The July 15, 2026 Miami city meeting featured multiple proclamations recognizing the Miami Police and Fire departments for their roles in the FIFA Fanfest and a search-and-rescue mission in Venezuela. Officials also announced a community run to collect goods for Venezuela, delivered pedestrian safety reminders, hurricane preparedness information, and FPL scam warnings.
This amazing Haitian artist and the Brazilian fans came down from the amphitheater and they were hugging the Haitian fans, and it was just such a moment where for me it crystalliz how meaningful these 24 days were and have been for our community and really for the world stage. It was an honor to be able to be part of that, working in conjunction with all the entities from the city, primarily the Miami Dave Fire Department being able to safeguard an event that was heavily attended. Almost 600,000 visitors to FIFA and pretty much went flawless, the collaboration, the unified command, the working amongst entities to ensure a safe and secure environment. And we're honored to play a critical role in that. What an amazing accomplishment for the city in partnership with the FIFA host committee that we all that planning paid off, that all of our preparedness paid off because we prepared for things like lightning and weather and heat and all types of emergencies. And when we were faced with those emergencies, it went seamlessly. I'm extremely proud of the unified command, the collaboration that I witnessed time and time and again as I visited Bayfront Park and to see the troops really buy in to working with one another to keep this community safe. Everybody, and just going out there, watching the games with everybody. It was great. Thanks to them of the all the events that happened for uh I think it was a period of two or three weeks. Went off without a hitch. The security issue was handled in a very professional manner, thanks to our men and women in uniform. And so we're very grateful to them. We were super excited that we had an incredible fanfest. Our residents loved it. People really appreciated being able to go out and feel safe and feel secure. There were several heat advisories. People knew that they were being taken care of, that they would be okay. It's priceless, really, and we owe all of that to our police and our fire and the care we give our residents. We gave them this proclamation because of the fantastic job that they did through Fu FA Fampes. It was a fantastic event that brought to the community of Miami so much joy. And our firefighters, our police officers did such a fantastic job. And today we recognize what they did for our community. What they did was incredibly strong, really organized, amazing coordination. We went off without any incidences, and what I heard from a number of the fans that were there is that this is the best time they've ever had at any soccer related activity. We're happy to host again. This proclamation means a lot. It tells us that the city trusted us. It gave us the opportunity to represent our city, our fire department, our state, and our nation. The experience was one of collaboration. We went over there not knowing what we would encounter as far as collaboration. We worked seamlessly with international teams. Most importantly, we gave hope to the people on the ground. We gave assistance where it was needed. We gave help where it was wanted. This proclamation means to me two things. One, this is for the people of Venezuela that have been stricken by a terrible earthquake, and it's for our team. Our team went out there and gave their heart and soul, and it's great for them to be recognized because we were standing on their shoulders. We were called by the Department of State to represent the United States in Venezuela to help the people of Venezuela in a search and rescue mission to give hope to the people of Venezuela. So we have Miami firefighters, same Miami firefighters that respond to emergencies in your neighborhood, deliver your fire stations and all the districts of Miami. We're the ones to represent the U.S. When the Department of State chose the best to go, they chose Miami Firefighters. And I know that the people of Venezuela are grateful to them too. Truly made us proud. They went to Venezuela, and so we're very honored and proud. Well, it was very emotional. It was really nice to thank people who did such great work on our behalf. They risked their lives, they left their families, and they rescued people. They were talking about 16 hours, 18 hours in one day sleeping on a tang. I think they deserve what they got today.