City supports formation of regional Community Relations Board
By Bari Auerbach

The Sunny Isles Beach City Commission recently passed a resolution in support of participating in a regional Community Relations Board (CRB) for the northeast Miami-Dade area.

Nancy Powell, representing the Miami-Dade County CRB along with Dr. Larry Capp, executive director of the county's office of community relations, appeared at the city's April 12 workshop to present the benefits of forming a regional CRB comprised of members from Sunny Isles Beach, Golden Shores, Aventura and North Miami Beach.

Explaining the purpose of the Miami-Dade County CRB, Powell said, "Basically, we work from a proactive as well as a reactive stance.Part of our mission is to intervene and contain community tensions whenever a problem arises in the county. We also identify and relieve inter-group tensions prior to a conflict arising. [Celebrating its 40th year, the CRB] is currently working in areas including education advocacy, housing and police/community concerns.We run the gamut of a lot of issues in face of the diversity we have here in Miami-Dade County."

Powell went on to note, "Our proposal is to create a regional CRB that would encompass the northeast Miami-Dade area including Sunny Isles Beach, Golden Beach, Aventura and North Miami Beach. There are already five CRB's in place - and in the south end [of the county], Homestead and Florida City share a CRB. Our goal was to try and create additional regional CRB's in areas where the need is less for reactive issues and more for proactive educational advocacy issues.

"We're here to ask for [the Commission's] support in creating this regional CRB.You have flexibility in how you want to create your regional CRB and what direction you want it to go in and how it will end up being staffed. The first step would be to create a steering committee with diverse representatives appointed by [the Commission] to help set strategic plans for your CRB.other municipalities [would do the same].[The Commission] has the flexibility to allow [the committee] to do wonderful things - but primarily the goal is community relations and opening channels of communication."

While discussing who might serve on the regional CRB representing Sunny Isles Beach,
Commissioner Roslyn Brezin pointed out it might be advisable to consider citizens serving on the recently formed Mayor's Advisory Council. The Council is comprised of committees designed to "bring citizens into the loop" regarding major areas of the future growth of the city including education, transportation, long range planning, tourism and development.

"I know that [in Sunny Isles Beach], the population has changed dramatically with a lot of younger families that have come in," Powell said. "Every municipality can benefit from having a regional CRB. A lot of times you see pockets of communities staying within their own community and in the county, we'd like to see something more global.Your regional board will end up receiving training in a lot of different communication issues and being able to handle conflict. this will hopefully help encourage a 'communicative community.'"

Expressing support for the concept, Mayor Norman Edelcup said, "It makes sense for us to get involved with and have the opportunity to work with cities surrounding us to develop proactive measures in terms of community relations.I'm in favor of creating this alliance and think it would be a good direction to move forward with it." Concurring, Brezin said, "I'm all in favor of working with other communities because the more input you have the more advantageous it is and the more progress you can make."

Powell informed the Commission she had already met with the mayors of other municipalities slated for participation in the northeast CRB and that "everybody was very positive in their reaction." Concluding her presentation, she agreed to fulfill a request to share copies of bylaws created by regional CRB's already formed in order to help provide additional guidelines and information.
 

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