2012-0510 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting May 10, 2012 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida of seawall that we want to inspect before we invest more to make sure it is sound and then make any necessary repairs. There is also some significant structural work with the type of wall /fencing that we discussed at the last Commission meeting. Commissioner Aelion said you may very well come back to us with this point that the seawall needs to be addressed, or you may come back to us and say it is a new added figure, a new added cost, etc. He further said we should have a feel of what is more or less required to finalize the ceiling. City Manager Cohen said the only way to do that is to authorize a separate contract for the seawall inspection, and that we could move forward with that if the Commission so chooses. Commissioner Scholl said he just wants to get it done, he doesn't want to come back next month and then find out that we are going to do it anyway and then we wasted a month. Mayor Edelcup said that our in- house staff could have done this entire project and we could control the destiny of that project with our own people. He doesn't like the approach we used to get there, when our own people are capable of doing this job. He said we have had Ari Steiger who is here in the audience, planting the grass on those sites and he doesn't seem to have had any problems in getting the ground level, getting the grass in, and that the seawall hasn't fallen in while he has been doing it. The Mayor said that procedurally we are making a lot of work where work wasn't needed. Commissioner Aelion said the seawall can be very cost prohibitive and cited the example at Winston Towers, where they are in the process of evaluating this by an engineering purveyor and they have about 300 linear feet of seawall. Here, you are looking at over a million dollars to address this issue, and so it could become very cost prohibitive. However, this is a park not a building and so he doesn't think the seawall should be a concern. Vice Mayor Thaler said he would make a motion to table it and to look at it so we have a chance to understand what we are spending $67,000 on. Commissioner Scholl said it is $20,000 on a landscape architect, and the rest is surveying and engineering. Vice Mayor Thaler said that we may decide during the month that we don't need a landscape architect. Commissioner Scholl said to put it into context, we have spent over $14 million dollars on the land collectively. He said that he hates to delay things when they are going to come back and say that for the permitting process, because they are going to put in a trail, build a wall along the seawall, etc. Commissioner Scholl said he assumes that all of that has to be engineered, and he is guessing that is what is in these fees. Commissioner Scholl said our engineer was conflicted out, and Mayor Edelcup asked how the engineer can be conflicted out on our own project. City Manager Cohen clarified that our engineer was conflicted out on the selection of CGA, they can work on the project, but the work that our staff did was mostly the construction work. Mayor Edelcup said we agreed when we decided to go with increasing the staff that they would take on these major projects, otherwise why should we hire a City Engineer? City Manager Cohen responded that the Engineer that we hired might be able to do a good amount of this work but if you have an Engineer in -house take on a project of this magnitude, then that is going to slow up the rest of the Capital Improvement Program. The Trojects he is working on and transitioning over to our new Engineer include the 183' Street Project, 174t1i Street Project, and the Bella Vista Bay Park Project. Mayor Edelcup replied they are not priority items as we still do not have permits for 183rd Street, 10