2014-0619 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes:Regular City Commission Meeting June 19,2014 City of Sunny Isles Beach,Florida this 24/7 and frankly we don't have the resources to do that either. He is against this Ordinance. Commissioner Levin said she can see both sides of the argument. She can see how it is great for our kids to be out and moving around,and it is a great mode of transportation for them. On the other hand she sees the difficulties of the fact that we have narrow sidewalks,and there are a lot of people milling around. She was at Epicure the other day and there was a group of kids going along 172nd and one of the boys was skateboarding in the middle of the street because there were too many kids on the sidewalk. As a matter of safety she thinks we need to enact this Ordinance but it is not written in stone, if it doesn't work we always have the option to revisit it and change it, or get rid of it altogether. She added a friendly amendment on page 2 of the Ordinance,there is a provision that says the term"Segway includes wheelchairs or other motorized devices used by a disabled person". She would like to see that pulled out of the Segway and just say across the board that this Ordinance will not be construed to include those types of devices. City Attorney Ottinot said he will make that revision. Mayor Edelcup said we have a difficult situation here trying to balance the needs and desires of all of our residents. We have a tremendous increase in our residents that we have enjoyed while we become a new city, and we also have the success of being a destination for a lot of visitors. The end result is that Collins Avenue today has much more pedestrian traffic on it then it ever had,probably since the days of the motel era and its height of development. There has been a lot of talk that we are punishing the kids by taking away their right to go on Collins Avenue but at the same time we have made numerous statements that we are only taking them off of Collins Avenue and Sunny Isles Boulevard. That did not deny them the opportunity to skate on the more quiet streets, all the remaining streets of our City. He really thinks the fact that maybe only one or two reported incidents have come to the City is just the surface of a problem that has been occurring because a lot of people have it occur every day and complain to themselves and never get to the City. The bottom line is we need to be mindful of the fact that we now are a much busier city, it is not as easy for people to get up and down Collins Avenue if we have all the skateboards,roller skaters and things of that nature interfering with the pedestrian traffic. Yes, we built the Skateboard Park and that is the place where children can benefit by being away from any sort of traffic, and we built it far enough away from the street so they would never wind up skating into the street which is what has happened a number of times. Taking everything into account,and the fact that we are talking about a very small percentage of all the street surface that we have in Sunny Isles Beach,he is still in favor of trying to balance the needs of all of our residences and providing as safe of an environment that we can for our residents and tourists, and so he supports this ordinance. Commissioner Gatto moved and Commissioner Levin seconded a motion to adopt the Ordinance on second reading, as amended. Ordinance No. 2014-432 was adopted by a roll call vote of 3-2 (Commissioner Scholl and Vice Mayor Aelion against) in favor. Vote: Commissioner Gatto yes Commissioner Levin yes Commissioner Scholl no Vice Mayor Aelion no Mayor Edelcup yes 6