2011-0519 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting May 19, 2011 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida Mayor Edelcup said he has been there several times and there are never more than 15 at any one time, but anything that would have been built there would have created noise as it was a passive park, and now it became active with the noise associated with it. Vice Mayor Thaler asked Ms. Simpson to check on how many children come in a week. Commissioner Aelion said the first step is the reduction of time, and meanwhile we should find an alternative, Commissioner Scholl's approach of entirely enclosing it is maybe something to consider but he noted before that he would not consider anything until there is a relevant pilot result of any mitigated reduction of sound. This is his position at this point. Mayor Edelcup noted that the Sound Study Report indicated to not totally enclose it but to leave one side open which would alleviate a lot of the cost. We also need to see how long the permitting process would be because DERM would be involved again. Vice Mayor Thaler said it is possible by putting it on one side that the noise will float to the other side and we have duplexes on the other side that could be affected by the noise. So there is a lot of work to still be done here before we can make the decision, but again we need to know how many children are there before we can make a proper decision. We may be able to use the $400,000 for something a little more beneficial then putting it into a wall, maybe we have to close it. At this time we don't have enough information to go forward with anything other than reducing the time. Commissioner Scholl said if we enclose it, we are going to solve the problem. Mayor Edelcup said it is not a quick solution, and we also need to know what the ongoing maintenance cost of an enclosed building is, because again he goes back to the $250,000 investment that we put in for a skateboard park, that costs $500,000 to $1 Million to build and maintain doesn't really put taxpayers dollars in the right place for 30 people. Commissioner Scholl said he is not saying that we are committing to building it, what he is saying is that he would like to direct staff to find out those numbers because we know that is a solution that works. Mayor Edelcup said we can't build it at this point because we don't know what it is going to cost, what the ongoing maintenance is going to be, what the environmental issues are going to be, what hours we would use it, and how many people are going to use it. If we wind up with only 30 people using it and we are spending $500,000, that doesn't make sense. If we did away with it, 30 people would no longer have a skateboard park and the sound would disappear, and that is one of the decisions that we have to make. Commissioner Aelion said we have an unknown here, we need assurances, it is possible to have a pilot plan and there is no cost, it is very attainable. Ms. Simpson said she would get some actual user numbers, how many have registered, the average daily usage, and she will initiate conversation with the vendor as far as reducing the hours. Mayor Edelcup said in addition to that he thinks we need to have Acting City Manager Vera to actually price the structure for this configured park the way it is and to also find out what permitting processes are going to be there, and what the ongoing maintenance is going to be so we can relate it to how many people are actually using it so we can determine whether or not we are effectively spending taxpayers dollars. Ms. Simpson asked for clarification, her conversation with the vendor will be to reduce the hours to 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., seven (7) days a week, and close on certain holidays. Mayor Edelcup said you will have a conversation with him to see what feedback you get, and to bring it back to them 7