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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2011-0308 Special City Commission Meeting SUMMARY MINUTES Special City Commission Meeting Tuesday, March 8, 2011,10:00 a.m. City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida A TTENTION ALL LOBBYISTS: CITY LAW REOUlRES YOUR REGISTRATION PRIOR TO ENGAGING IN LOBBYING ACTIVITIES BEFORE CITY STAFF, BOARDS, COMMITTEES OR THE CITY COMMISSION. PLEASE CONTACT THE CITY CLERK FOR FORMS AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. AGENDA 1. CALL TO ORDER / ROLL CALL OF MEMBERS The meeting was called to order by Mayor Edelcup at 10:00 a.m. with the following officials present: Mayor Norman S. Edelcup Vice Mayor Lewis J. Thaler Commissioner Isaac Aelion (arrived @ 10:02 a.m.) Commissioner Jeanette Gatto Commissioner George "Bud" Scholl Acting City Manager Jorge L. Vera City Attorney Hans Ottinot City Clerk Jane A. Hines, CMC Assistant City Attorney Fernando Amuchastegui 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Action: Commissioner Jeanette Gatto led the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. Mayor Edelcup gave opening remarks. 3. RESOLUTIONS 3A. A Resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, Approving Change Order No. 8 to Agreement with Coastal Construction Company for Professional Construction Services for the Expansion of the Scope for the Heritage Park and Parking Garage Project, to Include Seat Walls, Decorative Sidewalk Along Collins A venue, Site Work, and Electrical Work, in an Amount Not to Exceed $850,000.00, Attached Hereto as Exhibit "A"; Authorizing the City Manager to Do All Things Necessary to Effectuate this Resolution; Providing for an Effective Date. Action: [City Clerk's Note: Items 3A and 3B were heard together.) City Clerk Hines read the title, and Acting City Manager Vera reported on Items 3A, 3B, 3C, and 3D regarding the Heritage Park Project. He gave a brief history of the Heritage Park Project, and its seven change orders. Change Order No.8 is the last change order that increases the contract amount with Coastal Construction for the completion of the Park and parking garage. This change order includes several items that were omitted from the design previously, including the seat walls, decorative sidewalk along Collins A venue, up-lighting for medjool palms, electrical outlets and other field changes that have occurred during construction. With this change order, the total contract amount is $13,450,941. Public Speakers: None Commissioner Aelion moved and Commissioner Scholl seconded a motion to approve this resolution, as amended. Resolution No. 2011-1688 was adopted by a voice vote of5-0 in favor. Summary Minutes: Special City Commission Meeting March 8, 2011 Sunny Isles Beach, Florida 3B. A Resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, Approving Change Order No. 9 to Agreement with Coastal Construction Company for Professional Construction Services for the Expansion of the Scope for the Heritage Park and Parking Garage Project, Decreasing the Amount ofthe Agreement in an Amount of $304,118.40, Attached Hereto as Exhibit "A"; Authorizing the City Manager to Do All Things Necessary to Effectuate this Resolution; Providing for an Effective Date. Action: [City Clerk's Note: Items 3A and 3B were heard together.) City Clerk Hines read the title, and Acting City Manager Vera reported noting that from this point on the change orders will be deducts or direct purchases. Change Order #9 is decreasing the agreement, and is for playground equipment, site furnishings, benches, and pooch station. This Change Order reduces the total contract amount with Coastal to $13,146,823, and additional deductions are anticipated to be occurring to this contract amount as staff works with the contractor in trying to reduce more of the services. Public Speakers: None Commissioner Aelion moved and Commissioner Scholl seconded a motion to approve this resolution. Resolution No. 2011-1689 was adopted by a voice vote of 5-0 in favor. 3C. A Resolution ofthe City Commission ofthe City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, Authorizing the City Manager or Designee to Purchase Materials for Completion of Heritage Park, in an Amount Not to Exceed $650,000.00; Authorizing the City Manager to Do All Things Necessary to Effectuate this Resolution; Providing for an Effective Date. Action: City Clerk Hines read the title, and Acting City Manager Vera reported noting that this authorizes the City Manager to purchase materials directly above the Coastal contract to complete the Park. These direct purchases will allow the City to save 20% that the contractor is putting on top of them plus associated fees that the contractor would normally charge. Acting City Manager Vera itemized the following direct purchases: . Stage Canopy $178,627 . Site Furnishing 50,000 . Playground Equipment 266,373 . Parking Meters 25,000 . Lighting/Sound 60,000 . Heritage Wall Plaques 20,000 . Lightning Detector 15,000 . Security Cameras 35,000 Total $650,000 He noted that some of these items will be funded through forfeiture funds, and he will be coming before the Commission for final approval. Including these direct purchases and Change Order Numbers 8 and 9, the cost for the Park and parking garage is not to exceed $13,796,823. This amount is the total cost of the Park which includes a stage, a canopy cover, the interactive fountain, the Heritage Wall, the Medjool Palms, the up-lighting, the electrical outlets, and anything that was missing before, we will have back into the Park. We 2 Summary Minutes: Special City Commission Meeting March 8, 2011 Sunny Isles Beach, Florida expect to have the parking garage TCO by March 31, 2011. The roadway is complete, we are going through the Fire Department to finalize a couple of things, and we expect A ventura Beach complex to commence use of the garage as of April 1, 2011. The remainder of the Park will be completed by the end of May 2011. Public Speakers: Gerry Goodman Mayor Edelcup thanked staff and noted that the cover memo does a good job of where we were, how we started, and where we are today, in addition to the three or four meetings that have taken place since the last Commission meeting with all the active parties involved in trying to bring this project to fruition. He also noted that GilDezer volunteered his services and they were very much appreciated because they helped bring everything into focus and also achieved some of the cost savings on this last $850,000 Change Order, and so he wanted to officially thank him for his effort in helping to bring this closer to completion. What is important is that we are trying to make sure that we get the Project done on time, particularly to get the garage opened by the end of March so that we can start achieving the revenues from the garage while at the same time also permitting development of the basketball area where cars are currently parked today under the Lehman Causeway. He also thinks that we should be able to celebrate the opening of this Park in concert with the City's 14th Anniversary weekend in the middle of June. He sees where it is expected the Park will be opened by the end of May and he is hoping that means that the landscaping will be in place, and Acting City Manager Vera confirmed that it would be. Vice Mayor Thaler said that we need covers for the playground area for the children, it is very important especially in the summer. Commissioner Scholl said we are committed in this one and have to finish, however, this is not the last park we are going to build as we have a lot of land down south and we are going to do this again. His frustration lies in that we get a lot of professionals involved and we end up in the same place. Obviously management changes within the staff doesn't help matters but going forward, we need professional scheduling. The next park that comes along, he is going to personally manage because he brought it up this time and had said that we need professional scheduling to keep the contractor honest. Once again we got a schedule in the beginning, he assumed staff was going to update it, and we were going to get regular reports on slippage, however, nobody followed through and all of a sudden we are down the road with a delays and nobody can explain why. The thing is that it is not that hard to fix, and that is what really bothers him, it is the scheduling. When you are an owner on a construction project, all it is, is construction management and with good scheduling it is not that difficult. While he is supportive of what we need to do here because we are committed and we have to get the Park finished and the garage opened, in going forward, we need to find that resource and he doesn't mean Calvin Giordano, he thinks we should go to an outside resource that specializes in it that we hold accountable to, and if you need help on that in the future, he would be glad to help. Commissioner Aelion asked ifthere was a time at the inception of the Project where a ceiling was set to around $14 Million, and Acting City Manager Vera said that was at the very beginning when we first thought about it. Commissioner Aelion said that Commissioner 3 Summary Minutes: Special City Commission Meeting March 8, 2011 Sunny Isles Beach, Florida Scholl's point is very well taken with a timeline. The quantification of the Project financially, it seems that after having gone through all these change orders that we are coming to the original amount that was set three or four years ago, and he would hate to believe that the final number would eventually be close to the one that was sought. Being that we have reach this threshold and the amount is so close to the original amount, in the future he believes that a turnkey operation, like a project and scheduling and forecasted the financial cost to the City would be more profitable. Former Commissioner Gerry Goodman said he voted for the Park, he thinks it is a great Park, and he thinks that the City is doing a great thing for the people of this City. However, he thinks something in the system is wrong, when we originally voted for the Park we voted for $9.25 Million. He thinks that the system should be when you vote for something you don't leave an opening like you did here and add nine (9) items to it and raise the price from $9.25 Million to almost $14 Million. He publicly said when he brought the question up, don't come back and ask for more money, the Manager had said the Park was empty, and it wasn't his recollection that the Park was empty, the wall was there, the children's things were there, and he felt when all these things started to come back he was told that you had $14 Million and he had never heard that figure before. He said he had brought up the Pelican Park, that money was set aside for the Pelican Park to build, and there was much more money overruns in the Pelican Park and he didn't want this to happen at the Heritage Park. He thinks in the future when you want to enter into a project of this nature, what was done and discussed this morning should be discussed prior to voting on a project, get all the details rather than say a number and then spend another $5 Million. Mayor Edelcup said in defense of management and staff, when this park was first discussed, we were talking about money as high as $16 Million depending upon what kind of facade we were going to put on the garage and what kind of amenities were going to go into the garage. He thinks we needed to memorialize some of those early discussions because the decision later was made to move forward with the park but in phases, and he thinks that is where some of the information has fallen apart. Yes it was true that we were expecting to have a heritage wall and water park and at that point we were contemplating having donations that would pay for some of these which never came into fruition. Once we started the park, we had already started along the plan of building a park, and all of a sudden we were granted the opportunity to look at an extra acre, and that changed the configuration of the park. Also the discussions of what would go into that additional acre and how the park had to be repositioned to accommodate it. Even though in the early days we were talking as high as $16 Million, everyone on the Commission had hopes that we would be able to keep it into the $13 - $14 Million range by not going ahead with some of the more elaborate plans. In direct response to Commissioner Goodman's comments, looking back what we should have done was to memorialize that total of what we really expected to spend and then approve it in phases. When we moved forward we started with all these different change orders that started with the original $6 Million, they were really along a path that was going to get us eventually to the number that we are at today, and admittedly that number also contemplated donations which didn't occur, and so we would have been in that $13 - $14 Million range as the donations came in but be that as it may, the park is near fruition and we need to get it complete and certainly Commissioner Scholl's comments about being on top of it and 4 Summary Minutes: Special City Commission Meeting March 8, 2011 Sunny Isles Beach, Florida managing it on a day to day basis, and making sure that things are delivered on a timely basis is something that we all need to learn and apply towards the next park projects. Commissioner Aelion moved and Commissioner Scholl seconded a motion to approve this resolution. Resolution No. 2011-1690 was adopted by a voice vote of 5-0 in favor. 3D. A Resolution of the City Commission ofthe City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, Ratifying the Agreement with Rep Services, Inc. for the Purchase and Installation of Playground Equipment and Safety Surface for Heritage Park, in an Amount Not to Exceed $266,373.34, Attached Hereto as Exhibit "A"; Authorizing the City Manager to Do All Things Necessary to Effectuate this Resolution; Providing for an Effective Date. Action: City Clerk Hines read the title, and Acting City Manager Vera reported that this is for the playground equipment under the direct purchases that is noted above. Public Speakers: none Vice Mayor Thaler moved and Commissioner Aelion seconded a motion to approve this resolution. Resolution No. 2011-1691 was adopted by a voice vote of 5-0 in favor. 3E. A Resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, Approving a Lease Agreement/Airspace Agreement ("Lease Agreement") with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) for Parking Space Located Under the Lehman Causeway Bridge; Authorizing the Mayor to Execute Said Lease Agreement in Substantially the Same Form; Providing the City Manager and the City Attorney with the Authority to Do All Things Necessary to Effectuate this Resolution; Providing for an Effective Date. Action: [City Clerk's Note: A revised Addendum to FDOT Lease Agreement was distributed prior to the meeting.) City Clerk Hines read the title, and City Attorney Ottinot reported that FDOT has leased to the City the parking areas under the Lehman Causeway for a number of years. This is a renewal of that contract, and additionally this year, FDOT has agreed to allow the City to build a basketball court within the parking area, and have approved the plans for the basketball court. The agreement is basically the same with one major exception, the State of Florida is looking for revenues and this year they have requested that we have a split of revenues from the parking area, they have a 60/40 split on gross revenues. The former City Manager and he had objected to it, and had met with them in the past and indicated to them that a net revenue split would be the appropriate split. This approval would allow Acting City Manager Vera and himselfto continue to negotiate with FDOT, and also it would allow the construction of a basketball court and that is the reason for bringing this agreement. Until we finalize the revenue split, we will not have a lease to execute but the Commission can approve it in concept. Commissioner Scholl asked how much revenue we are negotiating over and what is your position, and Acting City Manager Vera said we are averaging about $30,000 to $40,000 a year under the Lehman Causeway, and City Attorney Ottinot said our position is that it should be 60/40 but based on net. Commissioner Scholl asked how he calculated net, and City Attorney Ottinot said on our expense, subtracting our expense from the gross revenues, 5 Summary Minutes: Special City Commission Meeting March 8, 2011 Sunny Isles Beach, Florida and Acting City Manager Vera said that we are expecting to spend, maintenance-wise, between $15,000 to $20,000. Commissioner Scholl said that you may want to think about either just having a direct deduction like a fixed number, and say, okay we are going to take an expense of $15,000 because that would be within our control, and he agrees that we should have an expense allocation but a fixed number. Public Speakers: none Vice Mayor Thaler said the lease term is for ten years with the right to renew the lease, what is the term renewal lease, and City Attorney Ottinot said this lease may be renewed for an additional ten year term. Commissioner Scholl said with the basketball court, we want to get a lease for as long as we can. Commissioner Scholl moved and Vice Mayor Thaler seconded a motion to approve this resolution, as amended. Resolution No. 2011-1692 was adopted by a voice vote of5-0 in favor. 4. CITIZENS FORUM 4A. Noise at Skate Park in Town Center Park: Rachel Beyda, a resident of Winston Towers 600 overlooking the Skate Park, complained that the noise coming from Skate Park is unbearable. They never saw any notice that it would be built in Town Center Park. Something has to be done, they can't live that way. Vice Mayor Thaler said that we did have notices and meetings, and there were no complaints and we went ahead with it. He said we heard of the noise, and we have a Commissioner that lives in the next building, and so the City is looking into a sound expert to see what we can do going forward, and will take whatever method it is to deter the sound. Ms. Beyda said that is not going to help, and the value of the property went down because of that, people don't want to buy into the area anymore because of the noise, everything has changed. She said they never heard of a meeting, she would have been the first one there if she had heard of it, and Mayor Edelcup said that we could supply her with every public notice that was put out, and every time it was played on Channel 77, and heard at a Commission meeting. He is sorry she doesn't read a paper, or watch television, but the City does not do things in secret, everything is always advertised and put out in the open, and so he has to disagree with her as there was ample public notice given. Mayor Edelcup said we have a noise ordinance within the City and he has asked the City Manager to check and see if it exceeds the decibel noise level and if it does, we will take corrective action. Commissioner Gatto said that the Mayor is correct that announcements about the Skateboard Park were posted, this is a challenge for her because she too overlooks the Park in Tower 300, and she too feel that there is a constant hockey game being played on her balcony, the sound literally comes into her living room. She doesn't think it is a decibel issue, it is a constant banging, clanking noise, it is kids shrieking, and it is unfortunate because it starts at 3:00 p.m. and ends at 8:00 p.m., seven days a week. However, she invited the Acting City Manager and Code Enforcement to her apartment, and they pretty much agreed that the noise 6 Summary Minutes: Special City Commission Meeting March 8, 2011 Sunny Isles Beach, Florida was very intrusive. They did do a decibel reading even though she was against it because she felt it wasn't a decibel issue but it did exceed the decibels. Her feeling is that she knows that people are upset, property taxes have gone up, and their property values have gone down, and so she is going to work with the City Manager to see what we can do to muffle that noise, and to see what the next steps are to maybe remedying the situation. Jaclyn Matitydru, also a resident at that same condominium, also complained about the noise. She said three weeks ago at 12:30 a.m. on a weekday, a kid was skateboarding. This is completely unacceptable, nobody was notified, and we know in our building that nothing was advertised. Mayor Edelcup said we don't advertise in the individual towers, we advertise in the newspapers, and he asked if she called the Police on that incident. She said she did call the Police, and she has called the City many times, this is not fair, something has got to be done, and putting trees in there will not work. Commissioner Aelion said he had lived in Winston Towers for years, and during those years the collective will of the residents was heard loud and clear, and he made reference to the pedestrian bridge, and the issue with potentially building a high-rise instead of Town Center Park, they were here in masses against that. The Skate Park was also advertised identically, and so to say that the City didn't do due diligence in notifying, and being cognizant of the fact that the whole thrust was improved, and the lives of our residents in as far as preventing the dangerous abuse of our streets with the skateboards, and allowing the youth to have their recreation, they fought for that Skate Park. He thinks the collective will of the Commission being that we have the Skate Park there, and that we would do our utmost to alleviate the problem, but to come and say that we did something without your knowledge. Commissioner Gatto said she doesn't think that the issue is advertising at this point, the issue is that the Skateboard Park was built adjacent to a private community with absolutely no consideration given to getting a sound study, and she thinks that is where we didn't do due diligence, and that is where we need to move forward and figure out how to rectify that. Vice Mayor Thaler said that we have to take it from here, what has been done is done, we have to go through the sound area and we have to try to minimize the problem that you have, and that is part of the Commission's job to get that done and see where we are going to go from there. Weare listening, we will take it from here, and we will get back to the public and let them know what can be done. 5. ADJOURNMENT Mayor Edelcup adjourned the meeting at 10:50 a.m. Respectfully submitted by: Approved by the City Commission on Mar. 17, 2011 " " '" . ~~~: Jane A. Hines, CMC, City Clerk 7 Preview Page 1 of 1 City of Sunny Isles Beach 18070 Collins Avenue Sunny Isles Beach, Florida 33160 (305) 947-0606 City Hall (305) 949-3113 Fax MEMORANDUM TO: The Honorable Mayor and City Commission FROM: Jane A. Hines, CMC, City Clerk DATE: 3/17/2011 RE: Summary Minutes for the March 8, 2011 City Commission Meeting RECOMMENDATION: Attached for your consideration are the Summary Minutes for the March 8, 2011 Special City Commission Meeting regarding Heritage Park. REASONS: N/A A TT ACHMENTS: . Summary Minutes http://sibagenda.sibfl.net/agenda/Preview.aspx?ItemID=461 &MeetingID=O&MeetingDate=... 3/9/2011