2006 1214 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting December 14,2006 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida Bud Scholl, a resident on Atlantic Isle, said he has an issue with the forced payment on sale for a couple of reasons: the benefits run with the property, so ifhe is a property owner for three years and because the buyer doesn't have to pay for that acceleration, the seller has got to pay for it, the seller is the one that is going to have to pay for all the improvements when they sell their property and the benefit of those improvements run with the land, so it doesn't make practical sense because I am entitled today. He said ifhe sold his property six months from now he is going to get hit with a $20,000 plus bill, and as long as the City is collecting interest, none of them can predict interest rates. He said the City is a very cheap cost of funds when they borrow money which is a benefit to the City and the City Manager is passing somewhat of that along to the property owners and giving the property owners a break on the financing costs, but he doesn't see the logic behind forcing the current property owner of paying it off whether it is one year or twenty years at that point in time. He said he would rather see the current property owner that wants to pay it off and they don't want to pay for the carry and at some point they refinance their property and they just want to include it in their property and not have a higher tax rate, that is up to them. He said he would rather see it in the standpoint of it is either or, as City Attorney Ottinot said, that is available if we want to do it that way. City Manager Szerlag said that is an excellent argument and that is an option and a perspective, and another perspective would be that our Assistant City Manager over Finance would be able to achieve more then a 5% return in all of our investments. He said the reason for the 25-year schedule was to make it easier on the existing property owner. He said another issue is that, Mr. Scholl's argument is more solid ifthe property owner paid for all of the cost for a Special Assessment, but since the property owner is paying essentially for less than half of the cost, there is an up-front benefit by the City that is attributed to that particular property owner that if the Assessment ran with the land, the subsequent property owner is paying the burden on the balance of that Assessment where the first property owner took the benefit of value from the City on that Assessment. Mr. Scholl said if you make the assumption that all the value is up front and that is the premise of the City Manager's assumption, and that is where he may disagree on that assumption. He said the City Manager structured a find proposal but it would just appear to him that getting front loaded for the existing property owner, the benefits in his mind, stem over time by the beautification ofthe island, the benefit to the City, higher tax values, etc., and so the benefits in his mind are not completely front-loaded. He said one could argue that house values are very high now and the fact is, is it material to the value of a sale of a home on Atlantic Isle as far as paying it off is concerned. Commissioner Brezin said if she were a purchaser she could certainly realize the benefits of having this done when she is purchasing a property and therefore in dollars and cents that person is getting the benefit of what we are doing. She said the value of the property would be more and therefore the seller would be receiving more money for the property as a result of the City doing all of this to enable them to be able to sell that property at a higher price. City Manager Szerlag said that he would like the authority to essentially proceed and authorize him to develop plans and specifications, he will then send out an RFQ, go through the interview process and come back to the City Commission with a proposal to select a City 18