have a great place and we built building upon building upon building and it felt like nobody had a say in it I used to drive by I said oh look at that another building grew up the issue is at least are they being responsible with green infrastructure are they that's my question to our politicians will we have a library that will produce green infrastructure maybe on the beach and are the buildings now that are on the beach have ever considered developing green buildings the mass Teachers Association just had this meeting last night and throughout Massachusetts schools are learning how to rebuild their schools because it's not about us we'll be dead it's about the kids that's basically anybody else want me to repeat anything else that was said in our grow oh all right uh a few other points um that came out of our group were uh protecting like the wildlife down there and any like natural habitats that exist on the beach um are important to us uh making sure the I think uh you touched upon it but that the beach is accessible for future Generations even if it's not like the same Beach that we're kind of all all living in right now um natural barriers to flooding um repairing the the seaw wall um and then also like preserving the history of the beach um as well so uh yeah that's pretty much it did you say that more about the history of the beach you uh yeah I mean I I mentioned that point uh I'm 24 and so I'm too young to remember uh when there was like entertainment down on the beach but like I grew up hearing about it you know like the roller coaster all the entertainment things people could do down there um and then now even when I walk down the beach like I'll I'll walk down I'll be like wow it's changed so much um like uh I remember it when there was like abandoned Lots everywhere now it's like Apartments nice restaurants and it's not necessarily a bad thing but um I do think I always grew up with like an appreciation of what it was like for like the people um who enjoyed the beach before me um and even now like seeing some businesses that I grew up going to like not there anymore like banana boat for example or like other little or like the old bianes little things like that um I think it's important to like remember what people used to enjoy before you entered that space soid GR I wanted someone else to talk the one thing we did bring up is we wanted to see more handicap accessibility on Rivia Beach per se um and maybe some activities um like water boarding and those those water um bicycles that are on the beach I don't know what they're called um paddle boarding uh rowing do different things for the people on the beach but the the one thing that I'm constantly talking about is Coastal resiliency and I can't help but talk about Coastal resiliency because we're just in the middle of everything and that's it it's very dangerous where we are and we need help with keeping the water away from the homes whatever anybody can do to help us that's what we're going to need Government funding um city state level everybody because uh the water is just coming up at such extremely high tides that they've done they did a research they did um a castal resiliency study I want to say six or seven years ago um which as of right now is absolutely obsolete it what they predicted in 50 years a lot of that has already happened so what we need to do is really fast paace everything because that's the water doesn't wait for us it's like mother nature the the coastal um erosion the the the levels of the tides I think it was 14.8 feet uh back in uh January and I think it was 13 point something feet back in February it it we need help we need help and that's the most important thing right now um as much as I would love to keep you know adding things to the beach and making it beautiful it is beautiful Rivier Beach is our first public beach um we can't they can't take that away from us the state and the city does a really good job trying to keep it clean and and everything like that but we need help saving the families and the residents on that live along the coast thank you hello everyone um so first thank you to repo for for hosting this on and her partnership to our city as it relates to climate issues and thanks for R tle for joining us today um you know um one of one of the things things that we talked about in our group a little bit are about um it relates to closer resiliency is ensuring that uh we're protecting homeowners and residents and when given the opportunity finding alternative or creative ways to um give back the the land to Nature right and I think when the opportunity presents itself uh I know there's some innov Innovative things that are happening around the country around um around giving that nature back those natural protective barriers that can keep uh our our residents safe and can keep our beaches still accessible because um you know the alternative is uh if if we don't begin to implement creative paths um to natural barriers uh we could create non-natural barriers that will remove accessibility to the beach for us and I think that that would be such uh you know speaking about the rich history that our city has in relationship with the beach speaking about losing that access to the beach I know would be really detrimental for our community for the folks that have been here for a long time um and for the new folks who um really enjoyed the city um particularly because a lot of the folks that live here are workingclass folks uh folks who don't have the means um you know don't have extravagant means I should say um and removing access to a green uh infrastructure that is a beach as I think of it um would be just really heartbreaking um and so those are some of the things we were talking about good evening everybody we spoke about basically the same things that everyone else in this room did they talked about why they love the beach what they like about the beach people that have history recorded it back into the 1890s Dawn is it with the state police the city itself what the beach used to look like and to get to having water sports let's do Red Bull and wave surfing great thing to do they'll sponsor it but to get to anything like that we need to have the priorities correct and that's dollars everything everyone's mentioned is going to take a lot of money plain and simple so you got to focus on your dollars figure out the return on investment on either dollars spent or infrastructure be it that you do wave research to understand how the beach shore flows and how it takes and detracts from itself as time goes on or is it worth taking and investing in Hardscape structure to take and protect it that way so those are the things we need to do but the one thing that I heard everyone talk about and especially this young man made my point come home I don't know the memories we need to record our process of what we're doing here and now and what this is about so that we can spread our message to the other communities that are involved in save the harbor save the bay and to get to our state which has got a wonderful PBS programs that do stuff about this and it's a Hot Topic to get this spread so that more people understand so that we can attract money cuz I heard someone mentioned that there are dollars there we just got to be able to take and work to get them properly and since I'm in the Arts all I try to do is take and do grant writing and it's not an easy thing it's a very specific thing and if we're not grant writing specifically and using AI so that we're at the same level as everybody else that's doing that we're not going to get that so today is I'm going to challenge anyone in this room that says River Beach isn't what it was when it was there's all all the new Scape on the Riva Beach all I ask you to do is do this turn 180° and look that way it is probably one of the greatest views in the world and that's ours and that's never changed and I've been going to that beach since 1955 thank you this is great I learned a lot of stuff already tonight so I want to kind of bring it home um and uh I think I have one or two more slides up there but uh um what we're going to do at the very end here is we heard Aaliyah and I have been taking notes um and we're going to put a couple kind of General categories up on these voting sheets in the back everyone's going to get a couple of uh five stickers little circle stickers very simple um and you can use those five stickers any way you want you can put them all on one thing you can put one on five different things things you know so we want to get kind of like one more way of collecting feedback on your way out um but before we do that um and it's fine to call this out or to come up to us afterwards we want to know who isn't here that we should make sure we talk to in this process we're going to be doing this process for the next three to six months um before we um put anything into writing um and where should we go in rever to meet people where they are so we we want to get as we want to we're going to want to talk to hundreds of people um at the at the at the minimum so uh this is where we're starting like I said this is our first our first conversation who's not here we know there's plenty of people who couldn't make it tonight and uh had other things going on but we're happy to go meet them where they are so please come up let us know who that is um fill out our the QR code form with your feedback as well online um and that would be really helpful so Aaliyah what What's um where does our slideshow kind of end up here all right yeah yeah so thank you so um aah if you don't mind getting the stuff up there um but I'm just gonna oh I'll just grab it so just so you know kind of like where our just is just the background information we didn't give you already but uh because we didn't want to guide the conversation too much we wanted to hear hear from you first but there are a lot of efforts underway already there's a new state um level effort resilient coasts it's very very new um they're out there having surveys and conversations with folks in different Industries um and we're very excited about this because the commission and save the harbor have been talking and advocating for a long time for less of a peac meal approach um you know when you got talk about maintenance on a beach or access to a specific Beach that can be really Case by case when you're talking about climate resiliency we know that that the water doesn't care where each boundary ends and there's going to be some some isolated things you can address but there's also going to be stuff that's like you got to look bigger picture at this stuff so that's um one thing that's going on um you there's a lot of City level efforts already happening um conversations going on plans happening uh to address climate resiliency we know Juan got the climate Community climate committee started um here and then just so you don't think we don't know what we're talking about at all but we know there are are resources out there there are strategies that are um nature-based solutions that use the power of nature to kind of work with the ecosystem work with the energy that the uh storms and the waves are coming in not every one of these is right for every Community but there are different things that we are going to be exploring based on what we heard from you here to be able to make those recommendations things like Cobble burms that you know they move with the tide they help prevent erosion um especially at the base of Dunes um you know the base of seaw walls Dune plantings um also help hold as Tony talked about help hold the sand in place um seaw walls you know they're not necessarily a nature-based solution but they are a solution um something we already have here something that might be something we have to consider uh looking at more I think my next slide has the really dramatic examples yeah no that's living seaw walls they're not in the right order here I guess um I'll get back to that but yeah living seaw walls you know in some places it might be that we just really have to put up that Hardscape but we can still accentuate um and Elevate the biodiversity and the ecosystem create spaces that that for for the the wildlife to thrive in that uh intertial area oh yeah here we go you know I I don't think it it looks as as appealing to to most folks but in some places you know it might be that a really big seaw wall is what we're going to need to do to protect depending on what our priorities are um this is some things that are going up in in Japan you know these are tsunami barriers that are just you have to have that to to you know when the earthquake comes you just got got to have it got to be ready and then um there's a lot of places that are piloting things like property buyback programs um this is um Oakwood Beach yeah I was I get it confused with Oak Island but it's Oakwood beach in Staten Island um this was done on a little bit more of an emergency basis it wasn't ideal for the the folks there about 300 homes had to get kind of bought up but you know 10 years on and you've got this whole area that's been kind of a great Return To Nature and it's it's operating in a more protective way uh the counterpart to that is a place called Imperial Beach South of San Diego and they've got a 50 to 100e plan uh they're doing it very intentionally no one getting displaced but they are investing their dollars they're fundraising they're they're getting support from the state to as people put their houses on the market as these properties become available buying them back because they've identified the beach is the biggest priority there it's Imperial Beach if you don't have the beach you don't have an economy you don't have a town so that's the priority for them um and those are those are some of the examples that are kind of being looked at um yeah so that's our that's our show we do really appreciate you all that's our show I'll tab dance at the end um but uh yeah I'm we'll stick around we'd love if folks took some of the food um please grab a couple wraps please eat some more um and come talk to us grab make sure Aaliyah Megan or Emma give you a some stickers and and get your votes up there so that we can keep uh doing all our back room work after this and make sense of all this information happy Ramadan e