By Commissioner Roslyn Brezin

The Florida League of Cities selected our Mayor Norman S. Edelcup as a finalist for the Mayor of the Year in the Florida Cities of Excellence Award Program. In addition, Sunny Isles Beach, Florida’s Riviera, is a finalist in the City of the Year category. It is a pleasure to share this great news with you.
Mayor Edelcup’s accomplishments include so much, which are a result of his vision for the City that has resulted in opening both the new K-8 Sunny Isles Beach Community School and the new community center in 2008, beautifying the medians, building parks, improving the city’s infrastructure, etc. His actions represent the values that most residents embrace – resulting in a City to be proud of.
It’s such a joy to have people boast about the beautiful City they live in.
As your Commissioner, I thank those of you who have expressed their appreciation and happiness as residents of this beautiful City with all its amenities. They join me in the knowledge that Sunny Isles Beach and our Mayor are “The Best.” How proud we are that the Florida League of Cities also recognizes this!!!
In other news, the Sunny Isles Beach Government Center was recently the destination of a field trip for eight classes of 2nd graders from the Sunny Isles Beach Community School.
They were greeted and hosted by City employees, Ms. Francesca Pellot and Mr. David Blanco, who guided them to the model of the City in the first floor lobby. The students themselves have built models, so they loved this one. Other stops on their tour included:

• History Hall - where Mr. Richard Schulman, the city historian, asked them what ‘history’ meant and where they saw a picture of old motels and Mr. Harvey Graves, the founder of this area.
• The library - where they were given a tour of the different sections of the library, and where Ms. Kari Steinberg read them The Library Dragon, a book by Carmen Agra Deedy.
• The Police Department – where they were greeted by Ms. Sandra Block and Officers Patti Gonzales, Steve Hamedl and Ricky Reffitt who took turns showing them the holding cell, teaching them to memorize their home address and telephone number, and giving them a demonstration of a police motorcycle.
• The last stop was the Commission Chambers where, along with my fellow Commissioners Gerry Goodman and “Bud” Scholl, we invited the children to sit in the Commission chairs, and learn about voting and what a commissioner does.

What a joy to have our children come and learn about their local government.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns about our City, please call me at 305.791.1700.