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MIAMI RIVER COMMISSION 
c/o Rosenstiel School
4600 Rickenbacker Cswy,
Miami, Fl. 33149
305-361-4850
Fax: 305-361-4755
  e-mail: mrc@rsmas.miami.edu

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prepared and designed by
Mark Sell Communications, Inc. Public Relations

The Miami River Commission Executive Committee was called to order at 8:00 am at Greenstreets Café located at 3468 Main Highway, Coconut Grove.

The first item discussed was the status of the Urban Infill Plan.  This is set to go before the City and the County advisory board on November 4^th.  The MRC consultant will be there and Jim Murley will be there to make the presentation.  The City has promised to rewrite the staff’s recommendation of the plan.  David has not yet seen this document.  The MRC has a meeting on October 21^st of the Urban Infill Working Group.  David stated that he did have a meeting with the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce about the plan.  They liked it and they provided some recommendations about getting it through the City Commission.  They recommended that we talk with Commissioner Gonzalez and try to win his support.  On Friday, the New World Center passed four legislative agenda items: 1) the “sunset” issue, 2) the $200,000 for our operating fund, 3) the support of the dredging and 4) to ask Tallahassee to prevent the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) from acting to quick to approve the building of another bridge and to make them look at tunnels and the long range effects a tunnel could have on the development of a world class city.  David stated that we are making good progress with our Urban Infill Plan.

Bob stated that the MRC was looking to raise money for things that we could not do due to legal restrictions on the funds given by the State.  It came up at the Trust for Public Lands meeting that we should set up a “friends of the Miami River group” of some kind so we could utilize our 501c(3) corporation designation to get funds.  Bob asked Phil Everingham to chair that committee.  He put together a group and they met and talked and came up with some recommendations.  They were approached by Seth Gordon’s firm who were interested in doing 3 months of work for us with reference to the City of Miami and the Urban Infill Plan and getting us started on a major donor’s kind of a track with developers and shippers, etc. who have an interest in the River and could underwrite our group.  They were asking for $7500 to do this.  This is not a lobbying effort and it is not focused at the State level, it is focused locally so it would not be in violation of our funding regulations.  Bob is not advocating that particular proposal and he is willing to look at other proposals but he is looking for authorization to use the funds for a few reasons.  Bob felt that this is an area that we are novices in, since our group is made up of a volunteer membership people do not have the time to pursue this, and lastly the staff cannot do it with all that they have going on.  This would not involve the Commission; it would be a separate private corporation.  The money that we would raise could pay Doug Bruce along with helping the MRC out with public relations.  We cannot pay Doug with State funds.  Gary Winston was hesitant to spend any money on the possibility of making money through a PR group.  He stated that he was willing to hear proposals from various firms with specific ideas.  Gary thought that we should just do the fund raising ourselves.  It was decided that this proposal would be brought before the entire Commission on November 4^th.

David asked if the executive board would make a recommendation to authorize paying Mark Sell $4000 to put the annual report together.  Sallye Jude made a motion to authorize Mark Sell to put together the annual report, and Dick Bunnell seconded it.  The motion passed unanimously. 

David stated that Peter Schwartz would be on the agenda for the November MRC meeting to make a presentation about “River Lofts”.  The Trident Group will be discussing their “Security Assessment of the Miami River & Terminals”.  The last item to be added to the agenda is a discussion of the issues regarding the Sewell Park zoning and land use change request.

Fran brought up the issue of Professor Weiskoff.  She explained that he has his students working on a petition for Election Day to get people to ask for a 50’ setback.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 am.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 am.

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