Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Today's Commission Meeting

For all you people staying home from Commission Meetings, I don’t blame you and neither should Jess.

Today we talked about a Golf Contract for 2½ hours. Apparently there were 3 different scenarios but only back-up for Scenario #2, the one that Staff chose. Why is Staff choosing the Contract that the Commission should accept? Laura Hanna said that Scenario #2 is what the Commission asked them to negotiate. Why then were others presented? The Mayor defended Staff on that point saying that, “Yes, they did have all the back-up they needed.” But actually, they did not. If the Commission had understood all the different options, then there would not have been discussion on this for 2.5 hours. I still don’t understand why we can’t hire one good administrator at our Golf Course, preferably a golf professional that can handle the job. This Contract will be brought back.

Next came the Beach Feasibility Report. This report was full of holes and just plain wrong data. I can’t believe that Steven Schriever of Fishkind could not call a half dozen general contractors and just ask them what a 35,000 square foot building might cost. Just get some idea guys. Fishkind relied on staff for information. Where in the world did they come up with this stuff? To even factor into a projection using 25,000 square feet for retail/commercial is out of whack. BAC zoning calls for 7,200 square feet max. Anyone on Staff should have caught this blaring discrepancy. Where was Staff? This discussion took at least an hour and will be brought back with Straticon giving Fishkind some estimates on construction costs. Fishkind got away with this embarrassing report by saying it was just a draft. Why then was it on the Agenda to be voted upon? Why was the word “draft” not mentioned until the end? Just more delay. And we are paying this guy $22,450 for this?

The Commission voted 4 to 0 to shore up the building at a cost of between $40,000 to $70,000, with actual costs unknown