2008 0117 Regular City Commission Meeting

Home Browse Search

Summary Minutes: Regular City Commission Meeting January 17,2008 City of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida it for us, but he does not recommend that because you will not get the level of service that you want to accomplish; 2) keep the staff that we have and try to meld them and make it work, and he recommends against this option because it is really a patch; and 3) and what staff is recommending, is a joint venture type proposition where we get the private sector to do what they do well, do cost effectively and we couldn't compete with them. He said keeping Collins A venue spotless, making sure that the banners are hung and if one falls down we are out there in five minutes putting it back up, making sure that if a businesses has a question or concern that we are there and responding, and with this program we think we can do that type of thing and really raise the bar significantly, and reduce our costs. Mayor Edelcup said that he thinks that this is a wonderful program, and that Mr. Conner has read the Commission right and that they are reaching for a higher standard and status quo, and this seems to get us the best of both worlds, and we can achieve better than we have today at a lower cost, and we should move forward with option 3, the sooner we are there, the better, and Commissioner Goodman agreed. Vice Mayor Thaler said he also agrees but he asked how long will it take us to get new staff on line, and City Manager Szerlag said that he has already asked Human Resources Director Tom Acquaro to advertise. He said that there are two basic levels, there is a field maintenance level which is essentially an entry level Public Works division, normally we can fill those pretty easily within two months, but the eighth position is going to be more managerial technical, it is going to be a GIS Support System that will help with mapping and logistics for doing the work, which may take a little bit longer. He said that we also have been advertising now for over six months, for a Superintendent of Public Works, and we have not been successful, it seems that the lower line levels we can fill fast, the higher we go the harder it is to fill, but by the end of March we should have those eight people here. Commissioner Scholl said he is always critical of expanding the employee base when we have the private sector alternative simply because with the private sector we create an air of competition and if we are unhappy we fire them or we manage them more appropriately. He said that he gets critical when he hears that they are not responding in a timely manner, and he looks back at staff and says to manage them better. He said instead of creating a larger bureaucracy that you have to manage within, and he applauds the hybrid approach because he thinks they are trying to take the best of both worlds, but he is going to look at this very carefully. He said in the future his attitude is going to be if we can go private sector let's go private sector, go with best firm, and manage them appropriately as opposed to expanding our own bureaucracy because HR policies are tough and you just don't have the same kind of leverage over that infrastructure once you create it that you have over a private firm that you can go out to competitive bid next year and they know that they are hanging out there. Public Works Director Conner said that today he spent two sessions visiting with private consultants on management ofprojects for us and they said why don't youjust hire in-house people, why would you want to talk to us, and he went down the list of reasons. He said the effect of these projects may be short-term, he wants the expertise, he can't pay somebody for the next 20 years at that kind of salary but for these projects while they are here it makes sense to have them on-board. He said through the years he has tried that whenever he could and whenever it was appropriate, but there were a couple of places where he would dig in his 18