Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors of Cooper City
Good Neighbor Podcast: Cooper City
EP #296: Commissioner Jason Smith - Transforming Cooper City Through Governance and Community Engagement
Unlock the secrets of effective city governance as we sit down with Commissioner Jason Smith, who offers a front-row seat to the dynamic world of Cooper City's local politics. Jason shares his journey from district-based representation to being elected citywide, revealing the collaborative process of setting policies and addressing residents' concerns. Tune in to discover what a typical day looks like for Jason, from preparing for commission meetings to engaging with the community, and how he works alongside the finance division to ensure the city's financial health.
Hear how Jason's entrepreneurial flair breathes new life into Cooper City's local businesses. As an ambassador for economic growth, Jason employs innovative marketing strategies that spotlight both renowned establishments and hidden gems, amplifying their stories through interviews and a dedicated website. Listen to our discussion about future collaborations with "Taste of Cooper City" and the lasting impact of consistent content creation on business visibility. This episode is a testament to Jason's long-term vision for fostering community engagement and supporting local enterprises.
From tackling infrastructure challenges to nurturing family life in Cooper City, this episode encompasses it all. Jason discusses proactive approaches to maintaining essential services, like the resleeving of outdated polybutylene pipes, ensuring community safety. Dive into the heartwarming experiences of raising a family in Cooper City, exploring its vibrant culinary scene, and the invaluable lessons learned from personal relationships. Jason's insights on communication and personal growth resonate deeply, offering listeners a chance to reflect on their life journeys and relationships. Connect with us as we invite you to participate in city commission meetings, share your experiences, and become part of our ongoing dialogue.
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This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Jeremy Wolf.
Speaker 2:Well, hello, hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. We have a very special guest today. He is a recently elected commissioner for the city of Cooper City and I'm interested to get into this conversation for a couple of reasons. Number one because, if I'm being honest with myself, I don't really know exactly what a city commissioner does. So I'm interested to learn about what he does and his role here in the community. Also, because what I've seen him doing on social media he has been out creating content, interviewing local business owners and really trying to get a look under the hood and prop up local businesses, which is very much in line with what I do here in the community through the podcast and my local marketing services. So when I saw what he was doing, I reached out and I knew I had to get him on the show so that I could introduce him to everybody in the community and learn more about what he's doing. So I'm here with Commissioner Jason Smith.
Speaker 2:Jason, welcome to the show, brother. Thank you very much. I appreciate it, of course, of course. Okay. So let's start this off from basics here. Tell me a little bit, or tell everybody a little bit, about what a city commissioner does, and then I guess, more specifically, your role here in Cooper City.
Speaker 3:Sure, sure, any municipality that we have in Broward County, including our county commissioners, set policy. So ultimately we create ordinances. I outline resolutions that will have effect on the residents of the cities that we live in or that we're elected to. So that could be from putting forth direction, which has budgetary responsibility, towards roads, all the way to something like trees.
Speaker 2:Okay, and there are how many city commissioners in Cooper City, cooper?
Speaker 3:City has four commissioners and a mayor, so there's five of us and we all split and share the responsibility equally. Our votes all are equaled, so my vote is no stronger than the mayor's vote, and vice versa.
Speaker 2:OK, and each commissioner is assigned to a different geographic section of Cooper City? Is that how it works?
Speaker 3:So Cooper City 2020, we had a charter amendment that at one time that's exactly how we had it Each commissioner would be only allowed to represent or receive votes from certain districts is what we called it inside of Cooper City. But in 2020, that changed and now we're what's called citywide and now we're what's called citywide. That used to only be the mayor's role, where the mayor would be the only elected through the whole city would be able to vote for that individual.
Speaker 2:But now, in 2020, that changed and now I don't have to live in a particular district. Now, the four commissioners do you all handle the same types of issues, or do each of you have specific areas that you focus on? How does that typically work for you guys, and what is what is?
Speaker 3:like a typical day, look like in the life of a city commissioner, sure, okay. So splitting responsibilities usually have been pretty easy thus far. In November, when I got sworn in, pretty much the landscape works like this Residents already will have some form of a tempo of a particular maybe elected official that they go to. So let's just say in this case, since I'm new, they don't know me, but what ends up happening? All of this information gets funneled into one location at the city hall through our administrative assistant. Her name is Sabrina, so Sabrina will gather all of the content of all the residents, any conflict that's been going on, whether it's a infrastructure issue, let's say, in a particular neighborhood, or just in general, a generalized question needing resolution. So we get to see that. And then we get to tap into it and say, hey, I'm handling Mrs Smith's or Mrs Jones or Mr Roberts' issue, and at that point that communication loop gets closed. So that's how sort of that transfer of information and delegation happens. In addition to that, ultimately it goes to our city manager. So no matter who gets the topic, we work directly with our city manager to deploy out the resources to our residents. So then he responds back to all of the elected officials currently dealing with the water issue off of 52nd Street or Mrs Jones's electrical issue has been handled or whatever the case is. So he does a closing of the loop once he's involved. So then all electeds know in case, for instance, I'm out of town or I don't get to talk to Mrs Jones, then one of the other commissioners can close that loop.
Speaker 3:In reference to a particular day, it really depends on within that month what week it is. So within the four weeks, two out of those four weeks are preparing and working directly with city staff to prepare for our commission meeting. So, for instance, later on today I'll meet with the city manager and any subject matter expert in the city to go over and prepare for next week's meeting, which puts us into a situation of doing business. Our commission meeting is the business meeting. So basically we get one week worth of time in preparing for the next meeting. So once again, it just sort of depends on what we've got going on in the community Very soon.
Speaker 3:We have schools that do read across America, so we'll go in and help with that. Sometimes it's identifying the coin phrase of like literacy across America. So we come in and read to the youths. It could be opening up a new business and being there to support. In Cooper City we have 1,200 businesses, so it could be a new business or a redefined shop that closed down, a new organization to open up there and we're there for their opening. It can be just a gamut from one extreme to the next. You just sort of never know, and it's week to week.
Speaker 2:Interesting, and do the commissioners also handle budgeting and budget appropriation, or is that done by other entities within the city?
Speaker 3:So ultimately we have a finance division. They will go through and then they submit and then we have what's called workshops. Those workshops are going to start around April, may, june timeframe in preparing for implementing, basically creating a vote and establishing our 25-26 budget. So we start sometime in the May, april, june timeframes. We'll start preparing, having workshops and ultimately the commission does have a big stake in going through if they so choose the line items and really getting down deep into, let's say, five, six lines within a particular division's budget. And that has happened in the past and you may have heard of some of our commission meetings going to one or two o'clock in the morning. Those are examples of when that has happened. But ultimately our city manager will present a budget to us, at which time we will have had an opportunity to go through that budget and then we vote for it yes or no, or what we need to amend.
Speaker 2:So what led you to this role in public service? Talk a little bit about your. I guess your personal and professional journey that got you interested in serving for the city.
Speaker 3:Sure, absolutely so. I've been a resident over 21-ish years 22 years and in that time frame I had a strong interest to belong into city leadership but just timing did not work out appropriately. I've had different opportunities. I was on the Education Advisory Board so I was appointed into that opportunity. I eventually was a secretary, took minutes and all that type of stuff and got to work in the academia side of what the city involves in with schools and everything else.
Speaker 3:Some of my background in politics really established from being a part of a local union. So my background for well over 23 years now has been in public safety. So I was actually a union president. So in dealing with that role I actually intimately was involved with over 43 elected officials and really got to deal with all of them quite intimately, specifically with Cooper City. So I had navigated and dealt with different topics and items because of service contracts within side of Cooper City. So I got to see the things that I had to bring to them. I saw the things that they needed from us. So when the timing was right and one of the commissioners Commissioner Green turned out, it was a great opportunity to be able to jump in the mix.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sounds like a natural progression. See, I would have thought that maybe you had some kind of background in marketing, based upon what I see you doing in the community. How did that spring into existence? Is that something? Going out and interviewing local businesses? I know that's part of what you do as a city commissioner. You mentioned there's 1,200 businesses or so in Cooper City and obviously the better our local businesses do, the better it is for our economy and our local community. What sparked the interest in doing that? Is that something that you had intended upon doing prior to entering office? Is it something that that came to you once you were elected? How did that work for you?
Speaker 3:So I do have entrepreneurial background. I own, and I'm a part of, a few different businesses that I didn't buy into, essentially established from the ground up, and I recognized early on marketing was everything. It's very hard as a new business to put forth a lot of that dollars that you're earning to put directly back into marketing because you don't get to initially see it. You got to sort of plant, for lack of better terms, that investment and wait for it to grow. So knowing how that works, one of the first things that I recognized was my role as a commissioner is I get to be the voice for the city, for the residents, for the businesses and with having the structure of Cooper City eight and a half square miles depends on how you Google it.
Speaker 3:We've got some waterways so sometimes you see like 8.3 miles but ultimately at the end of the day, our square miles is not as a large footprint as some of our other municipalities in Broward County and with only having 1200 businesses, they need all the opportunity and, for lack of better terms, ambassadors out there that can let people know of the wonderful things that we have in our backyard so you don't have to travel to Pines, davie or Hollywood to go find. So when I got this opportunity and I started to go around with our city staff and recognize some of the businesses that contribute back to the city For instance Taste of the City. They come out and they show off what they're able to do food-wise I said you know what? This is a great opportunity to not only just recognize our brick and mortar food restaurants, but I'm going to tap into every facet of it. And so that's what sort of established that insight.
Speaker 2:So, for those that haven't seen any of the content that you've been doing on social media, any of the posts talk a little bit about what it is specifically that you're doing. I mentioned you're going out interviewing businesses. What does that process typically look like for you?
Speaker 3:So I post on a website called someplace special dot online and I took what our city sort of encompasses, that we are someplace special, and what I've done is I'll reach out to local businesses and I'll get with the owner or the leadership team there, I set up a date and then I bring a team with me and then we just highlight what they do. Recently we were able to do Bogartarts. We were able to get at a place called Main Spot and we've got some others that are in the pipeline, getting ready to be done, which, for instance, we've got a great plaza that used to have Winn-Dixie and now has an organization that's coming in there called Flamingos. So the community is very excited to finally see what that's going to look like. It's going to be a shopping experience like a grocery store, but with a different little flair to it. So you know, presenting those things, getting the residents aware of what to expect on something like that, or all the way to, for instance, hot chicks, right there across from the high school, a nice little chicken restaurant that serves quality those types of things are what I have the opportunity to talk to.
Speaker 3:The owners, hear them. A lot of them are also residents, jeremy, that's the neat thing. So it's a double bang for the buck. It's talking to the community, working with the community and ultimately they're feeding back to the community. I mean, it's a grand slam in those cases, and even those that don't necessarily reside in Cooper City. Sometimes they own two or three businesses and people would have no clue. So it's very neat to engage with them in that type of format.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I saw a post. I think you met with Alex DeGuida, if I'm pronouncing it right, owner of Sushi Sogo, who lives here in Cooper City. I think he lives in Hibbs Grove. I did an article in my publication. I have a little column I do, called the Taste of Cooper City. From time to time and I go to local restaurants and I sample the food, take pictures and kind of report back to the readers, do a little soft review.
Speaker 2:So, like I said, a lot of the stuff that you're doing is very much in line with what I do. So I thought it would be great for us to kind of get together and get to know a little bit more about what we do and potentially collaborate in the future. Now, are you doing like obviously there's a lot of businesses to go see, um, and you're going and you're meeting these businesses? Is this more of like a one-off? You're doing this one time? Are you planning on going back to check in from time to time, periodically, to see how businesses are doing? Because, as you know, in the content game, you know doing something once is a drop in the bucket. Right, you got to be consistent, you got to be frequent, you got to keep people in the spotlight consistently to get the exposure they're looking for. And I know I realize you're obviously not a marketing company, uh, but what? What is like the long-term vision for this project?
Speaker 3:so. So you're exactly right. One one time to recognize somebody is nice, but is that really going to be the impact that's going to be needed to sustain just the awareness in someone's mind? And the answer is no. So so, yes, um, the goal is to um make it make a content, uh, make the reach and then absolutely follow back up. So an example is I think, um, we've hit main spot twice, um, I not only go to a lot of these restaurants, um locally, just to support and give back and feedback into them, uh, but what the neat thing is is, um locally just to support and give back and feedback into them, uh, but what the neat thing is is, um, after establishing that, then we have what's a newsletter that we're creating. So we're going to not only see them face to face one time, we're not only going to go ahead and involve and come to the restaurants. And here's the other thing Sometimes it's not just restaurants. We have, um some martial arts organizations that want to be recognized and and it may not necessarily hit my age grouping, but ultimately, at the end of the day, I'm going to go recognize them. So in this circumstance, we're going to highlight them, recognize and put them in the newsletter.
Speaker 3:I'm going to stop back by. There's going to be times. For instance I'll give you an example for your specific question is I'm going to look to say, hey, I'm going to stop by place X, y and Z and the first 15, 20 people there like let's just give you an example a sushi roll on me or something like that. I'm actually looking to utilize my own funds to establish, to assist our local businesses. I really find that there's going to be value in that. I want to really tie the community into what we're doing. So I'm coming up with these type of ideas just to go ahead and make certain that I don't do that one-time hit or that one-time response. I want to go ahead and make certain that we don't do that one-time hit or that one-time response. I want to go ahead and make certain that we're consistently keeping them fresh in everyone's mind. But with 1,200 companies, that's a lot to continue with. But as this thing grows, we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 2:Lots and lots of work to be done, for sure, and yeah, it's interesting. When it comes to businesses and trying to market themselves, one of the things that I try to do is really empower them as business owners to be more proactive. I mean, no businesses are doing enough marketing and a lot of times they're uncomfortable with going out on social media and putting themselves out there. And I think what you do through interviewing people in person at the restaurant, through what I do with the podcast, again, it's really helping businesses become more comfortable in that setting so that hopefully, they can continue doing that on their own, because the more they put themselves out there, the more people are going to get to know them and people that live in the community. They want to do business with their community members. So if they know that people are operating in the community and specifically if they live here, they're going to be way more apt to come patronize that business as opposed to going to the next city over. So really really good stuff, man. Love it, love it, love it.
Speaker 2:I wanted to ask about. I wanted to go back to the, to the city for a second. I had a question here. Give me a second. Where are you Question? I know you're relatively new to this role. This was November. It's only been three months. I wanted to ask what are some of the biggest challenges that the city is facing as we move through 2025 and beyond.
Speaker 3:Infrastructures are our biggest challenges that we have. Our wastewater is a big one, underground plumbing is another one, our roads are another one, trees are another one, ones that need to be oversaw and potentially maybe even torn down and rebuilt. There's literally from A to Z with infrastructure. So with infrastructure is big cost and big money now. So it's ultimately navigating with my colleagues into prioritizing the dollars so that we keep the resources 25 and going forward for the next four years, because there's a lot of significant infrastructure that over 20 years has crept up on us and now we have to get fixed. That's just the way it is.
Speaker 2:You mentioned underground piping. I know one of the issues, at least in residences in Cooper City. There's a lot of homes that have the old polybutylene piping. Is that a similar obstacle and challenge for the underground piping for the city? Is that all or has that already been replaced?
Speaker 3:We're lucky and, very fortunate, our current city manager that is just shy of probably nine to ten months now has come in, has a significant background in city management and recognized some of these needs immediately. So now what we're doing is there's, for instance, a process that we just approved within the commission, process that we just approved within the commission, within the last two commission meetings, of resleeving our piping infrastructure that's underground, so, ultimately, we minimize pulling up road and creating more traffic issues and everything else that sort of comes with that, and we're able to go ahead and we've allocated funding to go ahead and, basically, they re-sleeve the pipe, so they go into the current pipe, the technology allows it to re-establish itself or the cylindrical shape, and then, basically, it takes the old piping that may have leaks or may be causing underground leaking that ultimately, will cause infrastructure like the roads to fail or fall or something to that nature. Cave in. It fixes that.
Speaker 3:So what happens, though, is the city has these pipes all over the place, so when you start a project like this and you're starting to go through, it takes time, and time sometimes is not what residents or what anyone really has, you know. So I would say, man, we've got to be patient, but that's easier said than done. But what I will tell you is infrastructure to that example and piping very similar to like what homes can go through, is what we have throughout our whole city, and and so we're, instead of once again you may have heard in in the circles kicking the can down the road or not taking the responsibility at current, this commission has decided there is no wiggle room. We're taking the responsibility and maybe there's projects we would like to see done.
Speaker 2:We're going to go ahead and put priority to infrastructure that will allow our residents to maintain safety and continuation of what they do, and we'll get to all the nice special projects as well, it's funny how quick people are that aren't involved to kind of point fingers and assess blame and complain about all these things, when they're not doing anything on their own to further the cause, because you guys are putting a lot of work in on your end to make Cooper City truly someplace special. What can our residents do to get more involved? Right, there's. There's a lot that everybody can do, everybody's in their own worlds. Obviously, we all have our own responsibilities, but there are little things that people can do to raise awareness and to further your cause. What would you recommend to somebody that's listening? That that is not plugged in right, that's not involved with anything that's going on? That that they could just start slowly getting involved and making a little bit of an impact and a difference for the community?
Speaker 3:Sure, absolutely. So I would say there's three things. Immediately, if, in the event, because of life, you're unable to attend commission meetings, which I completely understand, then the one thing you need to know, with not attending or going online, is there's an open forum for the public to just speak and when you speak, you're not attending or going online. Is there's an open forum for the public to just speak, and when you speak, you're not just speaking to one commissioner, you're speaking to all of them and you're telling them what you're recognizing, what you're seeing good and or bad. So to plug in just it, for instance, for up to three minutes is the timeframe that you're allowed. That is huge. So, either coming in person or making that on the Zoom and being recognized and speaking, that's huge. That's number one.
Speaker 3:Number two if, in the event, you're able to show up to any of our advisory boards so we have plenty of advisory boards in the city and what happens in any type of organizational chart? You have a pyramid and the pyramids, the top and in this case let's just say the top is the residents. So it's the residents, and then the residents are a part of what's called advisory boards and those advisory boards feed into your commission and the commissioners then tell the city manager and then it disperses out through the appropriate divisions that are credentialed and licensed to get the job done. So, ultimately, if the residents can show up to any of the advisory boards, they don't have to be assigned a task that they can sit there. They get to sign in as public, they can hear what's going on, they can at times give public feedback into those smaller groups outside of the larger commission meetings. So that would be number two.
Speaker 3:And then the third is if none of that works, just look at my contact online. Reach out to me and tell me what's going on. Hey, I appreciate what you're doing. Thanks for being assertive in this. Hey, I don't know if you know this our playground has a slide that is damaged. Or are you aware of some of the congregation of cars that come in this particular area and it creates traffic issues? I mean, it could be from one extreme to the next. So reaching out to myself or any other of the elected officials, that's what we're there for. We're ultimately the voice of the community officials, that's what we're there for. We're ultimately the voice of the community, and I would say those are three easy ways to plug in so that we can continue to meet the objectives and the needs of the residents.
Speaker 2:Love it. I'm plugged in right now. I'm going to throw a little, a very minor issue at you. That's related to the underground piping that I wanted to bring to that. It came to me the other day. I was at the new dog park right across. You know where Park Avenue Gymnastics is, yes, so the dog park right across from there, yeah, off of Flamingo, back in that area, right yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, that new dog park. So wonderful, I'm so happy. I live right down the road from there, go there all the time with my two little furry friends. But it seems to me that there might be a leak in one of the underground pipes, because right where all the water is it's always muddy and dirty, so it seems like something's leaking under there. How would we go about getting that checked out and trying to get that shored up?
Speaker 3:All I need is the exact area. I know you're giving me a roundabout, but I'll just have to have an exact area. I let the city manager know He'll bring out our public works team. They'll take a look and then obviously from there, if there's technology that they can obviously use, before digging up and creating an issue, they can see if there's any type of underground piping there or what is happening, and then they'll just look to get a resolution to it. Sometimes it could take a couple hours one day. Maybe it takes a few weeks, depending on the severity that is truly happening that we don't see with our eyes. But yeah, we can make that look. We can put an insert for resolution immediately.
Speaker 2:Because you know, honestly, I was going to just fix it myself because I'm so handy, and my wife was like you know, don't do that, You're going to flood the entirety of Cooper City if you get in there. So you know, I'll leave it to the professionals.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, flood the entirety of Cooper City if you get in there. So I said you know what, I'll leave it to the professionals. Yeah, yeah, we have a very robust about 140 employees in different divisions throughout the city. They're the heroes. You don't see them. They're working through early mornings, late nights to make everything in the city happen, and it's very funny. And until you're ultimately intimately involved in a role like this where you touch finance, you touch public works, you talk to the department and you're getting to see sort of this lateral grasp of what it takes. They're a really great group. They work extremely hard and, yes, those professionals are the ones that we want to deploy. So if anything gets bigger, even though you may be handy, let's give it to them. They have all the resources.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people often take for granted all the wonderful, amazing things we have living in this great country and within these great communities. There is so much work that goes into making communities what they are and we often forget that and it's high time to remind everybody to be grateful and thankful for what we have in this great country and our great community for sure. So you mentioned 20, I think you said 22 years, 21, 22 years, cooper City resident. Yes, so, as with most things in life, with most people, family is typically the driving force behind everything that we do. Tell us a little bit about your family. You got kids, I'd imagine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I've been married 16 years and and I've got a 15 year old and a seven year old and we've went through the Griffin Elementary. We went through the school systems. That's obviously what drove once I got married to bring my wife back to Cooper City. I used to live in Summertime Isles and so as I lived there and then got married said hey, we need to, we're going to expand our family, so we're going to look for a little bit larger of a home footprint. So it brought us from the east side of Cooper City and brought us to the west side of Cooper City and so, like you just said, family, schools, the involvement of the community, sort of just that someplace special feel they had it, and so that's what's brought me here. So 15,.
Speaker 2:Is that freshman or sophomore in high school?
Speaker 3:That puts her as a sophomore.
Speaker 2:Sophomore. Okay, Because I have a daughter who is in eighth grade at I don't know seventh grade at Pioneer, going into eighth grade next year, and I have a son who's finishing at Griffin. He's in fifth grade, going to be joining my daughter at Pioneer. What do I have in store for me as we transition from middle school to high school? I always like to ask folks that have older kids what I'm looking to go through.
Speaker 3:So my daughter, they went to Griffin, went to Pioneer and here's what I will tell you your transition from each grouping. The Cooper City school system does a very good job in preparing them. But ultimately what I recognize is just the situation of growing up, maturing. They change at a timeframe as they're entering a brand new season of schooling for their life, so they sort of get their flow down. They've got their what we would call sea legs on the boat, so they're not rocking anymore. They finish up elementary, they go into middle school and middle school creates a whole new vibe and arena for them. So they're maturing, they're growing up, their body's going through changes and then they're in a very um, uh, aggressive request for their education now to meet a new requirement. So as they try to now absorb what's happening for them and there's a lot of autonomy given to them and they have to rotate through classes they get the responses I got.
Speaker 2:I got, I got Howl at the moon baby.
Speaker 3:I got furry friends too. I love it. Two Belgian Malinois.
Speaker 2:So they keep an eye out for me. My last name is Wolf. He's doing the Wolf now.
Speaker 3:They keep an eye on the house. For me, so saying that high school is just a following, I see that elementary to middle becomes that difficulty. But from middle to high they've got it understood. They understand what the requirement is. They have that autonomy sort of figured out, the rotating through classes. But your middle school year, that middle piece, as you probably already recognize, that tends to be a little bit the adjustment window.
Speaker 2:Yeah indeed. So what is a family fun day look like for the Smith family, Assuming you can get your teenager into the fold?
Speaker 3:Yes, what do you guys like to do?
Speaker 2:for fun.
Speaker 3:Um, you know what my family really enjoys the cultures of food. So lately we've been able to go to different restaurants with inside of Cooper City over and I will say lately, it's been over the last few years. So what will happen is we'll get to go ahead and we'll go through, let's say, off of Flamingo, and we'll go into our Publix Plaza and say, okay, we're going to try something new here, so Vienna Cafe, or we'll hit what's another great spot over there.
Speaker 2:Have you met Mark, the owner of Vienna? I actually have.
Speaker 3:I have. He's a great guy and we're going to end up doing something over there as well and recognizing them. But another example is the new pizza spot that opened up on the the North side of that and they've just been knocking it out of the park.
Speaker 2:Sicilian oven. Sicilian oven. Yeah, so when they jam it, those guys are killing it.
Speaker 3:Amazing, Amazing. So that's just simple examples. Or we'll go over to the, to the plaza that's right off a hiatus, and we'll do broccolini. We, uh, we will, will attempt to try different restaurants throughout. There's a nice French, fresh uh, French restaurant in that plaza as well. Um, I mean, you could just keep on going on and on. So what we'll try to do is grab a lunch or dinner, a breakfast spot, and just really get an opportunity to enjoy. So that's what I recognize my family does for fun. We'll get to try something new.
Speaker 2:Very cool. So, looking back through your life journey, I'd love to ask this question, because the older I get, the more it resonates with me. What is something that comes to mind? A life hardship, a challenge, something you struggled with along the way, where, at the time going through it, you asked yourself why is this happening to me Feels like the end of the world. But fast forward to today. You look back at that experience and say, man, am I glad that happened to me. It really kind of shaped who I am today. Is there something that comes to mind like a defining moment or some challenge or hardship that you had that speaks to that?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm going to tell you, yeah, you know, when I got married, I lived on my own, my wife lived on her own, and then you come together as one couple and then you start talking about bringing a family into the mix. So one of the things that I recognized is I had my opinion on how I thought communication worked. At that point I thought I was the best communicator that there was and during my early years of marriage, instead of really enjoying the relationship, I definitely had a hurdle because I didn't know how to communicate appropriately to my wife and I really missed the opportunity andues to be successful and to be a great husband as well as a good friend during those periods of time. So you know, many times you start looking and asking you know what is what is going on? Like what's happening? Like I'm so successful in my opinion at work and everything else I do, but at home I'm just completely a zero. I'm not. Why does the person I love the most dislike me the most? Like what's happening here?
Speaker 3:So luckily you know, plugging in, really paying attention, a lot of prayers I was able to get not only myself plugged in appropriately, but I was able to really be in a situation that I would tell you you know a lot of people say it and it takes a lot of work to get there but definitely, um, uh, my wife is, is my, is my best friend, but there was a period of time that my best friend I felt was my enemy and, uh, I was willing to, you know, draw the lines and go to war. So it it's taken time. I definitely asked myself what is happening here. Did I make a mistake? Was this the person I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life with? But through sort of persevering, drawing the line, saying I'm not going to give up, I'm going to figure this out, and being willing to look at myself instead of cause blame and say it's her or she doesn't get me, and I would say that that would be it for me.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent and that resonates, get me and I would say that that would be it for me A hundred percent and that resonates with me.
Speaker 2:I've been talking about this a lot lately.
Speaker 2:I just turned 45 and with age comes wisdom.
Speaker 2:Communication is everything and what I find is that, especially when I'm talking to my wife and my kids, when they criticize me or bring up concerns or complaints or things like that, when they criticize me or bring up concerns or complaints or things like that that trigger me, I find that if I just sit with it and I don't react to it and I just reflect upon what they're saying, more often than not the reason why I was triggered is because it's something within myself that I don't like about myself, that I don't want that I'm resisting doing the work to fix, and often I gain some of my best insights on the things that normally in the past would make me erupt and get into a big argument, and it's amazing how that works and I've been very cognizant of that and it still happens more often than I'd like, but I'm so aware of it now and I've done so much work in that regard and it's's really so what you said really really does resonate with me on a, on a really fundamental level.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no great. That was a real good question and I couldn't have been more honest to that. A lot of people probably would have liked to show something else, but less than I want the, I want everyone to. I'm very transparent. I'm always going to be straightforward. So now your listeners definitely get to see a vulnerable moment going to be straightforward.
Speaker 2:So now your listeners definitely get to see a vulnerable moment. People want authenticity, right? We want to be the most authentic versions of ourselves and unfortunately, so many of us go through life wearing a mask right In different interactions we feel like we have to be a certain way, act a certain way. If you could just be true to yourself, good things start to happen all around you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, agreed.
Speaker 2:Okay, before we wrap this up, why don't you let our listeners know how they could learn more? You mentioned that you have the website where you're putting all the content. How can people find you on social media? How could they follow you? How could they get involved with the project that you're doing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. On Facebook and Instagram it's the same, commissioner. Jason Smith is how you would find me. You can like and start following me immediately on those platforms. You can go to someplacespecialonline altogether so wwwsomeplacespecialonline and you can sign up for the newsletter and you can see any recent postings we do. And then, ultimately, you can always email me directly on my city email, jay Smith, the letter J followed by my last name, smith, at Cooper City dot gov, and then on the Cooper City website, if you go and look under elected officials, you can scroll down and not only am I there, but all of the elected officials. You can see a little bio of myself as well as my other colleagues, and you can email us from there or call us from our phone number. That is there as well.
Speaker 2:All right, and we're going to, of course, link in the description to all of your contact information. We are going to share this on all of our social media platforms. We're going to get you copies of everything so you could share it on your end. And I want to talk to anyone out there listening. If you're a resident of Cooper City, I want to try something new. If you, jason, you mentioned how people can get involved with the city. You can go to city commission meetings. You can reach out to you If you want to voice any concerns, if you want to share any experiences, if you have something to say, reach out, leave a comment in this video below.
Speaker 2:We're going to go through all the comments and when we find the most interesting things that people say, we're going to pick somebody to come on the podcast and talk a little bit about and continue the conversation and raise awareness around this. Let's keep this conversation going and let's keep Cooper city someplace special. Leave it at that. Thanks everyone for tuning in and we will catch you all next time on the next episode of the good neighbor podcast. Everyone, take care and have a wonderful day.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the good neighbor podcast, cooper city. To nominate your favorite local business to be featured on the show, go to GNPCooperCitycom. That's GNPCooperCitycom, or call 954-231-3170.