2012-1018 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes:Regular City Commission Meeting October 18,2012 City of Sunny Isles Beach,Florida makes it a public nuisance to feed stray cats in the City. This ordinance is similar to what they adopted in the Town of Golden Beach. Vice Mayor Thaler said he thinks there may be a misunderstanding,we are not trying to hold off all feeding of cats; we are trying to stop the overfeeding of cats. We have an enormous amount of people that come out in the morning with huge amounts of food, putting it in places such as the churches,synagogue,our Parks,and even at City Hall. What we are trying to do is to control those people because it is dangerous. What the cats don't eat people trip over. He noted an email from Father Kirlin at St. Mary Magdalen,and he read a paragraph into the record "The cats who are being overfed on our property by persons known and unknown have become, in many cases, indolent and overweight. I am told that obesity in cats can be just as detrimental to them as to humans. These cats then hunt birds on the parish grounds not for food but for sport,kill them,and then leave their carcasses all around parish property. This then provides a health risk for our children and others. At the same time persons are leaving food in places where the parishioners walk instead of hiding the food away. If a parishioner slips and falls on cat food or any other kinds of food that people may leave,this becomes an insurance/liability issue for the parish." This is why he put this item on the agenda. He has received many other emails and one thing that was overlooked is that we do have a neutering system here in Sunny Isles Beach. We spend in excess of$10,000 a year for the neutering and it is not enough. We cannot get enough people to go out and capture the cats that are here,the cat population has continually grown,and we are having a problem here. Mayor Edelcup opened the meeting for public comment. Public Speakers: Lindsay Donzanti; Suely Caramelo;Mirna Trujillo;Catherine Szabo;Don Anthony; Megan Clauser; Martha Trujillo; Mayor Edelcup thanked all the people for coming here tonight to express their opinion on the status of this problem,and their suggestions for correcting/mitigating the problem. He also thanked the Vice Mayor for bringing it to our attention so we can have a public discussion and search out alternate solutions to this problem. It is his intention not to support this ordinance but to suggest that our staff take all the comments that were made here tonight and to come up with a comprehensive program that incorporates additional dollars from the City, for the neutering program. The Mayor wants to have the volunteers that are here tonight and others that wish to volunteer become part of the program. He also instructed our own staff to look into the problems and where they can assist to come up with a more viable solution. Overfeeding is really a very subjective item and he doesn't see how this ordinance could ever be enforced because overfeeding is in the eyes of the beholder who is watching the feeding taking place, and so it is an ordinance that defies the ability to be able to adequately and properly police that sort of program. Therefore to him, it is an unacceptable type of ordinance to put before the City,and he would hope his fellow Commissioners would move with him to instead make a positive out of this by doing what we can to mitigating the program and incorporating all the people who want to work with us. Commissioner Aelion said he felt we did not have enough data. This ordinance does not address overfeeding but feeding in its entirety is prohibited. He agrees with the Mayor's approach. Commissioner Scholl said he doesn't like to approve anything that is not clearly enforceable, it is the wrong approach. We have a citizen's group that is obviously responsible,articulate,well funded,and want to help. He would like to direct staff to see if 8