UPDATE: Cambridge Lawns historic markers: $8,768 worth

City Commissioners will be considering a Resolution on the agenda at tonight's Commission meeting to spend $ 8,768.34 of South Miami taxpayer dollars for stone markers to designate the Cambridge Lawns Historic District.

The cost comes as a surprise to Cambridge Lawns neighbors, given that when queried awhile back the City's Acting Planning Director Sandy Youkilis said that there was to be no charge for the stone markers, which were apparently being underwritten by an outside organization.

City Commissioners might want to delve into how the decision to spend $ 8,768.34 was arrived at, if all residents of the Cambridge Lawns area have had a chance to preview the design of these markers going up in their neighborhood, and the breakout of this amount, i.e. who is/has provided and reviewed the design, how much is to be spent on design, materials and labor, etc.

Here's the full text of the Resolution being considered:

A RESOLUTION OF THE MAYOR AND CITY COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF SOUTH MIAMI, FLORIDA, AUTHORIZING THE CITY MANAGER TO EXECUTE AN AGREEMENT WITH URBAN STONEWORKS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION AND INSTALLATION OF CAMBRIDGE LAWNS HISTORIC MARKERS IN THE AMOUNT OF $ 8,768.34 TO BE CHARGED AS FOLLOWS: $8,000.00 TO THE CITY’S PLANNING DEPARTMENT CONTRACTUAL SERVICES ACCOUNT NUMBER 001-1620-524-3450 AND $768.34 TO THE CITY’S PLANNING DEPARTMENT PROFESSIONAL SERVICES ACCOUNT NUMBER 001-1620-524-3100; PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE.

We look forward to a full discussion of this Resolution by the Commission. The full revised agenda for tonight's meeting is online here.

UPDATE: At the 02/03 City Commission meeting, this Resolution was removed from consideration on the Consent agenda, due to the vendor (Urban Stoneworks) having withdrawn its bid. City Manager Ajibola Balogun told Commisioners that the project is to be put out to bid again and brought back to the City Commission at a later date.

FURTHER UPDATE: The markers were again put out to bid, with proposals due back within one week on Thursday Feb. 12th. The second bid invitation is online, here.

Flora and fauna: the Tropical Almond (terminala catappa)

It's that time of year, mid-winter in South Florida and the temperatures dipping enough at night to turn the leaves of the tropical almond trees in Cambridge Lawns a bright red before they drop en masse to the streets and lawns and into Broad Canal.

The Tropical Almond (scientific name, Terminalia catappa) is another of those non-native trees that the neighborhood iguanas and squirrels and our local and migratory birds are crazy about.

Also called "sea almonds," the trees are native to an area that extends from India through Southeast Asia and New Guinea to Northern Australia. A flowering tree, with large oval, leathery leaves that turn dark reddish-brown before dropping, the almonds can grow as high as 90-feet if left untrimmed.

You can learn more about the Tropical Almond online at wikipedia, here.

Other links of interest:

Tropical Audubon Society
TREEmendous Miami
Miami-Dade 'Adopt a Tree'

Recyclables pickup, public holidays and rocket science

It's Monday again, the alternating Mondays when every other week our neighborhood is supposed to have our recyclables picked up in the new wheeled-carts provided by Miami-Dade County.

Of course, we've now waited a full month since the last pickup because the trucks did not circulate on Monday Jan. 19th -- a federal holiday. No problem with the occasional holiday, except the trucks didn't double up and pickup recyclables the day after or the day after.

And, checking our calendars it looks like the missed pickups on Mondays that are falling on public holidays are not going to be a one-off occurrence. In fact, it turns out that for the remainder of 2009 our neighborhood could well be skipped for recyclables pickup on four out of five Mondays that are designated as federal/public holidays!

Cambridge Lawns wonders who is the "Einstein" over at Miami-Dade County who rescheduled our recyclables pickups from the convenient Wednesdays -- when no other trucks picking up household garbage or yard clippings are circulating through our neighborhoods -- to alternating Mondays on a schedule that translates into our recyclables pickup being skipped during 2009 on the following holidays:

Monday, Jan. 19th - Martin Luther King Day
Monday, Feb. 16th - Presidents' Day
Monday, May 25th - Labor Day
Monday, Oct. 12th - Columbus Day

That means that unless the schedule is modified, on at least four out of 12 months this year the neighbors in Cambridge Lawns may be forced to squeeze a full months' worth of recyclables into the 35-gallon carts designed for two week's worth of recyclables that were provided to us by the County.

Come on, Miami-Dade, it's not like this is "rocket science" ... what WERE you thinking of when you devised this schedule?