2004 0922 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting September 22, 2004 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida school and to do it expeditiously as compared to some of the problems they have had in their construction division in the past. He noted that the City will own the land and lease it to the School system and make this unique situation work through their Education Oversight Committee for which we will have a good number of representatives on which in essence will serve as the Oversight Board and the financial responsibility will always remain with the Miami-Dade County Public Schools. He stated that the Public Schools have the power and control of the purse strings and they certainly do have the money and we have been fortunate enough to have a substantial amount of that money designated to get this school built at the highest standards and as much as Bob Welsh has mentioned all the educational benefits to the highest standards, from our perspective those highest standards are exemplified by what happened in this City where we were fortunate to just get the bands from the hurricane that came through. Mayor Edelcup said that what we are doing is entering into an agreement with the County that gives us a little more than what normally has been expected from cities in the past in exchange for which we are donating some land to the County, and the County in return is allowing us to participate in the development of their curriculum. Vice Mayor Goodman asked if this school would be consistent with the other schools in the County, and Enid Weisman said that this is consistent with every national goal of every educational system in the country, and as for autonomy or input, she noted for an example that they are working with Miami Beach where they are building a new high school, and that the cities are involved in the construction end and have formed committees and that the County has met with them and they have tremendous input. She said with all the involvement that the School Board wants, she was asked why a parent cannot be on the selection process for a principal, and at the current time their Board rules do not allow for that part of community participation. Commissioner Iglesias said perhaps the City in partnership with the School or perhaps a developer, can build an auditorium that could be used not only for the school but also for the City as well, and put their name on it. Mr. Welsh said they would like to see that as well but they would also like to see as City Manager Russo put in his letter to Ms, Weisman, a 300-400 seat auditorium but if we have a 1,500-seat school and we invite performers in, you have to do it three or four times for the school students to see it, but if you want to use that as a multi-use facility for the community for any kind of performing arts, you will need to have 700-800 seats, City Manager Russo said that we are going to look at adding an auditorium to this and that was a good suggestion to get a developer involved in this because that is something that the School District cannot fund as it is not in their allocation for the construction of the building. He said that the City would like to put in an auditorium at the largest capacity possible but the reality that we are dealing with is a slightly over two-acre site where we are putting in a 150,000 square foot four- story school building of which there are technical requirements for on this site so we will be somewhat constrained in the size of this facility. Commissioner Brezin asked if we go with the public school will we be permitted to use the facility for the community, and City Manager Russo and Mr. Welsh said yes. Ms. Weisman said that all of their schools 3