Loading...
Meeting Minutes - June 21 2018 Mayor’s General Obligation Bond Advisory Panel Meeting Minutes June 21, 2018 City Manager’s Large Conference Room Saul Gross, Vice-Chairperson, called the meeting to order at 4:11 p.m. Attendance was taken. Mayor’s General Obligation Advisory Panel Members in attendance were as follows: Last Name First Name Present Absent Phone Not Sworn in Rivo Karen X Breslin Ray X Glottman Jack X tt p s :/ / w w w . m ia m i b e a c h fl . g o v/ ci t y - h al l/ ci t y - cl e r k/ b o a r Gross Saul X Jones Carolina X Leibowitz Debra X Libbin Jerry X Malakoff Joy X Meiner Steven X Peter Marie X Ramos Margueritte X City of Miami Beach employees and City of Miami Beach residents present included: John Woodruff, Chief Financial Officer Michele Burger, Mayor’s Chief of Staff Jay Fink, Public Works Assistant Director Luis Soto, Acting City Engineer Adrian Morales, Property Management Director David Martinez, Office of Capital Improvement Projects Director Maria Cerna, Office of Capital Improvement Projects Division Director Jose Gonzalez, Transportation Director Josiel Ferrer, Transportation Manager Pilar Saenz, Transportation Administrative Services Manager Rodney Knowles, Greenspace Division Director Heather Shaw, Tourism, Culture, and Economic Development Assistant Director Brandi Reddick, Cultural Affairs Manager Michelle Huttenhoff, Economic Development Manager for Tourism, Culture, and Economic Development Luis Wong, Tourism, Culture, and Economic Development Administrative Services Manager Elizabeth Wheaton, Environment and Sustainability Director Natasha Nicholson, Public Works Senior Administrative Manager Erick Chiroles, Aide to Commissioner Arriola Adrian Chamberlain, Aide to Mayor Gelber Ceci Velasco, Executive Director Ocean Drive Association Michael Barrineau, Resident Roll Call Attendance of the Panel was taken. Minutes June 14, 2018 Jack Glottman provided a correction to the minutes. The following was edited to reflect: Jack Glottman said group funding by categories, such as life safety or capital improvements as opposed to funding on a per building basis. Debra Leibowitz provided a correction to the minutes as well. The following was edited to reflect: Debra Leibowitz said the Sustainability Committee dealt with these items years ago and it is disconcerting to hear about projects that have gone on for years when she heard about this 5 years ago. She heard Amaresco’s presentations for years and that we would replace the light bulbs. She has a hard time asking people to spend more money when the City hasn’t quantified what has been spent or saved, we don’t know what we are getting. Motion to approve minutes as amended, made by: Debra Leibowitz, seconded by: Jack Glottman. Presentation: Infrastructure (#42-87) John Woodruff, Chief Financial Officer said that the Departments left to present were Public Works and Environment and Sustainability for the infrastructure projects. He explained that we handed out one pagers for all of the infrastructure projects and we will have one pagers for all of the projects. He said we will come up with a link to access the attachments. Chairperson Karen Rivo explained that someone had emailed asking the Panel to really understand the stormwater plan and how it integrates with what we are doing or not. She thought it would be a good idea what is happening at this moment with stormwater. John Woodruff said that Public Works has a short presentation that was actually given at the Sustainability and Resiliency Committee yesterday. Jay Fink, Public Works Assistant Director went through the presentation. He explained the stormwater master plan and that it has been around for a long time. He walked through the history. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross asked if we really need to talk about the history because thinks people are more interested in what we are paying and what the increase will be. Jay Fink then went to explain the rules about the wells. He said the last few years they have seen the ground water rise. During peak rain events the water would not go in the well, there wasn’t any room for it to get there. Then the water starting going into the streets. Then we had to change to a pump system instead of putting water into the ground, directing the water into the Bay. That is how things have evolved. Permitting and rules have changed according to DERM. He said what was discussed at Commission was that we would bring the streets up to a minimum level to allow an evacuation route and vehicles to go and travel, etc. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross said the most recent issue that he think is concerning the p ublic is that the design criteria for Sunset Harbour hasn’t been met by the system that we put in place. People are wondering what is going on with that and if that is the case in other neighborhoods and how we are going to combat that going forward. Former Commissioner Jerry Libbin said he thinks a lot of concerns are what is going into the bay. Jay Fink said prior to the pump system the water was collected from the street and it went into the storm drain, there was no real quality protection of what was going into the bay. With the new implementation and additional criteria it goes through an additional screening system. He continued to explain the pump system. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross readdressed his issue about the Sunset Harbour project. Jay Fink said with that project, it was a design build project. When there were some issues where the water did not drain, we brought our engineers on board and our City engineer looked at model and how this was going to happen or not happen. They found that overall the model is working, but there are certain deficiencies with the model. We are looking at the pump station to see what tweaks need to be made. The contractor is still on the project to meet the criteria. The criteria put in place is that we will deal with a peak storm. Luis Soto, Assistant City Engineer said the criteria for Sunset Harbour is 6 inches of rain for 24 hours. We don’t have any problems meeting that criteria for now because it is a 24 hour measure. The issue is the intensity of the rain. The problem is that the rain comes very fast and then dissipates. Sometimes there are 2.8 inches per hour as the peak intensity. He explained when we experience flooding. The contractor is currently investigating the problems. Vice-Chairperson said this is a serious issue because people’s homes could be flooded. He asked if this is the only project the City has discovered this in. Luis Soto said that Eric Carpenter gave this presentation at the Sustainability and Resiliency Committee yesterday and explained that one portion of the criteria was met in Sunset Harbour was the elevation of the road, in prior years the area was flooded all the time. For the majority of the properties the system is much better than what was there before. Issues have come about in areas where the properties where they are very low. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross wanted to know what lessons the City has learned and how likely this is to happen in other situations where the roads are being raised and how soon there will be relief of this situation. Luis Soto said we have increased the intensity of the criteria from 5 years to 10 years. He also explained the difference in the inches per hour. Discussion continued regarding other areas. Jack Glottman asked what the time frame is that the contractor will have solutions or potential solutions for Sunset Harbour. He asked for explanation of solutions as far as cost. Luis Soto said he had a meeting with them yesterday and they were considering doing some additional work to improve the system. He said we are evaluating to ensure whatever we do is going to work for good. They haven’t come up with a timeframe, although they have been looking at this for about 6 months. One of their solutions is to do some work by the parking lot by Maurice Gibb Park near one of the pump station designs. Any pipes that they change they need to pay for that adjustment try to meet our expectations. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross said that he just wanted to address what was happening in Sunset Harbour because there are other projects in the G.O. Bond regarding raising roads. Debra Leibowitz would like to know what we spent on these pump stations, so we have an idea of what the 3 neighborhoods that they cost $ x million. She wanted to know what the parameters of the project are and where did the money come from. Luis Soto said the project in Sunset Harbour costed the City about $25 million, but that included road raising, pumps, pipes, water, lighting, etc. Usually the pump water components cost about 40-50% of the total cost. The way it was funded, was that we had bonds issued and 2015 stormwater portion was covered by stormwater bonds. Luis Soto said the project in the G.O. Bond for all 3 neighborhoods will cost about $83 million. It includes the stormwater, water replacements, sewer replacements and above ground. The above ground was about $15 million, the stormwater was about $40 million, and the rest was water and sewer. He said the La Gorce neighborhood was very expensive because it is older and many th ings had to be moved around. Debra Leibowitz asked how La Gorce was selected and if that is one of the lower lying areas, her understanding is that there are other areas that are lower lying in the City. She wanted to know how we came up with La Gorce at $85 million when other areas are in need. Jay Fink said AECOM did the complete Citywide study and they came up with priorities over the next 10 years and how the neighborhoods would be affected. Luis Soto said that list of prioritization will most likely change moving forward. Ray Breslin said everything that is being pumped into the Bay was already going into the Bay. Margueritte Ramos asked if we are still the leaders in addressing sea level rise. Jay Fink said everyone is doing something to address sea level rise. He said what we are doing is an engineered solution of how we dissipate the stormwater with the tide that is so close to us because we don’t have a lot of room to go anywhere. Other places have different elevations to our City who are doing other things. It is more difficult for us. Former Commissioner Malakoff believed in the AECOM engineering study that in the schedule that places that were flooding the most were higher on the schedule would be addressed first. Parts of the City that were further to the east and higher were lower on the schedule. Discussion continued regarding the stormwater plan. The Panel would like the money to be broken up by projects within neighborhoods so people can know what they are voting for. Above Ground work was discussed. Jack Glottman said he would rather see one project with a total of $100 million and a list of all the neighborhoods and come up with an allocation of costs for each neighborhood. The Panel doesn’t believe these projects should be in a placeholder. The Panel believes the neighborhoods that have not gotten done should be the first priority. Ones that were never done are Flamingo Park, North Shore, and La Gorce Island. Former Commissioner Malakoff said there is no way to predict how many inches the sea level rise will be. The City needs to do the best possible job in the next 20-30 years based on the facts that are available today. The $50 million that was put on the above ground improvements project is for the completion of the above ground work, which is the missing piece of the funding mechanism; the underground is taken care of by Enterprise funds. Margueritte Ramos said she just wants North Shore to have a line item and doesn’t want to go through another cycle without getting the North Shore neighborhood done, she referenced item 62. She said in the sheet North Shore is lumped in and she wants to see it identified. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross asked if the 1999 G.O. Bond money was all spent. John Woodruff said it is pretty much all spent, it has to be before we can get new money. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross suggested taking smaller increments to be able to be done in a 10 year horizon instead of a 20 year horizon; our information will be more accurate projecting 10 years versus 20. It will not be an easy to explain to the neighborhoods that were already done that now we are going back to dig up the roads again in these neighborhoods. The criteria for the sea level rise changed. Jack Glottman said the real challenge is we don’t have a clear road map of which stormwater improvements will be done by when and in what order. Is it realistic that we can do all neighborhoods in 10 years? My understanding is the estimated stormwater project costs are about $500 million, on average it is about 20% of above ground improvements. Under those assumptions we need to vote for the above ground improvements and he thinks it should be allocated so that every neighborhood is accounted for. It seems we don’t have enough answers yet with regards to the order. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross said we don’t have enough money either. Neighborhoods that haven’t yet been improved should be done correctly based on today’s assumptions. He said rather than just a long list see where the most serious flooding problems are. He thinks the list is too ambitious from what he can see. David Martinez, CIP Director named many projects that have gotten done just in the 7 years he has been at the City. Jay Fink jumped to #71 Street Lighting program. He said the solicitation was put for a smart city program. Ray Breslin said some condo associations went and replaced their lights with LED lights. You want to make it safer but don’t want it to be too white of light. We also need to worry about the turtles. Margueritte asked once the presentation is available if it will show where the lighting will be. She asked if we will be upgrading the lighting that was done in 1999 Bond to the smart city lighting. Jay said yes. Jack Glottman said in their properties they have been changing their fixtures to LED. It makes sense and he thinks we can deal with concerns it can be directed properly. Marie Peter said South of Fifth just had their lighting done and it looks great, so why would we take it out. Jay Fink said we wouldn’t take it out, there would just be connectivity amongst all lights that are there. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross said he would personally put this lower on the list compared to other projects. The Panel would like more information on this. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross asked if the Panel would like to keep this high on the list. Jack Glottman said after we have heard all the projects, we should go back and give the priorities. David Martinez explained the lighting system. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross suggested doing a presentation on the project so we can see how it works and doing the whole city is pretty ambitious. Debra Leibowitz would like to know the return on the investment. If light bulbs are out in 87 places in the city would go and fix them. There is an inherent cost in maintaining this system as well. #72- Street Pavement Program was discussed. What is being proposed is a result of a citywide analysis all of the roadways throughout the City. It looked at stress, for example pot holes and dips. He explained what happens with the road. If you don’t do something to maintain it, it fails quickly. We need to have preventative maintenance. The resulting study came up with an overall rating for the City, 72, it concluded if nothing was done to the City over the next 10 years, it would go down to 55. How much money do we need to invest in the roadways every year, would be $6.8 million. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross wants to know why this isn’t a budget allocation by the Commission. He doesn’t think improvements for 5 -7 years is for the G.O. Bond. He asked Jack Glottman how he does the asphalt in his parking lots. Jack Glottman said it is with capital dollars. Jay Fink said there is a series of treatments we can do for the roads to extend the life. If we catch it within the first 5-7 years and initiate some level of treatment to extend the life, we can do it within the budget. What cannot be done within the operating budget is mill and resurface many roadways to bring them up to a level where we can maintain them. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross asked how much money is in the yearly budget for the roadways. John Woodruff said what we would like to do is something like the G.O. Bond to kick start it to get it back to a pretty good place while we ramp up some of the PAY GO money in the operating budget so we wouldn’t have to do something like that again. This is catch up. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross would like to see the annual line item in the City budget needs to be when we do the second pass. We need to make sure we don’t just use G.O. Bond money to maintain roadways and he would vote against it if that is the case. It is not a way to run a City. Chairperson Karen Rivo asked what the cost of not doing this would be. Jay Fink said the no action scenario in 5 years would put the PCI down to 43 which is poor to very poor on the scale. #70 Sidewalk repair program was discussed. A study was done on the sidewalks and the average condition of the sidewalks was a 72, the majority of the sidewalks are falling within the fair category. The study did go through each of the neighborhoods. Handicap ramps were looked at to see where they were needed to bring the sidewalks up to ADA compliance. This project is a matter of replacing sidewalks not maintenance. We are estimating $50 a square yard to replace the sidewalks. This would address the 25% of sidewalks that are in bad shape. If we did all of these we would have pretty good sidewalks. There might be some that are better than others, but right now this would address all the marginal bad sidewalks. Former Commissioner Jerry Libbin said he believes his neighborhood was done in 1999 and there are sidewalks that are lopsided. There was a map that was provided that showed the sidewalks. Ray Breslin said some sidewalks themselves aren’t in horrible shape, but there are some that you get there and there is a tree or a sign there and there isn’t room for a wheelchair or a walker. We need to get away from that, we need to have a standard. #63 Alleyway Restoration was discussed. Marie Peter said the way the description of this project is written is poor; if we are going to send this for the G.O. Bond it needs to reflect more of a safety issue than resurfacing and restoration. The alleys don’t have signs that say one way, there is no lighting, the pavement is all torn up, and people have thrown their dumpsters out there. These are all serious safety issues. She requested the Panel look at this as a high priority. Jay Fink said there is not enough money in the annual budget to redo these. The alleyways have uneven streets, which are difficult to maintain, difficult to clean. Debra Leibowitz said the description said asphalt, not lighting or signs. She asked if those issues are included. Jay Fink said the lighting in the alleys has been addressed and we are currently addressing the remainder of them. We are in a program with FP&L, we are changing out all of the lights in the alleys and the majority of those are FP&L. There have been some done on Ocean Court, we are doing some on Collins Court, and we are doing a number of other ones. Former Commissioner Joy Malakoff asked if those lights are LED. Jay Fink said yes. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross asked if those will be taken out if we do the smart lighting system. Jay Fink said it may be we will wire them up, but he is not sure. Because they belong to FP&L it might be difficult to do that. He said the money allocated for this will address most of the alleys. Ray Breslin said one of the things that seem confusing for the Panel is that we have a separate item for security cameras, lighting. We would like to know they are all going to get done at the same time. When they are broken into different projects, we don’t know for sure they will get done in a reasonable time. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross asked if the camera presentation that Police did included cameras in the alleys. John Woodruff said no, they are in the Entertainment District, Beachwalk, and Commercial Corridors. #65 Bridges was discussed. Jay Fink said this basically looks at putting in $2 million into the Citywide bridge projects. He showed a poster of all the Citywide bridges. FDOT inspects the bridges and lets us know of any deficiencies. We do not have any money to in the operating budget to address the issues that FDOT discovers. This money would be a placeholder to say as the next round of inspections come up and they let us know a certain element needs to be fixed we are able to fix it. Former Commissioner Jerry Libbin said this sounds like maintenance. Jay Fink said we paint bridges and do minor things, but if there is something serious we need to be able to fund it. Marie Peter asked why this is a medium priority. Jay Fink said staff looked at projects anticipated by the pubic and have been discussed at various forums. This isn’t pretty, but it is one of those things we felt that needed to be put there. Former Commissioner Jerry Libbin said that this is just a bucket of money to do whatever repairs may come up, but those things could be on a pay to go basis. Ray Breslin asked if we ever addressed walk bridges. Jay Fink said he thinks they are inspected, but he can check on that. Margueritte Ramos said that the description does say which may include lighting upgrades or other ornamental features, that is what made her get excited about it, but when she reads the description it seems like it is all asphalt. Jack Glottman said it seems to him we should be focused on projects that are more of a strategy, long term capital improvements, as opposed to things that are deferred maintenance or life safety, it seems that these things should be a part of the City capital budget, not part of this G.O. Bond. Chairperson Karen Rivo said she agreed with Jack Glottman. She doesn’t understand why this isn’t budgeted every year. Debra Leibowitz thinks the public is going to have some problems with some of these placeholder items. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross said he knows the Budget Advisory Committee recommends increasing the annual budget that is for maintenance of things like this. The Panel released staff from the Departments with projects that the Panel was going to go through a second time due to timing. #67 Public Works Maintenance Facility was discussed. Jay Fink explained this facility is 40 years old. This project was part of the 1999 Bond that wasn’t done. This project is looking to give the building a new roof and improving the infrastructure of the building. It is looking to make a space usable. Margueritte Ramos said she was under the impression any projects that were not funded in the 1999 Bond were going to be first up for this G.O. Bond. John Woodruff said the exception to that is that it is a City facility. We might be able to find the money elsewhere if it is not compelling enough in the overall program. Adrian Morales, Property Management Director, attested to the facility, it is crucial we do this work. The condition of the facility merits a capital upgrade. There are consistent issues. We run into employee wellness issues. We would have to relocate the employees in trailers. Jack Glottman asked what percentage of the space is office space versus storage. Rodney Knowles, Greenspace Division Director, said there are about 18 employees working there, only a small portion of the facility is used by employees because it is not a pleasant place to be. 1/6 or 1/8 of the space is an actual breakroom; the rest is space that is used for storage right now. There is a lot of equipment being stored there. If the money didn’t come from the G.O. Bond, we would have to set aside money for a few years to come up with enough to be able to do the project. Jack Glottman suggested combining some of these projects to have different departments working in a common facility. Adrian Morales said we would have to space plan and that would take some time. We don’t have that much space in the City. #68 Pump Station Screening was discussed. Jay Fink said this project is beautification of 50 pump stations through screen installments and landscaping to improve aesthetics and placemaking. He showed design concept that have been identified by a firm. Luis Soto said that the majority of these are for pumps that we have not been constructed, but also for a few that already exist. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross asked about the power source for the pump stations. He was referring to the emergency generators and asked how many there are and what happens with the power fails. He doesn’t see that as a project in here and he has always thought that it was a big weakness in the City’s pump program. Jay Fink said we have implemented emergency generators in Sunset Harbour and the programs that are going forward emergency generators are included in the project. Luis Soto said at the permanent pump stations the generators run on bifuel. We have 3 for sure, and he would have to go back and see if there are more. There are about 23 that have emergency generators. They are going to Commission to install emergency generators in the existing pump stations that were installed. #64 City Entryway Landscape Improvements and ROW Tree Planting was discussed. Rodney Knowles said this item is an effort to try and switch out some of the landscaping that we have in the City that is deteriorating due to age, that have been damaged by vehicles or natural disasters. We focus on entryways, but also in major corridors. A lot of the concepts will originate in house, part of coming up with concepts is what will work in Miami Beach. We have enough experience to know what shrubs work with which trees best. We will also be looking at this from a perspective of sustainability. Margueritte Ramos said she likes this item. #73 Tree Bonded Aggregate Program was discussed. Rodney Knowles said that in City we have a number of tree pits and we are running into some issues landscape wise. We have tree pits that have existing pavement that has shifted over time and it makes it very difficult to install tree grates and other things that require the corners to be even. Any kind of settling can cause trip hazards when the metal does not go with the tree pit. The bonded aggregate is to put down a substance that can fit to the regular shape, but still handle foot traffic. Bonded aggregate is aggregate pebbles that are held together by a binder and there is a granite base underneath it, so that it sets in the pit and the bonded aggregate goes on top. It creates a firm surface, but also allows water to percolate through. Marie Peter said that she has seen some of the aggregate fail in the South of Fifth neighborhood and she also saw some at the Baptist Hospital that Mr. Galbut just did and there was like a plastic coating, so that the roots wouldn’t come up through there. Ray Brelsin said he sees them failing as well. #50 Resiliency Fund for Parks was discussed. Elizabeth Wheaton, Environment and Sustainability Director went through the project. This project looks to build in resiliency to both new park projects and existing parks. One aspect is stormwater, for example green infrastructure with enhanced canopy, bioswales, living shorelines to enhance natural habitat. Another example is to build lakes like what they are going to do at the Par 3, to handle additional stormwater from the neighborhoods. This is to be able to slow stormwater down, treat it before it goes out into the bay into our waterways. It would also include resiliency elements such as public art and placemaking that will enhance engag ement in the public real, which was one of the recommendations from ULI, as well as educational signage. She gave a few more examples. There is no cost breakdown per project, they would look at a park project and use the menu and select the best available options in order to enhance that project. As we move forward with this project and the Panel hears from Parks and Recreation, we can use the projects to further refine the $ amount. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross asked how many parks can be done with the $17 million. Elizabeth Wheaton said it depends on what we do in the parks. She provided a few examples based on the one pager that was handed out that contained the menu of items. Discussion continued. Former Commissioner Jerry Libbin suggested breaking this down park by park when we do a second pass so the panel can see what is planned to do, so people know what they are voting for. He doesn’t think people will be happy to vote for a pot of money to be determined later. He thinks that Elizabeth Wheaton should come back with a defined list. Jack Glottman asked about wetlands in regards to mosquitos. Elizabeth Wheaton said that when you do create a habitat there is a circle that would invite other organisms that would eat those mosquitos. Discussion continued regarding the elements that could go into the parks. Panel members asked about specific parks. Elizabeth Wheaton gave some examples for each one. Further details will be brought back for each park. #51 Street Tree Master Plan Implementation was discussed. Elizabeth Wheaton went through the project. She said the City is in the process of selecting a consultant to assist with developing a street tree master plan for the entire City. We recently completed a GIS inventory so we know what trees we have in the ROW and within our parks. That will be used in order to create a comprehensive master plan that will inform what trees go in the correct area per neighborhood including elevations. This will make sure we are getting a palate of trees that will work for today as well as in the future. The average street tree in Miami Beach lasts about 8 years, which has to do with many reasons, but that is not our goal. We would like to be planting trees that 30, 40, or 50 years from now are mature and providing the greatest tree canopy as possible. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross said the City planted many trees in the mid-1990s and asked what happened. Elizabeth Wheaton said we lost a lot of trees after Hurricane Irma. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross asked if we can get any money from FEMA for that. Elizabeth Wheaton said we are working with FEMA on when there is a storm to get money for that, so that is one source of money we can leverage. We can also get a number of grants, which are small amounts. We really need more. This money would be for purchasing of trees. The plan is going to be completed this year. This would be implementation; we already have the master plan funded. Jack Glottman asked about the cutting down of trees if they are in the way of power lines. Elizabeth Wheaton said one of the things we are looking at is right tree right place. We will be going neighborhood by neighborhood and plant the right trees. Ray Breslin mentioned some royal palm trees in front of the Convention Center. Elizabeth Wheaton said the will be relocated. #52 Waterway Restoration was discussed. Elizabeth Wheaton said the City of Miami Beach has 60 miles of waterways. In 2003 we did an assessment that looked at recommended areas that we would need to dredge. There are certain areas of the City that have been unnavigable due to the fact of sentiment that has accumulated. This project would look to dredge the accumulated sentiment, trim vegetation and other activates to enhance the navigation of our waterways. The numbers were developed based on the 2003 report. Seeing that it is 15 years old we would need to go back and do an updated study to make sure we are going into the correct locations. She went through the locations identified in the report. This project would include the survey and report, the design and permitting, and the dredging. If the project is funded and done, we would put the waterways on an ongoing maintenance so that we wouldn’t have to have this large expense. Discussion continued regarding not being able to get through the waterways easily. Jack Glottman asked if there is something down the road that maybe when you renew your boat license you could pay an additional fee to cover some of the maintenance costs. Elizabeth Wheaton said we looked at the City of Fort Lauderdale to make sure our numbers were kind of close because there is high variability in dredging costs. They did a special assessment for all waterfront properties that they paid in order to help fund their program. The whole program was funded. #49 Solar and Greenroofs was discussed. Elizabeth Wheaton said the City Commission has passed a number of resolutions related to government operations reducing their greenhouse gas submissions and looking for opportunities to install solar and green roofs. This project would further assist with implementation of solar panels and green roofs on municipal buildings that are undergoing renovation. The building proposed for this project due to their needs to undergo renovation and their roofs’ structure and position are the Miami Beach Botanical Gardens, Police Athletic League, and Art Deco Welcome Center. The funding breakdown was included in the project sheet. With this project we would see a savings over time based on the amount of solar that was decided to be installed on each of the roofs. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross said that Elizabeth Wheaton should find out what the greater return is. Jack Glottman said that costs for solar are dramatically lower now and one thing he has heard in regards to solar roofs is that there is a danger of fire and insurance companies will not insure buildings that have a solar roof. He suggested looking into that. Elizabeth Wheaton said green roofs are a way to help retain stormwater on site and lower energy costs. They reduce the heat. At this time we don’t have any green roofs on government buildings. We want to educate our residents on how these technologies can be deployed within their pr ivate properties. We could potentially find other funding for the City facilities. Debra Leibowitz asked why we would put a roof on the PAL if it is possibly going to be knocked down. If that happens we would focus on other locations. #53 Turtle Lighting Retrofits was discussed. The Panel does not want to spend the money on this compared to the other items on the list. They would make it a low priority. Elizabeth Wheaton said the City is currently out of compliance. She said we have enhanced our enforcement of the turtle ordinance; this would be part of the City walking the walk because we are asking private properties to do glazing of the windows. This project would allow the City to do the retrofits for parking garages and lots that are currently out of compliance. #74 Resiliency Sea Walls and Shorelines was discussed. Elizabeth Wheaton said this project is on the high priority list. The City has updated our standards to have the cap of sea walls be 5.7 NAVD. There is approximately 60 miles of sea wall surrounding Miami Beach, of these we have already completed $15 million of the estimated $50 million that would be needed, which is why we are asking for $35 million. We looked at the cost of both a hardened sea wall as well as living shoreline where applicable. One of the things we are doing is seeing where we can have living shoreline in addition to the hardened one for a hybrid approach. Discussion continued regarding sea walls. Consistency for sea walls is needed. Former Commissioner Jerry Libbin said he thinks this is one of the most important projects in the whole G.O. Bond. We are using a report from around 2008 in order to prioritize the list of sea walls. There are certain sea walls that are stand alone. One thing the City has done is update our land development regulations. Any property that is coming in and redeveloping above 50% they are required to update their sea wall to an elevation of 4.7 with the ability to add a higher cap in the future or they can build to the 5.8. The reason we have that flexibility is realizing that there are some properties that are much lower and what it would take to get that higher elevation. As we move into the future, one piece is the public sea walls and how we are elevating those and the second piece is continuing to evaluate where we are on the private side and understanding the percentage of sea walls that need the 5.7 or close to that and what are those that are vulnerable. Elizabeth Wheaton will come up with an a and b in regards to the sea wall and water rising. #48 Artificial Reef and Resilient Marine Habitat was discussed. Elizabeth Wheaton said this project will look to build more resilient marine habitat to enhance the natural reef system, incorporate breakwater structures similar to what we have at 32nd Street. A concept was discussed to create an artificial reef to enhance tourism by creating an underwater park. This budget was developed by looking at some past projects that were completed in Miami Dade County. This project would build off the coastal modeling study that the County is going to be doing later this year; it should be completed in 2019 to determine where artificial reefs will be most appropriate. The Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science with the University of Miami has received a grant in order to do some reef restoration of natural reefs, we are going to meeting with then later this summer to see how we can enhance our off shore reefs. Back in the early 2000s when the beach renourishment project was completed in 2001 a lot of the near shore reef habitat was smothered with sand and we lost that. We do have nearshore reef that is still healthy and we will explore how we can enhance those natural reefs. She said we can estimate 4 projects if we are looking at larger erosion control type projects. If we wanted to look more at an underwater park, that will be much cheaper. You could submerge a number of sculptures closer to $1 million. The Jose Cuervo reef near Nikki Beach was talked about, it is a bar. These new reefs could be tourist attractions. Some other places in the world were talked about how they are building underwater parks as a way to attract tourism and get people connected to the read. If we wanted to look at this as a tourism opportunity we could partner with University of Miami and see how we could look at enhancing the sculptures with additional coral and hiring a designer to make it look like a form of art work underwater. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross said this could be good for tourism, but $10 million seems like a lot. He asked how much it would cost to do a couple of the reefs. Debra Leibowitz recommended there be one major destination artificial reef a la John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. Elizabeth Wheaton said we could definitely pair this project down. She said she can come back and present an a, b, and c of different types where it breaks down. The Panel likes that idea. Panel Discussion John Woodruff recapped. He said we can do a second pass of almost everyone at some point. We still need to do Parks. Trying to line it up with Carolina Jones. He thinks we can get through Parks in one meeting. We need to have recommendations in by mid July. Chairperson Karen Rivo said she thinks we thought about July 12. We need to do a workshop before the 25th meeting. We are exploring doing a special Commission meeting the 31st of July. Jack Glottman said it may be worth it to have an all day meeting of what we would cover in 3 weeks. He suggested flushing out projects one by one. He doesn’t want to do it 2 or 3 times. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross doesn’t think we will finish on the second pass. Chairperson Karen Rivo said we should get staff to drill down on some of the numbers on the projects that aren’t all or nothing. Former Commissioner Jerry Libbin said we should rank the things that we think are important. Margueritte Ramos said it is important to say if it is $500 million how much is it going to cost everyone in the community. Former Commissioner Jerry Libbin said if we did $500 million for the Bond issue. The first year it would be something around $5 on the $100,000 on the assessed value. Like $50. It would be $100 per $100,000. John Woodruff said for every $100,000, it would be $500 a year. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross said we need to add in the sewer cost as well. Jack Glottman said he thinks there will be some value in looking at a 10 year timeline to see what we will need for every project. He would like to see everything in a timeframe as well. John Woodruff said we would sequence all of these things in order to do it right, so people know what will happen and approximately when. Jack Glottman suggested a presentation break down each line item for 10 years. John Woodruff asked how the panel feels about a longer session on July 12. Vice-Chairperson Saul Gross thinks there is a benefit to that. Chairperson Karen Rivo recommended doing the longer meeting on July 5 so they can finalize everyone on July 12. Next Steps Review the Parks projects at the next meeting as well as any new projects that are also being discussed. Adjournment The meeting adjourned at 7:29 p.m.