2015-0115 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes:Regular City Commission Meeting January 15,2015 City of Sunny Isles Beach,Florida fire,and all the electrical in his house went down and his music systems were ruined. It took FPL eight(8) hours to repair it. Raymonde Duplain said she is a seasonal resident for the last 20 years. A couple of years ago Vice Mayor Lewis Thaler came to see them at the Condominium and mentioned they were going to build a nice school which has happened. With that school they have a tax, being a foreigner she pays more tax than the others, and this year they paid over$50,000 in her building alone which goes to the School Board because they increased the value of their property almost $100,000 more. In their building there are no kids that attend that school. Can we expect our taxes to be lower. Mayor Scholl said our City is about 10% of your tax bills,and that is all we have control over. We don't have control over the School Board,or Fire, or the County Taxes, and so this Commission only controls that 10%. If we cut our taxes in half in our City,your tax bill will go down by 5%,and so the majority of that money goes to the County to cover the school. Also, your taxes didn't go up specifically for this school,this school was built out of tax revenue. The School line on your tax bill is for the whole County,it is for all the schools in the County. She said it was an increase of 20%,and Mayor Scholl said that is because the value of our neighborhoods are going up. If you were homesteaded,you would not see that kind of an increase. There is a cap of 3%which is the max that our assessment can go up. Ms. Duplain said they have raccoons on North Bay Road, and people are feeding the cats even though she saw the signs saying it is against the law to feed cats. If they feed cats, they feed rats and raccoons as well. Maybe if someone comes to their building to talk to the residents, and put more signs up. Commissioner Aelion said to Juan Crespi, when you formed this Incorporation, was the intent to create a HOA? Juan Crespi said it is a non-profit neighborhood association. Commissioner Aelion said he knows there was a debate on if you should or should not have a sidewalk, and the group of homeowners said no, they wanted to leave the neighborhood village-like atmosphere so they didn't want sidewalks. Now if you come back to us and the Association decides they want a sidewalk,how should the City react to such a request when not all the homes are represented,and so that is an issue. You should try to streamline this to all the 220 homes so that due process is given so everybody is united. Juan Crespi said they have been without an Association for over ten(10)years and he was the Director of the prior Association. It is not easy to form an Association, it is so difficult to bring neighbors together, and we just got started two (2) months ago. He is trying to be all inclusive, the problem he is having is getting membership. Perhaps the City can help by putting it in the newspaper, and Commissioner Aelion said the City cannot get involved with HOA's but what can be done internally is for some dues and funds that you raise to advertise it, etc. Juan Crespi said what they are doing is, and obviously you had to start with a founding board, if you don't have a membership,you cannot have elections. We are going to scatter the memberships so at the end of the first year, which will be in October, we are going to have two (2)more directors so that they don't expire at the same time. We have got to kick up our membership drive, and we want everyone to participate. Vice Mayor Gatto said a couple of Commission meetings ago,and she thinks it was October 2014,residents from your community came to us and requested to open a Daycare Center and we unanimously voted that down because we were concerned about the traffic and activity 16