At the last council meeting, long-time resident, volunteer, and advocate for Miami Lakes Seniors, Jan Schneider, raised the point that we are woefully unprepared to help our senior and disabled community in the event of a threat from a Hurricane. In many cases, these seniors live alone or don't have the support nor resources to properly secure their homes and their belongings. At Jan's suggestion, I would like the Council to create a committee of volunteers that supports our seniors and disabled residents in the event of a hurricane or emergency situation. We may consider directing the Elderly Affairs Committee to create a sub-committee that operates under its direction. I will leave those details to staff. However, in memory of longtime resident, U.S Korean War veteran, and former colleague of mine on the Elderly Affairs Committee, Jerry Schneider (Jan's late husband), I would like to name the group “Jerry's Squad”.

This group would consist of 15-20 Volunteers that would be activated by the Town Manager in the event of a Tropical Storm or hurricane warning or any other situation where the seniors or disabled of our community would need urgent assistance. Ideally, the group would help each other (the volunteers) in securing their own homes in a quick manner, and be deployed to assist the seniors/disabled members of the community that have registered for assistance.

I'd like to direct the Town Manager to work with staff and the Elderly Affairs Committee on putting this together and address the logistics.