The Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners met on January 21, 2026, starting at 9:30 AM, to consider a wide-ranging agenda including mayoral appointments, consent items, public hearings, and policy discussions. Key topics included a status update on waste-to-energy contract negotiations, adoption of the FY 2025-26 budget for several Community Redevelopment Agencies, and multiple resolutions related to federal policy on Cuba and Venezuela. The meeting lasted until approximately 5:00 PM.
Ashley Chairman or Mayor, will you hold this? Yes. There you go. So this morning we have a very special presentation. For those of you who don't know, January 27th is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Memorial Day, which is a very important impactful day for us to honor. And it actually marks the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau and honoring the six million Jews and millions of other victims murdered by the Nazi regime and their collaborators. The Holocaust Dance is one of the history's gravest atrocities, and a solemn reminder of the consequences of anti-Semitism, hatred, intolerance, and the erosion of human dignity. And we also have descendants from the Holocaust survivors. Several second and third generation survivors. Please come up and join us. And of course, we also have all of you here supporting. So just on behalf of our mayor, our chairman, and the entire county commission, we do proclaim International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Miami Dade County. It's something that we will remember, never forget, and continue teaching and talking about. And with that, um, the mayor, would you like to say a few words? Thank you. Thank you so much, Commissioner Steinberg, for making sure that we all remember, and to all of those who are here and who have done so much to make sure, to make sure that we will never forget to our survivors, God bless. Thank you for being with us and telling your story. We also have groups of um of uh survivors and then the grandchildren of survivors who are animating memories in our community. There is, as I say, nothing that replaces it, and I had the horrific experience of visiting Auschwitz with the March of the Living, and truly to see with your own eyes means the world. And this is being covered up, it's being denied, and so what we are doing here today is critically important. And I know we are in a community that honors, respects, and uplifts and makes sure that anti-Semitism has no home here in Miami Dade County. So God bless. Thank you so much, Commissioner. Look, I'll I'll just echo, and I know my colleagues want to say a few words. I'll just echo some of the words that Commissioner Steinberg and the mayor just mentioned, but thank you for being here today. Thank you for uh sharing your stories. Uh I think it is important enough for history to never repeat itself that that we learn from history. Sometimes we learn through we get educated through reading, and sometimes we learn through hearing stories from those that went through it. Uh and I think there's no better way than to than to learn from those that actually experienced it and can instill uh that the fear of the truth of what could happen and what did happen. Um I know just two or two and a half years ago, uh the mayor, uh, Commissioner Steinberg and myself, we brought down a uh cattle cart to have the county commissioners and those here in this building experience, just got a little taste of of what it uh was, and and and and even I know even that was was nowhere near uh what was probably experienced, but again, I thank you guys for for being here uh and for sharing your stories. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Madam Mayor, Commissioner Steinberg, thank you all for being here. This is this is important because on the 27th, which also which also happens to be my mother's birthday. So I I remember the date uh all the time. It's the remembrance, the International Remembrance Day. But in truth, we need to be remembering every day. It needs to be front of mind that people set silent and an idea and the evil metastasized that that actually end up almost conquering the world. It needs to be something that we actively contemplate as we go through our day-to-day lives that some folks just set silent, and we can never be those people. You know, a while ago I wrote a piece, and it was on Martin Niemoler. He was the guy, the minister, the Lutheran minister, who said they came for the trade unionists, and I wasn't a trade unionist, so I wasn't worried. I wanted to know what his story was. And his story was interesting because his story was as a former German SS officer in World War One who actually supported Hitler when he came to power, became a Lutheran pastor. He only complained when they told him the sermons that he could preach. They put him in a concentration camp. What we think of as a poem was actually his lived experience. He talked about how he was quiet. Let's remember the Holocaust. Remember every moment that led to the Holocaust, remember the silence, the inaction. Let's remember that we are the safeguards against that. It's our collective goodness, it's a collective consciousness.