2007 0816 Regular City Commission Meeting

Home Browse Search

Summary Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting August 16,2007 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida Commissioner Goodman said he read in the paper that the County is looking into doing this and there are many glitches and problems in the system, and we should keep our eye on it. Mayor Edelcup said today he gave an article to the City Manager that was in today's Wall Street Journal talking about primarily some of the cities are facing difficulties particularly with the vertical problems that they are encountering in places like San Francisco with hills that are blocking the transmissions from going through, and so it pays for us to move cautiously and at the same time by moving cautiously we are also gaining the benefit of advances in technology. Vice Mayor Thaler said on Phase I he thinks there are some savings that we can contribute to that also which would reduce the amount of net cost on it especially in the Police Force with their instruments, we would not need licenses for each phone. City Manager Szerlag said that he would like us to be very thorough and methodical in our approach to this matter because there is some benefit that our Police Department currently has with their new system on computerization and he would like to find out through the RFP process what enhancements we are going to have, to what our Police Officers already have in the public safety aspect. He said one other thing we need to take a look at in the future is on the mounting access costs, if we are essentially going to be providing a free utility, it may behoove us to offer this utility in exchange for a roof top access for a dollar a year instead of $2,000 a month, these are things that are still in the mix but we will proceed cautiously and we will keep the Commission informed every step of the way. He said that Assistant City Manager Haag recently received an offer from a private sector company to form a public/private partnership and so the RFP can also have that as an alternative. He said we will proceed slowly, we want to benefit the residents as well as the organization and do it in the most cost effective manner. Commissioner Brezin asked about the Pilot Programs with the County and Assistant City Manager Haag said that we have had discussions with Dade County as recently as this week in regard to those Pilot projects, as you may remember, we met with them last year and asked to be part of that Pilot Program and we were not accepted. He said the County went through a series of town hall meetings to determine where those Pilot Projects would be, and in discussions we had this week, the County told us that they have all the Pilot Projects that they will need. Mayor Edelcup said since the County has committed that they want to be County- wide, it gives us the opportunity to ask the County for grant money beyond their pilot project once it gets moving, and that we will cover this part of the County and they maybe should contribute some part of that cost since they would not have to do this part of the County. Hugo Olortegui said he has a company that is operating in Miami-Dade County and Broward County and has operating bay stations on the southern and northern part of Sunny Isles Beach Ocean II being one of those buildings, and is in the process much like IBM but they start from the vertical out so they already have operating, money-making environments in place and up and running within the City and he would like to make himself available to IBM and to the City to help in anyway and share his best industry practice methodology in making this happen. Commissioner Brezin asked if it was cost effective, and he said very cost effective, they are in business and they are a private entity, owners and operators. City Manager Szerlag suggested he give Assistant City Manager Haag his business card because he will be invited to respond to our RFP.w 14