Honorable Mayor and Council Members:

Following the successful kickoff of the Youth Activities Task Force's inaugural “Movies at the Park” event I was approached by former Council Member Mestre, who was in attendance with his wife and daughter. He pointed out the massive crowd and then drew my attention to the fact that we did not have a single police officer on site. I later was able to confirm there were no police officers present. If God forbid a depraved individual decided to open fire on the crowd, there would be many deaths before our officers would be able to arrive on scene.

In the increasingly dangerous world we live in, it is important we remain vigilant against all threats to the public safety, especially those that may be directed at our children. The Council recently re-affirmed this priority with its decision to partner with Miami-Dade Public Schools (MDPS) to provide School Resource Officers (SROs) for our schools utilizing the police services we contract for with Miami-Dade County while we wait for MDPS to train their own SROs. Continuing in that spirit, I propose we direct the manager to take all steps and make all appropriations necessary to ensure that at least one police officer is present at all future “Movies in the Park” events and further that when town hosted events can reasonably be expected to attract 20 or more attendees there must be one police officer on site.

Finally, I propose the name of this item be the Caesar Mestre Jr. Public Safety Act in honor of his lifelong commitment to public safety as a former police officer and as an elected official who sponsored legislation against pill mills and to curb other threats to the public's wellbeing.

Fiscal Impact: Large: 120 x 4 hrs x $50 = $24,000 (this does not include recreational athletic events that occur daily)