December 14, 2010 Commission Meeting

Long meeting last night. It ran from 7:30 to after midnight and did not complete the agenda. A lot was covered but I'll just hit the highlights.

New Commission Chambers at the Lexi - Last night was the first time a commission meeting was held in the ground floor of the Lexi where the new city hall will be. The room was small with poor acoustics and no heat, which granted won't matter most of the time.

The rest of the unnecessary move to the Lexi will take place in January, bringing citizens no demonstrable benefit while providing less office space than we currently have at a cost of about $80,000. The biggest outrage is that former Vice Mayor George Kane was supposed to receive private compensation of $25,000 when he arranged this real estate bailout but now he won't. The Commission on Ethics put the kibosh on that. It turns out it's illegal to collect commissions for being a commissioner. Who knew?

The City Manager's Report - There was none. Nothing. Nada. Bupkes. Apparently nothing happened in the city during November. Certainly nothing the citizens or the commission need to know about anyway, like the financial status of the city, the move to the Lexi, the ongoing investigations in the police department, the privatization efforts etc. None of our business. Just move along here, folks.

Various Agenda Items -

• The strip club got voted down. 4-1. Eddie Lim voted for it but nobody else did.


• The dock at 1520 S. Treasure Drive was postponed. It turns out that our code is out of date with the DERM requirements so now we have to update that.


• The suggestions that the mayor has to change the order of the meeting and require people to sign in for Good & Welfare were dissed by Connie Leon-Kreps but will be coming up in a future ordinance.


• Connie Leon-Kreps sponsored a resolution to waive the protest fee, allowing Choice Environmental Systems to protest the theft of the North Bay Village sanitation services but didn't seem to know what she was sponsoring. That passed so maybe there's hope of rescinding this giveaway. She voted to waive the fee, which was a good thing, but I suspect she meant to vote to keep it. It's hard to tell. Anyway, the waiver passed 4-1.


• Planning and Zoning members were picked. Rey Trujillo, Richard Chervony and James Carter were rewarded with seats in votes by Eddie Lim, Connie Leon-Kreps, and Dr. Vogel.
  
  I'm sure that Rey Trujillo will make his first order of business to fix the situation at the Grandview, addressing the unpermitted restaurant kitchen and the 24 hour kennel. Chervony can provide unlicensed medical advice.

Not really an auspicious start but it was good to see that the meeting was well run, rules respected, and Mayor Esquijarosa continues to make the commission discuss the issues in public, rather than the old sunshine busting trio.

Now if we could just get the city manager to tell us what's happening in the city, we might have a chance.

Kevin Vericker
December 15, 2010