By Bari Auerbach

‘Improvements”

Now that the city is investing so much to beautify Sunny Isles Beach, now might be a good time to make some innovative suggestions for even more improvements like these:

Streets of Gold: Since there’s already going to be road work going on, why not go all out and just pave the streets of Sunny Isles Beach with gold?! The new International Jewelers Exchange might even agree to offer a discounted price on the precious metal in “exchange” for the notoriety!

Everything’s Coming up Roses: Since the city is also beautifying landscaping all around town, wouldn’t it be great if all the flowers being planted could be roses? That way whenever a husband or boyfriend forgets a birthday or anniversary, he could always just pluck a dozen or so roses and you’d never be the wiser (unless you happen to notice the knees of his pant legs are covered in mud!)

Fast Access: Since wireless Internet connections are soon going to be available in public parks, don’t you think the city should go one step further and just give residents their own personal subscriptions to America Online too? This could turn out to be a great marketing strategy and the city would quickly recoup the investment if everyone agreed to e-mail all their friends and family members about how wonderful it is to live in Sunny Isles Beach!

Undergrounding: Beyond burying utility wires underground for purposes of aesthetics and hurricane-proofing, why not spend a little extra to put all those boxes of clutter that have been accumulating in your closet for years underground too? The city’s Public Works Department could come around to collect stuff like those bowling trophies you won when you were eight-years-old and the peanut souvenirs you saved from that trip to Plains to see the house where President Carter was born!

Vanity Street Signs: The city is going to start installing more upscale uniform street signs, so now would be the perfect time to submit requests to have a street named after you! After all, a street has already been named after Commissioner Danny Iglesias – and even Raanan Katz, owner of RK Shopping Centers, is going to have one named after him. (In the spirit of fairness, just don’t ask to have your name grace a street you don’t currently live on).

Luxury Shelters: While the city is installing new bus shelters, it would be also be nice to get some comfortable sofas and chairs – ideally situated next to newspaper stands so you could really relax and catch up on current events while waiting for the bus to come. Better yet, suspending big screen plasma TV’s inside the bus shelters tuned into the city’s information station would be a great way to ensure everyone’s informed about all the road construction set to start soon.

Thankfully, all the beautification projects mostly funded by developers and grants will make the best even better in Sunny Isles Beach. But while all the work is going on, to mitigate inconvenience, don’t you think a great suggestion would be for the city to give everyone gift certificates to Acqualina’s luxurious ESPA - where the Purva Karma Four Hand Massage promises to deliver “the ultimate in tension release and nurturing to achieve mental and spiritual bliss.”