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MIAMIBEACH
City Commission Meeting
ADDENDUM MATERIAL 1
City Hall, Gommission Chambers, 3rd Floor, 1700 Convention Center Drive
January 14,2015
Mayor Philip Levine
Vice-Mayor Joy Malakoff
Commissioner Michael Grieco
Com missioner Micky Steinberg
Commissioner Edward L. Tobin
Commissioner Deede Weithorn
Commissioner Jonah Wolfson
City Manager Jimmy Morales
City Attorney Raul J. Aguila
City Clerk Rafael E. Granado
Visrt us at www.miamibeachfl.gov for agendas and video "streaming" of City Commission Meetings.
ATTENTION ALL LOBBYISTS
Chapter 2, Article Vll, Division 3 of the City Code of Miami Beach entitled "Lobbyists" requires the
registration of all lobbyists with the City Clerk priorto engaging in any lobbying activitywith the City
Commission, any City Board or Committee, or any personnel as defined in the subject Code
sections. Copies of the City Code sections on lobbyists laws are available in the City Clerk's office.
Questions regarding the provisions of the Ordinance should be directed to the Office of the City
Attorney.
ADDENDUM AGENDA
C4 - Gommission Committee Assiqnments
C4K Referral To Finance And Citywide Projects Committee - A Discussion On Repurposing The
Citywide Public Access WiFi System For Police Equipment Connectivity - Fiscal Year 2014-2015
ln Accordance With The Options Pursuant To LTC 272-2014.
(Police)
R9Q
R9 - New Business and Gommission Requests
Discussion Related To The City's Traffic Flow Mitigation Plan.
(Requested by Mayor Philip Levine)
Discussion Related To The City's Centennial Celebration.
(Requested by Mayor Philip Levine)
R9R
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4 MIAMIBEACH
City of Miomi Beoch, I200 Convention Center Drive, Miomi Beoch, Florido 33,l 39, www.miomibeochfl.gov
COMMI ION MEMORANDUM
TO:Mayor Philip Levine and Members the City rsston
FROM: Jimmy L. Morales, City Manager
DATE: January 14,2015
A DISCUSSION ON REPURPOSING THE CITYWIDE PUBLIC
ACCESS WIFI SYSTEM FOR POLICE EQUIPMENT CONNECTIVITY .
FISCAL YEAR 2014.2015 IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE OPTTONS
PURSUANT TO LTC 272.2014.
ADMINISTRATION RECOMM ENDATION
Refer the item to the Finance and Citywide Projects Committee for discussion.
BACKGROUND
The Administration recommends that the Mayor and City Commission refer this item to
the Finance and Citywide Projects Committee for a discussion on repurposing the
Citywide Public Access WiFi System for Police Department equipment connectivity.
. ln 2004-2005 the City of Miami Beach began a plan to enact a Citywide open
WiFi. The Miami Beach WiFi Prolect resulted in a Request for Proposal being
issued in July 2005 and ultimately the City awarded the project to IBM in March
2006.
o IBM was the prolect manager and contracted Big Wireless to handle the bulk of
the installation to include:
o "The Ring" - A microwave backhaul loop where the data transmission
would be sent through encompassing several buildings/sites which were
also being used for the City's radio communications. The microwave
transmissions are via a licensed frequency requested by the City and
granted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
o "Sectors" - At each backhaul site microwave sectors receive/transmit
from all of the ground level gateways.
o "Subscriber Units/ Gateways" - Units on poles which interact with the
public accessing the internet.
o Several pieces of hardware located at the backhaul sites and in the data
center located in the Police Department.
o Worked with IBM and the City of Miami Beach lT personnel in various
phases of programming.
. The WiFi system went online for all users in October 2009 and the City Manager
accepted the network in January 2010.
Agenda ttem -114-- Drt"-T-/7u-/f3
Commission Memo Referral to Finance and Citywide Project Committee - Police
Repurposing of City WiFi System - January 14, 2015
Page 2 of 2
ln September 2013 the City Commission accepted the recommendation to
discontinue funding the Miami Beach WiFi Project starting in the FY 2014 budget
due to information and statistics provided showing the following:
o The system had failed to eliminate the need for the City to spend
$500,000 annually in internet services due to slow speeds and reliability
issues.
o Few Miami Beach residents were regularly relying on the WiFi system
due to slow speeds, inability to receive WiFi signals above a couple of
stories in buildings, and reliability issues.
o Maintenance costs moving fonrvard were projected in the $710,000 range
with an additional estimated $1,250,000 for equipment upgrades every
four years not covered in the original agreement.
ln Q1-Q2 2014, the City and IBM parted ways. ln August 2014, the City
Administration issued an LTC (#272-2014) conveying the information listed
above and establishing May 1,2015 as the date the WiFi system will go offline.
ln November 2013, the Police Department expressed interest in repurposing the
WiFi system to meet their needs for connectivity of police equipment (such as
mobile command vehicles, computers, cameras, license plate readers, etc.)
The Police Department met with the lnformation Technology (lT) Director Ariel
Sosa, senior lT administrators, Assistant City Manager Mark Taxis and the City
Manager expressing interest in using the "backhaul" of the system along with
other components to gather feedback and feasibility. Responses were favorable.
The Police Department met with Big Wireless to discuss repurposing the existing
system for the Police Department use, costs, speed, and reliability concerns
since they were the sub-contractors who built and supported the system.
CONCLUSION
The Administration is seeking approval from the Mayor and City Commission regarding
the repurposing of this system. Othenruise, the Police Department would require the use
of a similar system which would need to be built from the ground up. The Police
Department would like to conduct due diligence and proceed in two phases:
. lnitial repurposing set-up and training for Police Department staff with a trial
period evaluating system capabilities. Estimated cost $17,100.00 (one-time),
from departmental savings.
o Continue use of the system post trial/evaluation period if the Police Department
staff determines there is value in continuing the project. Estimated cost
$60,000.00 (annually), as part of FY 2016 budget.
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T:\AGENDA\2015\January\Procurement\Referral to Finance and Citywide Projects Committee - Police Repurposing of City WiFi
System FYl4-15 - Memo.docx
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OFFICE OF THE CIry MANAGER
No. LTc # 272-2014
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LETTER TO COMMISS]ON
TO: Mayor Philip Levine and Members of the
FRoM: Jimmy L. Morales, City
DATE: August 7,2014
SUBJECT: City Wi-Fi System
The purpose of this Letter to Commission is to provide information and statistics that were
considered by the City Commission last year (September 24,2013) regarding the utilization of
the wireless Miami Beach Wi-Fi project when they accepted the recommendation in the FY
2014 budget to discontinue funding the system. Since a few individuals have reached out to
some of you recently regarding their loss of the free Wi-Fi service, I thought it would be useful to
revisit the analysis provided last year.
The WiFi Miami Beach project began with an RFP issued in July 2005. The City entered into an
agreement with IBM in March 2006. An official "wire" cutting ceremony took place on October
30, 2009 and the network entered into a reliability period of 90 days during which the network
was available for all users.
The City Manager accepted the network on January 29,2010. After the system was accepted,
as per the contract terms, the City started to pay IBM for maintenance as detailed in Table 1
below. Additionally, the City budgeted annually for replacing parts that were not covered by the
maintenance and warranty provided by IBM ($60,000) and for the cost of the FpL agreement
(approximately $1 3, 000).
Table 1: Fee Schedule
Fiscql Yeor FPL Budgeted HW Contingency lgM Mointenonce Totol
hoff of FY 09-70 S 13,ooo s 50,000 5 264,424.50 s 337,424.50
FY 7&17 S 13,ooo S 60,000 s s60,544.00 s 533,644.00
FY 77-72 s 13.000 s 60,000 S 610,024.50 s 683,024.50
FY 72-7j S 13,ooo S 60,000 5 632,972.00 $70s,972.00
FY 73-74 s 13,000 s 60,000 s 651,392.00 5724,392.oo
FY 74-75 s 13,000 S 60,000 s 537,1149.50 s 710,449.s0
holf ol FY 75-75 $ ra,ooo s 50,000 s 30s,224.s0 5 378,224.50
S gt,ooo $ 42o,ooo S 9,662,797 s 4,773,737
The projected maintenance costs moving forward were assumed to remain in the $71O,OOO
range for the near future. Furthermore, every four years the City would need to assume an
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additional estimated $'1,250,000 for equipment replacement.
When I was appointed the City Manager last year, I learned early on that the Wi-Fi system had
not lived up to its expectations. First, the creation of the Wi-Fi network was supposed to
eliminate the need of the City to spend approximately $500,000 for its own internet service
needs. Unfortunately, because the system was slow and unreliable, it did not meet the City's
needs and the City continued to spend the $500,000 on internet services. Secondly, the
anecdotal information I received was that due to the slow and unreliable service, few people
actually used the system. I also understood that the system had physical limitations once you
went above a couple of stories in buildings. As such, I asked staff to determine how many of
our residents actually relied on this system in order to determine whether spending nearly Yt of
a million dollars annually was justified.
On September 25, 2012, a new Portal was installed in the Wi-Fi system that began to maintain
user accounts based on the following two rules:
1. Users who identified themselves as residents during the account creation process would
have their accounts deleted after 6 months of not logging in.
2. Users who identified themselves as visitors during the account creation process would
have their accounts deleted after 3 months of not logging in.
Using these two rules, the new Portal started to delete inactive accounts as highlighted below:
Date Total Reeistered Users lnactive Registered Users Deleted
4l9lL3 35,600 15,108
4/701L3 20,492
4l2elL3 23,424 3,t62
41301!3 20,262
sl30lt3 24,815 4,735
sl3uL3 20,080
6129/L3 24,2L4 5,578
6l30lL3 18,636
7l30lt3 23,068 4,875
7l3tlt3 18,193
8/30/t3 23,287 4,736
8l31lL3 18,551
Additionally, a sample of the utilization statistics provided the following highlights:
o For the weeks of September 9 and September '16,2013:
o every day =247 users (Approximately 60 Residents and 185 Visitors)o at least three days a week = 1,119 users (Approximately 280 Residents and 840
Visitors)
o at least once = 3,619 users (Approximately 850 Residents and 2,770 Visitors)
r The average agje of all active user accounts is 87 days.
. There were approximately 15,OOO visitor accounts and 5,000 resident accounts.
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This data verified the anecdotal evidence that very few residents were regularly relying on the
system. Based on this data, the City Commission adopted a budget that eliminated funding for
the system.
The City asked IBM to provide an estimated annual cost savings based on redesigning the
system from providing coverage citywide to providing coverage at select locations. Although
IBM presented scenarios using approximately one-half and one-fourth as many WiFi routers as
are currently installed and maintained, the annual associated savings in maintenance would
have only ranged from $55,000 to $77,000.
ln fiscal year 2013114, the City began planning to re-scope the municipal WiFi project to deliver
an enhanced WiFi signal to select facilities, rather than citywide, thereby reducing the need for
annual funding from approximately $720,000 to $200,000. The City's lT department worked
closely with Executive Staff to determine the select facilities and implementation schedule. By
November of 2014, the lT department will have a free robust Wi-Fi system available at City Hall,
and it is anticipated that by April of 2015 the lT department will have free Wi-Fi also available at
North Shore Park Youth Center and Scott Rakow Youth Center. The goal is to eventually have
free Wi-Fi at all City parks and any other facilities that are regularly visited by the public.
ln the meantime, the lT department has taken over the temporary maintenance of the City Wi-Fi
system. While the equipment is outdated and failing, we have done our best to continue to offer
free City Wi-Fi until such time that City Hall, North Shore Park Youth Center and Scott Rakow
Youth Center are online.
ln conclusion, our free city-wide Wi-Fi system is failing and is on course to go offline by May 1,
2015. There is interest from our Police Department and Emergency Management to utilize
components of the Wi-Fi backbone for internal purposes.
Please contact me if you have any concerns or require additional information.
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g MIAMI BEACH
OFFICE OF THE MAYOR AND COMMISSION MEMORANDUM
TO: Jimmy Morales, City Manager
FROM: Mayor Philip Levine, Mayor
DATE: January 14,2015
SUBJECT: Traffic Flow Mitigation Plan
Please place a discussion item on the agenda related to the City's Traffic Flow
Mitigation Plan.
lf you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Alex Miranda at
AlexMiranda@miamibeachfl. gov.
We ore commiffed to providing excellent public service ond sofery b oll who live, work, ond ploy in our vibrant, tropicol, historic communif/.
Agenda rtem RQ G
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g MIAMIBEACH
OFFICE OF THE MAYOR AND COMMISSION MEMORANDUM
TO: Jimmy Morales, City Manager
FROM: Mayor Philip Levine, Mayor
DATE: January 14,2015
SUBJECT: Miami Beach Centennial Celebration
Please place a discussion item on the agenda related to the City's Centennial
Celebration.
lf you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Alex Miranda at
AlexMi randa@miamibeachfl. gov.
We ore commifled fo providtng excellent public service ond sofety to oll who live, work, ond ploy in our vibrant, tropicol, historic communi\/
Agenda ltem R? R
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