Laserfiche WebLink
Summary Minutes:Regular City Commission Meeting January 21,2016 City of Sunny Isles Beach,Florida <br /> project is slated to be completed in June.The planning and engineering phase of burying the <br /> electrical and utility lines along Collins Avenue is completed. The most disruptive part of <br /> this project,the installation of conduits on Collins Avenue,has been bid and will be awarded <br /> tonight. This is a complex multiyear project that will still require significant cooperation <br /> from the bordering property owners. It will bring many benefits to our City from safety to <br /> beautification. The next area to be addressed for undergrounding will be Golden Shores. <br /> This past year he gave the Information Technology Department a challenge that has been <br /> coined the Mayors Technology Initiative. He met with the City Manager and Chief <br /> Information Officer Derrick Arias and asked them to get their staffs together and come up <br /> with their ten best ideas for the use of technology to make our residents lives easier and the <br /> City to run more efficiently. They came up with some great ideas like sensors on our buses <br /> so arrival times can be tracked and displayed at the bus stop, on your phone or over the <br /> intemet. They found park benches that are also solar charging stations for phones and tablets <br /> as well as devices that monitor critical equipment and report issues automatically. Some of <br /> these ideas are already starting to be implemented. <br /> This past year we also took a closer look at the various ways we communicate with our <br /> residents and guests. We determined that expanding our Islander newsletter to a monthly <br /> mailing and sending it out to all residents would be a more effective means of <br /> communicating. We also publish Living magazine on a quarterly basis which is a very nice, <br /> and popular, coffee table quality publication. Our website www.sibfl.net is always the most <br /> current source of information for events, meeting schedules, contact information, city <br /> services and select articles and that too has been enhanced. <br /> Everyone knows the extraordinary number of events and activities that our City provides and <br /> last year was no exception. Our staff did a great job and our residents enjoyed all the <br /> traditional events including our anniversary party,sunny serenades,specialty holiday events, <br /> movie nights, farmers markets and car shows just to name a few. However, our City <br /> continuously evolves and we endeavor to grow with the community. This past fall we <br /> partnered with the Sunny Isles Beach Foundation and have chosen a national consulting firm <br /> to create the first Cultural Master Plan for the City. This plan will provide us with the ideas <br /> and guidance to ensure we are providing cultural and entertainment experiences that best <br /> meet the interests and needs of our residents and guests. We are very excited about <br /> completing our Cultural Master Plan and working with the Foundation. <br /> This year we received visits from dignitaries of two of our sister cities, Taormina, Italy and <br /> Netanya, Israel. We are working on a program to host an intern each year from one of our <br /> sister cities,with our first intern coming from Taormina. We also have had communications <br /> from our Sister City Hengchun, Taiwan, which has donated two Joy Perfume Trees and a <br /> park bench which will soon be placed in Gateway Park. Additionally we have had <br /> preliminary discussions with Punta del Este, Uruguay which would be our first Sister City in <br /> Latin America. Named after our Sister City of Netanya, we were pleased to see the <br /> completion and opening of the One Netanya office building. This project brought Mount <br /> Sinai Medical Center to our City and established additional quality medical resources. <br /> 4 <br />