City Council - Regular Meeting

Let's call to order the Community Redevelopment Agency meeting of Monday, April 27th, 2026. First order of business is the pledge of allegiance. I ask everybody to please stand. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Miss Sitt, could you please call the role? Chair Thompson, I am here. Vice Chair Ducker,

here. Commissioner Growl, here. Commissioner Pearlman, here. Commissioner Sipple, present. All present. Mr. Mr. Director, do we have any amendments to our agenda today? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have no amendments to our agenda. Okay, very good. In that case, we can move on to the minutes. I believe we have the one set of minutes from our regular meeting on the date of April 13, 2026. Did anybody have any revisions or corrections to those minutes? Seeing none, I'll accept a motion and a second to approve those minutes as presented. So moved. I suppose I can second that. And with that, I think we can accept a voice vote to approve the minutes. All in favor of approving those minutes, please say I.

I. I. Any opposed? Great. We can move on to presentations for which we have two. The first one is the fiscal year 2024 2025 CRA annual financial statements. Mr. Director. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, our deputy city manager and CFO, Mr. service will make the presentation of both our annual financial statement as well as our auditor compliance report. Yes. Thank you, city manager and and chairman. Um the presentation on the financial statements is going to be conducted by our county manager uh Judy Flemont. So I'd like to introduce Judy.

Good afternoon everyone. Uh I'm here to present the Boca Raton Community Red Redevelopment Agency's financial statements for fiscal year 2025. Would like to let you guys know that there's a lot of work that goes into preparing this financial statement as well as the cities. Um, so I'd like to recognize some of our team members who are here with us, as well as um Jim Zervis, our deputy city manager and CFO, and Caricia Jenkins, our deputy CFO, Steven Timberlake, Cormack Conahan, and the accounting staff. The CRA financial statements comprise of uh different components starts with our auditor's report, our management discussions and analysis, the financial statements, notes to the financial statements, other required supplemental information and other information like the budget. On page six of the MDNA section, you'll see highlights of the CRA's net position, showing that we ended the fiscal year with just over 158 million in total assets, of which 48.1 million was in capital assets. We ended the year with 867,000 in liabilities and 57.6 6 million in deferred inflows for for leases. The CRA ended the year with a net position of 99.5 million of which 47.8 million was invested in capital assets and 51.7 million was restricted for use in accordance with Florida's Community Redevelopment Act uh FS163.

Our MDNA continued on page seven. It summarizes the change in net position. All CRA activities are governmental activities and the change in net position for governmental activities was 15.59 million. Continuing on page seven of DN MDNA shows a chart of the governmental activities revenues by source. There you'll see that the CRA collected over 22.6 million in property taxes and approximately 4.6 million in charges for services. I would like to note that the increase in property tax revenues due to property values increasing, not the millage rate, and that charges for services increases um due to um the ground rent uh rent that we receive from our leases. Continuing on the MDNA on page nine, it shows a budgetary comparison. The CRA generated a favor favorable variance of approximately 24.406 million between the final adopted budget and the actual results of operations. Actual revenues were greater than final budgeted revenues by 2.947 due to the increases in the ground rent revenue as previously discussed and investment earnings. Actual expenditures during the year were less than the final budgeted expenditures by 21.459 million. This favorable variance is due to capital outlay expenditures that were less than budgeted. The lower expenditures are due to project timing and delays.

Great. The remaining components of the financial statements start on page 11. Uh so our financial statements, the notes of financial statements, other required supplemental information and again our other information. On page 13 of the financial statements, you'll find our balance sheet for the uh operating fund. The CRA does have just the one fund. And here is our statement of revenues, expenditures, and changes in fund balance on page 15. And then um on note seven on page 30, the notes to our financial statements, you'll uh see the list of our sources of deposits and the purpose of withdrawals pursuant to Florida statute 163.387 and it reflects the 14.756 change in net position. Our other information on page 33 reflects data elements as required by Florida statute section 218 218.39 and section 10.554 rules of the auditor general. Okay. And that concludes the presentation of our financials and I can open the floor for any questions. members, do we have any questions? Okay, seeing none, Mr. Director,

thank you. Um, I'll turn it over to u Mr. Zervis for any amplifying comments uh before we go to auditor compliance report. Yes, chairman and u and members of the board. Uh this afternoon, the auditor opinion and compliance reports will be presented by the independent audit firm of CBIS. So Moises um Azia is going to present uh those items to the board. Before we get to that, it looks like Miss Ducker, you have a question. Go ahead.

Just wanted to thank staff. I know how much work goes into this and I I I was kind of reading so I I wasn't uh but thank you so much for all the work you put into it. It's it's notice as we run such tight books and I know we're the envy of many cities and to have almost a fully balanced budget in our CRA is a great thing. So I appreciate it. I just wanted to thank you. Thank you. here. Here I second that. Uh Mr. Zervis, what you were saying?

Yep. Thank you. And and uh if if you don't mind, may I can I take a moment? Um thank you. So So thank you, Mr. Rucker, for for mentioning that. I was going to bring this up on the workshop, uh when we talk about the city's annual comprehensive financial report. Uh I've been with the city now for for a little over two years uh in three budget cycles, a couple audits. Uh and and this city has by far the most talented finance and accounting team that I've ever worked with and I've been doing this for for a while uh in in a variety of entities and and it shows in the quality of work that they perform. It also is reflected throughout the industry in the 40 plus years of excellence awards for budgeting and audited financial statements that this city has been awarded which is one of the longest streaks in the country. Uh that is not a a small feat and it and it well predates me. Um but a lot of this team has been here and so I'd like to just take a moment. I see a number of of our accounting and finance team are in the audience today. They don't usually come to our meetings. So if you could stand if you were with the financial services department just so we can recognize you I would appreciate it.

Well said okay and and now I'm I'm going to turn it over to Moises to present the auditor opinion um on the financial statements as well as the compliance reports. Thank you, Jim. And good afternoon, board chair, board members, and meeting attendees. My name is Mo Riza, and I'm with the firm of CBIC CPAs, and we serve as the external auditors for the CRA. And within the Boca Raton CRA financial statements um are included our auditors reports. If you have um electronic or the printed version on printed page one, you find the independent auditors report. And we start off our independent audits report by explaining to the financial statement readers what we audited. And what we've audited are the financial statements of the CRA for the fiscal year ended September 30th, 2025. Then the second paragraph is our opinions paragraph. And in terms of a financial statement audit, the way of auditor concludes is by providing an opinion. And as mentioned in our letter, it was our opinion that the financial statements of the CRA present fairly nominator respects the financial position and the changes of its financial position of the CRA for fiscal year ended September 30th, 2025. And that is an unmodified opinion or also known as a clean opinion. And as a board, that's the the only opinion you want to be associated with. In terms of an external financial audit, that is the highest regard that one could receive. noting the fact that we had no comments or findings or internal control deficiencies to report. So, a clean year and a clean report. So, congratulations to the board, the CRA, and the city. All right. Thank you to members. Do we have any questions? All right. Excellent. Thank you again for being here. I believe that concludes our presentation portion of our meeting today and we move on to quasi judicial

and related public hearings for which we have none. So that opens up the door to public requests. So if you would like to have three minutes to speak about something concerning the community redevelopment agency, now's the time. Please step forward, state your name, and you'll have three minutes to be heard. I do have a few cards. Not really clear if this is relating to the downtown. Miss Blank, did you want to speak about the downtown? No, it's workshop. Great. Mr. Cherry, did you want to speak about the CRA downtown? Mr. Cherry. All right. Well, we have the workshop available for you. No problem. Miss Hagquist, it would look like that relates to the workshop, not the CRA. Does it relate to the CRA? Next one.

You do the next one. Okay. Very good. Last one I have then is Miss Cooper. Did you want to speak now or do you want to speak during the workshop? Anyone else for public requests? Don't everybody volunteer at once? Last call for public requests related to the CRA. All right, we will then close the time for public requests and move on to item eight on our agenda, which is resolutions and regular public hearings. Madame uh clerk, could you please read the title to 2026-3-C?

Resolution 2026-03 CRA, a resolution of the Boca Raton Community Redevelopment Agency approving a budget amendment and providing for the final appropriation of funds remaining in the redevelopment trust fund as of September 30th, 2025. providing for severability, providing for appealer, providing an effective date. Mr. Director, what do you got? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Our deputy city manager and CFO, Mr. Zerus, will also introduce the presenters uh of uh this resolution. Yes, chairman. Steven Timberlake, our special projects manager, is going to uh present this item to your board.

Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Jervis. Uh good afternoon, chair, members of the board. My name is Steven Timberlake, special projects manager. Uh the resolution before you is straightforward and does two things. Uh the first is includes a budget amendment to rec to recognize approximately $130,000 in personnel related adjustments associated with the city's recently adopted compensation study. This budget adjustment matches what the uh city approved at its last meeting. The second thing this resolution does is it reflects the final year and balance in the redevelopment trust fund as of September 30th, 2025. When the budget was originally adopted, we estimated this amount to be 39.25 million with the year-end financials you just heard. The final amount is approximately 49.97 million. This resolution formally appropriates that final balance to previously approved redevelopment projects consistent with the community redevelopment plan. No new projects are introduced as part of this action. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Timberlake. Uh members, do we have any questions for Mr. Timberlake, Mr. Zeros, or team? Mr. President, you're recognized.

Um, in exhibit B, uh, for fiscal year 2024 2025, it states the Boca Raton Community Redevelopment Agency will carry over an additional 10,730,000 in appropriations to support specific multi-year projects. And then project number 1440724 is listed to carry over appropriations of the 10 million730,000 for the next fiscal year for the project name is CRA East West Pedestrian connectivity. Um first of all has have any of the the funds that were appropriated last year been used and if so how much is left? um and if so, what is planned for the this coming year or the years after um for this project and what are what are some of the things involved with it?

Yes, council member or board member. Um the so to my knowledge and I I don't know the numbers in front of me, no significant amount of funds have been spent out of that original appropriation. The reason why this project was identified um as one to add the $10 million to is is we have to select one of the projects with from the redevelopment plan in order to allocate the funds. So according to the Florida statutes with redevelopment agencies, carryover funding has to be actually appropriated for a specific project within the redevelopment plan. We picked this one because this is this does seem like an active project, although the scope is yet to be defined. Um but it would include you know studying this east west connectivity um issue between you know east west meaning uh east and and west of the tracks federal and Dixie trying to to create more pedestrian and multimotal connectivity in the downtown area. Um there's not a there's not a specific scope identified. It may involve property acquisition. Um that's in order to help facilitate um connectivity. That would be an item that your board would have to take separate action on. As would any significant contract to actually implement this funding would require your board's specific approval in order for us to do. So to answer your question, um I don't believe any of it's been spent to date and any any funds that will be spent would have to be authorized by you if it was above the the executive director's authority. Any further questions? If not, we can open up the public hearing. If anyone wishes to speak on this item, please uh stand to the podium and give your name and address and you will have up to three minutes. Anybody wishing to be heard on this item. Last call for comment on item number 2026-03-C.

If not, I will close the time for the public hearing and entertain a motion to adopt or approve rather resolution number 2026-03-C. Do I hear such a motion? So moved. A second. Second. Any other discussion necessary or are we ready to vote? We're okay. We are okay. Miss Siddens, if you please. Ducker, yes. Growl, yes. Pearlman, yes. Yes. Sipple. Yes. Thompson. Yes. Motion passes five votes to zero.

Thank you, Miss Sittens. We can then move on to uh subb of this part of our agenda, which is item number 2026-04-C. Miss Sittens, could you please read the title? Resolution number 20264C, a resolution of the Boca Raton Community Redevelopment Agency cancelling certain regular meetings in June 2026, July 2026, and August 2026, providing for severability, providing for appealer, providing an effective date. Thank you, Miss Sittens, Mr. Director.

Thank you, uh, Mr. Mayor. And just uh just to be clear for the CRA uh that's cancelling the meeting in June on 22 June. That's cancelling the first meeting in July on 13th July. And that's cancelling the first meeting in August on 10 August uh for the CRA. And when we get to the regular meeting tomorrow, we'll talk about the schedule for uh the workshop as well as uh the regular meeting. And you're going to see uh the same recommendation on that resolution uh for the same proposed cancellation dates. And we will also uh propose tomorrow uh for uh on June 9th that we have one set of meetings on June 9th for the CRA, the workshop as well as the regular council meeting. Uh one meeting on or three meetings on one day, June 9th, starting at 10:00 a.m. And I'll bring this up again tomorrow. Thank you.

Miss Sins, you're recognized. Mayor Thompson, would we like to amend the CRA agenda so that we can move the CRA meeting on June 8th to June 9th if if the body so approves? That would be my preference. This is it was I think uh one something we had talked about the last time. Uh yeah, Mr. Rucker, you want a motion? That would be great. Yeah. So, I move that I move that we amend um resolution 2026-04 CRA to move the June 8th meeting to a combined meeting on Tuesday, June 9th.

And I second that. Any other uh questions for staff? If not, we can open up the public hearing on this item. Anyone wishing to be heard on resolution number 2026-04-C, our summer schedule. Last call. We will close the public hearing on this item and ask for now we have a amended motion which I think once we probably should have waited until we had uh Yeah. Mr. Kaylor, what do you suggest we do? We had already amended or given uh taken action towards amending a motion that hadn't been made yet. So, you want to just have us start over and then amend it.

There's been a motion that's been seconded or not yet. Yes, but it was to amend something that hadn't been Okay. So, if the maker of the motion could just withdraw the motion and we'll introduce a new motion. So, I will go ahead Thompson. I will withdraw the earlier motion. I will reset the motion to amend 8B 20226-04-C to move the June 8th CRA meeting to a combined meeting on Tuesday, June 9th. All of that sounds great except I think that was what we did a moment ago. So, we don't do well. Why don't we get a motion in a second on the original and then we'll modify. I think that's what the rules require. Yeah. So I'll move on 8B 20226-04-C

and I will second that. Now take it away. Third time's a charm everybody. So 8B 2020 I I a motion to amend 8B 2026-04-C our summer schedule to move our CRA meeting on June 8th 2026 to be in a combined meeting on Tuesday June 9th 2026. I second that. I could not have said it better myself. Any other discussion? If not, we'll take the roll call. Growl, yes. Pearlman, yes. Simple, yes. Thompson, yes. Ducker, yes. Motion passes, five votes to zero.

Very good. Thank you, everybody. Moving now to other business or settlements. We have none. So, that move takes us to our director's report item 10. Mr. Sahy, what do you got? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have no report. Mr. City attorney. I have no report. Excellent. We can move on then to commissioners reports. Why don't we start to my left and we'll work our way around the horn. Mr. Pearlman, no report. Thank you. Miss Cipple, no report. Miss Grow, no report. Mr.

Just a quick thank you. I see Mr. Beer in the audience. Last week, we had the opportunity uh alongside the MO and his assistant CRA chair to welcome a good amount of folks to our down to our downtown to Miser Park to discuss our TDO efforts and all our multimmodal um activities that we have in the downtown. I also want to thank Miss Anderson. I see her in the crowd for allowing us to use the studio and we had about 30 uh folks, residents and from other technical advisory boards and other NPOS's to come and uh see what we're doing in our downtown in terms of mobility, transportation and toods. So, I just wanted to thank staff and thank you everyone that visited uh city of Boca Raton. We continue to be trailblazers on our mobility and transportation front. Thank you, Mayor Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Ducker. I have no report other than to say great job everybody. Meeting well done. I think at this point we can adjourn our meeting. The time is 1:55 in the PM to be followed shortly by our workshop meeting. We'll see you back in a couple minutes. Thank you. Heat. Heat.

Hey, baby. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Your city council is now back this time with a workshop meeting. The date is still April 27th, 2026. The time is now 2:00 in the PM. We will start this workshop meeting with proclamations and presentation unless anybody has any changes they'd like to make to the agenda. Seeing none, we will move to proclamations and presentations. Item one is our community master plan. Mr. Sohaney. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And uh for items A through D, community master plan, downtown civic engagement task force, memorial park general discussion, and then a softball fields update, I'm going to turn it over to Deputy City Manager, Mr. Luke Kasich.

Thank you, Mr. Sini. Uh good afternoon, Mayor, Council. Um, so as we're pulling the presentation up, uh, let me start by saying to the city manager's point, uh, we're going to be covering four topics that are listed on the workshop agenda, uh, within this presentation. So, um, I'm going to do a quick quick introduction and, uh, get us underway. There we go. Awesome. Okay. So, u so the what we're going to cover today uh one is that um and I've all introduced you individually but uh Dr. Kim Delaney with Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council is with us today. Um, as I mentioned in past meetings, when we started thinking about public engagement, um, and when we started thinking more specifically about what we were going to do as it relates to a communitywide master plan, um, I couldn't think of, uh, an agency or an individual who could handle and help us help guide us through the public outreach process better than Dr. Lit, Dr. Delaney or Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. So, she she's here uh she helped craft the uh process that she's going to walk us through in a couple minutes. Um and she can answer some questions as it relates to how that looks and um how we'll go go forward. Uh once Dr. Delane is done, I'm going to talk a little bit about the civic engagement task force. Specifically, I'm going to talk about the selection process and what that looks like going forward and ultimately get some direction from the council as as it relates to what what process we're going to use to select the individuals who will serve as members of the task force. Um then um following that we'll talk about Memorial Park and civic area improvements and uh uh Zack Beer is here to talk a little bit about um some uh uh

general projections and some projects that we're looking at in the short term. Um uh also Greg Stevens, our recreation services director is here. He'll talk a little bit about some of the softball field and operational improvements that we're talking about. Um again, just in the short term, uh as we start thinking longer term, as we're going through the uh civic engagement process and the community master plan to get an ultimate solution, um we'll talk a little bit about some of the things that we're exploring in order to get us to a place where we can provide some um enhanced facilities for the softball association. Um, and then lastly, any any questions that we have or any direction that we haven't received, we'll we'll sum up the meeting kind of going through those last remaining issues just to make sure that uh we as staff have some direction in terms of how we're going to move forward with the process.

Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Dr. Delaney. Thanks. There you go, Kim. Thanks for that. Of course.

So, and good on. There we go. The green button. usual, the green light usually tells you. So, Kim Delaney, for the record, Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. So, thanks for the opportunity to join you this afternoon. Uh, and nice to meet the new faces that I met today on the board. Andy and I have been working together really in conversation talking through where the city is, um, and the challenges with respect to community master planning. And so, uh, we offered to, uh, to try to think through a process that might make sense for the city. uh and we are happy to assist in any regard in in any manner that's appropriate for the council. So I have a a short overview for you just to explain who the regional planning council is um and the services that we offer uh and a schedule and an approach for a master plan effort that might be the right fit for the city either for us to assist you with or just to use in whatever capacity might be appropriate. We do a lot of master planning work through the region and across the state. It's one of the reasons why regional planning councils were created actually. Um, and so just a little kind of little overview of who the regional planning councils are. Uh, there are 10 regional planning councils in the state of Florida and they were recreated um in the 1970s. Uh, the city is celebrating its centennial. Treasure Coast is celebrating its 50th 50th birthday this year. Um, and so 50 years ago uh the four counties in Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucy, and Indian River collectively created the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. Councils were created at a time when land development in Florida was uh was a a lot less certain and creating a lot of concerns for local governments and residents and investors kind of across the spectrum. Um it was a really challenging time. Uh there were water supply challenges or transportation challenges or environmental challenges. Um and uh there were decisions being made by one local government that were in the minds

of some unfairly affecting their neighbors. Um, and so one local government, for example, could approve a fairly large project and it might have a certain set of impacts for that local government that were evaluated, but the spillover effects weren't being addressed. Um, there were also some very significant water supply issues and water supply doesn't follow municipal boundaries or county boundaries. Water supply, waterheds are much larger geographies. Um and so the legislature stepped in and created growth management law. And to help implement growth management law, regional planning councils were created as a resource agency. Um and the legislature offered regional planning councils as an as a location where local governments could come get some help if they needed it for special problems or for unusual conditions or if they were short staffed or if they were dealing with unexpected challenges. Um and so the councils were created as a resource element for local governments to use as they needed. Um the uh the motto that my former director Michael Busher who many of you may know who was with the council about 30 years um used to suggest that you call we haul. So when the local government has a need, we pack up and we come and assist you and if you don't need us to come, we just wave and say great job. Uh and so we're available uh we're available as needed. The Treasure Coast region uh has um has a unique set of skills. Each regional planning council has a slightly different um slightly different orientation in terms of its deeper skill set and Treasure Coast's deeper skill set involves urban design, town planning and community engagement. So we really have a lot of experience in doing that type of work in everything from the neighborhood scale to the regional scale. So, we are called in sometimes to work on a neighborhood street where there's a challenge with transportation or planning or architecture or there's a need for a community park. Uh we're also called in to work with counties to do countywide master plans or larger scale

regional plans um like a sevencount plan for greenways and trails for example or for water supply. Uh and we do statewide work as well uh particularly in emergency management, hurricane evacuation, emergency preparedness but also environmental systems redevelopment. um public private partnerships. Um those are all um different uh elements of uh projects that we've worked on over time and we only work for the private sector. We're for the public sector. We're we're a private a we're a public agency. Let me start over. My Celsius is taking over. We're a public based company by the way.

There we go. Yeah. But it's a BOCA company, right? So I do try to help the local economy. Uh so that said, regional planning councils are public agencies. We have a 28 member board that's comprised of 18 elected officials across the four counties and 10 gubanatorial appointees. We are only available to assist the public sector with public needs. So we're available to work with local governments and we're available to work with public agencies, but we are not available to work for the private sector. though we're asked often, which is a compliment in a lot of ways when you work for a public agency, that the private sector asks, "Hey, can we hire you to do this project for us in a city or county?" And we say, "Thanks for the invitation, but we don't do that. The private sector is available for you to work in that capacity. We only work on the public side of the table." Um, and that's uh and that's been um uh that's certainly the council policy, but it's also the council responsibility. Um, and so that's how we exist as an entity. And that map illustrates where the other regional planning councils are located. We're lent out often to help other regions because we have kind of a deep bench in town planning, urban design, and community engagement. We do a lot of that work um as as an agency. Uh Bokeh is a wonderful place. I just did just a quick survey just to illustrate how amazing the city is. There's so much to be proud of. Um, and so it's a challenge to have a community master plan conversation in a place where there are so many things that are going well. That actually is a much more difficult thing to do than to come in a community like we do often where things are really broken and the community says, "Geez, nobody's investing here. Our neighborhoods are deteriorating. Um, residents have nowhere to go to ride their bike or walk their dog. Um, we don't have schools that are keeping up with our needs. we wish we had an economic driver in our city. Can you help us figure that out? That's a lot of times the invitation that we respond to to come in to help a city and we say,

"Okay, we will staff up with the expertise needed, economic analysts, infrastructure experts, engineering firms, our own team members who have experience in public policy, transportation, land use, urban design, planning, emergency preparedness, natural systems. And we try to come in to listen to citizens to find out what is it that's the problem. Analyze conditions to figure out what are the drivers, what are contributing to that problem. And then we do our best job of coming back with a set of solutions. Some of them are developmentbased. They're physical improvements and some of them are policy based. And then we're available to assist in implementation because again we're a resource agency. So there are communities that I'm still assisting 10 and 15 and 20 years later with plans that I worked on because that's our job. We're a public agency and we're a resource agency. Let us help you get those grant dollars to implement that solution or we can evaluate a project to give you objective uh advice as to whether or not it's consistent with that plan that was developed 10 or 20 years ago. Or if it's inconsistent, here's how it could be. Or maybe the plan is really out of date now with current conditions and a fresh look is needed. So, that's the type of work that we do. Um, again, for a city that's approaching its centennial that's as successful as a city of Bokeh, it's harder to have a master plan conversation, quite frankly, in my opinion, as a planner because so many things are already going so well. Um, but there are lots of communities that uh that arrive at that point and ask us to come in to assist with master planning. I just pulled a quick sample of some different types of master plans that we've worked on. This is just in the past I think four or five years for the most part. Uh but they range from very small cities to regionally scaled efforts. Uh I was chatting with uh uh the vi uh the deputy mayor prior to the meeting who was referencing a few of the planning efforts that we've done that relate to the city of Bokeh. Um and and I haven't had the time to do a deep dive into all the work that's taken place

here, but the plans that quickly came to mind. Um we uh we assisted with some conversations about the 20th Street corridor. there's a town gown relationship uh that was um that was not in the condition that it is today. Um it was a little bit more disperate. It was a little bit siloed when we came in to take a look at that corridor. And so we assisted with a facilitated process with uh FAU and the community and the city to talk about needs and expectations on 20th and things that weren't working as well. Um and uh and I think improved that relationship. Certainly the relationship today is a model relationship. when we entered into that conversation, the city and FAU hadn't met formally for seven years prior to that. Um, and so, um, one example, other couple other quick examples, we worked on the North Federal Highway corridor for the city. That was in the, um, in the 2010s, I think it was about 2012 or so, and we analyzed that corridor with respect to safety, trans traffic conflicts, particularly bicycle pedestrian circulation. that was really a problem along that corridor and came up with solutions that the city's been implementing over time. Uh we worked on uh State Road 7 when University Boulevard was taken out of um of the mix. If you remember that was back in 2010 actually. Uh, and we were we were requested by DOT, Palm Beach County, and um, uh, and the city uh, to work on a transit supportive corridor analysis for State Road 7 because the traffic patterns were going from bad to even more challenging. And you all have that experience today. You know what those conditions are. Um, and then we also worked on an intra coastal waterway plan for Palm Beach County. Um, that was back in um, in 2012. Um and that looked at particularly the challenge of maintaining public access to the intra coastal. That was at a time when a lot of commercial uses were being converted to residential. And once a restaurant turns into a residential community, residents no longer have access to the

water that don't live there. And so access to the water was key. Maintaining industrial use was key. Um and uh and that analysis included recommendations for the Wildflower Cafe property which the city purchased and now has protected uh for residents to have perpetual access to the water. So just a couple examples of of those kinds of projects and and there's there's there's plenty more when that conversation is appropriate. Um and so that said, in working with your staff, we tried to understand the challenges the city is is facing with respect to community engagement in particular. that seems to be a particularly important component of a master planning process. Um, and we uh have suggested for your consideration um a process that would have frankly more community engagement than any project I've ever worked on. So this is community engagement if there is a community engagement on steroids. This pro this process is that effort. Um it is um uh it is ambitious in the level of engagement that it suggests and if it's right for the city, we're happy to assist you in any way that that's beneficial. Either to assist you in selecting someone to come in and carry out this work or in assisting you in carrying that work directly. Um and so that said, um we would suggest to you that a really thorough process is going to take you a good 15 months. I mean, it's a we have season rapidly escaping and you're a very seasonal community. So, in-person public engagement activities typically aren't successful between May and October because a lot of your population isn't here. And so, landing public engagements at a time that is going to be a fit for your seasonal population is a lot trickier and it just stretches the process out. Um, and so what we've suggested is a process that has kind of five phases. And so just uh just walking through those if if I may. Um the first phase would be a really thorough due diligence

effort to look at all the planning documents and the work that's under been undertaken already analyzing the systems that exist in the city and beginning a series of coordination meetings with a couple of key groups. Certainly the downtown civic engagement task force is a is a primary entity uh as it becomes established um that we would imagine you would want to have as a driver in the process but also a larger scale citizen master plan advisory committee that it could include those members but a citywide master plan is going to have a broader focus and so we think there might be an appropriate way to have two different groups that give you that guidance as a city uh certainly there's the greater Booker Rapone greater Booker Raton beach and park district that has an important role um and also a series of staff committees and technical advisory committees. So to begin that outreach pretty thoroughly as as you get started to understand what are all the pieces, what are the challenges and where might you want to go. Uh we would suggest you could have a process that could have three phases of public engagement. uh the first of which could begin um likely by uh the early summer. Again, because of the challenges with in-person workshops, it makes that timing tricky. And in watching your meetings and um and reading the minutes from the discussions, there's a lot of pressure on the city right now with respect to uh the uh the downtown civic core site. Um but you have a challenge just with respect to the calendar because there's people that won't be in town just in a couple of weeks actually. Um and so what we would suggest for that first phase of public engagement um is a couple of uh listening sessions perhaps one that could focus on appropriate uses for the property, a second one that could focus on based on those uses, what kind of designs might make sense, what are the best practices uh that that make sense if any change at all is suggested um to include a series of focus group discussions with key representatives

from the community. Book is a diverse and busy place with very active groups that are focused on recreation, the business community. Um there's a uh there's a a significant demographic range in the city. So you have older residents that have certain types of needs. You have families with kids that have different types of needs. Each of those groups probably would want to have an outlet um or an opportunity for direct input into the process. Um you could also run an online survey that gives you a chance to capture input from folks that aren't here. Um and then begin a series of very specific coordination meetings uh with the uh a an advisory committee at a larger scale, a a master plan advisory committee, the park and uh the beach and park district and also those technical advisory committees. And we've suggested there's time in that schedule for four formal presentations back to the city council. So after that due diligence, what's going on? What's missing? How are things working at kind of a technical analytical scale? we could come back to the city council to give that update um with that input from from those groups so you have that direct kind of finger on the pulse if you will as to how are things going. Um a second phase of public engagement we would suggest could really dive deep into the downtown civic core property. Um a design cheret with table facilitators um that could focus specifically on that site. uh what do folks want to have happen in that location led by your downtown civic engagement task force as a um as providing oversight in that process. Um but but what fits on that site and what are the other uses that might need to fit somewhere else. Um, we would suggest in that effort it has the most opportunity for public engagement of anything that takes place because that seems to be a very high demand at this point in time for the city um to kind of reestablish your relationship with the community. Um, and so we'd suggest that

that effort could almost use two lenses. A macro lens to really zoom in on the the downtown civic site, but also a widescale lens to allow folks to give input about everything else happening in the city. What are the transportation relationships? Where are the activity centers? Where are the university um hubs taking place and how do people access them? What are the other districts you have in the city? How are the environmental systems interconnected? Are there storm water challenges that need to be considered as well? Um are there redesign opportunities uh that the public identifies? Um and so take that input um and then remain in location for a week-long design cheret. Um that is the most uh extensive public engagement process that we utilize and it gives the most access for the public to the design conversation taking place. Um, we literally run a Cheret process where we are in a location for seven days available from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Um, in a commonly acceptable a commonly accessible location so the public can come in. I couldn't make it on Saturday or whenever the workshop was, but I really want to be involved. There's there's a lot of opportunity to come back in and be involved. Um, and uh or my neighbor heard about this workshop I went to but couldn't make it. Can I bring my neighbor? Absolutely. come by and let's sit down with your neighbor and talk about what are the things that are working well and what are the challenges that you have. Um so again that's the most extensive opportunity for public engagement that we've utilized in the past. It seems to be very successful. It's been well wellreceived in those communities where we've used that process. Um and then that phase would allow us to begin to develop some design recommendations and then go back out to meet with those different groups. the downtown civic engagement task force, a master plan oversight committee, the beach and park district, and then the staff and technical advisory committee. So, you have that iterative process available to you. And then wrap that up and come back

to the city council by January. We understand that's the expectation for that for that group to be able to assist you if you'd like with with a clear understanding of what are the desires for that task force, what fits, what doesn't fit, what must stay, what might be modified. um and then bring you those recommendations um to uh uh to weigh in on that and to make those determinations as a city council. Once that site is figured out and that's the most difficult it seems to us of all the things to work on in the city. Once a clear direction is firmly established for that property, then it's much easier to have a conversation about other things in the city. But we would suggest to you based on our understanding, it's really hard to have that conversation without giving the community and you yourselves as a council a chance to really figure that site out. So once that's determined, that becomes kind of a fixed element of a master plan. It's like the intra coastal, it's not moving, right? The railroad tracks, they're not moving. And then that downtown site is then fixed with a clear direction as to what happens there. We would suggest to you that what might make sense is then to follow up with a series of design workshops that had that broader focus. We would have taken that input or you would have taken that input in whatever process you run, but then give folks a chance to then think in that broader scale about the network relationships that exist through the city between activity centers from neighborhoods to schools, the major transportation corridors, which ones are working well, which ones are challenged and might need different improvements. um how your park and recreational facilities are interconnected or where they're not. Um and also with respect to the downtown um how your downtown is performing based on your expectations and what might be different and appropriate over time. Uh we then could take that input in a series of we would suggest two workshops, one on a weekend, one on a week night. We've done that in a lot of communities where public engagement is challenging. That gives everybody a

chance to participate. um and then uh come back to you with a series of coordination meetings and then make a presentation number three back to the city council. Here's what we heard. Here's what we've analyzed. This is what we think are the recommendations to consider. Does that is that consistent with your expectations? And then take that input back and develop a master plan. And that master plan process would begin to be drafted after the board has made its determination as to what's appropriate for the downtown civic site. Having that as a fixed condition, we then can start to work through those plans beginning in about February of next year. And then we think it's probably about six months to take all that input and turn it into a master plan document and set of drawings and network diagrams as appropriate that are costed with your team uh that are analyzed with your team so they're consistent with all the expectations you have as to how you operate as a municipality. um that would give us a chance to get back out to those advisory groups and then have a series of very specific advisory committee presentations to your various committees that you have already. You have a park and wreck advisory committee, there's a planning board, there's other committees that might be appropriate so you can get that weighin and then come back to you with a master plan document um in about the summer of next year. Okay, so that's about a 16-month process. And again, I suggested to you that this would be outreach on steroids if that term's appropriate. This is what that list would look like. Uh which would be a series of listening sessions and focus groups and an online survey to begin the conversation and really to reestablish the expectation for engagement. I think that seems to be um one of the conversations that's being had in the city. um to follow up with three different design workshops. One zoomed in particularly on the downtown civic site, but also to allow the city that chance to have the larger conversation. Um there are I I expect 15 coordination meetings through that process, and there

might be more or that might be too many, but that would be um that would be a way to be sure that you're really hearing the public. Um and then um four city commission workshops concluding with what we would suggest you would be a recommended master plan for the city that's costed that has priorities embedded within it that has recommended implementation steps uh that has consistency with your comprehensive plan your CRA plan and your other planning documents or where there's inconsistency to identify where those adjustments might be necessary to be able to implement that type of vision. Um so that's the that's soup to nuts. That's the process that we've been working on back and forth with your team. Um, and I'm happy to answer questions and again, we're happy to assist the city in any way we can be beneficial. It might just be saying, you know, wow, this scope's too big. We need to rethink it. And that's okay, too. Our job is to be here as a resource for you. Um, and so happy to answer questions if there are any. Okay,

members, do we have any questions for Dr. Delaney? Miss Prman. Yeah. Thank you, Miss Delaney, for being here. Sure.

Um, you mentioned that that the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council doesn't have any private clients um or customers. On on the website um of the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, it states that the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council operates several programs and services for regional planning and economic development designed to satisfy the needs of its public and private sector customers. So which which is true is is um is the the website states that you do have private sector C customers but you said today that you don't.

So we operate a lowinterest loan program for small businesses with funds that are from the economic development administration. So the federal government has contracted with the regional planning council to offer lowinterest loan funding for businesses. Those businesses are awarded funds uh after review from an economic development committee of the council. Um and they become customers, if you will, for loan funds. Um the other clients, if you will, uh utilize funds from uh the environmental planning administration, for the environment planning agency, uh for brownfield assistance. And so we offer brownfield assistance for sites that have environmental contamination um either to evaluate those sites or provide funds for them to be remediated. Um so those are those are definitely if you will I guess those are clients of the regional planning council small businesses that receive funding 0 to 2% loans paid back on a fixed schedule. They typically are in redevelopment areas where they're distressed conditions that exist. Um and then businesses um or property owners that have environmental contamination. So they come to the council. Um the council is able to provide again uh funds for environmental phase one audits to make sure we understand what the degree of contamination is. Um and then if there is contamination, we're able to provide assistance through grant or loan uh to clean up those sites. So those are the private entities that we do contract with. And I apologize because I misstated that. Okay. Thank you.

Sure. Um I'm going to read you I have a bunch of questions for you. Um I'm just going to read them all at once and then afterwards we can walk through them after. Sure. Um on your LinkedIn it's it states that you negotiate public private partnerships. Um what does that mean? Who I'm just going to read the the question. Yeah. Who are your customers when you negotiate public private partnerships? what what public private partnerships have you negotiated and who hired you to do those? Okay.

In in the in the recent project last year um that that the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council commenced with on Hutchinson Island in Fort Pier in Fort Pierce that involved putting hotels, condos, and apartments on public land and parks. Who hired you and paid you for that work? Did your firm originate that plan? What is your scope of work in this project? Sure.

Um, in your recent work relating to public land in Port St. Lucy on parcels surrounding the Port St. Lucy Civic Center for a plan that included putting 1,900 residential units, retail, and office space, and hotels on this public land. Who hired you and paid you for that work? Did your did your firm originate that plan? What was is your scope on this project? Sure. I'm so glad you asked those questions. All of those projects are projects where we were requested by the local government to assist the local government in evaluating conditions, making recommendations, and securing agreements. So, uh, and I'll start with your last question and go backwards. Uh, for the city center site in Port St. Lucy, um, that is a project where the city of Port St. Lucy asked the regional planning council to come in to assist with a distressed property where the city was carrying $32 million in debt for a public private partnership that unfortunately had been secured by that city just before the economy went south in 2008. Uh they actually had taken on that debt in 2006. Um and so the property had gone through three different owners. Um, and in each of those ownerships, they were never able to secure a relationship with the developer to help get them out of debt. Um, and so the regional planning council was hired and I managed that project for the council to analyze the property, analyze the debt, uh, conduct a market analysis to figure out what are the uses that make sense on this site. There was a master plan that Ben had developed in 2006. We updated the master plan through a series of workshops with the community um and made a recommendation to the city uh for a revised master plan uh to

expand its uh community center, its civic center, um add a trail network within the site and then allow the distressed property uh to be developed with mixeduse buildings, groundf flooror retail where it could be supported, but mostly upper story residential uh because surprisingly to the city and to us as analysts in that project pricing even in the city of Port St. Lucy was pricing out workforce housing candidates and people couldn't afford to live in the city and work in the city of Port St. Lucy which was really an unusual finding. Um and so um we completed that master plan effort and delivered it to the city who approved it unanimously. Um we then have assisted the city in analyzing projects that have been proposed by the private sector uh to develop uh to develop that site. Um working for the public at the request of the public and delivering the site to the public. Um for the Fort Pierce project um that's a really interesting project and it maybe it may evidence why master planning um is is valuable in situations where there are some challenges. Um, in that project, the city of Fort Pierce asked the regional planning council to come in to assist with a new vision for a series of parcels privately held on the um on the touchdown of the Fort Pierce Causeway on Hutchinson Island. Um, there were some proposals that had been suggested by the developer that were an inappropriate scale for the site and they weren't able to be permitted through the city's land development regulations anyway. So there was a conflict between what the developers were trying to produce um and what the city's codes allowed which was well below what the developers expectations were but again not meeting the market demands for the site. Um and so uh this the regional planning council ran a public process with workshops and stakeholder meetings and outreach and got input from the community and from

the property owners um and recommended a master plan approach that was about half of what the developer was recommending. Uh the developer was looking for I think 10 to 12 stories. The master plan process let us analyze the site and particularly the traffic patterns. That's the big challenge in that location which is a fairly small bridge that can't be expanded. And so for hurricane evacuation though the market might want to bring much more development than the traffic patterns can can allow there are some constraints that really become um a threatening condition for a particular hurricane evacuation. Um and so that master plan uh resulted in um a set of recommendations to the city for some public realm improvements, some transportation improvements, um a public pro a public public relationship between the city and the county. The county owns a number of waterfront museums that are adjacent to the site that needed to be improved. Uh so we actually developed a plan to to add some additional public use on the water there to protect waterfront access for residents. Um and then on the private site uh the recommendations were again a lower scale of development than developer wanted uh but a scale of development that seemed appropriate um versus the transportation capacity of the network that would still allow um economic yield on the site. Uh that site is um under continued evaluation by the developer as to what to do. The developers come in with a couple of proposals. None of them have been executed so far. Um and we're continuing to assist that city. In fact, they just retained the council to analyze um an interior site um in a neighborhood called Lincoln Park. We're underway with that process now that has different challenges. That's a place where the market isn't coming. Um and so the city's asking us to instead of trying to figure out how to throttle the market, how to inspire the market. Um the the other public private partnerships that we've worked on, in

fact, for the city of Fort Pierce, we were hired and I was the lead negotiator uh to execute a public private partnership on behalf of the city for the redevelopment of a former water treatment plant in the downtown. I'm sorry, not a water treatment plant, a uh former power plant in the downtown that was a brownfield site. So, it was a dirty site, so it had a lot of contamination below ground. Uh it was a distressed site that had been sitting for years. And so the city hired us to negotiate a public private partnership with the developer uh which we did. Uh that agreement was executed. Uh the property was um advanced by the development firm is named Audabon. Uh advanced by Audabon. Uh the market has not been kind to the city of Fort Pierce. Again, there are some cities we work with that have a lot happening on the economic side and there's some cities that really wish the economy would be kinder to them and this is one of those places. Um and so that project um is finally underway. The developer broke ground. There was additional contamination that had been found under the site and so we had to assist them with some additional remediation so the site could be clean enough for development to happen. Um and now they're underway with a small hotel. I think it's a I think it's an eight-story hotel they landed on in that location. Um and some uh townhouse and a little bit of retail along the the downtown street. Um, so those are u those are particular projects um that are the projects referenced um in the LinkedIn profile, but I appreciate you asking. So, and one of the things just perhaps to consider um is that we view uh land development projects as you do, I'm sure, as city council members, um they're all public private partnerships. Um every time you have a development approval that takes place, you're really in a public private partnership. you're conferring land development entitlements through your actions as a public entity with the private sector. So, every decision is a public private

partnership. Um, and and we work uh we work with cities um in trying to optimize the benefits that come to the city um and and balance uh the development expectations at the same time. Thank you for explaining that.

Sure. Um I don't think that every project should be c or might be categorized as a a public private partnership. So especially here in Boca Raton I mean I I don't know how familiar you are with what happened over the last couple years here. Um but the citizens the residents they they don't want any other p public private partnership coming this way ever again. So, we just I'd like to say that for the residents and in terms of um land development, conferring land development rights within one of these projects, uh we we're not going to do that. We don't want to do that and we we want to retain all of the public land and parks for the citizen for the residents.

Sure. and and and and Councilman, that would be consistent with our recommendation in every community that we work with, which is not to convey publicly held land, especially with the latest economic conditions. So, that's that's actually a subject that's not unique to Bokeh. That's a subject in pretty much every city council chambers that we work in. Um, and in every instance, what we've recommended to every one of the municipalities is not only should you retain what you have, but try to get more because we're short on parks, we're short on natural spaces. There's an opportunity to retrofit environmental habitat in existing conditions if you control the land, but if you don't control the land, you can't do that. Um, so I I appreciate that that observation and it really um it kind of echoes quite a bit with the discussions that I have with cities. So,

thank you very much. Thank you. Any other questions for Dr. Delaney? Mr. Rucker?

No. Thank you, Dr. Delaney. I think it's good if some of us I mean um just because I want to bring this out because I've heard some things in the community and I'm sure you could address this. I am on the Treasure Coast Planning Council. I'm an alternate as of last month for district 4. I take pride in sitting in any council that they invite me to sit on and appoint me just like I'm the NO chair. There's great strides when you're on a council where you could represent your city because you're understanding the process. And what I would recommend to some of the council members is all the meetings are uh recorded for Treasure Coast Planning Council and you could go on the actual last meeting that we had which is I think two weeks ago was our joint meeting and you could see what's happening in South Florida plus Treasure Coast was a full day meeting and it was robust. We went from reefs to Marine Corps to anything and everything you could think of. uh they work with many many cities. They are a public entity and they're they're funded in order to help cities just like the MO is funded by federal money to prioritize plan and implement infrastructure. They have the same kind of role uh and cost us nothing which is really important as you protect uh the amount. So just so that you know there's no conflict of interest. I don't vote on this stuff. I just sit as a member of that body appointed by the county um the Palm Beach League of Cities on district 4 and it's been very interesting uh to see all the different projects that come before us and that they present uh and how they work with the council I mean treasure council on on the planning and the implementing. So just more of like an FYI so there's no conflict. I'm not getting an extra vote outside of the deis. I just happen to be a member of that council. Again, I encourage you all to hopefully step up and take some of my council work outside of this council in the future.

Thank you for that clarification. Any questions? Miss Grow.

Yes. Hi. Um, in your timeline that you presented, um, the master plan development, will the treasure coast be producing a detailed implementation ready park or redevelopment design documents for the city? So, we we would envision that's what the city would want. So, so this is a highlevel estimate as to what might be an appropriate process. So, everything is in pencil, by the way, that that we produce always. Um, and so this is a set of pencil drawings really from my last couple of meetings with Andy to understand what the needs are. So we would we would expect that what the city would want out of that process is a detailed master plan that has design recommendations where they are appropriate. And one of the things that's different about the city of Bokeh is there's a lot of Bokeh that I I don't think many people want to change at all. Um, and so those aren't areas where there's design assistance that really would be appropriate. You have beautifully intact neighborhoods. You have beautiful parks and you have beautiful uh workplace and retail areas and and university campuses. And so there's a lot of areas where there's probably no design intervention that's appropriate. But where there is, we would expect the city would want a series of detailed scaled drawings that take the feedback that's received through the process and offer some design suggestions as to, you know, how you might re envision a property differently than it exists today. Um, along with that, um, we would imagine that you would want, uh, an a, uh, kind of a a stepby-step implementation set of recommendations as to how to get there. So if property X looks like this today, but what we hear from residents is they'd like it to look like Y. These are the things that you would want to think about changing. Here's how much they would cost. The sequence in which you should undertake those activities would

look like this in the short term, near-term, and long term. And by the way, here's the funding that you might try to secure to help make that happen. And I I should mention that in the master plan work that we do, we're often asked and I would imagine the city would want us to do this as well, try to identify financial resources that you could blend with your dollars or private dollars or any dollars to help make things happen. So we work a lot with grant agencies. Um and so we have pretty good familiarity with the funds, the available funds that are out there. And so we try to identify that just to make it easier and faster for you to implement whatever it is that we hear from the public. And we don't know what we're going to hear yet uh when that process takes place, but that that would be our expectation as to what I think your needs would be, your requests would be. Detailed drawings where they're appropriate network diagrams we would imagine that look at transportation, environmental systems, storm water, um neighbor, residential to school, residential to fun like activity centers, residential to parks. How do people move around the city? where are the connections broken, if any, and where might you want to improve those things and then dive down to really detail where those improvements might be. But again, I think most of the city probably doesn't have a lot of drawing on it because it's already beautifully designed and working well. Does that answer your question? Okay,

Miss Go ahead. Thank you for your presentation. Um, your architects, they're inhouse. They are.

Okay. Well, not only are they in-house, we have three architects on staff that are um trained at the the school of um in the school of town planning at the University of Miami. Uh so they are seasoned architects that work at every scale from a shed in a backyard to a 7count master plan. Um so in addition to our onboard architects, we also bring in additional assistance where we need to depending on the project. So there are there are a series of architects and planners that we have engaged with over time based on different based on the different demands that we have. Um we only have an 11 member staff and so that's how we're able to keep our costs relatively efficient as an agency but we we uh we engage uh other professionals as needed for projects in particular who work under our direction um to help us design or draw or analyze as needed. And then we take that feedback back and we produce the recommendations and the master plans and the drawings and the implementation for those projects. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. Um, and I guess you will learn a lot more through the sharetses, but I've been hearing a lot from the residents and was looking at the projects that you have completed and they're beautiful, but I think what our residents want it's a little bit different. Okay. They kind of want the Spanish Mediterranean style that makes bokeh bokeh. Sure. So, but the sharetses will determine what the residents want and their will. So, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Sure. And and Councilwoman, that is that is exactly what I think my team would hope because they're trained in that architectural style primarily. Um and so often the some of the renderings that we produce have too much misner architecture and we have to modernize it which is frustrating for the team. So it's actually it's actually something the team is quite excited about to have a chance to work in that architectural style. Well, thank you very much. Yeah. Any other questions or comments, Mr. Proman?

Uh thank you, Mr. Thompson. Um this question is for staff. Uh, by the way, thank you again for this presentation for us to consider. I just would like to confirm with staff that uh nothing right now has been sent set in motion on this and that we are listening this today uh as a proposal from this consultant only as for consideration. Is that correct?

Yes, Mr. Pearlman. Uh I'll take that. Um yeah, so just for background, uh we've committed no financial resources whatsoever, uh to this entity. Uh and about three months ago, we sat down and we recognized that we're going to need to come together and put a community master plan forth. Um so we went to um the Treasure Coast to help us quantify and scope this out. Um and that's what we've done at this point and there's no obligation whatsoever. It's really just a minor scope of work. so we're all understanding what the magnitude of a a master plan looks like.

Thank you. Obviously, for a to hire a consultant for a project of this magnitude is a serious endeavor and would be a serious contract. In terms of procurement for the city for a type of consultant of this nature, clearly you would want to bring forth other proposals for consideration by the council. What other companies, consultants or proposals can we expect to consider in the next couple months?

Sure. I'll start this uh and then I'll have turn it over to Mr. Lease to uh identify potential uh firms that are out there. But um the the intent here is to get us all on the same page that we agree as a council that yes, we want a maximum community outreach, a maximum community master plan that goes beyond uh just the downtown. My understanding is before I I got here, we we haven't had a master parks and recreation plan. We haven't had a master community plan. So this is an effort to uh take the city holistically and address all the different concerns. So that was the intent here. Um and if there's consensus from the council that that's the direction we want to go in, then the next step would be to further define the scope of work based on this. Um and then at that point based on direction from council, we would uh solicit uh in the normal RFP process. Um so after today if if we have consensus that we to go forth and do that uh we'll take that and then I can come back to you uh to answer your question in terms of approximate timeline uh and not to get into the whole RFP process uh but generally speaking just for a rule of thumb as we go forward it's about a threemonth process and we can get into those details later um and that depends on the scope of work that's assuming this rough scope of work is we've hit the target here. Uh and then uh and go forward. So big picture, you know, 3 to 4 months from now um for really high quality level um proposals from highquality firms.

Thank you. Any other questions? Go ahead, Mr. Grow. Um does Treasure Coast have any idea how much this would cost? because this obviously might have to go to an RFP process for our city.

Sure. So, our estimate based on this scope of work is in the $250 to $300,000 range based on the amount of outreach um and engagement that's suggested in this process. Um and uh uh and that's a number that we're still working through because we don't know what process is right for the city. In the most recent cherettes that we've conducted, which include a 7-day on-site studio, are in the $225,000 range. It's just the staff time that it takes to do that work. Um, this process is a little more extensive with the additional listening sessions that we think might be appropriate for you as a city um and the additional focus groups. So, that said, I do want to make a point clear though um with response to Mr. Pearlman's um observation um the regional planning council does not compete with the private sector. So we are only able to assist the city at the request of the city and and we're happy to assist in envisioning a scope with another entity if that's the desire of the of the city. But we can't respond to a procurement. In fact, our board has directed that we will not participate if a procurement has taken place. Um and so I just want to I just want to make that distinction. So, we're happy to assist the city if the city would like us to, but if it's not the direction the city wants to go in, we're happy to assist in looking at the scope that you might have for a a different consultant, but we can't we can't respond once that process takes place. So, the statutes allow you to contract with the regional planning council directly if you want to as a local government, but outside of that, we we don't enter into that competitive environment. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Delaney. Well, I think staff is looking to us for some degree of consensus on a couple things that the city manager mentioned. One is, should we be undertaking a community master

plan process at all? Second, should it be I think the phrase you use was maximum community engagement as part of that. Um, I'll weigh in on that. I think yes, it is a worthwhile undertaking for us to go through the community master planning process and I I hear the city manager this the wheels were already in motion on that. well before even the vote was taken this past March. I do think it's good for us to be all on the same page on that. I think the downtown civic core does require a significant and probably at the outset the most level of attention which I think your plan has has included. I do think it's good to have it be a 10 out of 10 or 12 out of 10 in terms of civic engagement, but at the same time, I think we have to balance that with the fact that the timeline on this is pretty long and some of these questions, specifically the downtown civic, you know, core area. I'd like to have answers and something in place in terms of a plan well before some of the timelines maybe that we're talking about here, which I think I would have gone through January of 2027. That's a that's a long time to wait. That's my that's my initial reaction.

Sure. But overall, I think it's a good start. Yes, on the community master plan for me. Yes. On the robust civic engagement. Um but maybe find ways where we can tighten up the timeline a little bit so as to bring this thing in for a landing sometime before, you know, the August of next year. Miss Ducker.

Thank you, Mayor Thompson. Yes, I agree. But I also want to say that um we spent a lot of time on the downtown and we know a lot of what our voters want in the downtown. The referendum failed, the project failed. I think it's time as a body that we start focusing in all parts of the city. There is a lot going on in this city and we have spent the last 12 months on downtown and what we want in the downtown. And yes, it's important and yes, it's a it's a very important thing to talk about, but I think we need to talk about everything and whether this timeline can be shrunk to include that. But what I don't want to see is a whole year and a half on the downtown. I want to see the entire That's why I like that you're calling it the community master plan. I absolutely love the amount of engagement. Um I do see that it is a lot more robust than other cities have requested. I appreciate that. I don't have a problem with that. I think more is more. But we need to do data gathering not only from the downtown but from all areas in the city. So that would be my focus. We as a body at least me when I speak I'm going to speak about I in this moment is I am not going to focus the next year or nine months that I have left on this day is just about the downtown. We kind of understand what we want in the downtown. What needs to happen and the rest of the city cannot be neglected. So, I want to see it all kind of working in synchrony, if that makes sense.

Sure, Mr. Thompson. Sure, Mr. Proman.

Uh, Miss Ducker, thank you. That that was really well said because the reality is is that the residents have already been through this process as you mentioned for the last year of of dealing with the downtown, getting involved with the downtown, discussions, cherettes, all about the downtown. And uh what has emerged is is a clear vision and a clear consensus among the residents. We need a new a new city hall. We need a new community center. We need improvements to Memorial Park and all of the recreational facilities that are in disrepair right now. There's a very clear understanding. Thank you, if anything good came out of the last year, you know, is that the the the residents of our city have have gotten involved and are engaged with with the city and also from this emerged an understanding of what we need to get done and right away for the residents because they've already waited for for this past year and a half, you know, on a project that failed. we we have a responsibility not to allow not to force them to wait longer and and therefore and I agree with you Miss Ducker because what's happening in these discussions is that the downtown civic core meaning memorial park and the acreage that was under threat over the past year is being intertwined with this broader master plan. The title of this brief to the city council, the title is Bokeh 2050, our city, our future. This is a plan that's 25 years out. And I think we need to have discussions on that. I agree it might make sense to bring in a consultant to provide some direction on helping the city establish this 2050 plan, but that shouldn't stop us from right away acting to

work and renovate and build the new buildings that we know need to get done, which can we can take action right now to do and which are separate and apart from a Bokeh 2050 um plan, which is a long-term plan. We need we need to start to envision that and that's fine. But that shouldn't hold up getting to work right right away on building a new city hall, building a new community center, building a new police station downtown. We we need a we need a a a regular sizable police station downtown and improving Memorial Park. If we get to work on this right right away, we we could potentially be breaking ground on on a new city hall or community center in one year from now if we start to work on this, which I think we can. I think we can do. But this Bokeh 2050 plan, this shouldn't hold up our work on what needs to get done right now for the citizens.

Mayor Thomas,

anyone else? I I have a thoughts of that. I think we're a lot of saying the same thing which is we have short-term identified needs and focus as it relates to the city hall community center and memorial park. I think we all agree on that and that should be in the immediate near term things that we can start working on. I don't know about I don't know about breaking ground in a year. I I want to be ambitious and and and good about it but that's that may be that may be unrealistic. But I like the idea of moving quickly on the the downtown civic core properties. I'm with you. I also think it doesn't make sense for us to hold up the or or for the the community master plan process to be held up by what we are are obviously going to be immediate needs for us which are those things that I just mentioned. So I think we're all saying the same thing there which is the community master planning process is a good idea and we should be undertaking it while at the same time at least in the immediate near term focusing on the obvious needs of the city hall community center and Memorial Park. I'm not suggesting that the community master plan part be delayed in any way based on that. I also don't want to see the civic core component get delayed in any way based on the the communitywide planning process.

Sure. So I think that that's a form of consensus we have there. Uh Miss Gra, Miss Sipple, do you all have any comments on the issue? No. Mr. Ducker, go ahead.

Yeah, I I agree with that. The and you did say something, Mr. department that I want to make sure because you use my name and and what you said I don't necessarily dis agree with you on the police station and having a huge police station in downtown that was something that I didn't agree with in the past and that referendum failed but it had nothing to do with the government center so I want to keep those two things very separately because that's a bigger conversation for this council to have and that's something that we absolutely need because the most important thing we need is public safety but we had identified an area for that police station with police presence in the downtown and my feeling about that project is not going to change. Do we want community input? Absolutely. We want community input, but we also understand that the downtown has areas that we can improve upon. So again, those are conversations that we need to have. I agree with you, Mayor Thompson, about input. We still want input from the community on these civic centers. We that's what was promised um through the movement in terms of the area and the downtown. So I don't want to lose sight of that. I agree the timing, but I also don't want to lose sight like I said earlier about brick or about the police station and looking at those things independently or even the softball fields. This is all encompassing. This is an entire city that is not a one project issue. Uh it's an entire city with a lot of moving parts that we have to kind of look at. So I I you know I appreciate that. And the last thing that I'll say is the sooner that we all come to cons consensus we can cut and move forward. The more we wait, the more prices go up, the more labor cost rises and the more that we're going to see a break ground. Not 12 months, it could be years on end. We don't know what the future holds. Obviously, a few years ago, we experienced the pandemic. That was a big stop in everything and the world has ever changed. So again, um I'm agreement with the public engagement starting to get these going. Sooner the

better. Um I agree there's people that leave seasonal, but our city has become even less seasonal. We have a lot of full-time residents and we could really capture those over the summer and then the fall capture the rest. So I think the faster we move on that that'll probably be a better a better way ahead. Mr. Thompson. Mr. Pman.

Yeah. Thank you, Miss Ducker. I'm glad you brought up the police station again because this is a topic that we need to address right now. uh my based on my based on uh being engaged with the community over the last year, what emerged is that the residents are we need to maintain the incredible public safety record that we've always had in this city in which the police station has been located downtown and we we've provided incredible public safety in the downtown thanks to that and we need to have the same size police station still there b and in my opinion and based on the any residents that I've spoken with in the over the last year. If if the police wants to build another station out west, that's fine and they they can do that if they think that's a need. But definitely, we need to maintain the strong police presence downtown with a the sizable station as is there now. And as we know, this station is in disrepair. Uh I I've spoken with police officers directly who have said that the the building it we need a new building uh right away. And so I think uh I'd like to ask the city manager if we can put that onto a workshop, maybe even the next workshop so that we can develop a consensus about how we proceed with the police station. Um, and the thing is is that in this briefing on the on Bokeh 2050, uh, they there there there's only one bullet point about police about police and it's a bullet point that says police/fire substation visibility without being overwhelming or a focus. And that that clearly has to do with the downtown. So, in this Bokea 2050 plan that was transmitted to council members, the the plan as it stands now is to simply have a police substation in the downtown, which uh I'm glad we're having

this discussion because this this topic needs to be addressed by by the council um very very quickly. Thank you. If you don't mind, Mr. City Manager, I think it's a great idea to have that discussion. We have a lot on our agenda today to talk about. I'm happy to have that placed on the next agenda and we can have a discussion about the you you call in timeout. Okay. You you have two remaining timeouts. Uh go ahead Mr. Rucker.

All I say is maybe it's a good segue a quick update. We have the update but just for the public what we're doing with the chief search because very important that as we progress with police station and anything that we do that we have someone in the helm because that's going to be the leader of that piece and it's important instead of having a workshop waiting for that to happen and it's I know it's kind of coming soon that we're going to hire a new chief so that person he or she can be a part of this process. It's integral. Let's not work backwards. Let's work smart and more efficient. Also, the size of our downtown station has nothing to do with public safety. A police officer's car is their office. And if we need extra police anywhere in the city, we've had many people come here, Miss Rambo. We've had emails that we get and we deploy. We deploy cars, we deploy police officers. So, a bigger police station in the downtown doesn't mean that we're going to be more safety because right now it's not as big as we wanted it to be and we're still a very safe community. Let's make sure that we have correct information out there. But if you could provide a little insight on the search,

Mr. S.

Yeah, thank you. Uh, Councilwoman, uh, Ducker. Big picture. Um, we, uh, start interviews next week. Uh, we had over a 100 applicants. uh we had over about 75 actually qualified and we've selected uh 10 at this point and they've been notified and we start interviews next week and uh we've got a schedule that'll come out uh later this week but generally speaking uh we intend to make a selection in the month of June um and then realistically uh the goal is to have a police chief on board in July and uh to address um Mr. Bman's uh comment as well is uh we have been looking at the police department headquarters extensively for the last month uh with uh Mr. Zervvis and yes we'll have uh we'll put that on the workshop and we'll include an update to the police chief hiring in the next workshop as well. will also include uh the the forensics, if you will, uh on the police department headquarters and potential uh options going forward as well as uh the timing associated with uh the election cycle and how that uh fits into the police department headquarters funding. So, uh look for that at the next uh workshop.

Okay. Thank you for that. I believe uh unless anyone has anything else to add on item 1A the community master plan. I believe that concludes our time on that subject. Thank you Dr. Delaney. Thank you Mr. Lassic for your Thank you Kim. Uh Miss Blank, I hear your question. We will have time for public comment. It's going to be a little bit later in our meeting. We're going to get through these portions of our downtown, the subject matters on our our dubtown downtown, and then we'll be time for public comment in a little while. Uh item 1B is the downtown civic engagement task force. Mr. Manager, what do you have for us there?

Okay. And uh I'm going to turn that over to our deputy city manager, Andy, uh Leasich, to discuss that. There we go. So, mayor, just as that as that's being pulled up, um, one of the things that will one of the things that we'll do towards the end of the meeting is put a bow on that last conversation because there are a couple of, uh, directional items that we're going to need from a staff perspective in terms of understanding how to move forward. So, we'll we'll want to make sure that we engage you to figure out exactly.

Let's just do that now then, if you don't mind. Yeah. Well, it's top of mind for us. So, I'm sorry that I was trying to move along too quickly

and I completely understand what you're trying to accomplish. Um, so what one of the, you know, one of the big picture things that we're going to need to understand is what direction do we want to move in? So, um, you know, we I I've personally uh recommended Church Coast Regional Planning Council to help us with this public engagement process. I recognize that there is some thought that uh maybe it's better to go out with a public procurement process to see uh what the market holds. Uh as uh Kim had mentioned that precludes them from participating in that process. Um which is okay if that's the will of the council then that's perfectly okay and we'll develop an RFP and go through that process. Um I I'll I'll have the council bear in mind that Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council does this work at cost per state statute. So they deliver whatever project that we're asking for at cost. Uh obviously the motivation is a little bit different in the private sector. Um I've I've worked with with uh good urban planners that have done public engagement processes uh from private sector. Some good folks out there. Um I I'll tell you again, I've been doing I've been doing work in the county as a manager for over 20 years. Uh I consistently turn to Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council to do this type of work. Um, so that said, that's that's a recommendation coming from staff. Uh, but we ultimately need direction from this council to understand where what direction we want to head in and you know, certainly we can go out and do the RFP and we'll do that. U I I just need to have an understanding of what the preference is uh so I can start uh planning timelines.

Mr. San, you're recognized.

Yes. Uh, Mr. Mayor and thanks Mr. Lease. And I just want to add a couple uh pieces to this so we understand before we get a recommendation from council a direction. So so you know we have most of the scope of work and to the point of the previous engagements with the community. We still have that work retained you know so we're in a good spot as it relates to downtown uh in terms of what we understand the citizens want. So all that work is available and the scope of work has been identified. So that that's a good thing, right? That puts us a month ahead essentially in the RFP process. It's important to understand that some people have mentioned, well, can't you get an RFP out in 10 or 14 days? Absolutely. When you have the scope of work done, which we almost have done at this point with council's final direction, but I just want to talk about that process. It's takes a little bit longer, right? Because we're going to put that out and then that's public notice and solicitation. So if you want a high-quality firm, you've got to give them time and opportunity. So we want to ideally give them, you know, two, three, four weeks to respond um so they can put the quality response in if they want to do that work. Um and then once we get that, we'll evaluate uh those firms and then there's formal interviews and we'll rank those out right before we present that to council. Then there's a little bit of contract negotiation that has to happen with the city management team. uh and then eventually we present that to city council. So as we think through this, I just want to make sure we understand that it we are ready to go as a city to put this out, but it's the process that generally takes a little bit time and we have to make sure that we're in accordance with the Florida statute, uh which is the consultants competitive negotiation, uh statute, and what I just described puts us in there. Um, so it takes a little bit of time, but the good news is we have the scope

of work. But the other thing I want to mention in time, right, is the community outreach we talked about. We're seasonal in Bokeh and we know that. So if you were trying to capture community outreach and you wanted to get everyone, then obviously June through January, let's say, is the shortest amount of time that we could capture all the residents. So, as we think through a three two to threemonth RFP process and a six-month community outreach to encapsulate everyone, um those are considerations that are think important as we get direction from council. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Sohaney. Uh so, I guess is that the only item on which the staff needs direction is should we go with Treasure Coast or go to through an RFP process? Is that what I'm hearing? Yes. Okay, that's fine. Yes.

Uh I'll weigh in. I I'm perfectly uh good with Treasure Coast. They've done good work for the city for many years. It's been a little bit and the 441 project wasn't us. That's out west. Though it does have an impact of course on the city. Uh but I am very familiar with the work that they've done in the county. They work with every entity basically in the in the in the county in terms of local governments, the MO. They work with everybody at length and they understand the public input and engagement process very well. I'm not opposed to bringing in somebody from the private sector through an RFP process, but that'll take more time. I'm just happy to have Dr. Delaney and Treasure Coast hit the ground running and start immediately. And if we find that we need to have somebody from the private sector come in, we can do that along the way. There's no there's nothing that would prevent us from doing that, but I think we can get started with having them uh get at least the beginnings of the process uh started. Anyone else want to weigh in?

Go ahead, Mr. R. Okay.

Yeah, I agree. They've already been working with this uh entity for the last three months. Those are three months that we're not going to get gain back. And I appreciate staff was very present in understanding that referendum might have failed and they were they were they were working on this in the background so that we wouldn't have to wait another three to four months. We also when you do a formal RFP we the das up here we go in a cone of silence. You are not allowed to give input. You're not allowed to talk to anybody for the RFP. If you do you break the law. So there's a lot of things that we can't discuss and we can't engage back and forth which by going with the council we could get updates more often. Mr. Lucesa could bring things to our meetings. We could shift a lot easier when you go into a formal RFP. And by the way, if that's what you want to do as a body and we you know I I disagree, you can't engage in some of those conversations once that RFP has been published. you go into the cone and it it becomes an issue because you can't really say what if things are changing and you're hearing things from the community you can't just call them and say hey switch A to B you can't do that because that's not that's illegal so I think we have to understand the procurement processor for me because I've already spent three months on this because I've already spent the last better part of the hour explaining this because it's a cost to us our job as fiscal we just saw our audits is to protect taxpayer dollars Um, I would say we move forward with Treasure Coast Planning and we could always pivot.

And Mr. And before I get to Mr. Pearlman, uh, Mr. Ducker raised the the notion of the cone of silence as part of the procurement process. I've asked Mr. Kaylor just to give a a brief overview of that, if you could, please.

Sure. Um, council members, the city adopted an ordinance in 2024 really putting into place the county's 2011 cone of silence ordinance. So, what uh what is it? Uh, it's been a couple years since I've looked at it. So, bear with me as I pull my note up uh because it is an important issue. Um, and it it really is a a situation that applies in a um procurement context. And and so what it is is a temporary restriction on communications about a specific city procurement. So in this case, you're talking about a procurement to potentially have services for a um in connection with the community plan. And it uh is when the city initiates a solicitation. And it starts when the city puts out its uh document, its RFP, RFQ, its bid, and when it sets the submission deadline, and that deadline passes. And so once it's in effect, the phrase cone of silence, I guess I think of those cones you put around a dog after it's had um surgery, uh it it it basically means that communications between people who are interested in getting the business with the city and the decision makers um including council members and and certain staff are are limited. They're limited to writing. They're limited to public meetings. And the purpose is transparency, fairness, so everybody knows what's going on and it's a level playing field. Uh again, writings are allowed. Uh but the goal is really just to ensure that nobody gets any special access, no special influence, no inside information so that everybody who is applying for uh that is

competing on the same playing field. Thank you for that recap, Mr. Kaylor. Mr. Prome, you're recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. I feel as though we are having to decide between two extremes here. one right away on the first day of a a brief presentation to select Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council as the consultant for one of the biggest uh implementations of projects in the city of Bokeh that we have to decide on the spot right now or going into this several month cone of silence which we don't need to right right away staff and I I would like to direct staff to bring in some other options for us for consider consideration some some other some other ideas that we might be able to consider for tackling what we need to here also this plan is this plan is a 50-year plan BOCA 2050 we we don't need to we don't need to decide anything right now we we're not in a rush here the we're on the heels of the the failure of the government campus of two years of full-time work by a huge portion of city staff millions of dollars on uh an attempt to seize public land under the under the uh underneath the citizens which failed. And we don't need to rush into anything right now. We can think about some other ideas. We we don't need to be in a cone of silence. I I mean staff can come up with some other options. Um also as I mentioned previously this this 2050 Bokeh 2050 plan this long-term plan is uh very much intertwined within the the uh reconstruction rebuilding of the government campus facilities which as I mentioned c can be done uh you know we we can begin that process now and still entertain other options other other

ideas that staff might bring forward. I don't think we need to jump into this right now. Also, I'm concerned about as in discussing um in asking some questions to Miss Delaney today, how much Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council is embedded in public private partnerships. Uh as as Miss Delaney, which we we want to steer well clear of. Uh we we we who knows we could turn around in a year from now and Treasure Coast Regional Council could be we could have another public private partnership being being presented to the citizens. They've been involved with projects where apartments, hotels, and apartments, hotels, and condos have been uh have been placed have been moved forward with P3 projects on public land and parks as evidenced with Fort Pierce. Um in Port St. Lucy. Uh they're they're they're recently involved with a project that uh was was a public private partnership putting 1,900 residential units, retail, office space, and hotels on public land. The project in Fort Pierce was putting hotels, condos, and apartments on public land and parks there. So my opinion is that we don't need to decide this today. staff can present some other options and I think we need that's the course I I think we should take.

Thank you Mr. Pearlman. Miss Grow, Miss Sipple, you all want to go? Go ahead.

I just want to say that um city staff um you have to realize that citizen trust was burned last year. So advancing this process without first consulting the public is already drawing anger from the residents and it just feels like nothing was ever learned from this controversy. I had just heard about Treasure Coast two weeks ago and I'm pretty sure that most of the people out there did not realize this presentation was even happening today. So, also I feel that residents do not want council members or city staff connected in any way to the outside planning consultant hired by a city. They want a clean arms length process with no appearance of insider influence or political entanglement. I'm okay going for an RP. That's all I have to say.

Miss civil.

I would be okay going for an outside RFP as well.

Okay. Then that is the consensus it would seem. And let me make the suggestion to the staff too. So, um, going forward, I think if we're going to be seeking consensus and ask like having a decision point at a time, let's just be very clear about that and as part of maybe the agenda review process so everybody knows at our meeting, we are going to be asking for consensus on the following so that way we're all, you know, ready to go and and if if it is the case that you're not prepared to move forward on that, that's perfectly fine, by the way. we'll know that in advance and that we'll be able to potentially push the decision maybe a couple of weeks down the line so that everybody can have uh sufficient amount of time to be prepared for a question like that which I think is a fair point. Staff, are we good on uh where we're going?

Clear. Okay. Excellent. Excellent. I think that allows us Did you have something else? No. No. Okay. So then we can move on to the downtown civic engagement task force. I believe you had turned it over to Mr. Lucas before I interrupted to go down the the tangent. Go ahead, Mr. Lucas.

All right. Thank you, Mayor. So, uh, getting a little more narrow in our focus. Um, let let's talk a little bit about the civic engagement task force. So, this council adopted a resolution at your last regular meeting uh that essentially is set the set the standard for what the task force was going to do um and what its goals and objectives were. So um this slide is essentially a restatement of uh some highlevel uh discussion within that resolution um just to refresh memories. So the the purpose of the task force was to you know lead a structured uh public outreach process focused in on the 30 acres. So um we know the we know what the process is and where geographically they're focusing their attention. um providing meaningful opportunities for residents to share input and help shape recommendations. So again, um engaged in that robust public engagement process so we can get public feedback before we make decisive decisions about the future of those 30 acres. Um focus in on key components of the downtown civic core. So identified within the resolution specifically were public and civic facilities namely city hall and community center memorial park and recreational facilities open space and public use and the connection between the civic core and the surrounding downtown area. So so how how will the publiclyowned property uh be integrated in with some of the private um private interests in the downtown area as well. Um and then lastly, the the task force has the charge of developing a final report, summarizing the community input, and providing some advisory recommendations. So um you know, making sure they're capturing, hey, this is what we heard. Um and then those re those advisory recommendations based upon um the committee, the task force's

input, and what they heard from the community. So those are the the highle goals of the task force, what they're supposed to be accomplishing. Uh so I I say that um to kind of introduce the structure of the task force that um the resolution identified. So um the resolution was specific about identifying nine members of the public uh that would serve on the task force and it just talked about and contemplated a diverse group of representation throughout the community. So based upon what we've heard, what staff has heard from the conversations that you all have had, um trying to reflect back on what was important during the conversations related to the um government campus conversations, we we identified some categories that the council when you're ultimately making selections to the task force, you know, who those members are going to be, some categories that you might want to consider. Now, it's not locked in stone, okay? Um there is flexibility. We try to build some flexibility into these suggestions. Uh but they're only suggestions. You can you can fashion it however you like. Uh but the way that uh we are recommending that you might move forward is uh in terms of the makeup of the task force is have somebody that is a resident of the civic area. So if not within the civic area close by uh non-ivic area resident. So maybe somebody who doesn't have the close proximity to the downtown as uh somebody else does. uh business and property owners uh whether it's the civic core or the downtown somebody that is an advocate of recreation and open space or community programming. So uh obviously the one of the most significant components of uh the 30 acres is the recreational component and the open space that we have. Uh but there's also some pretty significant community programming um that is going to need to go on. So we're looking at well how do we how do we preserve the singing pines building and those buildings surrounding

it. So we have some type of campus there and what does the programming ultimately look like? Okay. So we we need somebody to be helping us think through that. Uh veterans uh community representatives um obviously with the memorial memorial park uh dedication, we want to make sure that we have that representation on the task force. Uh planning design or historic preservation professional. So somebody who does have a little bit of technical ability. We don't want the task force bogged down with that technical capability, but having that B having that person there that has that experience could be really helpful for the board. Um, somebody representing community organization and nonprofit. Um, and then then lastly, some at large positions, an atlarge community member, you know, maybe an underrepresented perspective that we haven't addressed. Um, and then just a general at large community member. So the the way that we structured it, it tries to address some of the issues that we heard along the way. Uh but it provides you with a lot of flexibility in terms of how you might fill those um seats on the task force. And then lastly, within the resolution, uh it contemplates meeting at least once a month for a period of up to six months. Now, uh the council can ultimately extend that time frame if it's needed. Uh but that's the time frame that we're we're trying to work within. And and by the way, if it wasn't clear in the presentation that Kim and I gave, uh the the work on the the work with the task force really was designed to end in December or January so that we would kind of meet the target of the resolution. Um so selection process, so we're providing we're providing you with uh three options in terms of how you might move forward with the selection of the task force. We're providing you with some options based upon the conversations that we had with you all individually. So, you know, you you all have not talked about this. Um, but we we we at a staff level, we started talking to you about, well, how how do you want to go through the selection

process? What does that look like to you? Um, so there was there were some differences of opinion uh from you all individually if you could imagine. Um, so we wanted to give you a couple of options for you to consider and digest um in terms of what that selection process might look like as we're going forward. Okay. So, um, a couple couple of things just, um, some assumptions that we had in mind and some goals as it relates to timing. Um, we we anticipate that assuming that we have some consensus from the council today or tomorrow, uh, we'll release the applications for task force members this week. So, we'll use email, we use text, we use our social media channels. So, that'll go out uh, quickly. Um, now I'm sorry I don't have them available for the public, but um, I shared with all the council members individually what that application process looks like, excuse me, what that application form looks like, and it did require some thoughtfulness by the applicants uh, before they submit their name. So, it it asks a series of questions in terms of what their background is, what their interest in the civic area is, just so the council has an idea as to um, who's applying and what their interests are and what their background is and how they might help support the task force. Um we're anticipating that the task force will be selected by the end of May. Um we really want we wanted to try to complete uh orientation in late May or June, you know, so we'll have some of our standard ethics, sunshine, those types of trainings for the task force. Um but then if we're you know, this might get delayed a little bit um given that we're going to go out with an RFP. Uh but we'll get the orientation done as soon as possible, start doing some of the listening um active listening sessions uh as quickly as we can. and you know that might predate uh the uh uh the contractual relationship of the private sector consultant. So we'll we'll work around that but uh that just might happen a little bit sooner than uh

we get somebody on board. Um we're also anticipating that we're going to complete your selection process. So your selection of the task force within a single meeting. It can be stretched out a little bit longer if you want and and maybe given that we're going to go through an RFP process that's okay. Um, I'll leave that up to you. But in our in our options, we're making the assumption that we're going to do this in one meeting. Okay? Uh, and then regardless of what option you ultimately pick, you know, there there is a a pretty um uh uh there's a pretty open process here. Um, an acknowledgement of what council is thinking, who they're selecting, and who's be who's going through the process. So it's pretty open and transparent as it relates to who's applying and what council's decisions are regardless of what option you pick. Okay. So three the three options I'll start with the first option one which um is a full public interview and open selection. So essentially what this process is is that um all applicants uh regardless of how many we get, regardless of how many how much interest there is in serving on the task force, all applicants will get interviewed by the city council um at a special meeting. Um and all those selections will be made made in public. So in terms of the the process in the application will be the application period and the application process will be the same regardless of what option we pick. you know, we'll go use our electronic methodologies, we'll use the social media channels, we use email, we'll use text, we'll use all of those standard processes to try to get in interest um in the applications and get those applications out into the public. So, that'll stay the same no matter what. Um but but in terms of the next steps, you'll the city council will ultimately have, you know, the list of applicants um at that special meeting or meetings depending on your pleasure. Um the applicants will have three minutes to

present their credentials, explain to you why they're interested in serving. Um and you'll go through that process for each person that uh has expressed interest in the task force. We don't know how many that will be. Obviously, there's we've already heard interest uh in serving. So, we're anticipating maybe a heavier volume than maybe normal. Um but be that as it may, you can do that in one meeting or try to do it over two. Um the the in terms of the public deliberation and the and the selection process um all applicants obviously would need to be sitting at that special meeting whether it's one or two uh council would discuss all the candidates openly. So as you're you know kind of running through um you know some sort of short listing or however the council sitting at the dis wants to handle that that that process of discussion. you'll be discussing all those candidates openly. Um and um the the the members of the task force will be selected through some sort of nomination and voting process within that within that particular meeting. Um so that that covers the first first option which is essentially hey you receive all the applications you consider them all at one meeting and all of the uh potential candidates have uh get a chance to be interviewed. Um the second option we have is a um council workshop pre-screening and then a public finalist interview. Again, this was making an assumption that all happens in one meeting, but you can break it up. Uh but the but in terms of the overall objective, it's a way to collectively narrow the applicant pool. So as you're sitting in the in a special meeting, uh you collectively are working to try to whittle down the number of people to ultimately interview. um but doing that during a public workshop before holding those uh interviews with the with a shortlisted group of candidates. Again, the process application period will be the same as is an option one. Again, all

will be the same. Um in terms of the uh special council meeting um all of the applicants will be reviewed during that meeting. you know, there will have to be some sort of process by which you're starting to narrow down uh the number of uh candidates. So, some developing some sort of short list collaboratively. Um that obviously will be open to the public. They're going to hear that conversation and understand how you're getting to where you're going. Um the group of shortlisted candidates would then go through an interview process. So they'll have up to three minutes or however you might want to uh approach that uh to present their credentials and answer any questions that you might have and then at that meeting or again at a subsequent meeting uh the council can appoint the final selection of candidates. So so just summing up that option too, you get that narrowing process all in public. Um there's no behind-the-scenes screening. Um and the public can observe exactly how and why the candidates might advance to that short list. um still transparent uh may be more efficient than interviewing all the applicants depending upon what the deliberation is like here at the dis um all the applicants are present uh at a meeting. Um, so if you do did try to do it all in one meeting, you obviously you'll have a full uh pool of candidates sitting here. Some of them, you know, might leave after you shortlist. Um, then the others would stay and interview. Um, and uh, as I was mentioning, you know, in order for it to be uh, efficient, you know, some some discipline and some sort of good methodology at the DAS needs to really happen in order to kind of move it along. Otherwise, you can get bogged down in that conversation about the short listing pretty readily. Um then lastly the third option is allowing the uh council to have individual rankings or shortlisting um followed by the public uh finalist interviews. So in this in this scenario each council member would independently evaluate the applicants. So you would get the list of applicants and you would have the

opportunity on your own to you know develop a short list. Then that short list would be submitted by each council member to staff. um that would give you a uh consolidated short list that this body would consider at a special meeting. So again, in terms of the process, application period is the same. Uh again, council members do their own individual review and develop a short list of um candidates that they would like to see considered for the task force. Um and I had suggested, you know, maybe two candidates for each of the positions that we identified earlier on in the presentation. And so each one of those nine slots uh by those categories uh the short list would be compiled by city staff. So once you all complete your work, we would receive that information and compile the short list for you. We can publish that ahead of time so everybody knows who's on that short list. And then lastly, uh the public finalist would interview at a special council meeting. So you already have a short list. Uh you know who's we know who's going to be invited to come speak. um they'll give their presentations and you'll make a decision at that particular meeting. Oops. Sorry, I skipped forward a little too much. I'm going the wrong way. My apologies. Okay. Um and that's really it for option three. So, still gives you some transparency, but some pre-work is done by the city council before you walk into a special meeting. Um, so we're going to look for some feedback from you on that process. You don't have to do it right the second, uh, but we're going to ultimately look for some feedback from you in terms of what process you might want to move through. Not, now granted, uh, give you three options, but, you know, you can, you know, color outside the lines in each one of these things and change them as you wish. You're not obviously not locked in any of those

options. You can change them however you wish, but those are the three basic options we want to give you. I was going to ask if anybody has any questions. Does that conclude your presentation on this item? It does. Okay. I have a question and then we can turn to other uh council member questions. What by what date do you anticipate needing us to weigh in on our preference between options one through three or whatever else?

Sure. So, um it would it would be really helpful to do it now because, you know, do it today. Um but if if not um tomorrow tomorrow would be okay. Uh that would be preferable. This week would be preferable because we want to make sure that we give applicants enough time to respond. Uh we want to make sure that you know you have an understanding of who it is. We want to make sure we can publish it for the public. Um and we want to make sure that by June, you know, we can have our orientation and start that listening process. Sure, that makes sense. I'm okay with tomorrow as being the day that we would identify our preference and then give consensus and direct staff to proceed accordingly. Does anyone else have any questions before we get to that?

Mr. Thompson,

go ahead. Um, I'm curious from staff to know any ideas that have surfaced to prevent this task force from becoming comprised of members that are friends, acquaintances of current council members because we want to have a very fair selection process as you mentioned completely transparent but with people selected that don't have ties to the current council. Yeah, I think uh our intent for staff is once we um have your direction and we start accepting applicants, we will be transparent in that we will post those uh applications to a shared file for all council members to see. Um so you'll have the pool uh available, the full pool, and you'll know exactly uh who's applied and based on what you've selected, you'll have a chance to interview all of them if that's the option that you want. Um, and that way the community can see the entire list of applicants and they can be part of uh your Q&A uh with their interview process and that would be the most transparency and I think that was option one and and that would make sure that we've got you know uh full transparency. One one idea that I had looking at this is to possibly go with option three where uh the each council me member independent independently evaluates applicants and submits a short list. But as a caveat to that I would include that each each council member's list may not include individuals personally known to them. And I think that the the requirements the how to determine whether personally known to them should be first of all ethically that council member should validate that they don't personally know them. I don't and I don't think that they that this council member should have communicated with any members of their short list via text message or email in the last year.

I I'll I'll weigh in on that as a subject. I I I I've I'll respond this way. I've been in this on the city council for six years. I know a lot of members of the community. To exclude every single person that I know or that any one of us know would be excluding I don't want to say a lot of the community. Would it be a significant portion at least for the folks who pay attention to what the city's doing? I don't think that that's workable. And there's certainly no ethical prohibition on people that we personally know and have spoken to serving on a city board. And for that matter, I think I know I have to be 85 or 90% of the people that are on our city boards already. So I just I don't think that that's a workable solution, but I you know, everyone's entitled to their opinion on that. Go ahead, Mr. Rucker.

I agree 100%. That is that is just not even a possibility. I think it's just something that we appoint to all these boards and advisory boards and you want people in our community that are engaged with our community and we'll still have final say on the slate that we're going to vote and through through. So I'm sure it'll be someone that I know, maybe someone that you know, someone that Mr. Thompson knows, someone that Miss Groud knows, someone that Miss Evo knows. That's just not reasonable to run a an engagement task force where you want the community. That's you would want someone from Save Bokeh. You've been sitting here all day talking about save bokeh and their input. That would exclude you or us from including anyone that signed those petitions because you personally know them.

So, I don't think that's what you're looking for. Correct.

Um, Mr. May I respond? Sure. Yeah. Um, Miss Trucker, I I think what what's surfaced in this discussion is you've mentioned the advisory boards uh in terms of the appointments to those boards and them serving the community. I think it based on your comments and the inability to in my in my view prohibit this task force from becoming a a group of friends acquaintances of the council which I think would skew the uh integrity of the task force. I I think that we should transition this concept to a task force that is encompassed by the current advisory boards that serve the city. And we task the current advisory boards across the various disciplines that serve the city right now to take a uh to be tasked with surveying, bringing in information and presenting this to the council for us to consider. and steer the course of this forwards.

Mayor Thompson, I I appreciate that perspective. I can weigh in and have other folks weigh in. No, no, because he addressed it so much. I So, I would like the floor. You may, but if if guys, let me just make this one suggestion. The meetings are going to last a lot longer if we're just going to be talking back and forth to each other. But I understand what happens. Hold on. Hold on. If we can just move forward on the subject at hand, which is identifi and the staff has already told us we're going to have to decide right now, but we have a bunch of other things on our agenda. Please let this be maybe the last back and forth if it's okay. But Mr. Rucker, you recognize

I'll see it depends on the issue. I wasn't elected to be silenced. I was elected to speak and to have the floor. And to Mr. Palman's point, um, in terms of this task force, I believe that we already voted a resolution to create this task force. So we can't really take it back now. That's not the way that governance works. And go to our advisory boards and bring in folks from there. And I believe I know there are people out there that sit on those advisory boards that we all personally know have had relationships with might be save VOCA people and might be other people. So that that's whatever that's worth. Thank you, Mr. Trucker. Any other thoughts, Miss Growl? Miss Sipple?

I do. How about if it's just somebody that you're recommending and you've had a very close relationship with such it's a relative, somebody you've worked with for a long time, you have to disclose it. That's it.

I I I guess that's okay. We have don't normally require our advisory boards to disclose that. And I don't think the council members have ever been asked or expected to identify that that's a family member or a business associate. I that that doesn't strike me as an unreasonable request, but I I think we go go down that road, we're we're kind of losing kind of the bigger picture here, Miss Gra. Um, I would just like to see a little bit more assistance from staff if they could screen for eligibility, um, resident requirement, you know, your qualifications, any conflicts of interest, make sure the application is complete, so we don't have to go through a ton of applications.

Okay. Any additional input required from staff from us at the moment? No, not given uh not given the direction to try to come to a sol uh a decision on the options tomorrow. Yeah, I think that's correct. Yeah, we'll revisit this tomorrow night. Okay, that concludes item 1 B. We can move now to item 1 C, Memorial Park general discussion. Yeah. Yeah. So, with that, I'm I'm going to ask um public works and engineering director Zack uh Beer to come up and walk us through a couple of quick slides.

You or you're there. Sorry. Start from there. Uh Zach Beer, public works and engineering director remaining in this position. Good afternoon, mayor and city council. uh wanted to provide a brief update as we've been going through items of discussion of those certain action items that we'll be able to take action immediately on and uh just a quick brief on that. Uh staff planned some of those items and wanted to come before you uh to to share that information with you and get some feedback. So the the first one is the Meadow Park Meadows Park fountains. Uh after uh the city manager's office met with the softball um act activity group, they identified that some of the drinking fountains there are inoperable and underserved uh at that location. Staff went out and evaluated that and that is the case. It's true. Uh so with that, we're uh developing a DWQA or which is the the city's most rapid uh small dollar purchase option to be able to go out and upgrade the uh existing conne utility connections to those drinking fountains uh and replace those at the Meadows Park softball complex. Uh then the softball restroom renovations. Generally, you could also call that just the outdoor restrooms at uh the city hall campus. Uh what we're doing is called a level one enhancement. It's similar to what was done at the Bocarone Golf and Rackets or Community Center uh which is just going in and updating some of the surfaces and really making the bathrooms more usable on the short term. Uh then the singing pines buildings uh stabilization rehabilitation design um emphasizing the term design at that location because that is just the evaluation of the ADA uh access to those buildings and ensuring if those were to be open in the public, what would the scope look like as we u uh prepare those buildings to be uh reopened at a future date as part of the community input. And then the third item is the uh three tennis center concepts. Uh meeting with the community

and the local uh tennis advocacy groups and some tennis pros really identifying the opportunities to just do some enhancements at those facilities. Really a main focus we got was the hydro courts and really enhancing or upgrading those tennis courts, the possibility of just renovating the tennis center or option three being a full rebuild and potentially expansion or modernizing that uh tennis center. So focusing again on concepts for that to really be able to uh get a better understanding of what that facility would look like. Oh, and I have the clicker. So that was short-term items. Uh on the midterm, that's longer uh on the 6 to 12 month time range than the singing pines or uh building restoration. And uh really uh that goes in concert with the community input uh from staff's perspective uh and things we've heard over the last 6 months to a year. those buildings are beloved by the community and it's very likely that they're going to remain on that site. Uh so with that there's a confidence level to uh move forward with the necessary design and development of those buildings to prepare them an uh an ITB or an invitation to bid to rehabilitate uh those buildings. Then a medium-term item is planning and coordination with FPL. In a prior life, uh I did work in the uh transmission engineering field and have a good understanding of those power lines that run through Memorial Park and really just opening up a dialogue with our representative because of the sides of the city we have. Uh we have a a designated you uh utility representative that we work with. Uh I've sent them some preliminary plans and I'm working with them to just get an understanding of the scope, scale, and some of the options we have. Uh then the third item is the tennis center design. So not just concepts but hopefully that would be the option to move forward for uh the tennis center and and really uh take take an option forward to construction uh permitting and construction. Uh and then the long-term items. So that would be

the FPL power relocation. That would be actually moving forward with the relocation of the transmission facilities. And if that number uh looks high, any relocation of a major power utility like that, this isn't a local distribution to houses. Uh this is 230 kilovolts. Uh to give you an idea, when we had to do a uh street intersection and take an outage at midnight, it cost the city $100,000 for two hours. So it is something where uh transmission lines are very serious to work with uh FPL. And at the same at the same time, staff understands that's a big component of enhancing Memorial Park. Then the uh tennis center construction, those are just estimates if uh the the elements proceeded to that point. It would really be the construction activities that would take place to rehabilitate or enhance that system. And then with that part, if you have any questions about any of those items, I'd be happy to answer them.

Members, any questions? Is that a hand, Mr. Rucker? No. Uh Mr. Thompson, are we are we able to weigh in on this now in in terms of moving forward on any of this, Mr. Manager? Yes. Uh, Mr. Pearlman. Yeah, that's the intent is just to kind of provide an overview of potential options uh and get a little bit of direction from council uh as we move forward. and not necessarily today would be great, but but if you need time to take a look at this andor have staff available to give you a little bit more detail, uh we can we can dive into that detail between now and and the next workshop, for example.

Thank you. I I would like to get some RFPs right away for the uh tennis center construction uh some proposals for for a full scope right here and also for a full rehabilitation to reopen the uh Singing Pines Children's Museum. I appreciate that, Mr. Pearlman. I This is the first I've seen these numbers. I'm going to have to digest them and we can come have this discussion again once we've had a chance to to review and and consider this, talk to staff about it. Uh that would be my preference or I'm not at a point where we're going to be moving forward immediately on an RFP. Go ahead, Mr. Trucker.

Thank you, Mayor Thompson. Agreed. Uh there is a lot of moving parts that we're still waiting on. I'm not inclined to just RFP all over town on projects that we have no cost. We're trying to find the lowhanging fruits that we can help implement. We've had outreach from the softball community. We've had outreach from various parts of the community on certain things that we want to get done that are very like from the tennis community. Miss Marorrow has come in here and said this is broken. This is not broken. And we want to try to fix some of this called lowhanging fruit. As a body, I can speak for myself as a fiscally responsible body member. I want to see what the property dis taxes discussion yields. Um that's coming up at the end of May for the Florida legislature. They're they're meeting tomorrow on redistricting. But the following week, property tax discussion continues. So I'm not committing to making any commitments on anything until we have had evaluations making sure they are fiscally responsible and that they're strategically aligned with our entire quality of life. But I am inclined to review these numbers overnight or whenever we need to give direction to see what are the lowhanging fruits that we could start working on to improve some of the conditions whether it's at the softball fields whether it's a tennis center whether it's at the police station whether it's in the bathrooms any etc etc so that's how I view this chart

very good do you have any comments um I just want a little bit of clarity I really thought that we were going to be doing a plan for the whole park and before we making any of these decisions and that's why we were getting an RFP. I want this this done too. I mean I I play tennis here. This is one of my, you know, favorite places to play and I want it done yesterday. But I think we need to have a comprehensive plan before we make this decision. Yes, I think that's right. Miss Cibil, go ahead.

I have the same concerns as Miss Gra. There's no point in starting anything until we actually have a master plan and know what we're doing. Locations may change. We have no idea. Yeah, Mr. Mipple, I agree with that sentiment. Uh I think the point today was just to give an overview on what the staff has on its radar for what can be done then. It wasn't to it wasn't to give them the green light or one or any of them. Although I will say that the improvements on the softball, the the the lowest of the lowhanging fruit on the softball fields I think is something we could probably tell them to start moving on. Like the bathrooms for example, um I think that makes sense. And the water fountains at Meadows, I think that's a if those weren't working, I think it's probably a good idea to get those up and up and running. Uh apart from that, I don't think I agree with you that this is a more it requires a more comprehensive plan to uh to be able to decide on that. Mr. Zervvis, go ahead,

mayor and council members. um totally appreciate um your thought process around around this item. The one thing that I would encourage you to consider allowing staff to move forward on is the FPL power relocation. That process can take a long time. And what we're talking about is just planning and working with FPL to potentially relocate those power lines to go parallel with Palmetto and bring them out of the center of Memorial Park, which would free up that space to be used for a variety of purposes which could be determined at a later date. But at least that allows us to get the get the ball rolling with FPL because a lot of that is out of our direct control. Thank you, Mr. Zer. Could we go back in the slide to the planning portion of that? Yes, sir.

Okay. Uh I I agree with Mr. Zervvis in that case that that because this is a long-term project potentially undertaking at this point the beginning planning stages of of at least analyzing whether they can be moved and at what cost and and to where I guess I think is it under is a worthwhile I think undertaking at the moment. Do we have consensus on that consistent with what Mr. Zervvis mentioned? Yes. Very good. All right. Very well. Very good. Do you have your direction on that? I do, Mayor. Go ahead, Miss Grow.

I see stinging pines. I would see that that may be something that we could do right away because it doesn't have to be moved. It's going to stay in its existing footprint.

Yeah. Uh so council member GR if I may really quick uh that was one of the options that I wanted to bring up for discussion because to share with you the tools uh at staff's disposal we have our continuing services architectural and engineering contracts under the uh uh consultants competitive negotiation act that allows staff to do a study up to $500,000 and then construction activities up to $7.5 million. So in those instances, if it was something that the council was interested in staff developing a work order to just get planning information, for example, a layout of the buildings, what that would look like, that is something that we could that staff could move forward on to inform the public because I think one of the elements staff is trying to think through is how do we get as much information to council as possible to inform this public discussion to where we don't go six months in and then the public is asking, well, what should we do? And then we So that that's where staff's head's at. We wanted to present those ideas to be able to share. We have the option to both come up with some planning level items and we could also move forward if there was a consensus on more design level which is which is more costly but more design level activities.

Mr. Thompson may Yes, Mr. recognized. Uh thank you Miss Grow. I think I think that's a great idea to uh direct staff to begin to gain information about what it would take to rehabilitate the buildings to reopen that facility for use and to to gain some options for that. Miss Sipple, do we not have a contract with the company that's already coming out to check that the buildings out, the structure, the electricity, the HVAC, all of that? Yes, we do. This is a little more planning oriented. Do you want to comment on that, Mr. Zir? What the scope of work entails?

Absolutely. So, I'd be happy to share with that. The inspection is just the what we had talked about which is specific to those existing buildings. But there was a time uh a few years ago when uh some of the other elements of bigger decisions happened on the campus some to to give you some history about that where staff had evaluating adding ADA ramps and really doing some modernization elements that were necessary for the planning and and other components of what that might look like. So there's a combination of just maintaining the existing buildings and then this really would be developing concepts to modernize the facility and work with recreation services to determine their needs to program it in a kind of a modern way.

So when they had the water leak, why did we just close the door and let it sit?

Yeah, appreciate that question. So the the uh honest comment about that is there was a time when the building was going to be relocated. So during that time, the contractor that was going to relocate the building was also the contractor that was going to complete the fix. And then there was a decision made to not relocate it. So it remained in place. And then there was another uh determination the possibility of relocating as part of the other full campus master plan redevelopment. And the short answer is we have hit a point where there has been many suggestions about the building, but not uh clear direction as to uh to that point. But that that's that gets us to the modern or our current standing where we're looking for an opportunity to evaluate it and then rehabilitate that facility.

So it's going to cost us probably triple the amount now than it probably would have if we had just taken care of it at that time. That's just my opinion. Thank you, Mayor Thompson. Mr.

Thank you. So just to give a little a little of a background. So the singing pines um five years before co right before covid it was given to Florence Fuller to run as the children's museum and it was under the umbrella of Florence Fuller as a separate entity as a nonprofit and it was very costly at that point I was vice president treasure of the children's museum and I was on the Florence Fuller board that's before I wasn't elected and we would do fundraisers we would do so many things to be able to push this forward and to have this museum and with an olding aging building, you know, nonprofits were funded in that in that time. I'm wearing when I was on on the board, it was very hard to keep the doors open. Right around the time that we gave the museum back to the city because the city had entrusted Florence Fuller and then the children's museum to run, it was 2019 and right around that time and COVID happened. So, a lot of things just just closed. uh and it's expensive to keep the museum open. And some of the challenges that we had as a nonprofit was really staffing the museum. We would bring in volunteers to to have cost-effective, you know, because we had a very small budget and you could look it up, children's museum and having just people go there and also the ages of the museum, right? So the museum was really intended for children, you know, up to age eight. So again, having the amount of people coming through the museum and supporting the museum was always a challenge. So, as we move through this process and we'll turn to city to the city and just as you we've had these conversations years in and years out is how are we going to make that place efficient for a lot of folks to come through just knowing what you're saying modernizing was it not ADA compliant bathrooms were not great then we had the termites I mean it was a plethora with this aging uh building so I also want to see the costs on staffing and running a museum because that was in the business of the council why we gave it to this nonprofit who couldn't do it

as well. Uh and probably why we don't run the Boca RTO Museum or the historical society museum. Uh so um again, there's a lot that goes on in running a museum, especially a historic building of that sort for whatever that's worth. That's kind of the history on that. Mr. permanent.

Yeah. One thing I'd like to ask staff is that when when we begin to look at this, I' I'd like staff to investigate in in conjunction with reopening the museum to to have an area for a children's garden. Uh I have two young children, a three-year-old and a 5-year-old. We we often go to various children's gardens. There's one in Delray Beach um that's well known. I there's a on on the property uh and there's a the northern portion of of the property has a many trees. There's a very large shaded area that could serve potentially as an outdoor children's garden in conjunction with the museum. So, as we're investigating this, can you please ask the companies or whoever you're speaking with to make possible suggestions for that? Thank you. Any other comments relating to the memorial park general discussion item 1 C? Seeing none, I believe we have the consensus or the direction in so far as it was uh that you all needed. That's great. We can move on to item 1D, softball fields update. Mr. Manager,

thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, Deputy City Manager Lucas will cover this. Thank you, Mr. Sahini. Now I'll quickly turn it back over to uh Mr. Greg Stevens, our director of recreation services.

Good afternoon, Mayor Council. Greg Stevens, recreation services director. Uh so just kind of following up on Mr. Beer's, you know, agenda looking at Memorial Park. We wanted to come back to you with just some of the softball items that we've been looking at. So, city administration, recreation services staff, the beach and park district, we've all been meeting with the parents and we'll we'll also be meeting uh very soon with the softball league to talk about some various improvement ideas to kind of gauge the interest and and to see um how they would like to work with us on a priority list of of several amenities. So, one of the first things we're looking at is the options to redeploy existing athletic facilities. Basically going back through and looking at all the scheduling that we have in place right now. Um you know, there's a lot of different groups that we serve. There's a lot of different factors that go into who uses which fields. Um, and I've had a great meeting last week with some very, very educated softball parents. That was a very pleasant meeting to see that they understood very well the impacts though that this is not just a simple equation of we've got empty field sitting somewhere else we could just move or we can just flip-flop one item without creating an issue where we're giving something to one group but taking away from another. So, we're going to do a deep dive into looking at how everything is scheduled, where our amenities are, and how they're being used to see if we can better allocate them. Uh, we're also looking at lighting upgrades uh here at both Memorial and Meadows for uh not just the fields, but the locations of bullpens. We have bullpens on the sides of the fields, but uh there's some tree issues with those bullpens. Um also, the way they're laid out, we've had some suggestions for again from the parents of some amenities that we can some different changes we can make there. Also, batting cages for Memorial and Meadows Park. We talked about short-term versus long-term. Is there a way of looking at some kind of portable cages or something that we can put in as we look at long-term fixes? Uh we've talked with them about the possibility of a restroom trailer. The one issue with the outdoor restroom at Memorial Park especially is that over years that restroom has been renovated many times and in renovations with ADA requirements, we've gone from multiple

fixtures down to one fixture. So basically that restroom has one toilet in there. And the community center is actually there also where if that restroom is not being used, the community center generally is open for for use there. But the community center is not always open uh late on Saturdays and on Sundays. So again, a restroom trailer. We're looking at um what the effectiveness of that would be for for the youth use by the youth softball. We've also been looking at the restroom trailers. We have a number of restrooms uh at Spanish River Park and around the city that are in need of renovation. We rent these uh portable restrooms every time that we go in and do a major restroom renovation. So, is it cheaper for us to rent one versus buying one? So, again, something that we're looking at there. Uh, as we mentioned, the existing rush uh restroom for the outdoor facility. Um, we're looking at both of our scheduling, athletic staff, park rangers, and whatnot on opening and closing the restrooms um more based on the the softball and community center schedules maybe versus keeping the outdoor restrooms open all the time. Uh, tree trimming and landscaping infill. basically all of the Memorial Park campus. We're looking at, you know, refreshing the entire campus. Again, uh long and tooth in a lot of areas. A lot of things have been on hold. So, we're going to start tree trimming, uh pressure washing, cleaning up, landscaping, some general things there to to give everything a bit of a facelift. Uh we've also been asked from the parents to look at the installation of a second bleacher and shade structure at the Memorial Park Southfield. Uh years ago, before that was a parking lot. there was a shade structure or at least a bleacher on either side of the field because of the parking lot that was installed on the south side. That bleacher does doesn't fit. We're going to see if there's anything we can do to fit it or if not put an additional bleacher on the other side of the field. Uh the Meadows Park water fountain was also mentioned and again we talk about directed patrols. Again, that's looking at typically in the city parks, Meadows, um Memorial, Woodlands, Sandpine, we have roving staff in the evening. Um, but we are looking at having more dedicated staff at Memorial and or Meadows to have athletic staff there to

respond to anything that's needed as well as park rangers uh to help with additional security. So, those are several things that we're in the process of now. It's been just a couple weeks that we're working with the league and the parents. Um, but we're happy to work towards any improvements that we can make as quickly as possible.

Thanks, Mr. Stevens. And the other thing I want to add, uh, Mr. mayor and council is so big picture here. Softball season is coming to an end. Uh I've got a lot of uh information requests from council members. Uh we're putting that data together and I would ask council if you have more data that you would like um get that to me as soon as possible because what we're trying to do is take your data and requests and present to you back in in two workshops at May uh 26th kind of where we are with the improvements. And this is kind of quality uh oriented this presentation but quantity was also in the discussion in terms of you know the number of softball fields and where they uh the girls can play. So the goal is to work with beach and parks district. I I've been working with them closely and we've kind of collectively are coming together to put all this data together by May 20th and then present that to you uh at that workshop as well as patient park needs to present that potential short-term solutions in terms of not only quality but quantity and equity um at the end of May and then get your direction at the end of May on potential long-term solutions as we go forward as well.

Thank you, Mr. So, any questions for staff on this? Let me just say I I appreciate very much, Mr. Sohaney, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Beer, how quickly you all have jumped on this and uh worked to address these issues and some are short-term, but others are maybe more medium or long-term, but I'm glad that we're having this discussion and making movement in the right direction. So, thank you all. I believe that concludes item 1D. So, we can move on to item 1E, the save book citizens petitions. Mr. Manager, who will make the presentation on this item? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Our city attorney will make the presentation.

Thank you, mayor, council, members of the public. Uh before we uh pull up the presentation, I was asked by uh multiple members of the council independently to just give a a brief explanation uh to the public about how what the process is under the law for ordinance adoption. um sometimes spend a lot of time with this. In my career, it becomes second nature to me, but I understand a lot of people encounter their government and they don't know these things intuitively um because they're not working with them daily. Um so I will try to be quick. I know it's been a lot of presentations today. Uh I don't have as many images or exciting uh you know graphics, but I I'll just give you the facts. So how an ordinance becomes a law and let's see if I can work this. So, what's an ordinance? It's a law passed by the council. It's used for major policy decisions, and there's a a legally required process before it becomes effective. Um, it's not that complicated really. There's a a step-by-step process. Um, and and most importantly, the city doesn't have discretion just to skip it or shorten it. Um, so every ordinance has to go through what's called an introduction or first reading. Uh then there is a public notice process and that typically involves what I'll call a waiting period of 10 days. Uh then you have a second reading and the second reading and this last one I probably should emerge them. It's the final vote adoption. Sometimes council wants to get more information. There might be more policy discussion. They'll continue it to another meeting. So it may not actually occur and then they'll say we'll we'll we'll consider this at the next meeting. But that's the basic process. So in simple terms, you can't adopt an ordinance the same day it's introduced. Uh you have to have two separate meetings. U you have to wait 10

days before final adoption and the public has to get uh advanced notice. Uh not to bore everyone with the statutes and and the law, but it's it comes from Florida state statute. That's where it says two separate uh days for the readings, 10 days notice before adoption. And then also the city charter uh 3.12 it mirrors uh state law and and it ba basically applies the same requirements locally in in our charter. Um so the city has to follow both. We have to follow state law and the city charter and there's this additional rule with workshops um in our rules of procedure that no final action can be taken at a workshop. Um so as a result an ordinance can't be adopted at a workshop. So that's the the big picture overview of how an ordinance becomes a law. Again, you have an introduction, first reading. Some governments do it differently. Some some governments will have a public hearing and and public discussion on the first reading. I know that's how it was with the city of West Palm Beach when I worked there. Boca Raton does have a rule specific to the city that says that for introduction there is no and you'll see it in the agendas there's no public discussion. Um my understanding is that was a a rule imposed by the council uh years ago to again give more notice to the public and and allow more of a heads up to the community before a full-fledged debate would occur. um this 10 days public notice and then you have the second reading and final adoption there are some other exceptions emergency ordinances I don't think I need to talk about that states of emergency there special rules and then some land use and zoning ordinances require two public hearings so in that case you would have introduction at one meeting public hearing number one and then public

hearing number two sounds like a lot it is a process We do have our meetings every two weeks. So it, you know, sometimes it can be uh a little uh it can it can draw things out, but that that is the law. So and the reason why in in connection with the save BOCA ordinance that I'd like to present on next is just to give an idea. So from a timing today, we're on the 27th. Um I I plan to uh go over some of the materials in tomorrow's uh um agenda. Um and uh you would have a first reading or introduction of the ordinance and then on the 11th you would have another workshop discussion and then on the 12th you could have a second reading and adoption u potentially second reading and more discussion. Uh it would really depend on what this how this body um uh directs. So, uh, if we could pull up the second and I guess before I do on the, uh, second, are there any sort of general questions from council on that big picture overview? Okay, great. Um, so if we could pull up the second one, this is the save Bokeh citizen petitions. uh the there are agenda materials that are both from the workshop uh on the 13th and discussion on the 14th and then there are materials in the agenda for tomorrow the 28th online. Um uh there are three items uh there is the uh ordinance 5783 which is the proposed charter amendment. Ordinance 5784, which is the save BOCA ordinance. And then there's resolution 352026, which I'm calling the ballot resolution. That's uh providing for submission to

the voters. And the charter amendment because it's not an action that is adopted by the council, can only be adopted by the people. Um that would be it's an exhibit to the ballot resolution. Uh, I think many people are familiar with the underlying rule uh fundamentally requiring voter approval before the city may alienate, sell or lease city- owned land greater than a half acre. And what I'll present briefly are some limited clarifying exceptions to enable the city to function efficiently. um that these exceptions that are in the agenda are the product of cooperation and coordination with the with the petitioners committees as uh represented by the chair of the petitioners committees. Uh the city attorney's office worked closely um to to uh really uh based on the discussion of the the city council um at its workshop on the 13th uh and the 14th and to come up again use the same phrase limited clarifying exceptions to uh enable the city to function efficient efficiently while still being consistent with and furthering the purpose and intent of the initiative petitions. I apologize for this small text again online uh on this it is all available online and this is using the charter amendment uh uh example the ordinance is identical it it it's it's two uh levels to a hierarchy as as many of you know an ordinance is is a ordinance of the council it can be amended by the council but a charter amendment is again with the the voters of the city of Boca Raton and it's sort of like our our constitution as a city. Um so the modific let me back up and again I

hopefully the TV folks can can zoom in on this in some some regard. This is in in the backup uh of the agenda that's available to the public, but it a sub a would state the rule and then subb would lay out in one through four uh those limited clarifying exceptions. Oh, thank you. Um well, okay, that's not going to work. I apologize. Thank you for trying. Um so the the first uh exception there was discussion by the council about nonprofit organizations and so the idea was to uh not require a referendum of the of the citizens uh if it was involving the continuation renewal extension or amendment of current existing leases of city-owned land with nonprofit organizations. Uh the second were was there was discussion uh quite a bit about uh easements for utilities and and specifically utilities that serve the residents of the city or Palm Beach County um and including placement of utilities and rights of way. Sometimes uh utilities are in fee owned land that we own the land and sometimes it's in this portion of an area called a right of way. It's a a distinction, but the idea is again if it's a a utility that serves the residents of the city, um this council would be considering whether that would be an exception from from the general rule. Again, discussed in coordination with the petitioners committee. Um, the third was just to make clear that things like use of city-owned land by the city for its own public facilities and operations. The intent is not to require a referendum if uh uh the police chief has uh the police chief's office and uh

no one's allowed to walk into the police chief's office. That's a probably not a great example, but there are a series of examples of city facilities where the public doesn't have, you know, free free access to and that's by design util uh, you know, our utility plant, things of that nature. And and so it's really just affirming that that's not intended to be captured uh by the scope. And then this last one four is um it's a little bit artful, but what it's trying to capture and it says the temporary use the temporary use of city-owned land by others for recreational or community activities where the city keeps possession and control of the land and does not give anyone the right to take over or control the land on an ongoing or long-term basis. I will tell you there are lawyers love words. We all use words. There are many ways to sort of get at this concept, but this was just an attempt to uh put in a a simple simplified way the concept that there are certain types of uses of greater than a half acre. Uh a community festival, a use of a field that are common, those are just the ordinary usage of of of city land. Nobody is taking control of those. You may have a festival of the arts might use a uh app a plause or part of the road for part of the day through a special event permit. But u again the concept was that the intent behind the citizens positions was not to compel a a a forced vote for those types of uh routine activities. And so the the best way that uh was thought to describe those was again temporary use where the city keeps possession and control and doesn't give anyone the right to sort of take over or control the land on an ongoing or long-term basis. You'll notice that under sub A there was

a uh language that had said or any part thereof. Uh and so the the the real thrust of that uh that phrase was really articulated more expansively in subsection C um which was to really emphasize you don't get to play cute to work around the rule. You don't get to divide uh 049 and 3 and and and and this is a straightforward rule and you have to abide by it. if if there's going to be a alienation sale lease of public land and it's more than a half acre, there's no workaround. And so, um, C was an attempt to put some more words as to what or any part thereof meant. And then lastly, this is probably mostly for the lawyers. Um, well, it's really for everybody. There there was uh of course uh some discussion and a court uh ruling in part in connection with um uh a temporary injunction sought by um a lawsuit initiated by a private resident. Um that lawsuit has has been dismissed and is no longer in effect. However, we wanted to be mindful of some of the things that the uh court had mentioned. Um there are a ser we could go on about that that discussion but primarily what the concern was is that somehow this would be a means of restricting how the charter itself is amended and that's what the court's opinion was about. And so really to make clear that this is solely about the sale lease alienation of city-owned land. this is not a provision about how to amend the charter itself. And so a lot of times it's helpful for courts if um if the people in this case through their

charter uh and the council through its ordinance um give a little explanation uh courts tend to appreciate that. Um and so this is a way to address that issue. There are uh a couple of requested proposed modifications for discussion by both deputy mayor Growl and Council Member Pearlman and I have been asked to quickly present those. Uh again, today is a discussion. Tomorrow is an introduction. There will be another two weeks uh uh between the next agenda where we'll have another workshop and then a potential public hearing and adoption. Um council member Pearlman again had asked for some updates to the recital. uh and some uh you know potential modifications to the 15word ballot title and the 75word ballot summary. Um and I had looked at those and I had felt they were pretty straightforward. So I'm prepared to go over those. But I also want to go to Deputy Mayor Grow's um uh request. And again, because we are a Sunshine body, uh this is the vehicle by which I'm able to really communicate all these and have a discussion as a body is in public. Um and and so the requests were that uh to have some clarifying language as to what an amendment was for purposes of of the nonprofit exception and also to clarify you know current existing and lastly um you know just some additional belts and suspenders with regarding the halfacre determination uh in terms of contiguous parcels. So to look at that uh the existing clause for nonprofits read as follows and and again deputy mayor Growl had asked me to present this on her

behalf. Um but uh there was two parts to this was one giving the language is clear current existing leases right that everyone knows what current existing is and and so the question is is there some value and and I think there may be into making crystal clear what current existing leases mean. It would not be feasible to attach a list of all your leases as part of your charter. That's that's not what a constitution is. Uh so one thought was to say which leases are in existence on on the effective date of this section. This might just be lawyering, but I know I have heard some concern that we're wanting to be very mindful to not create any type of Trojan horse or Achilles heel where some clever person 20 years from now gets to exploit a loophole that's not the intent of this council and and of the citizens. Um so that was one comment there. Um and then the second one had to do with the amendment. Um of course if you got a renewal or an extension we think in just in terms of time but there was a a request that this council consider um that this proviso be added provided that such actions do not add new land to the lease that's greater than 1/2 acre. So again the rule is triggered to trigger the rule it has to be greater than 1/2 acre. What this council is discussing is uh creating exemption for existing current leases and then so the question is if if there were some boundary modification we don't want to create or the discussion was not to create a wholesale you got to just take expand by acreage and acreage and so this was really a way to restate the the same rule that an amendment uh you know really what thinking of is going to be,

you know, minor minor modifications potentially to to a site, but not something that would be a wholesale uh that would trigger that should trigger the referendum. Um, and so that was uh that language. Um the and then lastly, Deputy Mayor Growl had proposed uh I would call this belts and suspenders for the uh the no workaround language, the no uh avoidance language. um was to make clear not just may not land may not be divided um but you can't also take parcels that are.3 acres.3 acres.3 acres I don't know that that exists in the city but we I this office hasn't done a a survey of all the city land maybe the manager's office can do that but to the extent you would have contiguous parcels of city-owned land you would you wouldn't want to allow.3 and.3 those are effectively 6 uh and so that wouldn't make sense um uh as a workaround u so deputy mayor grow I hope I did a good job of presenting uh your requested uh um you know amendments for your colleagues to consider these this language all made sense to me of course again this has been a collaborative and cooperative process with the petitioners committee and I you know I would would hope to continue those discussions Um, Mr. Pearlman, if I may, I I hadn't done a very detailed, but I just wanted to give an an overview to uh your colleagues and and council just the recital that uh that had you had mentioned and asked that I uh you know go over really just some additional procedural background when these things were I stick it back when the uh citizen

petitions were uh certified. Um a and uh affirming that there has been this cooperation and coordination between the city and the petitioners that we that these uh uh enhanced um uh matters are furthering the purpose and intent of the citizen petitions. But also on this language that uh that was deemed withdrawn is probably the lawyer in me was eager to close the uh procedural loop so we didn't have two open uh uh items. the petitioners committee asked that that language be removed really so that the petitions are not prematurely concluded before a vote actually occurs knowing that through this long process there are twists and turns in the road and so uh to me I thought that was a a very reasonable revisions to the recital um I I'll I'll be able to distribute these I'm not going to try to read through these right now but there's the procedural language uh the language about the parties working together and and sort of a a finding that um you know this is a is an orderly and thoughtful process and I I would plan to circulate this as part to the public and the council as part of a revised uh introduction package tomorrow and and then lastly Mr. Pearlman with with with your permission on the on the um on the ballot language. Uh again, there's no exact science to this other than it has to be 15 words max in the title and 75 words in in in the in the body. We're well within that current framework. But my understanding from the petitioners committee was just that there'd be more emphasis on what this ordinance and charter actually does as opposed to what it doesn't do. And so, uh, for that reason, there was some discussion to have first of all in the

in the title itself, the halfacre, so that that's just, you know, clear. It's repeated in the title. Sometimes people may just glance at the title. and then to uh reaffirm you know what the action is amending the charter creating a new section protection of cityowned lands and and then the rest of this was just sort of to save words and and clean up. So again, uh, as the city attorney, um, working with the committee committees and following the council's direction from, uh, its last two meetings, what you have in the package was a product of that. As the result of that to jointly advance these measures and, um, you know, these items that have been presented to, uh, in my opinion, continue to further the council's direction. Thank you, Mr. Kaylor. Uh members, any questions? I had one. It relates to the petitions being withdrawn or deemed withdrawn if the if that provision in the recital is no longer going to be part of the ordinance, what is happening to the the petitions like what how is the city treating the petitioners committees and the petting petitions and the like? Well, legally you have valid certified petitions. Um those matters are before this body and you have the advantage that the petitioners committee is is likewise a member of of this council. Um and so they are effectively held in obeyance. there's no uh compulsion to proceed under those this process this um uh what what is effectively it is the save book ordinance save BOA charter amendment this council is advancing those as as a

means to advance those petitions and so the idea is if if this council and the public are able to arrive at a finish line that that would uh then achieve the the same result u I I hope that answers your question. I can we'll probably just have I can have a discussion with you separately. Any other questions? M Miss M.

Um yes. I don't recall um Joshua when we talked about the temporary use and not using a definition there. I don't remember what you had you had said. U sure. I guess if we could just put it up so the public can uh you are talking about item four. uh Deputy Mayor Growl um which reads the temporary use of city-owned land by others for recreational or community activities where the city keeps possession um and control of the land and does not give anyone the right to take over control of the land on an ongoing or long-term basis. Um so uh yes you and I had talked about uh whether words like temporary or long-term basis were those you know too open-ended should we have uh definitions um to be more clear and uh is that too vague and and so could someone somehow argue that a long-term arrangement is temporary um and I think those are certainly legitimate thoughts but my recommendation was not to define it or expand it more because I believe really with four you've defined it functionally already a temporary use here is not standing alone it's working together with possession and control and taking control over which are sort of together defining the boundaries so where the city keeps possession and control and doesn't give anyone the right to take over control on an ongoing or long-term basis. So, so temporary, it really is not defined by time so much as control, duration of rights, who controls the land, is it exclusive, is it long-term? And I believe that this

language gives uh gives those all the guidance that a court would need and and this council would want want to provide. Any other questions? Miss um on section 7.11 three the use of city-owned land by the city for public facilities or operations. I understand the premise of that but would that include future facilities?

It it would yes it would. It does not unlike the sub one which is uh targeted towards current existing. Um three is if the city were to build a police station, a new police station in the years to come or a new fire station that that would be the use of city-owned land by the city for public facilities or operations. So So it wouldn't be limited only to those in effect today. So the city could technically take a park and put a fire station on it.

So there are other there are other rules in effect. Um there are other protections for parklands that have been adopted. Whether the city could take a park and put a fire station on it, I don't know the answer to that question. I probably want to research that, talk about it with staff. I again instinctually with your comprehensive plan, your zoning code, your your your current plans that staff follows, that is that I don't believe that is uh a likelihood, but I I want to take the question seriously and and make sure either I or staff gets you and the council an answer. Thank you.

Any additional questions? If not, thank you Mr. Kaylor, Mr. Sohaney for our robust proclamation segment of our agenda today. It moves on to the board interviews. We had much discussion about board interviews and the process for conducting them, but mercifully we have no such interviews today. We can move then to item three, future agenda matters and items of council public concern. Item 3A is our fiscal year 2024 2025 annual comprehensive financial report. Mr. Soy, who will be doing the presentation on this matter? Mr. Thompson, may I make a motion to recess for five minutes?

You want to take a five-minute break? That's a great idea. Every any objection to that? I didn't think so. Let's do it. Get it down. Hey, hey, hey.

Back down. Hey. d Heat. Hey, Heat. Hey, hey, hey.

Daddy. down. Hey Hey. Hey. Hey.

Heat. Hey, Heat. down. Hey everyone for indulging us on that slightly longer than five minute break. But we are now at item three on our agenda, future agenda matters

items of public concern. 3A is the fiscal year 2024 2025 annual comprehensive financial report. Mr. Shane, who will be making the presentation on this item? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Deputy city manager, Mr. Jervis will make the presentation. Yes, mayor and members of the council. Caricia Jenkins, the deputy chief financial officer, is going to present uh the audited financial statements.

Okay. Good afternoon, mayor and council members. My name is Carlica Jenkins. I'm the deputy CFO. I'm here to present the annual comprehensive financial presentation for the fiscal year ended September 30th, 2025. The annual comprehensive financial report's role is to assist in making economic, social, and political decisions and to assist in assessing accountability to the residents by determining financial performance, comparing actual information to budget, assessing financial condition, assisting in compliance, and evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of city operations. Our ACFR cover this year acknowledges the city's centennial year with a public art installation or public art installations designed to enrich shared spaces, spark connection, and reflect the community's identity. This is a display of three of the installations that happened last year. We prepare the ACFR according to the generally accepted government accounting standards. Considerable effort is made in preparing the ACFR which is then submitted for review to the Government Finance Officers Association also known as GFOA. We received the certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting for our 2024 ACFR. We are very proud that this is the 44th consecutive year that we've received this certificate. There are three main sections in the ACFR. the introductory section, the financial section, and the statistical section. You will also find a copy of our independent auditor's report within the financial report. We are pleased to have received a clean or unmodified opinion on our financial statements. We have with us Moza and Hermes Garzone from CBS

CPAs who will make a presentation to you about the audit after my presentation. On page eight of the MDNA section, you'll see highlights of the city's net position, showing that we ended the fiscal year with over $ 1.5 billion in total assets, of which $739 million was in capital assets. We ended the year with approximately $48 million in liabilities. That included approximately 41 million in bonds payable and 258 million in net pension liability. The city ended the year with the net position of $1.16 billion, of which $261 million was unrestricted. The city the city's overall net position increased from fiscal year 2024 by 72.4 million. Page nine of the MDNA summarizes the changes in net position. You'll see here governmental activities and business type activities. Governmental activities include services like public safety, parks and recreation, and general government. Business type activities include the water and sewer fund and various non- major enterprise activities. Page 10 of the MDNA shows a chart of the governmental activities revenue by source. There you'll see that the city collected roughly $132.4 million in property taxes and approximately $89 million in other taxes. 7.84% and 3.14% higher than the prior year respectively. Page 10 of the MDNA also summarizes the city city's governmental activity expenses by function for fiscal year 22 2025 compared to fiscal year 2024. The overall decrease in total expenses is

due to reductions in pension expense which reduced personnel related costs across several departments including law enforcement, fire rescue and transportation. Transportation also had a significant reduction in capital outlay from the completion of prior year projects. Just as a note, the pension expenses for governmental activities are recorded using the full acral method or the same type as the enterprise funds. For a true picture of expenditures by program for governmental funds using modified acral, there is a chart on page 14 that shows an overall increase in all programs including law enforcement and fire rescue. Page 11 of the MDNA shows a comparison of all business type activities revenues by source. We've included the next few slides to show the revenue expenses and unrestricted net position of the business type activities by activity. Water sewer, our only major business type fund, had a slight decrease in revenue, slight increase in expenses, and a slight decrease in unrestricted net position. Our sanitation fund had a slight increase in revenues and expenses and a slight increase in unrestricted net position. Our storm waterers revenue decreased, the expenses decreased, and we had a decrease in unrestricted net position. The cemetery had a slight increase in revenues and expenses and a positive unrestricted net position this year. The next section is our basic financial statements. There you will find the governmentwide statements, the governmental statements, proprietary statements which includes the enterprise

funds and internal service funds and our fidiciary statements. The governmentwide financial statements reflect the city's position using full acrruel similar to what is used in private business. The governmental financial statements show balances and activities in our major funds and summarizes our non- major funds. They are included in the governmental activities column of the governmentwide financials. The financials for the proprietary funds are on pages 28 through 32. The enterprise funds are included in the business activities column of the governmentwide financials while the internal services funds so named because they provide services to our internal departments are included in the governmental activities column of the governmentwide financials. We also include a copy of the financial statements for our pension trust funds on pages 33 and 34. They are fiduciary funds and that we act as trustee for these funds. They are not included in the governmentwide financials. Pages 24 and 27 shows a reconciliation between the governmental funds and the governmental activities as shown on the governmentwide financial statements. Behind the basic financial statements is the required supplemental information which includes information about our pension plans, our oped liability, and our budget to actual reports. Beginning on print page 131, you will find the budget and actual report for general fund. Overall, we collected more revenues than the budget amounts by $1.2 million. Majority of excess revenues are related to our charges for services. Beginning on the bottom of printed page 131, you will find the budget and actual report for expenditures for general fund. Overall, we spent less than the budgeted amounts by about half a million dollars. I just want to point out here

that the public safety negative variance shown is due to a difference between budgeting on a cash basis and actual accounting on modified acrruel basis. Specifically, there was a five-year $14.3 million Axon contract that was awarded for the police department. This multi-year agreement was properly budgeted for the first year of the agreement, but for accounting purposes, the entire 5-year contract amount is expended in the first year resulting in that negative variance. This slide here provides information related to our general funds fund balance. Beginning on printed page 183 in the statistical section, you'll find the fund balance history for the general fund for the last 10 years. This year, the fund balance ended at about 96.36 million. The unassigned fund balance is about 26.89% when compared to the budgeted expenditures for fiscal year 2026, which was about $256 million. Behind the basic financial statements are combining and individual fund statements that are included but are not major activities of the government. These statements could be found on ACFR pages 138 to 175. Last but not least, we have the statistical section which could be found on pages 176 to 205. Finally, I'd like to acknowledge our core financial services team listed here that assisted in the preparation of this year's ACFR. This concludes my presentation and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Miss Jenkins. Members, do we have any questions? Mr. Jervis, did you have something to add? Mayor, I'd just like to point out that this report, the CRA financial report, the investment report you're about to hear, all of this and the popular financial report were all heard and presented to the financial advisory board one week ago. So last Monday, they received similar reports. Okay, very good. Our next item is the auditor compliance report. Mr. Shahaney. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll have Mr. deserves to introduce our present presentator.

Yes, thank you. We have CBIZ, the independent auditing firm that conducted the city's financial audit. Here to present is Moses Orzia and Hermes Garzone uh from CBIS. Thank you.

Good afternoon, honorable mayor, members of the city council, city manager, and meeting attendees. As mentioned, we CBSC CPAs performed the external audit for the fiscal year September 30th, 2025 for the city of Boca Raton and um finance staff went over the ACFR and some quantitative information. Just want to highlight a section within the ACFR which is our independent audit report. And as mentioned in our independent audits report, we mentioned to the financial statement readers what we audited which was the fiscal year ended September 30th, 2025 financial statements as um for the city of Bokeh. And within there we provided our opinion. We use that term as our conclusion when it comes to an external financial audit. And as mentioned in our report, in our opinion, the accompanying financial statements referred to of the city of Bokeh present friendly nomature respects the respective financial position of the city um as of September 30th, 2025 and the respective changes in its financial position. In essence, that's a clean opinion and that is the only opinion that the council wants to be associated with. Within the document, we make reference to the set of standards that we follow. We follow US generally accepted auditing standards as well as government auditing standards. And um that government auditing standards requirement um that we follow required us to produce a second report known as our compliance reports. Um we use that as a tool to communicate internal control deficiencies. But as mentioned in our report that was released simultaneously with the ACFR at the end of March, we had no deficiencies to report. Within that same document, we make reference to the federal and state

single audit that were performed. Um because the city met the reporting thresholds um the federal reporting threshold is of 1 million. Federal award expenditures um exceeded just north of 1.8 8 million and state awards were uh about approximately 817,000. Um the combination of both federal and state awards total SIFA expenditures reported were 2.6. We um followed the uniform guidance and the Florida single audit act to identify what are known as ma major federal programs and major state projects. And as mentioned in our report, we had no deficiencies or question costs or findings to report. Um this year in particularly, I know finance staff went over the ACFR, but this year um want to mention not only did we have the city audit, um we also audited the three pensions of of the city, we had the CRA standalone audit and then we had a federal and a state single audit. So if you count that um it's more than one hand you have the city the CRA the three pensions a federal sing and a state suad. So and all of them got done and produced by March 30th. Um so I want to thank city staff um because they made it possible. My colleague Hermas and I are not the only team members um that are part of the audit team. It's approximately seven of us. um we have an IT um partner on the engagement and not only do we look at the financial amounts for accuracy and completeness but we also look at compliance. So, um there was a lot um in terms of this year and what the city of Bokeh was required to do. And I appreciate the time and effort um not only from city staffer but everybody that was involved um to make this happen just because um we started in October

and it took us several months, several weeks, several hours. And um we're not shy to ask questions. We ask a lot of questions um and it requires them to provide a lot of information to us. So we're thankful uh for the collaboration that we received throughout the process. So thank you. Thank you members. Any questions? No. All right. Excellent. I think that concludes item 3B, which we can now turn to item 3 C, the fiscal year 2024 2025 popular annual financial report and I believe also our investment report. Uh Mr. Soy, are we going back to Mr. Zeros on this?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. Yes, honorable mayor and members of the council. Um, today you're going to receive a copy of the city's popular annual financial report. So, this is the first time the city has produced a report like this. Um, and I'll give you a little history. So, so these reports, um, they they do not replace the audit report that you just received. That's a comprehensive 200 plus page report and a lot of numbers and a lot of text. Um, and I'm going to I'm going to have staff's going to present this to you. Um, but I I do want to brag for just a minute. Um, because uh the city, as you've been told, we've received the budgeting report and the financial statement report or or award rather from the government finance office association for over 40 years. The city has never produced this report. And this is really the third type of financial report that is common in public sector accounting. And it really is intended to deliver a more user-friendly set of financial information that's more easily digestible by non-financial constituents or residents. Um so this year um Judy Flormoid who who you who's going to who's going to present this item to you came to me and and Carlicia and said, "Hey, I'd like to produce this report. What do you think?" Uh wasn't on our radar. We didn't ask her to do it. She took the initiative. She stepped up and said, "I'd like to do this." And I said, go for it. And and by the way, you're going to present it to the city council. So So I'm going to turn it over to Judy now to present this report to you. Um but it is really a step forward and and a step above when it comes to fiscal transparency and accountability to the public and I want to highlight that.

Okay. Thank you Jim. Good afternoon mayor, council members. As Jim um stated, I am excited to present the first ever paffer for the city of Boca Raton for fiscal year 2025. Um, as uh previously stated, uh the popular annual financial report was uh established by the GFOA uh back in 1991 to encourage local municipalities, local governments to have a smaller report, more digestible report full of visuals and things that um those who don't have the background in finance and accounting can easily read the information and understand what it means and how it relates to them. Um so yes this is our first and it is derived from our acter uh which was audited by Cbiz um and it's follows the government um generally accepted accounting principles and um you will find a digital copy copy on our website um in the accounting division under financial services department as well as some printed copies at the Boca Raton community center city hall and the downtown library. And that's all I have. Looking forward to winning the awards for fiscal year 25.

Mayor, I'd like to just add if if you look at the report, you'll see the old city council, not your council. You'll see old city staff, old organizational structures. That's not an error. Um, financial reporting is backward looking by nature. So, this is September 30th to 2025 going backwards a year. So the new budget document will reflect all the new current changes in the organization and next year's report would be updated to show that information. Thank you. Excellent. Very good. Mr. Zerus, do you want to continue on with our investment report?

Yes, I'd love to. Um Cormarmac Conan, our investment manager um or treasury manager uh is going to go ahead and present the investment report to the council. Thank you. Hello esteemed members of council. Um I have not presented before you before. So by way of introduction, my name is Cormack Anahan. I am your treasury manager. I handle what I like to say is all of the uh the movement of money in the city. So the investments, the debt, uh management, um the merchant services, cash and banking. But today I'm going to be presenting before you how the city performed with its investment portfolio in the fiscal year ended September 30th, 2025. The city's investments are governed by Florida statute and the city's adopted investment policy uh specifically chapters 218 and 280. And we follow a hierarchical selection of investments following the priority of safety then liquidity then yield or sly for short. Our investment portfolio is governed by policy which lays out certain restrictions for how much we are uh able to invest in certain types of investments and those are categorical in nature and each has their own specific limitations uh sometimes by uh year of maturity, sometimes by concentration and all of our investments for the entire fiscal year were in compliance. with that policy. This is where those were at 9:30 of 2025. These are reported at par uh straight from the statements from our custodial statements and our bank statements. It differs a little bit from what you see in the ACER because that is reported at market value. So if you're trying to compare these numbers, they're

not going to agree. But this is what we would be paid back when we ultimately get the value of our investments uh in any bonds that the bond issuers have promised us at the end of their maturity period. This is how we compare to the end of the previous fiscal year, September 30th of 2024. The major deviation is that we've invested a lot more this year in government instrumentalities that's specifically uh full faith in credit um bonds debentures etc of the US government including a new investment type which we invested for the first time in November of 2024 which is still in fiscal year 25 which are obligations of the um the SBA the small business administration of the US They're full faith and credit instruments which are sort of repackaged loans that are promised um by the government for the aid of liquidity in various um small business uh to encourage small businesses to invest in themselves. And that's that movement from 1% to 12%. the rest of that being US treasuries both uh coupon bearing and zero coupon versions of those bonds. Uh for the last two years uh Jim Zervis, myself and first George Brown and then Mr. Sohaney have been working to invest uh a laddered strategy for our investments. We're trying to push the duration out a little bit longer to take advantage of the high yields set by the Federal Reserve Bank uh which we have been quite successful in doing. Here you'll see uh where our maturities lie in terms of 1 2 3 four and then fiveyear benchmarks. um the small amount invested from 4.5 to 5 years is normal at the end of our fiscal year because we get the majority

of our cash in in November and December from taxes and sort of spend it down throughout the year. So there's not a lot of opportunity in July, August, and September to reinvest funds because there really isn't any money to go around. We spend it and uh we keep a little bit of extra short. That 30% in the up to 60 days category is there specifically so that we can make good on our financial obligations on October 1st of each year including the prepayment of our pension funds and several bond debt obligations. The next several slides are talking a bit about the markets uh where we were what trends were happening in the year fiscal fiscal year 2025. The Fed did finally make good on its promise and the prediction of markets to reduce the target federal funds rate, which does impact some of our short-term investments. But by lading out the longer term investments, as we've been trying to do, we get to preserve some of those yields for longer, even as the uh Fed reduces its target rates. And you can see here that we are in a period of fairly stable rates from the Federal Reserve. Uh back in May of 2023, we had a large increase in rates that have been staying the same basically the last two years. And they've only just started to come down, but not by a lot. They've been moving slowly. And that's why it looks very flat along that last little bit of the the chart there. uh we were able to achieve a blended yield of 3.79% in fiscal year 2025 which is down slightly from last year but that's partially because of the reduction in the rates. Now yield is inclusive of the coupons and interest and any recognized gains and losses and dividends. It excludes changes from price of the investments

that we hold because we by rule hold all of our investments to maturity. Uh it's not stated anywhere, but it's been a long-standing practice of the city that we don't rebalance our portfolios to try and target any kind of a a market rate of return. It's mostly yield focused, but on this slide, you'll see that we're still achieving quite good market total returns, which is inclusive of those gains and losses. theoretically if we had sold all of our portfolio on 9:30 2025 and you can find additional information about our investments in this fiscal year in the AFER on the stated pages here including a uh leveling which is dictated by Gazsby pronouncement which tells you how well we're able to compare the investments that we hold to their actual market prices to sort of give give you transparency about how we come to those market uh values that we report in the AVER as well as all of the risks that we are trying to abate by upholding the policy that your this body has set in place.

Are there any questions? Thank you, Mr. Conan. That was a fantastic presentation. Any questions for Mr. Conan? One question. Mr. Pman,

thank you. Thank you for that presentation. I noticed that in the US Treasury interest rates trend looking at the yield in 2024 was 4.28% in 2025 it was 3.79%. In in the popular uh annual financial report the investment earnings dropped significantly from 2024 to 2025. In 2024, it was 3.5 million was the in the investment earnings. In fiscal year 2025, it dropped to 21.7 million. Can you explain why the in the um why the investment earnings dropped so significantly even though the US Treasury interest rate trend was relatively similar?

Yes. Um, as I noted on the uh slide about the par values, all of our investments in the AFTER are reported at market value by Gazsby pronouncement. We're required to report them that way. And so it's inclusive of changes from um the market prices. And that looked very different at the end of fiscal 24 than it did at the end of fiscal 25. It's what we call the unrealized gains and losses as opposed to the realized ones which happen when we sell or mature a bond. So, the 2024 earnings from market changes just happened to be extraordinarily high. Uh, if I go back a couple of slides, you'll see that it was nope, one more. Uh, 6.66% was our total return on the market at September 30, 2024. And that that was just very high. Um, but it wasn't real. We didn't actually sell those bonds. We didn't realize those returns. They were required to be reported that way by Gazsby, but since we hold things to maturity, we would never have seen those gains. We would only see them when they finally come due. What What were the realized dividend payments to the city in 2024 and 2025? uh on a numeric basis. I'm afraid I don't have that information available, but on this slide, it would have earned 4.28% in fiscal 24 and only 3.79% in 2025. A much smaller change because it omits those market price fluctuations. Okay. Thank you. I I might need to follow up and with Mr. reserve, but I'm I'm interested in in the uh interest dividends to the city. So, thank you for explaining that.

Any other questions?

If not, I think that concludes our this portion of our agenda and we can move on to section four, which is the review of regular agenda items. Members of our council, do you have any questions for the city manager regarding items that are on our regular agenda that we'll be hearing tomorrow? apart from what we already talked about. Seeing none, then I can now open the door and open the podium up for what I know people have been very patiently waiting for. Public requests. I have a number of cards. I will we will take them in the order that I receive them. And then if you don't have a card, it's no problem. You can just get up, wait uh just a moment till we get through the cards. And if you give us your name and address, you'll have up to three minutes. The first card I have is Miss Lorraine Blank. Good afternoon, Miss Blank.

Dr. Blank. My name is Dr. Lorraine Blank and my address is 545 Northwest 7th Street. I want to start by congratulating you for effectively denying us all our vote, our voice. Um, I didn't think I would have have to say this for the new council, but this is an this is a deni bad governance. We sat here for hours wanting to comment. Now we get to comment and they're meaningless because you've passed over them. You've made decisions. You've discussed them. So I wanted to talk about the task force. So I'll say very quickly like to see a clear terms of reference and scope of work on the composition of the task force. Nine members is often the frequent but it's not the mandatory. You don't have a social policy person. You don't have a environmental person reflected. I would like to see those expertise reflected on the the task force. Um if the council shortlists you need to decide on criteria best practices for procurement by international standards is all of the reviewers use the same criteria. So please publish the criteria if you plan to shortlist them. Um, so moving on to the next, the wording of the citizen um um proposal, the save bokeh. I do have a problem with the wording on number four. I think that it goes on too long. You should stop the wording. Let me find it now. I've lost it. You'll probably eat up my minutes finding it.

We can pause the clock for it. It's no problem. But on number four, it goes on to talk about short-term um and the long term. I think it the sentence should end with not clarifying about long-term. Um if somebody could please find it and because I can't quite find it now, but I will write it and I will send it to you. But I think you're opening yourself up to potential legal problems in the wording of that fourth thing where you allow you you have short long-term there's a qualification you control short-term the city controls the property and the use in the short term. You don't want to talk about the long term. You control it. Stop the sentence there. I'll send you a letter to clarify that. Um and then on the statistical report and all your financial reports, I want to congratulate you. You are award winners, but you could be better. So I want to propose that on your financial statistical section, you don't just report your trends in nominal dollars. You also report your trends in constant dollars. So we can see whether you're actually spending more or spending less in real terms. I want to suggest that you also include benchmarks for example in international when we're talking with countries I always use percent of GDP that's not relevant to a city but you could use per capita you could use per household you could use percent of total spending but what you're doing you have trends but you don't have trends that allow comparators and so I suggest and I will also write this that you in even improve more fully so you can win even more awards that you in your trend analysis you provide the proper and full and complete trend analysis. So denial of voice try to work on that next time and let us talk when we should be

talking on the task force the terms change that wording of the citizen thing and the statistical reports. Thank you. I thank you Dr. Blank. Three and a half hours to say that we are sorry about the angry

Dr. Dr. Blank, we're sorry about that and we thank you for your patience. Uh none of the items that we discussed earlier have been voted upon, so I'm I'm not sure we can say that uh we were denying you a voice. We're sorry that it took as long as it did to get to you. We're working to improve upon the speed of our meetings, but all of those items that we talked about are going to be voted on at a later date, potentially including tomorrow. So, we very much appreciate your input and thank you for sticking it out. Next card I have is Dr. Blank. I'm sorry. I'm Dr. Blank. Senate so we have a chance to talk.

Dr. Blanks, I'm sorry. Next card I have is Diana Cooper. Dr. Cooper, just Diana Cooper. Dr. Cooper's my husband. Um 3240 Equestrian Drive. Um, just real quick, I wanted to um thank you all for your continued support in the softball community. Um, we have had the opportunity to meet with several of you and I truly mean it when I say it has been a pleasure. We feel heard, respected, and encouraged by the progress being made toward a solution for our girls. So the question becomes not if we support this but how we do thoughtfully and responsibly. Um after sitting here and listening today I think it's important that the girls um softball talk moves away from the talk of the downtown memorial project. I know that um they kind of came together during the last term when the one bokeh project, but now that that is no longer there, this is just another um thing that needs to be improved in the city. And um I I don't think that the girls or the community should have to wait till a decision is fully um made or a vision is fully seen for the downtown project before um we can possibly break ground on new fields in other locations um such as Sugar Sand or North Park even um as an option um or creating some kind of um reconstruction of scheduling at other parks such as Patch Reef or wherever you guys deem as the appropriate spot. Um

but three dedicated softball fields and I could recommend at this point one multi-purpose field that might be used for softball or baseball. um and would give us a chance to utilize those three fields while the other fields being utilized by boys and girls. Um and allows us to grow into a home. Um the the sport of softball continues to grow. Um I'm sure if any of you have daughters who are in the sport, my daughter, it's always on TV. Uh college softball. Now we have professional softball and this is their third summer and they're adding more and more teams every year because of the popularity of the sport and I just want us to be able to grow here like it is doing nationally. Um and I again we're so thankful for all of your attention to this matter. We want to work together to find the solution and I just wanted to um speak today about the point of making it a separate issue away from memorial. And that's all I got. Thanks, guys.

Thank you, Miss Cooper. Next up is Brian Cherry.

Welcome, Mr. Cherry. Name address, please. Uh 21897 Ariel. Uh thank you very much and uh good afternoon council guests and residents. I'm a snowbird that spent 5 months a year in un incorporated Boca Raton and for the record I'm a Canadian and I live in the suburb of Toronto. I'm also on the board of directors of Boca Lago gated community. I can consider myself to be a pretty safe driver. However, I have been observing how aggressive drivers have been and and have become who routinely speed, tailgate, run red lights without a care in the world. Toronto is the fourth largest city of North America with 3.3 million residents. And the drivers in Boca Raton are probably as bad or worse with a fraction the population of 120,000 residents. So, my statement today concerns aggressive drivers in Boca Raton. Today I want to talk about something that affects every single one of us. Whether we live in Boca Raton, visit it, simply share the roads, whatever we do in South Florida. I'm talking about aggressive drivers and Boca Raton who live and drivers who treat the uh sorry, but behind us lies how great the beautiful area of Boca Raton is. Aggressive drivers treat the road like a battlefield instead of a shared space. Aggressive driving is not just something in that it's in a hurry. It's a pattern of of dangerous behavior, speeding, tailgating, no signaling, weaving throughout traffic, ignoring signals, and cutting people off. In Florida, it's officially defined as committing multiple traffic violations that endangers others. So, here's a reality check. Based on the reports from 2024, at least six people died in traffic crashes in Boca Raton between February

and August 24, which many involved with reckless driving. Here's a here's a significant factor for Palm Beach County. In 2025, there was almost 26,000 crashes, 161 fatalities of crashes, 16,000 injuries, and 149 fatal crashes. So, studies that show that nine out of 10 drivers believe that aggressive aggressive driving is a serious threat to our safety. There's almost everyone on the road feeling at risk. heavy traffic, complex intersections, cell phone distracted driving, and impatience. Impatience on all combined into a dangerous mix. It only takes one reckless decision, one moment of anger for a situation to escalate into a crash or worse. We're not just talking about minor inconvenience. Aggressive driving leads to real consequences, long life trauma, and uh loss of life. In some cases, road rage and escalated into violence, including incidents where drivers confront each others or even use weapons while law enforcement is clearly aware of the problem. In a single target enforcement operation, Palm Beach County officers issued 161 citations in just a few hours for speeding and aggressive behavior. That's not

I'm going to have to ask you to to conclude your remarks, please. I'm uh my final remarks is I think fines should be increased where they're currently at $30 to $60 where in Toronto they start for hands-free cell phones at $615. And we I'm in I'm suggesting that the city institute red light cameras and speed cameras throughout the city. Thank you, sir. Next up, we will hear from Briana Hackquist. Miss Hackquist, would you wish to be heard?

Yeah. Why don't you hit that button one more time?

There we go. Okay. Okay. Um, along with me again today is Thaddius and Ted. Thaddius is a gopher tortoise. He is not a turtle. Ted is also a gopher tortoise. He is a hatchling. Um that he started out as a gopher tortoise representing the gopher tortoises in Sugar Sand Park, an endangered species. He's since expanded his duties to uh also advocate for parks, green space, and wildlife. Ted is advocating for the future of our parks, green space, and wildlife as a little hatchling. That is gets hate mail. I don't know why people want to make him a chew toy when let their dogs tear him up. He's little stuffed creature. isn't bothering anybody. But, you know, if if it bothers people that much that they want to do that to a little stuffed animal, that's okay. Um, we love it. Bring it. Um, it just shows that we're making a difference and we are advocating successfully for our parks and our wildlife and we're making a difference. Um, I'm a very outspoken advocate for parks, green space, and wildlife, as I think everybody probably knows, and I really have a passion for our urban forest, especially in Sugar Sand. Um, there's been a a continued push for softball fields there. I'm going to keep fighting it, but it seems there's enough fields around the city that it could be worked out. And also,

if the park staff could schedule a little better, I think it might work out. Um, it's not here today, but Mr. Warner and I disagree on just about everything except the urban forest that he refers to as the enchanted forest. It was back in the early days when we did Shriek Week and we took some of our groups through the urban forest as part of the uh event before we took them inside. Half of them we lost to um the chicken trail because we had them so scared with some of the uh banana spiders in the trees and some of the other things that we were point uh were pointing out to them. But we want to bring it back. Clean up the scrub. Make it a nice park again. Um to new council members, you're doing a great job. You uh had an awesome job your last meeting. You had a huge agenda. rude speakers, five-hour meeting, it was brutal, but thanks to all the council members and all the staff. You are doing a good job and we appreciate you. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Hagquist. Going on a four hours hearing today. Next up, June Wagner. Um, first of all, I wanted to gr congratulate all the new council members and I look forward to a more transparent and communive partnership with the public.

Thank you. Name and address, please, ma'am. I'm sorry. Name and address. Oh, June Widner, 3400 Northeast 7th Drive, Bokeh 33431.

Um, but I look forward to um a much more transparent and communicative partnership with the public. I think one of the bottom lines is creating a vision for the future and one of the unifying concerns is what makes focus special and um how do we continue to make it special in the future? Clearly our pristine beaches um especially with a coveted blue flag beaches designation is one of the big draws both for residents and tourists. In fact, um the beach parks are so popular that on beautiful weekends, you can't get into South Beach or Red Reef, they're full. And so you have a line of cars waiting all the way down to Palmetto from A1A. So um I think continuing to preserve those beaches but also to um address some of the the parking issues. Um, in a prior CRA meeting, Mark Wigger had floated the idea of the city purchase of that corner of Wildflower Park, the the private land adjacent to Wildflower. Um, a lot of people are utilizing that park thanks to the promotion of um, native species giveaways uh, uh, of plants. uh the yoga pilates classes, uh the food trucks, that sort of thing. I think um increasing parking space there by utilizing that corner would do two

things. One, it would draw more attention to the park. Right now, it is a little bit invisible. you can't really see it um from Palmetto because you have that fence. Um it's a similar situation actually with Rutherford. There's the CVS. A lot of people who don't know about Rutherford uh are confused about its location, but uh in a prior CRA uh meeting, Mark Wagger had floated the idea of the city purchasing that corner. I think it would do two things. One, it would enhance the amenities of that park. There'd be room for more food trucks. There might be a designated area for beach parking. A lot of people are already utilizing that parking space and then walking to the beach when uh the spaces are full over at South Beach or they don't want to pay the $50 weekend vehicle entry fee. Um,

Miss Wagger, I'm going have to ask you to conclude, please. Okay. I think the Oville development project would overlide um overwhelm the parking that's already there and also increase the traffic uh which is already pretty prohibitive. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Miss Wagner. Last card I have is from Jonathan Nunen. Following Mr. Mr. Unjun, if anyone else wants to be heard during public request, they can uh do so and do so for three minutes. Mr. Unen,

Jonathan Unen, 6501 Congress Avenue. So, uh all uh tortoises are turtles. Um not all turtles are tortoises. Um but just a fact. Um so, uh and I'm not the one sending hate mail to some stuffed animal. Just want to be clear with that. I don't know who that is, but sounds made up. But anyway, um we sat here for for many many hours listening to topics that are the concern of the public. We've heard the public come up here for hours on end over the last year talking about the downtown and specifically Memorial Park and then nobody really had time to discuss that. I've never really seen items such as that in proclamations or presentations. Um, and I think that was to kind of skirt public comment and I hope that doesn't happen again because we have a council I thought that wanted to engage and involve the public as opposed to hearing soliloques and monologues of council members. Um, we should hear the public. So I'd like I like more Clarence Thomases uh on the dis that speak when it's relevant and not just because they want to hear their own voice. So, um, but regarding the redesign, I I appreciate Council Member Pearlman's, uh, urgency to to rehab some of these facilities, but I urge you all to take a step back a little bit to plan because planning is important to engage and involve the community because we do have a city hall there with seas of parking lots and it's not going to be the same

city hall. So maybe the park can be made better and we should plan the park holistically as a whole before rushing to do this or that or this or that when we can make it special for the people that live around there, which is what the people wanted. The people wanted to save the park. They didn't necessarily want the enhancements that were discussed that I've heard. They were about saving the park. So now we're having discussions that we need a city hall. We bought a city hall for 17 million here. I think it would be fiscally irresponsible to do anything similar of sort at that site. Um just like the police station. I thought that I've heard the rehabbing of the police station at Memorial Park. if we do that, where's the police station going to be while that rehab is happening? That's something that was also really important and critical as to why it was going to be delayed in phase two because we needed to find a home for them before we we did anything else. So, I just urge before we start trying to come up with concepts and plans to to come up with a plan as opposed to just peacemealing things and doing things ad hoc. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Unjun. Anyone else for public comment? Miss Mororrow.

Good afternoon. I'm so Name and address, please, ma'am. You know the drill. Okay. I should know this by now. Uh Judy Mororrow, 1305 Northeast Fifth Avenue.

I'm so happy that tennis is getting up there where it should be, a priority and not neglected. Thank each and every one of you up there and all the staff. Thank you very, very much for finally putting tennis up there. And just so that everybody knows in the last 10 years 54 well not in the last 10 years in the since 2019 tennis has increased 54%. And we have all these people and all these condos and all these houses and new development. So we're going to need our tennis. We want to keep our tennis and tennis is no longer just a recreational activity. It's proven to be it drives the econ. It has an economic impact. Community wellness, consistent municipal revenue, an all-time high of 27.3 million tennis players in 2025. core players a boom 14 million. I mean player retention is super high and the sport tourismdriven the USA economic impact shows $145.9 million to Florida in 2023. And I was so happy this week that um Boca Raton Tennis Center got a tour and um I'm just I'm just so happy that I I I

got my family to drive all the way up to Palm Beach Gardens to see their new facility that they built and finished in 2020. This is in Palm Beach Gardens tennis and pickle ball paddle. And they have they've built 20 clay courts. They built uh 10 pickle ball courts. They have 11,000 square foot clubhouse. It costs $4.4 to5 million depending on which article you read. It is absolutely beautiful. It brought back beautiful memories because my granddaughter played on the old hard courts and they left some the hard courts and it's just a beautiful park and thank you for taking care of tennis and we can't wait to go on the second floor observation deck. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Marorrow. Thank you everyone for sticking it out and giving us your thoughtful comments during public request. I assure you there's a couple comments made about the format in the sequencing of things. I assure you the intention was not to marginalize or skirt public comment, but that said, we will be more mindful of how these presentations are laid out in terms of of order and sequencing so as not to have something like that happen. I can think we can then move on to city manager report. Mr. Sah, do you have any report? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I I don't have a report. Moving then to city attorney report. Mr. Kaylor, no report, Mr. Mayor. I think we can go around the horn like we did last time. Starting to my left, Mr. Pman with a council member report. Do you have one, sir? No report. Very good. Miss Sipple.

No report. Miss Grow, no report. Miss Ducker, no report. I love it. I too have no report. Which means I believe at the time of 4:40, no 5:47, we can adjourn the meeting of the Boca Raton City Council workshop. Thank you everybody. See you back here tomorrow night at 6:00.