2016-0421 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes:Regular City Commission Meeting March 17.2016 City or Sunny Isles Beach,Florida 5. SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS 5A. Proclamation to be Presented to Chris Humberstone of Oceania Towers in Recognition of Orchestrating a"Fit N'Fundraiser" for a Special Olympics Florida Event on Sunday, March 6, 2016. Action: Commissioner Goldman reported along with a PowerPoint presentation of the Special Olympics Florida event. She said this event was more of a joy and treat for the volunteers and participants. Mayor Scholl read the Proclamation into the record, and the Commission presented it to Chris Humberstone and the team of volunteers. 5B. Special Presentation by the Legal Studies Class at Norman S. Edelcup Sunny Isles Beach K-8 regarding Project Citizen: Ideas for Improved Pedestrian Safety. Action: Commissioner Levin said that she does some volunteer teaching at the Norman S. Edelcup Sunny Isles Beach K-8 with Rosa Carvajal, the Legal Studies and Civics Teacher, and each year her class participates in "Project Citizen". Tonight they are going to make a presentation to the Commission with their ideas on pedestrian safety in Sunny Isles Beach. Rosa Carvajal explained that "Project Citizen" is a world-wide program that promotes competent and responsible participation in state, local, and federal government. It actively engages people in learning how to monitor and influence public policy. Participants work together as a class to identify and study a public policy issue, and the final product is a portfolio that may be presented before other classes, community organizations, or policy makers. This year they are presenting this in front of somejudges on April 2,2016 who will judge a number of portfolios in a form of a competition,and so they hope to actually advance to state level like they did last year. She introduced her law students that have volunteered to be here tonight. This year their project is Pedestrian Safety as a top priority for the residents of Sunny Isles Beach. They have named their project "Safe Walkers. Happy Drivers", and she asked her students to address the Commission on their project. The law students said they are here on behalf of the Middle School Students who have an expressed concern about pedestrian safety here in Sunny Isles Beach. They were happy to find out that the City Commission was already working on the Transportation Plan for the City. Some of their ideas were already in the Plan which was amazing to them. They wanted to contribute both ideas and concerns and they came up with a survey that many of the Middle School students were able to take last week. The results of the survey were that an average of 60% of the students are driven to school daily. 46% of students actually walk when getting around the City. Statistics show that 96% of students have crossed Collins Avenue at some point, and of those students 70% say that they feel rushed when crossing Collins Avenue. 64%claim that they notice drivers rushing when turning on Collins Avenue at traffic lights. 68% feel that pedestrians are not always safe. When asked to write ideas that would help increase pedestrian safety from the most preferred to the least preferred the results were as follows: the most important and perhaps the most immediate solution is to give pedestrians more time to cross the street. They have already been in touch with the Florida Department of Transportation and they will help toward advocating 10 more seconds to cross the street. They also know that this is an issue that they will have to address the County with. The second most preferred solution is building pedestrian bridges throughout