MIAMI – Members of the Miami-Dade County Black Affairs Advisory Board met today to discuss this year’s spring break scene on Miami Beach.
Despite calling on Miami Beach officials to provide more activities that cater to the younger crowd, some board members today said they felt like their suggestions were never considered.
“All we wanted to do was be at the table during the planning phase to give our ideas. We represent this entire county, hand was extended but it wasn’t grabbed,” Chair, Miami-Dade Black Affairs Advisory Board Pierre Rutledge said.
Another idea the board suggested was to involve more young adults in the event planning process.
“We have a wide range of ages involved in the planning process for Miami Gardens events. The planning committee for Miami Beach were older and didn’t understand the younger trends on social media and radio. Every demographic needs to be represented need younger people on these planning committees,” Secretary, Miami-Dade Black Affairs Advisory Board Arbie Nickerson said.
While some board members took offense to recent comments made by the Mayor of Miami Beach Dan Gelber who says the city doesn’t want to hold spring break anymore.
“We don’t want spring break here, but they keep coming,” Gelber said.
Others members say they still need to try and work together, as crowds will always flock to South Beach no matter what else is going on.
“We need to come into this open-minded, not saying we don’t want it, so where do we go from here,” Rutledge said.
With Memorial Day around the corner the board is going to turn their attention to that holiday weekend and form an ad hoc committee to reach out to Miami officials again to hopefully implement their ideas that they have for the busy holiday.