2014-0911 Special City Commission Meeting (2)

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Summon, Minutes: Special Citv Commission Meeting September 11, 2014 Sunny Isles Beach, Florida First Budeet Hearin Fiscal Year 2015/2016 to fully staff the Parks he just described. We will also provide for a Parking Attendant at Pier Park seven (7) days a week as opposed to just holidays and weekends. We are expanding our After School Care Program, we are improving the operation and the over sights at our Skate Park. We have achieved, and this was also a major focus last year, he doesn't think we over emphasized it in this year's budget because we made substantial strides during this Fiscal Year, and that is our succession Planning by having a backup in each of our Departments in terms of leadership of each of our operating Departments. We now have written plans for seven (7) of the ten (10) Departments that we are looking for this, and that is a significant improvement over past years. City Manager Russo said in the area of Capital Projects, we are well on our way with the development of Gateway Park, and we expect that Park to be done by March 2015. We have the green light to start on the pedestrian overpass bridge that is going to create a safe access for all of those that live on the north side of Sunny Isles Boulevard in the North Bay Road, 172nd Street neighborhood primarily or anyone that wants to walk to the Park will have that overpass to get from the north side across the westbound lanes of 826 into the Park. We will be moving forward on that, that contract has been let and is ready to go. By the end of next week, we should be out to bid with the plans for the Emergency Pedestrian Bridge which has been a long time coming. That is the bridge that will allow many of our residents and children to more safely get north and south in this City by going over the canal between 172nd and 174'^ Street, that is approximately about a ten -year project in the making with all the requirements. City Manager Russo said the plans for the undergrounding on Collins Avenue are probably 75% to 80% complete at this point. We will be working out a number of issues with regard to easements and some other issues over the next few months. We believe that will probably have to be bid early into next year. With regard to the Building Department, we had ratcheted up staffing significantly last year, and we actually scaled back on the original plans by the Department to take a more conservative approach to see how that will go. We are continuing to do that this year where we need inspectors to fill in, we created a pool of money for part- time hourly as- needed intermittent inspectors to help fill in when we need it. With all the construction that is starting to file up with these projects starting. Instead of adding steady part time or additional full time, we have created a pool of funds for intermittent hourly employees which will keep cost down for the City. City Manager Russo said on a point that is not a significant dollar value but the principal involved and the future is probably more important is an item that he is going to mention. This has been a bit of a battle for probably the better part of the past ten (10) years and that is how the County handles the franchise we have through them for FPL for distribution of franchise fees. These numbers have been going down steadily for a number of years now, actually the Mayor pointed this out to him, and it is highlighted in our Budget, there is a chart on taxes generated vs. franchise fees. You would think that they would both be in sync, as the company does better we should get more. Without belaboring this, the new incorporations since 1991 are under the Count), franchise for all the unincorporated areas and that has led over the years to situations where as FPL develops more facilities, adds more value to the County's taxable value, those taxes offset our franchise fees. As they progress we regress in what we get from them, and so we have got about a 5200,000 cut. Also, we were notified of 3