Please close the doors. It's 10 30 a.m. And our meeting is about to commence. Thank you all for joining us. Can we please stand for a moment of prayer followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by Commissioner Gonzalez by your heads. Dear Lord, thank you for this wonderful day that you've given us. Thank you for all that you do for our county, for our families and for all the residents. Lord, please let your will be done today. Let every decision that we make and every conversation that we have be to further your cause, your will and your glory in your holy name we pray. Amen. Please turn and face the flag. Will the clerk please take the roll? Good morning. Good morning. Commissioner Gilbert. Commissioner Hardiman. Commissioner Millian Orbis. Vice Chairman Gonzalez. Here. Chairwoman Cohen Higgins. Good morning. I'm present. Three members present. We have a quorum. Once again, thank you all for being here and welcome to our Miami International Airport and Seaport Committee hearing. We're doing things a little bit differently this morning and bringing the committee hearing to the airport with the intention specifically of having greater participation of our airport community. So I am grateful for those of you that are in attendance. Listen to you to address your concerns and we're grateful for your attention and your participation this morning. Our hearing. We will start with the reasonable opportunity for the public to be heard. This is your opportunity to address the body. You will have two minutes and that's two minutes. Not two minutes and five seconds. Not two minutes and 30 seconds. It's two minutes and when you hear me say thank you. That's your indication that the two minutes has lapsed. There's also clocks. So be mindful so that you can track your two minutes. Please give us your name and your address. I have speaker cards here. So I'm going to call your name. If you can line up behind the microphone. We appreciate that. Starting first with Miss Nora. And Nora, I apologize. I cannot read your name. But Nora, if you filled out a speaker card. Please come up and approach the microphone. You live in the amazing District 8 in Cutler Bay. We welcome you, Nora. I have Mr. Peter Dooley. Please come to the microphone and stand behind Miss Nora. After Peter, we have Carlos Fernando Biles. Please join the line. After that, we have, I think this is Wander Rodriguez. If I'm saying that incorrectly. I apologize in advance. That lives on 7th Street in Miami, Mr. Rodriguez. We also have Helene O'Brien. Please approach. Miss Jacqueline Rodriguez. Thank you for being here. From Miami Beach. Please approach. And I have, I believe, Julie Anderson with an address of Orlando. Please approach. You'll have two minutes. State your name and your address. You may begin. Good morning. My name is Nora Domenico. Her address is 2161 Southwest 97 Court, Cutler Bay, Florida 33199. I work for Allied Universal at Miami International Airport and I am a proud member of CEU 32BJ. Thanks for the opportunity to speak before you about the state of our jobs at MIA and the standards that workers and our leadership have built together which are currently under threat. Como miembro de este comité, sabemos que entienden lo importante que es el trabajo que hacemos los trabajadores subcontratados de servicios aéreos. We know you understand the importance of the work done by subcontracted aviation service workers. Nosotros mantenemos el motor económico que es mía, seguro, limpio y funcionando, sin problema, todos los días. A lo largo de los años, los trabajadores y los líderes locales hemos luchado para hacer de estos trabajos buenos empleos. Dice, donde los trabajadores se les paga un salario vital, es decir, el living wage, y se les trata con respeto. Estos estándares han beneficiado no solo a los trabajadores, sino también a los pasajeros y al propio aeropuerto, asegurando la retención del personal experimentado y de calidad, así como la protección de seguridad y la reputación del aeropuerto. These standards have also benefited the passengers and the airport itself, ensuring the retention of experienced high quality staff while safeguarding the airport's security and reputation. Pero con el fin de las protecciones del salario vital, el progreso que hemos logrado y la calidad y continuidad del servicio que este respalda están en riesgo. However, with the expiration of living wage protections, the progress achieved and the quality and continuity of service are at risk. Esa amenaza es especialmente clara con allí. Un importante operador de carga que ahora se está expandiendo hacia el lado de la terminal, asumiendo trabajos por los que los trabajadores lucharon y para los que luchamos que fueran buenos empleos. This threat is particularly evident with AGI, a major cargo operator that is now expanding into terminal site operations, taking over roles that workers fought hard to make into good jobs. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I gave you an extra minute because of the translation, but thank you so much. Okay. Gracias. Gracias, senora. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Peter Dooley. I live at 1866 Huron Drive on Bois Blanc Island in Michigan. I am a workplace health and safety consultant with over 45 years experience working with many organizations, including OSHA unions and employers. I am a certified industrial hygienist and a certified safety professional. As you may know, workers filed an OSHA complaint here at Miami airport last month after management's failure to address safety problems that were reported to them. AGI cargo workers perform essential high-risk duties here at the airport, moving freight and operating heavy equipment. Their work is physically demanding and safety critical for both workers and airport operations. When safety breaks down, the consequences can include property damage, flight delays, and major disruptions. Recent incidents at airports such as Charlotte, North Carolina, and LaGuardia in New York underscore these issues. The hazards workers described in their complaint are serious and alarming. Workers are being struck by heavy metal fasteners while throwing cargo nets. Others have been injured inside aircraft because of damaged pallets. Forklifts, tugs, belt loaders are often broken with workers reporting faulty brakes, missing mirrors, and vehicles that stall on the ramp. One pickup truck caught fire while parked on the ramp. These are not minor issues. They are systemic failures that may put hundreds of workers at risk every single day and threaten airport operations. The fact that these many hazards have been reported and not corrected is serious. The workers standing here today are showing tremendous courage. Thank you, Mr. Dooley. Thank you. Carlos? Good morning. My name is Carlos Builes, and I work as a ramp agent at AGI. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee today. My job is critical to MIA's cargo operations, the busiest U.S. airport for international freight in the country. The work I do can be physically demanding and dangerous. Recently, I had an accident on the job. I was pushing a pallet when one of the locks jammed and it jolted back onto my foot. These pallets are extremely heavy, weighing in thousands of pounds. I load them into the aircraft. Damaged and warped cargo pallets are an ongoing issue for us. While loading one of these warped pallets, I injured my right foot and I was diagnosed with a foot contusion. I was out of work for two weeks. When I don't work, I don't get paid. I can't afford to work. I can't afford not to work with the high cost of living in Miami. My co-workers and I have to work with broken or malfunctioning equipment. Some of my co-workers who only speak Spanish are provided training in English, a language they do not understand. AGI practices, if left as they are, threaten to lower the standards of all airport workers. I should know that when I go into work every day, my co-workers and I will be safe. AGI should provide safe working conditions, proper training, and properly functioning equipment. When equipment is not working properly, workers can get injured, and sadly I know that from experience now. The accident that happened to me should have never happened, and it's not right. The AGI workers deserve better. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story. Mr. Rodriguez. Buenos dias. Mi nombre es Wander Mayo. Mi direccion es 5401 Southwest Coral Gable. Good morning. My name is Wander Mayo Rodriguez. My address is 5401 Southwest 7th Street, Coral Gable, Florida. Mi trabajo es para NGI como rampero. Gracias por la oportunidad de dirigirme al comité de hoy. I work for AGI at the ramps. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee today. Mi trabajo esencial para las operaciones de cargo en uno de los aeropuertos de carga más transitado del país. My job is essential to cargo operations at one of the busiest freight airports in the country. Trabajo a tiempo completo, pero también dependo de pagos de horas extra para poder salir adelante. I work full-time, but I also rely on overtime pay to be able to survive. NGI solo me paga las horas extra basada en un salario base de aproximadamente 17 por hora. AGI only pays me overtime based on a base wage of about $17 an hour. Cuando en realidad el salario base para calcular las horas extras debería ser más cercano a 21 por hora. When instead the basis wage for overtime calculation should be closer to $21 an hour. Sin embargo, debido a que NGI no respeta el salario digno completo para todos los trabajadores al pagar el tiempo y medio y por las horas extras a los trabajadores. Estamos perdiendo casi seis por hora cuando terminamos horas extras. However, because AGI does not honor the full living wage for all workers when paying time and a half on overtime hours worked, we are losing out on almost $6 per hour when we work overtime. NGI tampoco respeta el salario digno completo para todos los trabajadores al pagar el tiempo de vacaciones, ya que solo pagan el salario base de $17 por hora. AGI also fails to honor the full living wage for all workers when paying for vacation time, only paying the base wage of $17 an hour. Además, NGI is also putting me and my co-workers at risk through their use of faulty or broken equipment and improper training methods. Las prácticas de NGI amenazan con reducir los estándares para todos los trabajadores del aeropuerto. AGI practices threaten to lower standards for all airport workers. Si no cambian, muchos tienen miedo de hablar porque temen represalias o perder supuestos empleos. Many are afraid to speak up because they worry about retaliation or losing their jobs. Yo no tengo miedo a hablar porque no es demasiado. Thank you, Mr. Rodriguez. Gracias, señor Rodriguez. Gracias. Good morning. My name is Helene O'Brien. I'm going to talk really fast. I'm a vice president at SCIU Local 32 BJ and I lead our work in Florida. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of this committee for allowing us to speak and to have the meeting here today. You heard from workers today who were brave enough to come here and speak to you. I'd like to share with you a story of one other worker who's not here but he has been very brave and his name is Mr. Pedro Frometa. Mr. Frometa worked for AGI for three years in their cargo operations here and along with a group of about 40 of his co-workers he signed a petition requesting that AGI provide copies of their accident logs. It's a federal law that's public and supposed to be delivered. Mr. Frometa delivered this petition directly to his employer. He was the only AGI employee to do so. That day was March 30. Three weeks later, April 22, his wife falls ill and he receives permission from his employer to leave work to take her to the hospital where she is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He spends three weeks in the hospital with her between April 22 to March 6. During that time, he spoke to his supervisor six days during the three weeks to keep them informed and he also called the HR department. He visited HR on May 8, told them about the situation and they told him to apply for FMLA. They then sent him an email in English with an attachment which Mr. Frometa is 72 years old and he didn't see the attachment. But he then went to HR in person on May 12 and they told him to explain that he was supposed to work the next day. His wife had a follow-up appointment and so he asked if he could start the day after. The next day they fired him. We believe that the most charitable interpretation of AGI's behavior is that they were heartless and that is the most charitable. But knowing that he had been in constant communication with his supervisor and the HR office during his wife's hospitalization and knowing that he was the only AGI employee to publicly go to the company with this petition requesting the OSHA logs, he was then fired. We believe there's another more heinous reason. And so we ask that you support Mr. Frometa and we ask that AGI solve it by bringing them back. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, good morning. I'm Kyle Anderson, Chief Commercial Officer for Margarita Bill at Sea. Speaking in support of Agenda Item 3H with an address at 420 South Orange Avenue, Orlando, Florida. We are thrilled by the opportunity to bring Margaritaville at Sea to Port Miami, the cruise capital of the world, and can think of no better place to home port our new flagship vessel, the Margaritaville at Sea Beachcomber. We would like to say thank you to the whole Port of Miami team for all their hard work over the last year to help make this possible. Margaritaville at Sea was established in 2022 in partnership with the Margaritaville Hospitality brand founded by Jimmy Buffett. Over the past few years, we've grown from a single ship operation sailing from one home port to one destination on one itinerary to a multiple ship operation sailing to over 20 destinations across the Caribbean and Mexico. As we grow, our priority remains delivering a world-class experience to our guests, one best delivered from a port such as your own, Port Miami. We've quickly gained recognition with the cruise industry, earning multiple top rankings and awards in national travel awards and syndicated media. We were awarded the Cruise Critics Cruise Choice Award, Multiple USA Today's Reader's Choice Awards, and Newsweek Reader's Choice Awards, including Best Cruise Ship for Families. Our flagship Beachcomber will be the fullest expression of our brand, with 10 dining options, 12 lounges and bars, and the world's first artist-curated live music venue at sea, in partnership with multi-platinum artist and three-time Grammy Award winner, Zach Brown. Departing from Port Miami and beginning with her inaugural sailing January 9th, 2027, Beachcomber will sail predominantly seven-night itineraries to the eastern and western Caribbean, delivering fun and escapism to all of our guests and the great people of this county. Again, we could not be more thrilled by the opportunity to bring Margarita Phil at sea to Port Miami. Thank you again. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. You did a wonderful job. I now want to go on this cruise, so thank you for that, and thank you for being here. I have a card for a Jacqueline Rodriguez that I did not hear from. Is Jacqueline Rodriguez here? Going once, going twice. Jacqueline Rodriguez is not here. At this time, if there are no additional speakers, we will close the reasonable opportunity to be heard, and once again, thank you all for being here and sharing your public testimony. To my colleagues, we don't have any public hearing items. We do have a number of presentations, and we will start, please, with the director. If you don't mind, how much time will you need on the J.D. Power 2025 airport study? Sure, Commissioner. I'm going to introduce J.D. Power. Mike, he's going to make a five-minute presentation. Sure. Basically, he's going to give us an overview of our latest rankings, our customer service rankings, our improvement, et cetera, some of the things that are going on at MIA based on his survey. So, just five minutes. Five minutes. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Well, I'm Michael Taylor. I'm the senior managing director of travel, hospitality, retail, and customer service studies at J.D. Power. J.D. Power has been doing an airport study, basically benchmarking airport performance in North America since 1998, and if we can go to the first slide, that would be great. So, this is the year-to-date performance. It's a four-wave survey. It comes out in September, and if we can get that slide to advance, that would be very helpful. Oh, I'm the guy who's supposed to be doing it. Okay, great. Let's see if I can actually push the right button here. There we go. Anyway, some of the kind of overview of what we're looking at so far, the year-to-date. Miami ranks eighth among the mega airports that we measure. We have three different categories. Mega airports are the largest, over 35 million passengers per year. Obviously, Miami is in that. Then we have two other categories, which we call large and medium. So, your overall satisfaction so far, year-to-date, is eight points ahead of where it was a year ago. It's a thousand-point scale. Eight isn't exactly a statistically significant number. However, it doesn't make for a nice trend, and you guys are well above the average. You're ten points above the average, as a matter of fact. So, I'm having a hard time reading that because my eyes are getting a little bit old there. Some of the improvements we've seen are across all the dimensions. You're actually, Miami Airport is improving, which is somewhat bucking the trend. Usually, the things that we see in the study are two of the biggest things that negatively, in fact, impact people's satisfaction experience. Our construction that impedes their getting to the airport or getting to the destination they want to go to, usually the gate. And the other thing is the amount of traffic, that amount of passenger traffic you've got. Passenger traffic this year has been right about pretty, I think, pretty smooth versus last year, but up significantly from four or five years ago. So, that's good. But there's an awful lot of construction going on inside and outside the airport, especially inside. So, it's nice to see that Miami is doing a good job, you know, maintaining and improving customer satisfaction while there is a lot of construction going on. And I will go later on and we'll show you how. Actually, Miami is the number one per-spend passenger airport in the study itself. So, oh, well, thank you. That makes it a lot easier for me. So, thank you, Denise. So, anyway, there's just a ranking here just to give you an idea of where Miami ranks as far as being number eight. Minneapolis-St. Paul is a fantastic airport which has invested many billions of dollars over the last three or four years, four or five years, and has finished most of their construction. DTW is a great airport with great management. A much easier airport. It's basically two, you know, very long oblong boxes, a little bit different than what we find here at Miami. Miami. They do a great job. However, one of the things that keeps them afloat as far as the passenger satisfaction goes is they're barely back to where they were before COVID as far as passenger satisfaction. And I think everybody in this industry knows about LaGuardia and how many billions of dollars have been spent there. Obviously, New Yorkers like that airport. The airport, that's the airport I fly out of the most. And what Miami, you can see, is up eight points versus the last year. So, and this is a little bit hard to read, but on the left-hand side, you know, basically looking at the ranks of where Miami finished or is finishing through Wave 3. And you can see that usually they're in the top half of the study. There are 20 mega airports that we measure departing and getting to the airport experience, which is basically leaving your house and getting to the airport. Which, as everybody who has experienced Miami airport, as I believe you all did this morning, is sometimes a very daunting task. And so you're right at the average there. But you can see you're above the average for most of these things, especially with food, beverage, and retail, where you're number four of 20 airports that we measure. And that is a fantastic experience. One of the things we see that's a high correlation with, you know, successful airports is, does it have a good food, beverage, and retail program? And Miami's got one of the best. On the right-hand side are some of the what we call brand attributes. And I've got one minute left, so I won't spend too much time on those. But you can see that people think that the Miami airport is a very exciting place. You may not think so because you come here every day, but not everybody does. And I'll go to this last slide here and show you this chart right here. There's really high correlation between how happy a person is with the airport and how much they've spent. And believe it or not, the people who spend more money like the airport a lot better. Miami is number one. And one of the other things that we find in the study is you've got to have something that people want to buy. And that's what Miami has in abundance and doing a great job. And that chart on the right there shows you just how high above the mega airport average Miami airport is. So a fantastic job. Keep it going. You were at one time a J.D. Power winner, and you're kind of on that trajectory to win it again. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Quick question on your presentation, and thank you for sharing. I'm sure our administration will do their work to push this messaging out. And congratulations to all involved in the results of this survey. But how do you get the data? Oh, it's an online survey. We basically ask people who will answer questions and questionnaires about any topic, whether or not they took an airline flight in the last 30 days. So if you took an airline flight in the last 30 days, we ask which airports you went to, and then we go from there. Right. We have about 30,000 people who respond to this survey every year. Thank you so much. To my colleagues, anybody have any questions or comments on J.D. Power presentation? Thank you very much for being here this morning. You're welcome. To our Beacon Council, are you present? Good morning and welcome. It's always a pleasure to see you. Please, within five minutes, share with us your economic update. Do you all have the presentation? We do. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me here. And I'll run through this quickly, but hopefully it'll share just the highlights of what Beacon Council is working on. As you know, the Beacon Council, we've been around for about 40 years and have helped bring over 100,000 new jobs to Miami, about $10 billion in capital investment. And we've worked with more than 1,400 companies. The last three years, we've had record years in terms of jobs and investment. But we're in a particularly interesting place right now. As you know, the global map is really being reset in terms of, and cities are kind of at the forefront of that. So what we're seeing is a lot of the power shifting from, you know, necessarily in a lot of regions from national governments to local. There are four big efforts, four big things that are doing this. One is supply chain reorganization. That's been happening since COVID and further accelerated by the war in the Middle East as well as in the Ukraine. Energy insecurity as we see prices are going up on oil and gas. Geopolitical fragmentation. And, of course, capital is seeking stability. Miami has quickly emerged as one of the places where capital and talent that are seeking stability is coming. And so we see these other markets, Singapore, Dubai, et cetera, that are having the surges. Miami is doing that for the Western Hemisphere at this point. We're the seventh largest MSA in the country, and we have about $530 billion in GRP. What does that mean? We're larger than the country of Austria in terms of our economy when we're looking at South Florida. We're larger than the country of Austria, larger than the Philippines, larger than Israel. So our economy is continuing to grow. And I think we've got a unique opportunity right now to lead in a way that we haven't led before because of the investment that we've had happening. So how do we get there? So there are about five things that are critical in order for us to make that transition. And I would say at the corner of this is really the idea of public-private partnership. So number one, we've got to build the financial capital of the Americas. These top global cities all have financial acumen and financial strength. We've had a historically very good performance as it relates to financial wealth management, international banking. In recent years, we've seen the emergence of new areas such as hedge funds and private equities. So we've got that that's happening. Number two, the supercharger innovation ecosystem. We've got companies like Kind Designs. We've got incredible research coming out of our universities. Number three, double down on key industry sectors. We see with trade and logistics, we've got companies like American Airlines, which has over 15,000 employees in the region and has been a big investment in Beacon Council. We've got companies like FedEx that has 5,000 employees in the region. So continue to double down on trade and logistics and other sectors that have been core. And then we've got to develop, attract, and retain talent. So we've got the Talent Bridge Initiative right now, which is figuring out how do we further strengthen the ties so that industry knows how to get the support that they need to get the workforce that they need. And then investing in infrastructure. So those are the highlights of the strategy. The Beacon Council, we do about 45 to 55 transactions annually. We quantify those transactions as helping companies either create jobs or bring additional investment in the marketplace. About 80% of the economy comes from existing companies. So we meet with about 300 companies per year in Miami and figure out how to help them grow. And as well as working with international and global companies. Here are some of the companies that we've helped to land in Miami in the last couple of years or expand in Miami. Galderma, MSC Cruises, Magma, and numerous others. And these cross our sectors. As we grow the economy and look at the pipeline right now, we've got over $2 billion worth of projects in the pipeline. That should land. We'll probably land about a third of those in the next 12 months or so. And so we're going to continue to work those companies and try and get them to expand here. And we're focused on trying to ensure that that expansion, that growth happens countywide. A lot of times people will think the Beacon Council is only focused on brick or one area. But we do projects throughout Miami-Dade County. And there are three key initiatives that we're focused on. If we think about our work, we think about it in two big buckets. One bucket is jobs and investment. So how do we directly support companies in moving to Miami? And then the other side is how do we make the market better? And so this work is focused on the Beacon Council Foundation and how we make the market better. Number one, Talent Bridge Miami, the number one driver of investment decisions by companies is access to talent. So this is focused on how you help talent land and do what it needs to do. Number two is Beacon Nexus, which is really the research and support that industry as well as the public sector need to be able to make the decisions. And number three is Strive 305 Hub. As we know, small businesses are the lifeblood of any community. And so we're working to build the ecosystem to support small businesses. So with that, you know, thanks for having me and I'm glad to answer your questions. Thank you, Mr. Miller. To my colleagues, any questions or comments for Mr. Miller on the Beacon Council presentation? Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate you being here. Actually, I have a quick question. On, I think, page four of your slide, it says Miami's opportunity to become a top five global city. Number one, can Miami be the clear command center of trade, finance, diplomacy, and talent for the Americas? Are we not already a top five global city? We are not a top five global city if you look at in terms of our economic performance. We are a growing global city but not top five yet. While we are the seventh largest MSA in the U.S. per capita, we are number 13 in terms of economic performance. So we're not yet performing at par with our potential. Thank you. We have item 1F1. This is a discussion item to my colleagues, and this is primarily why a number of the workers are here with us this morning, I believe, to discuss the working conditions at AGI to our director. I don't know if AGI is present or a representative of AGI is present. If you are now, it's your opportunity. I don't see anyone standing up or approaching. So, director, if you can just give us a very brief, I'm sorry. Yes, of course, Commissioner Gilbert. I stepped out for a second. No, we're going to do it after this discussion item. No, it's not a presentation. It's just a quick discussion. Item 1F1 on our agenda regarding working conditions at the airport. Director. So, Madam Chairwoman, obviously, you know, we take safety very, very seriously here at the airport. So we were approached about a week and a half ago by the SEIU, by Helene and her team. We had a meeting, our team, along with the mayor's office as well, and we went ahead and we heard the concerns from some of the employees that spoke today. Obviously, we take that very seriously. So we are in the process of scheduling a meeting with AGI to address those concerns, which includes some OSHA concerns that have to be immediately addressed. So we are 100% supportive of the SEIU's position on this. We're moving forward with that meeting. Obviously, the deputy mayor is aware. The mayor is aware. So we are moving forward with that and we will get it corrected. Okay. And thank you for that. I appreciate you saying that you're extremely concerned. I'm also extremely concerned. And so I would assume that in at least three months' time, a legenda, a follow-up discussion item to figure out where we've made progress with the AGI. And I want to speak specifically to the case that was spoken about regarding Mr. Frometa or Mr. Frometa. I don't know his particular individual situation, but if he is still unemployed as a result of his wife being ailed with cancer and him needing to be with her, if he is still seeking employment, I would like for us to work with him to see if we can't get him gainfully employed. We will follow up with him on that specific employee as well. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Director. Commissioner Gilbert, you're recognized. Yeah. You said three months. I think three months. It's fine if they can do it in three months. If they can do it sooner. Of course. I would be more comfortable with that. And if he's still unemployed, he should not be still unemployed. I assume that they're not here. They knew about the meeting. That's fine. But I'm sure someone's going to mention this. If he is still unemployed, he should not be still unemployed. That's reprehensible. Commissioner, we will mention it to them at the meeting that we scheduled. We will. No problem. We will do that. And thank you, Commissioner Gilbert, for saying that. It's my understanding that Mr. Fermenta was intending to be here but may have run into some obstacles in being here. Yes. Yes. And so, again, I think to those that are listening, I think the message is clear. If Mr. Fermenta is listening, we want to work together to make sure that he is not unemployed if that continues to be the case. Commissioner Gonzalez, you were recognized. Madam Chair, and this question is probably for the county attorney's office or for the director. Was AGI aware that this meeting was taking place today? Did they receive proper notification? The microphone is not on. The only mic does not work. Who did this? Who did this? Was that AGI? I know. I'm kidding. Yeah. Yeah. The county attorney's office. That's good. The county attorney's office did that. Who did this? Who did this? God doesn't like you. Yeah. Pardon me, Mike. Are we on? Okay. Fire alarm? I think we're good now. Is this an actual alarm or is this a test? Like, should we heed warning or are we okay? We're good. We're good. Okay. Everyone, we are good. When I run, then follow me. Okay. Follow the director. Madam Chair, can I tell you how bad the airport director's luck is that the false alarm goes off while we're sitting here? That's incredible. Yeah. To the county attorney's office, can I get an answer, please? My understanding is that this meeting was noticed publicly. I have no knowledge that any particular notice was sent directly to AGI to divert the director on that. No. He did not notify them, but the meeting was publicly noticed. Thank you. Any further comments regarding the discussion item 1F1? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion to set the agenda. So moved. It's been moved. Second. It's been second. To the attorneys, any changes, Scrivener's errors to the agenda this morning? Yes, Madam Chair. You have 1F1, the discussion item that was just held. Additionally, there's 3I, which is a resolution related to a lounge MIA. And Commissioner Gilbert has asked to assume sponsorship of that item, 3I. 3I is now sponsored by Commissioner Gilbert. And to those of you that are exiting, please exit quietly and thank you again for being with us this morning. All those in favor of setting the agenda, signify by saying aye. Aye. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I'd like to bifurcate 3A and 3B for a simple amendment on the warehouse clauses. 3A and 3B is bifurcated for an amendment. Any other bifurcations? Madam Chair, I'd like to bifurcate 3H. 3H. I have just a question. I would like to bifurcate, I believe it's item 3I. I'll entertain a motion on the balance of the agenda with the exception of 3A, 3B, 3H, and 3I. It's been moved. Second. It's been second. First, signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone wish to be recorded? No. Commissioner Gonzalez, you are recognized on 3A and 3B for amendment. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. And if I could have the County Attorney's Office read in the amendments, please. Yes, absolutely, Commissioner. It's the same amendment to both items, so if it's okay, I'll just read it one time. Commissioner Gonzalez moves to amend item 3A and 3B to add the following whereas clauses to both items. Whereas the Miami-Dade Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources has staff solely dedicated to the review, processing, and approval of permits for work at all of the Miami-Dade County Aviation Department's airports. And whereas RER expedites reviews of all building permits, whether submitted by contractors for third-party tenants or by contractors for MDAD. And whereas RER has affirmed its commitment to adhere to a maximum review time of five business days for each permit submittal, but also affirms that for less complex submittals, the review time can be as short as one to two business days. And whereas this board desires to affirm its commitment to expediting the review, processing, and approval of development permits at MDAD in order to ensure the continued operational excellence of MDAD's airports and further economic development and growth. Same amendment to 3A and 3B. Show them amended. And Madam Chair, I'll move the item. Second. Second. It's been moved. It's been second. These are items 3A and 3B as amended. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone wish to be recorded no on 3A and 3B. 3A and 3B as amended carries. Commissioner Millian Orbis, you're recognized on 3H. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I appreciate that this item is revenue generating, and I am so glad that we are bringing on another cruise line into the port. I just want to be cautious on all the issues that are going on. Is it a good idea to be entering into long-term agreements with cruise lines, with new cruise lines, and to be granting birthing rights to new cruise lines? Thank you, Commissioner, for the question. Absolutely. As far as cruise lines goes, barriers of entry in the cruise industry is very tough. Our last cruise lines that came into the Port of Miami was Virgin Voyages. As the Chief Commercial Officer, Kyle, mentioned, we have been in negotiations and discussions for almost a year regarding this new contract, and it's very particular because this contract is a five-year with two five-year options as well, and it's very particular because the occupancy is at Terminal C, as in Charlie, but it is unique, different from all other cruise lines where if... Commissioner Gilbert, you were recognized on a point of order? Yeah, it's a good idea to enter in, I think. Absolutely, yes. So you don't have any hesitation that we'll have an issue with... No hesitation. Entering into birthing rights with a new... No, Commissioner. Absolutely not. Okay. Thank you. I'll entertain a motion on 3-H. I'll move it. It's been moved. It's been seconded by Commissioner Gilbert. All those in favor of 3-H signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone wish to be recorded? No. 3-H carries. Commissioner Milian Orbis, I think you raise a good point. You got the answer that you needed on the record, and thank you, Director, for answering her question. 3-I, I polled. If there's a representative on behalf of 3-I, I would appreciate them approaching. I have a question on 3-I. Welcome. Please state your name. Les Pantene, representing Airport Dimensions. I'm sorry, what's the name of the company? Airport Dimensions. Airport Dimensions. To Mr. Pantene, is your company amenable to entering into a labor peace agreement? Yes, we are. And will you do that between now or at least work with the airport and with our labor partners between now and final hearing? Yes, we're already starting the process. Okay. So, I don't know to our attorneys if this needs to be amended or if that representation on the microphone suffices. Please give me guidance. Commissioner, it's a contractual requirement. So, to the extent they are not labor peace, by the time this is awarded, they wouldn't be in the line. I'm sorry, say that again. It's a little difficult. Certainly, Commissioner. And the alarm won't save me this time, apparently. The labor peace is a requirement of their agreement. And so, to the extent they're not compliant with that at the time that we move forward to the award, they wouldn't be compliant with their agreements. Okay. Great. Thank you for clarifying that. And just to add to that, there's a letter as part of our proposal that, you know, we will suffice. We will, you know, meet those requirements. Okay. Thank you so much. Any other comments on 3i? Commissioner Gilbert, you were recognized. Madam Chair, thank you. We're thinking the same thing. We're thinking the same thing. And so, I assume sponsorship because I want to make sure that this happens. If they can't come to an agreement, I'm going to defer the item at commission meeting. I agree with you and I concur. So, we'll keep a close eye on that. Thank you for being here. I'll entertain a motion on 3i. It's been moved. Second. It's been second. All those in favor of 3i signify by saying aye. Anyone wish to be recorded no on 3i? 3i carries. Any further unreadiness or any further discussion items for my colleagues? Since we're here to the director, I know that this is not on our agenda, but I do want to bring up autonomous vehicles at Miami International Airport. If it needs to be placed on an agenda at the appropriate time, I'm happy to do so or if one of my colleagues would like to. But as we ramp up for an influx of visitors to our community, these autonomous vehicles carry some level of concern for safety regarding what could potentially be placed in the vehicles, anyone being in them, right? And obviously, the large population of individuals that not only work here, but that are visiting us at Miami International Airport. Are you working on a safety and security plan? I know you all are discussing that, but can you speak to that issue briefly, if you will, Director? Sure, Madam Chairman. So, we are currently actively working with the folks from the autonomous vehicle folks on a permit, because right now they are currently only permitted to function in the city of Miami, not in the county. So, they have to get certified to operate, obviously safety certified. That has not happened yet for MIA. I share your concerns, obviously, especially not only during FIFA, but we have G20 coming up, Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays. And we've all seen the stuff on social media where these vehicles break down and they back up traffic. The last thing we want is to have traffic on our upper or lower drive backed up. So, we're working on that permit. I mean, it's going to happen eventually. We do have concerns, but we're not going to go ahead and permit them until our concerns are addressed. And we do have a plan in place as far as being able to remove the vehicles if that happens. We're working with our operations staff to be able to, if something like that happens, God forbid, we can get the vehicle moved quickly and maintain traffic through our upper and lower drives. But yeah, I mean, that I know of, they have not received any sort of operational certification for operation in the county in general, only the city of Miami, definitely not at the airport yet. Okay. And do we anticipate any permits being issued prior to FIFA or G20 summit? I don't think so because we're still working through some of it. I mean, but I don't believe so. Okay. So, we should be fine for FIFA. And a permit issuance of that sort, would that come to the board for review or is that done administratively? That would typically be administrative unless it's board director otherwise. Thank you. But we will keep you posted. Okay. Thank you for that. Commissioner Gonzalez, you were recognized. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I just want to thank the Chair for not only having the meeting here, and this was an incredible experience, especially hearing from so many folks that are working at the airport. But I also want to thank you for bringing up this item because I think innovation is incredibly, incredibly important in Miami-Dade County. But safety always has to be first. One thing I did want to ask the department and director, maybe you can help me. Is there any sort of exclusivity given to any particular company when it comes to autonomous vehicles? No. I mean, it could be anybody right now. Obviously, Waymo is the company that's approached us, but there is no exclusivity. It's allowed here at the airport. So, it could be anybody. So, right now, as it stands, any company with autonomous vehicles can operate in the airport. Is that correct? Assuming they get the permit to do it. They have to go through the permitting process. But, yeah, it's not limited to just one firm. Okay. Thank you. As well as any additional comments. As we adjourn, I just want to take a moment. This is the Miami Commissioner Orbis. You are recognized. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for having the meeting here. This has been a nice field trip for us to get out and also explore the airport. And I appreciate everybody who came out today. I wanted to share that we have the CARE MIA board that is happening now at 1130 at the airport hotel on the seventh floor. And this is the chairman, Anthony Rodriguez, created this board to focus on the consumer experience and improve it. I'm serving on the board. And so I welcome you all to participate as well. It's extremely important, especially as we head into this busy season at the airport, to work on the consumer experience and improve it. So I wanted to invite you all, and I hope to see you there. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for extending that invitation, Commissioner Orbis. And as we close, this is our first, yes, Commissioner Gilbert, you were recognized. Yeah. And perhaps I think I also want to echo my colleagues' comments with regard to your idea. Having the meeting here was a stroke of genius. I love it. Maybe we could have a meeting maybe at the seaport, maybe in the fuel farm. Stop it. Stop it. But on that note, as we close in a lighthearted manner, I do know that, you know, we are the aviation and the seaport committee. And we did have a resignation tendered by our amazing port director, Heidi Webb. And so I wanted to take a moment at our first committee hearing subsequent to that resignation announcement to really thank her for incredible years of service to Miami-Dade County. I know she has spent her entire professional career here serving the amazing residents of Miami-Dade County. And so I just wanted to take that personal privilege to say thank you to Heidi Webb for her years of service to us here in Miami-Dade County. And with that, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Thank you so much, everyone.