2011-0615 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting June 15,2011 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida 11. MOTIONS None 12. DISCUSSION ITEMS 12A. Discussion regarding the Skate Park. Action: City Manager Cohen reported that he visited the Skateboard Park area yesterday, and was in Winston Towers 300 and in Salem House to get a personal sense of the issue. He wants the community to know that this is an issue that we are not only aware of but are taking it seriously and we are focusing more efforts on what we can do to not only mitigate the problem in the short run, but also the long run. Regarding the short run, a suggestion was made at the last Commission meeting to investigate reducing temporarily the hours of operation of the Skateboard Park, and Cultural and Human Services Director Susan Simpson has negotiated with the vendor and worked out some significantly reduced hours in comparison to the non-school hours which is where we are right now as school is over. City Manager Cohen said the current non-school hours are from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday and 11 :00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, and the vendor has agreed to a reduction in hours as follows: Sunday through Friday from 1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., and on Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. with the caveat that the additional two hours on Saturday morning would be specifically for a pre-teen instruction program. This is important because we are talking about a younger demographic that are not going to be doing the jumps and generating the level of noise that the older more adept youngsters would be, and is recommending that the City Commission approve these new hours. Public Speakers: Rachel Beyda; Jac1yn Matityahu; Commissioner Gatto thanked City Manager Cohen and Cultural and Human Services Director Simpson for their efforts in doing this. She did a comparison of the hours of current and revised hours, and the Skateboard Park is down really only four hours a week but she thinks it will make a difference. She understands that we still have a bigger issue which is the noise, and she knows we will be addressing that down the road. After public discussion, Mayor Edelcup asked City Manager Cohen to reiterate the new hours, and City Manager Cohen said the new hours would be Sunday through Friday from 1 :00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., and on Saturday from 11 :00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. with the understanding that the two hours on Saturday from 11 :00 a.m. to 1 :00 p.m. are restricted to pre-teen instruction only. Mayor Ede1cup asked if this covers school days as well, and City Manager Cohen said this is only until the beginning of the school year on Monday, August 22, 2011. Commissioner Gatto moved and V ice Mayor Thaler seconded a motion to approve the new hours as stated above. [City Clerk's Note: See additional action under Item lOa.] Commissioner Gatto said she had a conversation with the City Manager and asked him to take us to the next steps in terms of coming up with ideas, estimates, and bids for enclosing the Park or something along those lines in reducing the noise. Mayor Ede1cup said even though we have reduced the hours, that does not mean that we have stopped looking to see if II