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responsibility for those repairs. He said he has had meetings with staff, and he has been involved in several discussions since our last Board meeting on this issue. He then introduced City Manager A.John Szerlag to talk about the current state of affairs. Richard Schulman presented photos of the Pier. City Manager Szerlag said that the Pier really adds character to Sunny Isles Beach and we would love to have it restored, and we would like to take over the Pier once it is already restored so that at that point it just becomes an operational and maintenance cost for us. The estimated cost to repair the Pier is $3.8 Million Dollars, and we are taking a two-pronged approach, he and Mayor Edelcup sent out letters to various entities, to the County, and to the State, and the response they got is that the State of Florida is claiming that the Pier is not theirs,the submerged land is,and that we would have to look to other entities to repair the Pier. They said there was a company, Five Seas Investors (now Newport Operating Corporation)back in 1936 that built the Pier and we should look to them, and that is the State's position at this time. He said that the City would like to take it over as an historical designation and we will find the funds, and we did get a very good lead from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. There is a program that is called Florida Coastal Partnership Initiative and we are going to be applying for a grant, and we have calls into Miami-Dade County to see if there are any monies left over from Hurricane Wilma. He said additionally we discovered that there is a program called Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Funds, and normally those funds are allocated for lower-income single family household owners but there are some monies that perhaps can be allocated for infrastructure. Chairperson Scholl said when they met with the City's Lobbyist, Ron Book; a powerful Lobbyist in Tallahassee,and although Mr.Book was cautiously optimistic he kind of cringed over the number as that is a lot of money for a Pier, and we have a lot of good arguments as it is the only Pier left in Miami-Dade County. He said Mr. Book suggested this whole approach of lets divide and conquer, lets go after every pocket of money that we can identify, he came up with some pockets,and he is;going to do some further digging at the State, Federal and the Local level, and so the angle being to try)to mitigate the size of the check that we would have to write as a community. Everybody is also very committed to the fact that the Pier is a very important part of this City. This process will be slow, and if we see the first check in 18 months we will be very lucky. Cassey Gabor asked about the restaurant, that it can be fixed and bring revenue to the City, and Chairperson Scholl said it is such a big number to repair it compared to what the restaurant makes, the revenues from the restaurant are not that significant; City Historian Richard Schulman said the restaurant is called the Pelican Restaurant and the first 2001feet are gated off/locked off the Pier, which is another 700-800 feet of poor flooring and undercarriage and pillars and deterioration and that is the major part of the Pier where people have fished for years, which they can't any longer because people swim out that way and they can get caught and it is very dangerous. City Manager Szerlag said that we did a very preliminary pro forma Economic Analysis and we do believe that we can add some money to our Capital expenses but that we would have potential revenue from the restaurant and gift shop of about$135,000 per year, it would pay for it as a Capital expenditure for the Pier but that is a long time for a return on an investment. ■ Chairperson Scholl said that the restaurant owner does not have a lease,he would be given notice to move out in 30 days. It was suggested to get private investors and donations. Chairperson Scholl said the first thing we may want to do is to look outside the City for funds, and noted that Mayor Edelcup had mentioned in the newspaper article that we were looking for alternatives. The deterioration of the Pier is from the waterline out, sitting on the beach underneath the Pier is okay,just beyond the waterline is Summary Minutes 2007-0911 HPB Mtg Page 2 of 6