The Miami-Dade Aviation and Seaport Committee met at 10:30 AM on May 11, 2026, to consider several aviation-related items. The meeting was chaired by Danielle Cohen Higgins, with Commissioners Oliver Gilbert, Keon Hardeman, Natalie Milian Orbis, and Vice Chairman Roberto Gonzalez present. The committee addressed a check presentation, multiple contracts, and a controversial resolution on sole source procurement.
Welcome to this morning's Airport and Seaport Committee. We are gonna start this morning with a check presentation from our airport director. Good morning, Commissioner. Um, regarding our contribution and our effort at Miami International Airport to raise funds and awareness for breast cancer. And so if everybody that's here for the check presentation can join us, I'd greatly appreciate it. Please join us. So I'll have the director explain, but we have three events annually that I believe are five Ks that are run on our different airports throughout, and I know that the event has grown over the years. I've been to them, I know the district commissioner has been to them, and so we're very, very excited to have this check presentation take place. Director. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. So yeah, we're really proud of this. We've been having these races for the last seven, six, seven years. Uh they're very successful, very well attended, and every year, like you said, they grow a little bit more. So so far this year, the two races we've had so far, it's uh it's a three-race series, one at one at Miami Executive in March, one at Opalaka Executive in April, and then typically we had the really large one in October at MIA, which is attended by almost 4,000 uh participants, which is amazing. So this past year in 2025, we raised our higher highest amount ever total of funds funds raised for making strides of against bread breast cancer. Yeah. Over over 43,000 total raised by our department for the MSABC campaign. I want to give a special shout out to Frank Ruiz and his team at Re R Miami. They put on great events. Uh and we really, really enjoy these events. I know you both have been there, you know. Uh I run it, and a lot of our people on our team run it. It's a great event. Uh so far this year in at a Miami Executive in March and at Opalac and April, we had our two biggest events at those two airports, so it keeps growing and growing. I think we had almost 1,500 people at Miami Executive, which is huge, and that Ropa Laka, we had about 1800. So we're looking at probably close to 4,000 at MIE in October. I'm really excited about that. So it's a great program. We want to continue doing it and work together with Frank and Easy Mado. So with that, I want to go ahead and have you make that presentation, both of you. This is the check for 43,076 to making strides against breast cancer on behalf of here. There you go. Okay. One, two, and three. What's the date for the October event? October 17th. Yeah, so it'll be nice and cool for the run at MIA, hopefully. Yep, that's it. That's why that's why we do the big one uh during that month. And that I guess we're anticipating. I think last year we had about 3,500 racers. So this year we're expecting to have close to 4,000, if not more, and not counting other people that show up, like people that go to see people run, et cetera. So it's a really, really great event. Looking forward to it. Thank you. I think we should challenge the commissioners to uh run the 5K and to raise money. So we always support every year. We're so grateful and thankful that this much money has been raised, and hopefully this year will even outdo that number. Thank you all for the work that you do at the American Cancer Society, and of course, on behalf of breast cancer awareness. You want to speak, of course.