BP: Thanks for Rocking the House.

Last night, Biscayne Park held its monthly commission meeting via Zoom, and we
rocked the house! I believe there were more than 60 Biscayne Park residents in attendance … our largest virtual attendance to date and also significantly larger than most regular commission meetings at the log cabin. Biscayne Parker’s, your passion, steadfastness and level of understanding of the wide variety of topics were inspiring. You keep these commissioners on our toes, and that’s a good thing!!

One hot topic was our trash collection, and the commission finally took steps to move forward. At the August meeting our manager will present three different fully vetted options to consider: competitive bids from other outside companies, in-house collection, and piggybacking onto other local communities for a better contract. We also learned quite a bit about how our recycling is being handled, and the news was sad. And, we discussed the teeth that are in our current contract but the village has never used to hold waste pro accountable. Expect better from us moving forward … and hold us to that please.

Regarding the redevelopment project on 6th Avenue, the topic is moving to a separate community workshop at a date to be determined in July. I requested and FDOT agreed to come back with a more elaborate presentation including street views in daytime and nighttime, marking all landscaping materials that will be removed, location of lights, painting yellow stripes through front yards of several properties so we can all get a visual indication of what the project will actually look like from street level. Additionally, they will be providing the physical address of a nearby streetlight that they selected so we can drive there and see it for ourselves at night when it’s turned on. Then, we will really understand how the lights will impact in our village.

In other news:

We told former attorneys Gray/Robinson to stick those ridiculous bills where the sun don’t shine. I suggested that if they want to further dispute those bills, we should invite them to a public meeting to go through them in person. I, for one, would be happy to set aside a special meeting on that topic alone. I’ll bring the popcorn.

Whistleblower ordinance voted through to first reading.

We approved the tree grant, so this summer we will be seeing many, many new trees added in the village! Hats off to the members of the Parks and Parkways board for managing that very important project, which contributes directly to the “oasis” nature of our community.

The new qualifying period for folks running for commissioner at the NOV3 election is Aug3-21. The ring has been readied for hats to be tossed in! We will fill three seats: those now occupied by Rox, Will and moi.

But, perhaps the best part of the entire evening was seeing 64 residents engaged in the process of making this village better … and more than 20 of them speaking out on various topics at public comment, in addition to others who emailed their comments to commissioners in advance. Engagement from residents like that is a sign of fabulous things to come for this village. As Commissioner I can’t thank all of you enough for caring.

Please join us on Tuesday, June 16 at 6:30 PM for another zoom meeting to discuss a list of other important topics that we didn’t complete last night, many of them new topics that will organize this place and move us forward more aggressively.

-          - Manager’s report (my item)

-          - Village calendar (my item)

-          - Reducing mayor’s salary and giving commissioners a raise (Ginny’s item)

-          - Police chief contract (Dan’s item)

-          - Construction site requirements (Rox’s item)

PS: I was named Vice Mayor for the next six months! I was expecting a tiara. They probably don’t make one big enough to fit my big head, given that it’s gotta hold all those words bouncing around inside my skull before I can regurgitate them on my colleagues.