2014-0220 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting February 20,2014 City of Sunny Isles Beach,Florida Commissioners were contacted for their input,but she was not asked what she thought about it or if she had any comments with regard to the provisions. On or about November 22,2013 Ms. Dannheisser asked to have a meeting with her, and she believes Ms. Dannheisser also met with the other members of the Commission individually. At the beginning of the meeting she handed her a memorandum that was marked draft, she had no time to read it. Ms. Dannheisser came to her and made her presentation, she left the meeting and took the memorandum with her, so she had no time to review it. She remembers during the meeting being a little confused because all of a sudden this thing had a name and it had a direction and she really didn't know where that came from. Commissioner Levin said on December 19,2013 Ms.Dannheisser made a presentation at the Commission Meeting, and during that presentation she stated and she quotes from the City Clerk's Minutes,``The Commission had approved the formation of a non-profit fundraising arm of the City for the support of cultural arts, civic and educational activities that would increase the quality of life for the citizens of Sunny Isles Beach without taxpayer dollars." Again, she can't speak for any other members of the Commission, but for the record she wants to make it clear that she had never agreed to the formation of the Foundation or to anything more than the due diligence associated with determining whether or not it would be feasible to do this. That having been said, we were given a first quarterly report of the Project Manager Ms. Dannheisser, and throughout this report it states numerous times that the Commission agreed to this, and again speaking for herself, she has never authorized anything other then Resolution No. 2013-2121. Commissioner Levin said now that she has made that clear for the record, this is more for discussion by the Commission. She thinks it is imperative on the Commission to decide if we move forward with this, whether or not this will be a creature of the Commission itself and the City, or whether it would be an independent Foundation. The way that it has been proposed, it seems there is a crossover. The quarterly report anticipates that it will be operating completely separate from the City yet there are provisions that the Commission now seated would choose the first people to serve on the Board. The Mayor would serve on the Board, he would not be a voting member until after he was out of office which pre- supposes that we have already agreed to form the Foundation. The City Manager or his designee would be on the Board. She just feels that there is a lot of crossover in that how can we appoint people to the Board of this independent organization. If we have people from the Commission on the Board, how is there going to be any way to keep it from being a conflict of interest if they are on the Board and they are coming to the City and asking for money or for in-kind contributions? Commissioner Levin said another issue is it was suggested that the Foundation would have an office in Government Center. Just a few months ago the Commission was asked to pass a Resolution giving former elected officials a place in City Hall to come and hang out,and we voted against it. So if we were to have this Foundation and have this crossover into City Hall where there is an office here, we are setting a bad precedent because we are going to have other 501(c)(3)organizations coming to us. We can potentially have the Mayor coming back to City Hall after his term is up and being here under the guise he is working for the Foundation. Commissioner Levin said in addition to that even if we did have this Foundation, in addition to not allowing there to be an office in City Hall for the Foundation, if you are not an elected official,and you are not currently an employee,you should not have 19