City Council - Regular Meeting

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Welcome everybody to a regular meeting of your Book Raton City Council. The day is Tuesday, March, beg your pardon, May 12th, 2026. The time is now 6 p.m. First order of business is the invocation for which I'll ask Mr. Pearlman to deliver. We are thankful today that we have the opportunity to conduct the city's business on behalf of the residents and work to improve Boca Raton for the benefit of all. We are truly blessed to live here in this beautiful city. Let us listen intently to one another, show each other respect and kindness, and demonstrate reason, common sense, and integrity as we make decisions today for the best interests of all the residents of Boca Raton. Amen.

Amen. And thank you, Mr. Pman. If we can all now rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all. Miss Sitins, could you please call the role? Mayor Thompson, thankful to be here. Deputy Mayor Growl, here. Council member Ducker, here. Council member Pearlman here. Council member Sipple, present. All present.

Thank you. Next, we have amendments to the agenda. I had mentioned yesterday that I was going to be asking to postpone the discussion on the downtown civic engagement task force. So, if it's the pleasure of the body, I think it may make sense to amend the agenda to remove that item. So, I would make a motion to remove item 10A. And just for folks who weren't paying attention yesterday, the idea being that the decision was made a couple weeks ago for this body to hire a consultant through an RFP process to help us with civic engagement among other things. And we thought it made sense or I thought it made sense to have any task force associated with that civic engagement process. We should at least consult with a consultant on their views as to whether such a task force was necessary or not. Not to say that they will decide that, they won't, but to at least have the ability to to advise us as to the merits of having a task force for purposes of civic engagement. And so, um, with that all in mind, I think it might make sense as a result to move that we remove item 10A from our agenda and take it up again when we get to the point when our consultant has been hired following the RFP process. So, with that, is there a second to the motion?

Second. Any discussion on this matter? Uh motion for discussion. Okay. Don't need to move. You you can discuss. Go ahead.

We have a consultant. We have a task force. At what point do we do our jobs? We're paying taxpayers money to put layers and layers between us and them. I came here to serve, not to delegate. Right now, we're about to hire a consultant to pay them hundreds of thousands to to listen to residents. We can do that ourselves. Let's go have some town halls. I don't know why we need to have a consultant listen listen for us. We don't need a deis. We can go to gymnasiums. We can go to churches. We can go into communities. We can speak with the residents directly and we don't need I honestly I've lost track of how many layers we have now between us and the residents. Maybe the clerk could tell us if you don't want to do this as a city council and you you want to pay some consultant to listen to the residents for us and have them put it in a report for hundreds of thousands of dollars, then I'm I'm more than willing myself to go into the comm community into the community and listen to the residents directly. That's why that's what I was elected to do. Does anyone on this deis want to do that with me?

I appreciate the question, Mr. Pman. The the motion on the floor is to remove this item from the agenda. Is there any discussion?

Right. So the Yeah, the motion right now is so we already have the consultant as one layer between us and the residents. There's a we have a resolution today to consider to remove this second layer, this this um blue ribbon commission that's going to stand between us and and and the people that elected us whom we can listen to directly and get the get the feedback. We can go to town halls, gymnasiums, into the communities directly to listen to those residents and bring them here and and make the the decisions from the discussions and conversations that we have. So now we have we have a resolution to to remove this task force this second second added layer which I think we should take a vote on and consider to us. The less layers we have between us and the residents the better.

Thank you Mr. Pearlman. I note your opposition to the motion. Is there any other discussion on this item? No. On the motion to remove it from the agenda. I proceed that we move on the motion to remove this item until further discussion as we discussed yesterday for three hours during workshop. Any other discussion on this? No. All in favor of removal of this item, please say I. I. I. I. All opposed. Opposed. Okay. Sounds like the agenda has been amended by a vote of 4 to one. And are there any other amendments to the agenda besides that? Mr. Manager, did you have any? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. There are no other amendments to the agenda.

Okay. Then we can move on to the minutes. We have three sets of minutes. the corrected minutes of the regular meeting on April 14th, the minutes of the workshop meeting of April 27th and the minutes of the regular meeting on April 28th. Are there any revisions or corrections to those minutes? If not, I'll entertain a motion to approve as adopted. No, to adopt as presented. So moved. Thank you. A second. Second. There's a tie there. I think we'll go on the right side this time for with with council member Growl. All those in favor, please say I. I. I.

Any opposed? The minutes are approved. Then we can move on to proclamations and presentations. We had our fair share yesterday. We have none tonight. So we can move on now to board appointments. The first one is the affordable housing advisory committee. I don't believe we have any applicants for that board. So we can skip and we'll keep open that opening for anyone who's interested. They can apply to submit an application and come and talk to us about why you want to serve. Moving then we can go on to the Bocratone Airport Authority. We had several members of the public or residents or incumbents actually who interviewed yesterday. Anyone here interested in applying for the Borgaton Airport Authority. Let's go with Mr. Deutsch first,

a resident and business owner for 32 years. Um, I know it sounds sort of oxymoronic, but I really hope the board the council sees it to reappoint the five existing board members. The the airport's been doing a great job. It's it's I think the the management feels good about the existing board. But having said that, if the council chooses to go a different route, I'd like to be considered. And if you will pardon a little immodesty, um I view the airport as what it is. It's a business. It's a big business. And I do this every day. I'm I'm an attorney. I practice transactional law. I counsel clients every day on real estate and corporate matters. And again, I'm sorry to sound immodest, but I believe I can offer a great deal to the board. I've been on other boards. I served on P&Z for for a while here. I love that. Unfortunately, my wife got ill as some of you know and we had to move away for her treatment and uh that didn't end so well, but uh I miss I miss the public service part. So, thank you for your consideration. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, counselor. Are there any questions for Mr. Deutsch? No. Thank you, sir. Thank you for your consideration. Uh

Mr. Madson, you're up next. Good evening, mayor, deputy mayor, council members. Uh Renee Madson, 1193 Southwest 19th Street. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you guys here tonight and uh considering my application for the Bocarone Airport Authority. I lived here for over a decade. I've flown in and out of Bokeh airport for more than 20 years in my career. first in general aviation as a flight instructor and then I spent 15 years flying private jets, corporate jets and I personally in Boka Raton airport for over 100 times. I lost count. Uh each time I've been serviced both by either Atlantic Aviation or Signature Flight Support. I know both businesses intimately. I also visited the flight school and hangers in the north end. Um for the last 5 years I've been flying for Spirit Islands. uh I have a lot of knowledge in both well not anymore uh unfortunately uh a lot of a lot of experience in operating both congestion and complex airspace and uh I also have an accounting degree so I have a business uh I've been a business owner for almost two decades so that brings that aspect into it as well I believe with this background both in aviation and my accounting and in business and being a homeowner in the community I believe it can bring a deeper more valuable uh knowledge to the airport authority. I've seen from pro visiting a lot of airports, hundreds of airports, both what works and what doesn't work. And uh the decisions that the board makes will ultimately affect both the businesses there, the community and uh the pilots themselves. So I want to be able to uh bring my knowledge to the board and solve those problems. um also need to support the community around it. We have noise abading

procedures in effect right now. I know how to abide by them. If you want to change them, I know what the pilots can and can't do. Some things planes can't do. And as the gentleman before me just said, I it's a big business. I believe the airport and it's supporting businesses employs up to almost 5,000 people here and brings in about $700 million in revenue. uh it needs to operate responsible. I believe they've done a great job so far. I just want to give back. I want to help and I want to support. Um the the airport authority benefits with operation expertise at both the legal business and community perspectives. It's highly technical and all the decisions made by this board that has both short and long-term impacts. Um, I want to add to that. It would be my honor to serve. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mr. Matson. Any questions for Mr. Matson? No. Thank you. Thank you. I don't believe we have any more applicants that are able to interview today, do we? Mr. Fogle and Mr. Nobles, who serve on there currently, both indicated they wish to be reappointed, but they're unable to interview at this time. Okay. So, this is a unique one in so far as there's different slots that folks can apply for and and be eligible for. Uh, Mr. Thompson, may I make a motion for brief discussion? Sure.

Uh, it was brought to my attention that the vacancies for this board were only posted on April 15, 2026. So, less than a month ago. As we know, the the Bokeh airport is a very important component of our city and this board is very important. Right now, all five of the seven spaces, all of the five spaces which the city of Bokeh appoints are up to be appointed at this moment in time. Um, I I I don't believe that given the late date of th this posting this on the city's website that all of the potential applicants have uh surfaced. Therefore, given that these positions don't expire until June 1st, and we have a subsequent meeting in 2 weeks in late May, I'd like to move to postpone the appointment of this board to that meeting in late May and also to direct the city manager to in in the forthcoming emails from the city of Boca Raton uh include a section notifying the public that these board vacancies are open so that we may consider all qualified applicants in the city of Bokeh.

I let me respond myself. Uh I'm not sure I agree that there was some lack of notice associated with this. The city posts its board openings typically a month out, which is where we are. It's in that range. And uh the the terms, there are two-year terms, and there's math associated with how long the terms go. And so it was no secret that the terms were expiring in June 1st. and anybody is able to go on our website and see the current composition of our boards when they were appointed and I believe when the term expires too. So it was not a certain certainly not a a surprise to anybody. Um I'm not I don't see any need to wait. We had folks come and we had we had eight no nine 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 nine people apply. Seven came and interviewed. I hate to have them come back and do it again. So I'm willing to move forward today. I think this was plenty of notice and consistent with the city's practice for when we alert the residents and I believe if I'm not mistaken a alert was sent out as part of the city's communications talking about board vacancies in this on this board. Is that right Miss Siddens?

I would have to defer to communications. I can't get to that answer now, but I can get it to another time. Okay. Well, in any event, I'm prepared to move forward today. Can I make a motion to uh for a slate so we can have discussion on the slate? Uh yes, if we're starting with um the what does it start with east of 95 residents? Well, so east of 95 you're going to have or do you want to do you want to go backwards like the ones that we have to fill in the one? So you want me to give you the three? Why don't we start it with the three east of 95? Yeah.

Okay. So So a couple of things. So, um, I've had a lot of emails and first of all, thank you so much for everybody. I agree. Can you hear me? Sorry, I think I was on the mic. I agree. This board is really, really important. You know that I I sit up here and I profess as a transit nerd. So, I sit on every board that's related to transit nationally, in Florida, locally, in the county, and um lately, I gave an update a few weeks ago. We I've been working with FAA. So our representative Brian Mass, he sits on the transportation for for for for national for for the federal government. Um that's how we get appropriations. So there's a lot of flux with our airport. Our airport is a is special not only because it's Bokeh but because um when the administration is here, a lot of the flights are diverted to our airport. So we benefit from that but we really have to manage that accordingly and properly because it affects obviously businesses. It affects the residents that are around there. It affects the actual airport and how we operate from safety reasons. I am not one to uh flip things upside down. That's not the way that I operate. I believe that the current slate uh should remain at this time. There's a lot of changes that are coming to uh soon to be the Donald J. Trump airport that might impact our airport and we need to have some consistency on that board. So with that, I would like to move the three gentlemen or I forget if they're all uh I think they are to continue on the east side of it and um because of a couple of things. Um Bob Tucker had the experience I mean Bob Tucker's on the bottom but hold on. So it'll be uh Gene Fulen uh who is the other one I have here? Gene Fulen has over 30 years of experience. Um Melvin Pollock uh has noise abatement which is really really important especially with this FAA GOA study that will hopefully get conducted in the state of Florida

and you could have a conversation with me after. And um the other incumbent was um Randy Nobles who's been a businessman for this community and I know there were some people that brought up that we needed pilots on this board. Well, collectively between the board and our executive director at the Boca Raton airport who was a former pilot, there's over a 100 plus years of pilot experience. So those are the three east of 95. Okay. So I'm hearing a nomination on the three residents east of 95 category for Fulen, Nobles, and Pollock. Is that right? Correct. Okay. I will second that. Are there any other nominations? If not, I suppose yes, there are. Okay. Yes.

Go ahead. I would like to nominate Michael Grana and Howard Greenberg. Okay. And and also Randy Nobles for for those positions. Nobles has been nominated already, so we're good there. So the other two were Grana and Greenberg. Greenberg. Okay. Okay. Any other nominations

for the three East of 95 positions. If not, I think Miss Sittens, why don't we do a roll call vote and every member of the council will give three names for those three slots. We have five options to choose from. The five that were nominated, those being Fulen, Grana, Greenberg, Nobles, Pollock. Everybody on board with that? Okay, Miss Sittens, please. Simple, folden, nobles and pollock. Pearlman, Grana Greenberg and Nobles,

Thompson, Folden, Nobles, Pollock, Trucker, Folden, Pollock, and Nobles. Growl, I am recusing myself from this vote due to potential voting conflict. My husband's firm, Grow Associates, performs the audit for the Boertown airport. Okay.

Okay. So, in the voting, Gan Fulen received three votes, Randy Nobles received four, and Mr. Pollock received three votes. Mr. Grana and my last one. Mr. Greenberg each received one. So Mr. Fulen, Mr. Nobles, and Mr. Pollock are reappointed for the east of I95 seats.

Okay, very good. Let's move on now, if you don't mind, to the resident west of I95 position, of which there is one vacancy. We have two eligible applicants. What's your pleasure? I move to uh appoint Mitchell Fogle, the incumbent. I'll take that as a motion to nominate. Are there any other nominations for the resident west of 95 position? If not, then we can absolutely convert that to a motion point and I will second that.

Any other discussion? Miss Sittens, if you could please. Sorry. Pearlman, yes. Thompson, yes. Ducker, yes. Sipple, yes. So, Mr. Mr. Fogle is reappointed for the west of I95 seat. Thank you. Finally, we have the resident at large position. We have two eligible applicants. What is your pleasure, Mr. Trucker? You've been doing a great job so far. So, I move that we nominate uh Bob Tucker uh the incumbent for to be the resident at large.

Are there any other nominations? Yes. Steven Deutsch. Okay, those are the two eligible applicants. So, Miss Sittens, I think if we could, we'll have four voting members each provide one name for that one position. Trucker Trucker Tucker Sipple Mr. Tucker Pearlman Deutsch Thompson Tucker in the voting Mr. Tucker received three votes. Mr. Deutsch received one. Therefore, Mr. Tucker has been reappointed to the resident at large seat.

Okay, that concludes our vacancies on the Bookerton airport authority. Thank you everyone. Let me say this one more time that we were blessed to have so many very qualified applicants. Oftent times it may take a time or two after being after applying the first time to get appointed. We hope that you continue those who did not get selected this time that you continue your interest in serving. We hope to have you participate with us at some point in the future. We can move to citizens pedestrian and bikeway advisory board. I believe we have one applicant who interviewed yesterday. Members, what would you like to do there?

I nominate Lawrence uh dinner or diner. Second. Very good. Any other discussion? If not, Miss Siddens, please. Cra, yes. Simple. Yes. Pearlman, yes. Thompson, yes. Ducker, yes. Mr. Dinner received five votes. Therefore, he is appointed to the Citizens Pedestrian and Bikeway Advisory Board.

Congratulations, Mr. Dinner. Next up, we have the Environmental Advisory Board. We have one applicant. I don't believe she was able to interview yesterday, and she I don't believe she's here today. Um, but she has served on our city boards in the past, Miss Gray. I mean, so I'll move that we appoint Jessica Gray to the vacancy on the environmental advisory board. Second. Very good. Any other discussion? At this one, I think we just do a voice vote if that's okay. All those in favor, please say I.

I. Any opposed? All right. Congratulations, Mrs. Gray. Last one we have is the Historic Preservation Board. Same situation, one applicant, one vacancy. Members, what's your pleasure? Motion to appoint Fabiola Bernier. I will second that. Any other discussion? All in favor of Miss Bernier's appointment, please say I. I.

I. Any opposed? Of course, we actually have Congratulations, Miss Bernier, if you're listening. But we have one more advisory board to appoint the Marine Advisory Board, although I don't believe we have any applicants. So, that one I believe we will carry over until our next meeting. If you are interested in serving on our marine adi advisory board and you are a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary, please do submit your nomination or your application. We would love to hear from you. That concludes our board appointments. We can move on to responses to workshop information requests. I don't believe we have any. Is that right, Mr. Sahaney? That's correct, Mr. Mayor.

Great. Now we can get to our consent agenda. Members, are there is there anyone who wishes to remove any item from our consent agenda? This is the moment in our time where if any member of the public wishes to comment on any item on our consent agenda, that's items 9 A through I guess you can you could you could speak on the board resignations, but 9A through J. Now is your time. Please step forward, state your name and address, and you will have three minutes strictly as it relates to the consent agenda. Seeing nobody, we'll we'll close the time for public comment on the consent agenda and I'll entertain a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda as presented.

Second. So moved. We'll start with the motion. Good. And then we'll get the second. Very good. Sorry. Second. Also good. Any other discussion? Miss Sittens, if you please. Grow. Yes. Ducker, yes. Pearlman, yes. Sipple, yes. Thompson, yes. Motion passes five votes to zero. Very good. That moves us along to item we we deleted item 10A. So now we move on to quasi judicial and related public hearings. Item number 11A on our agenda. Mr. Sins, could you please read the title of resolution number 45-2026.

Resolution number 45 2026. A resolution of the city of Boca Raton considering for the approximately 5.02 02 acre property generally located at 701 Northwest 53rd Street. An amendment to an approved site plan planning in zoning board resolution number 88-06 to authorize a commercial industrial multif family development CIMD which includes the following. A, the conversion of an existing approximately 83,697q ft hotel building into a 125 unit residential building, including 10% affordable and 5% workforce units. B, the conversion of an existing amenities building into a 5,545T restaurant with outdoor dining. and C the conversion of internal ground floor space to create three retail units totaling 4,51 square ft together with both on-site and off-site improvements providing for appealer providing an effective date.

Thank you, Miss Siddens. Mr. Kaylor, could you please review the quasi judicial procedures that will be governing tonight's public hearing? Yes, thank you, Mayor. Um, in accordance with the city's rules, uh, each applicant requesting approval, relief, or other action from the city council this evening shall disclose at the commencement or continuence of the public hearing. Any consideration provided or committed directly or on its behalf for an agreement to support or withhold objection to the requested relief for action. And because tonight's item is quasi judicial, the quasi judicial rules govern this proceeding. Copy of those procedures are available online and are also available from the city clerk. Thank you, Mr. Kaylor. Now is the time to report any exparte discussions that we've had. I'll start on my right, Mr. Trucker.

Thank you, Mayor Thompson. Uh, I received two phone calls from Mr. Millig and then an email that I received from him as well. He is um the applicant's attorney, but I never did connect with him. I did not have any additional questions after meeting with staff from Mr. Millig. Thank you, Miss Grow. Um, yes, I spoke with David Millage on the phone today. Okay. Does that conclude your exparte disclosures? Yes, Miss Sipple. Nothing to disclose. Okay, Mr. Pearlman. No exparte communications.

I received an email. Thank you, Mr. Pearlman. I received an email from Mr. Millig regarding this project. I may have gotten a phone call. We never connected by phone. I believe that concludes my exparte disclosures. So, with that, we can um ask the clerk to administer the oath to anyone who wishes to speak on this item. So, if you are interested in speaking, please stand and swear you're going to tell the truth. Please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that any testimony you may get before this public hearing will be truthful and accurate? Thank you. Thank you, Miss Sins. Mr. Sohaney, who will be making the presentation on this matter? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Senior planner, Mr. Owen, will make the presentation. Mr. Mayor,

yes. I did receive an email from David Millage, but I never responded. Okay. Thank you for supplementing that. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Develin, I believe you're up.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. As stated, my name is Owen Devlin. I'm a senior planner with development services, and I'm here this evening to present an application for the property located at 701 Northwest 53rd Street. The applicant is requesting a site plan approval for a conditional industrial multif family development, sorry, commercial. Outlined in red on the screen is a subject property. Um the property is adjacent to the Alrio Trail and just north of Yumato. It's currently operating as a Holiday Inn, one of several extended stay suit um hotels within the area. The image on screen displays what the current conditions are at the property for your reference. The applicant is requesting the conversion of an existing 183 room hotel building into 125 unit residential building. This will include 10% of affordable housing and 5% workforce units. Um the conversion of a existing amendy building into an approximately 5,543 or five square foot restaurant with outdoor dining and also the conversion of internal ground floor space to create three separate retail units totaling approximately 451 square ft. The original site plan was approved in 1988 allowing the construction of the existing four-story hotel on the property. The applicant proposes to convert this hotel into the 125 unit residential building with 10% which equals 13 units and 5% seven units as workforce housing. The project will enhance connectivity and accessibility within the area by constructing an 8-foot shared use path which links to the Alrio Trail, a new crosswalk on Northwest 53rd Street, and a shutter shuttle shelter at the main entrance on Northwest 7th Avenue. Further improvements will include reconfiguring

the ADA parking spaces on site for improved accessibility, enhancing the landscaping, sidewalks, bicycle parking, and converting and covering outdoor dining areas along the property frontage adjacent to the Alreo Trail. On screen, I've labeled some of the main improvements. The 8 foot shared use path loops around the whole project connecting to the new proposed crosswalk and also the El Rio which is to the west of the property. Um the trial tri rail station is approximately 0.4 miles south if you take the El Rio trail. Um the shuttle stops shelter is going to be located at the driveway entrance here. There's also additional bicycle parking being located on the El Rio trail. The reconfiguration will involve transforming one hotel room into a 400 foot efficiency unit, combining two rooms to create a one-bedroom, 800 ft² unit, and combining three rooms to create a two-bedroom, 1,200 ft² unit. An existing area for hotel amenities will be renovated into the 5,543 or 5 square foot restaurant which will feature outdoor seating within the building's interior courtyard and also um to the north or to the west close to the El Rio trail. Um access will also be provided to the El Elrio trail from the interior courtyard which will allow city residents or residents of the building to access the El Rio. At the front of the building where the retail units are labeled, there will be separate retail units here that will have access to the front of the building which faces um Seventh Street. The residential application was presented to the community appearance board on December 2nd, 2025. The CAB

board recommended approval as submitted. The applicant later added new decorative screening following the discussion with city staff which can be seen in the bottom left corner on screen. The applicant will provide addition an additional 125 rental dwelling units in the city with 13 being affordable housing units and seven being workforce housing units. The applicant is converting an existing commercial use into a housing with an affordable housing uh component. Affordable housing is one of the main objectives of the city's housing element included in the city's comprehensive plan. The new resident or the new restaurant and retail space will help to activate a section of a Rio trail providing a po a focus point on the trail. It'll also locate within walking distance of the tri rail. So, it's a great amenity for the residents to have. Um, this project is also proposing a 30% reduction in the number of daily trips to the property. The application is consistent and compatible with the adjacent land uses and the application as designed supports the goals, objectives and policies in the comprehensive plan related to pedestrian, bicycle and transit mobility. The applicant complies with all applicable call requirements and no technical deviations or variants are included as part of this project. The development services department recommends approval of the project subject to the conditions outlined in the accommodating resolution. At the April 16th planning zoning board meeting, the board voted 7 to zero to recommend approval of the application with no proposed changes. The board discuss discussion centered on the proposed rental units pricing and the rent restaurants operating hours. A member of the board suggested restricting the hours of operation for the outdoor seating. Ultimately, the board agreed to refine from imposing any restrictions on the restaurant's operations. It should be noted that any

outdoor seating will be subject to the city's noise ordinance and no members of the public spoke on the matter. As mentioned earlier, the community appearance board also recommended approval of the application as submitted. Thank you for attend your attention. That's the end of my presentation. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer.

Thank you, Mr. Develin. I appreciate that presentation. Members, do we have any questions for Mr. Develin or staff? If not, we can open up the public hearing. We can first allow the applicant to uh come to the podium, state your name and address, and you'll have up to 20 minutes. Uh good evening. Uh David Millage, uh for the record, 14 Southeast 4th Street. I'm land use council for the property owner and happy to present this application to the council tonight. So the property is located at 701 Northwest 53rd Street within the parks of Broken Sound. It's a little over 5 acres. It has a light industrial research park zoning district, LERP, and has a future land use designation of planned mobility. Today it's an existing 183 room hotel. This is a you know from the property appraisers's office. This is a aerial of the property which is shown in yellow. It's on the west side of I95 north of Yamato. Um, as shown with the green star is Tri Rail and the red that you see is the El Rio trail as well as the spur that goes to Tri Rail and then further goes southwest to Spanish River Park. The next two slides are just again pictometry of the existing property. you know, on the on the west, which is on the left, it that's the El Rio trail that again goes all the way up to Congress or close to the Congress intersection um of I95 and then uh it goes all the way down south. So, what are we here tonight for? We're

here for a CIMD. It's a site plan amendment. So, we're converting the 183 hotel suites to 125 apartments, of which 13 are affordable and seven are workforce housing units. Uh, a conversion of the hotel amenity to a restaurant and a conversion of some ground floor space to some retail base. So, the the CIMD was created by ordinance 5684 pursuant to section 166.0415. 04151 subsection 6 of the Florida statutes which is the live local act. Um this was codified in the city's code of ordinances under chapter 28 article 15 division 15 which was labeled affordable and workforce housing and commercial industrial districts. So with a CIMD project there are eligibility requirements. Uh one is that it's zoned properly. Um it must be zoned RB1, B2, MC, POI, city CG, city CHO, LURP, M3 and W1 of which this is in within lurp. Also, it has to have a the proper future land use designation either PM or EM and this is in PM. Uh the property does not abut an existing single family residence and is not located within a single family residential zoning district. The property is west of the Atlantic uh inter coastal waterway and it does not abut East Palmetto Park Road and it is um a CIMD that includes a non-residential component of at least 5,000 square ft or 10% of the total square footage of the CIMD which is the proposed restaurant and retail base. So this is the site plan. Um, just for your

uh information, north is plan left. So, what's shown in in in kind of yellow gold is the existing building. This is one solid building. Um, and it's proposed to remain as configured. The two access points, one is off of Park of Commerce Boulevard and one off of Northwest 7th Avenue. These access points remain the same. We're also providing an 8 foot shared use path around the perimeter of the site as well as a new crosswalk over uh Northwest 53rd Street. These uh shared use paths do connect to the El Rio Trail. And then in red is the El Rio Trail. Again, you uh it goes all the way south to the Triroll Station. We are providing a new bus shelter along Northwest 7th Avenue. This bus shelter is for the Parks of Broken Sound shuttle. This circulates around Parks of Broken Sound uh and then connects to the Tri Roll Station. And then what's kind of in this purple minutia color is uh um the restaurant and the outdoor seating. Plus, we're adding a new sidewalk connection to the trail. You what's really important about this project is really this activation of this corridor. Um we all got to think of the opportunity that this presents in um someone riding their bike or walking with their family. They see the activation, people out laughing, enjoying themselves, they're they're getting a bite to eat, they're having coffee, and it really creates this opportunity that's not existing within the city of true commercial activation along this valuable trail that the city has with its proximity to the Trial Station and that project that's being

built. And again, that's it's somewhat creating this catalyst, this hub with the Yamato area. With this, I would like to say that we are proposing five non-exclusive parking spaces to the public. Uh, and this is the southwest corner of the property. This would allow members of the public to come in, utilize five parking spaces so that they are able to access the trail. Um there's not a lot of ability right now for someone to, you know, leave their house with their bicycle, find parking, get on the trail. So, this is an opportunity for them. And with this location, it's great because at this portion of the trail, we have an existing bike rack and a a table and a bench. So, we thought this was a good opportunity and a great public benefit. Um, with the landscaping around the perimeter and along the trail, there's a lot of mature oak trees that are being preserved. I believe only one of the oak trees had to be removed because it conflicted with our proposed sidewalk, but everything else is remaining there. We're also enhancing a lot of the buffer and internally. So with the CIMD there are several development standards I would like to walk the council through. Uh one is relating to density. So the proposed density here is 24.9 dwelling units per acre. Um this is consistent with the code that allows for either 20 units per acre if you provide 10% affordable units or 25 units an acre if you provide an additional five units for workforce. Um floor area ratio. The maximum floor area ratio for a CIMD is 1.0 and this project is remaining the same at 0.45. Setbacks. CIMDs have special setbacks.

Uh we greatly exceed these setbacks. Um height. CMDs allow for 85 ft. This is less than half of the permissible height. Um plot size. This is, you know, greatly larger than a minimum plot size for this type of project. Open space. CIMDs require 25%. We're providing 44.2% of open space. Our buffers are at least 10 ft or greater around the property. We're providing street trees, which is another requirement of the code. Our unit sizes are at or above the minimums provided within the code. and the uh distribution of the affordable and workforce housing units are approximately proportionate to the market rate units. Meaning that if there is 40% one-bedroom market rate, there are 40% of affordable at market rate. Uh parking, we exceeded parking, uh 204 are required. We're providing 213 spaces. Um, that's why we thought it would be great to provide uh five additional public parking spaces because we did have that capacity. As it relates to traffic, um, this is a significant reduction in traffic, uh, daily trips and peak hour trips. This also was reviewed by Palm Beach County where it met the traffic performance standards as set forth within the ULDC's. And then this project is consistent with the city's comprehensive plan. Um we're we're providing sidewalks around the property. We're we're really creating this interconnected network of multimodal transportation. We have the shared use path. We have the El Rio uh trail. We have Tri Rail right down the

street. Triel is great because that facility has a convergence of many Palm Tran bus routes as well as a Greyhound uh pickup spot there. Um it's also served by the the Bokeh the brick the Boca Raton Innovation Campus uh shuttle which gets you access to brick. It also has access to the uh parks or broken sound shuttle. with this application, there are site plan criteria that need to be reviewed and analyzed um by the council and I'm going to walk you through those uh right now. So, as I just mentioned, this is consistent with all with the city's comprehensive plan and the city's uh code of ordinances. Um there is a new 8-foot shared pathway that you know connects the El Rio Canal with um an additional crosswalk over 53rd Street. Internal traffic circulation is really remaining the same. But what's important to note is actually the traffic reduction. Uh lighting at the surface parking lot is remaining the same. And then you know as environmental pollution, noise, light, air, the residential use is less impactful. I mean, think about laundry. Whenever you go to a hotel, they're cleaning sheets and towels daily or every other day for hotel guests where you think about your doing your own laundry, how often do you do it? uh noise. You know, if people are living there, they're more respectful and thoughtful of the noise that they create as compared to a hotel uh user, which, you know, they're on vacation, they're letting use, they're having fun. Uh garbage. Uh it's still uh today it's a private hauler that picks it up. It's going to continue. Uh surface water drainage. It has its um existing drainage facility that it uses today and

will continue. uh water supply, sewer collection, all of these are serviced by the city's water and sewer facilities, uh energy conservation and efficiency. You know, with this new build, they're going to have to conform with today's modern code. And a good example is like plumbing fixtures. You know, they're today they're low flow, uh better lighting. So, this is projects will have this energy conservation location. I mean, this is centrally located on the lot. So it's providing large setbacks around the other uses. Um and then the relationship of the site plan to existing and planned transportation and utility facilities. Again, this is a a great location proximity to Tri Rail. It has the Parker Broken Sound shuttle. Uh so it's a lot of benefits. Also, this project will not create any deficiencies uh with the public facilities uh sorry um compatibility. You know, there's other hotels in the area. There's new residential uh being built in the area. So, this is a compatible use. Um we are providing a lot of new landscaping and screening. We have all of these mature oak trees around the property. Uh we did uh receive a recommendation of approval from CAB which is consistent with section 2 or sorry 2-130 um and availability of utilities um will is provided to the site. They we have existing utilities and and that's not really changing. Um, so really in conclusion here is we received a recommendation of approval from your professional staff. We received a unanimous recommendation of approval from the planning and zoning board. We

meet or exceed all CIMD development standards under section 281644. We are not asking for any technical deviations or modifications to the city's engineering design and stands manual which is your EDSM. We satisfy all approval criteria set forth in sections 2854 and 2816 uh 43 and we meet uh all levels of service um as required under your comprehensive plan. Um, again, just in conclusion, this project activates this corridor. It provides a destination for people to want to go to. Um, and happy to answer any questions that the council might have. Thank you very much for your time and I'll like to reserve any remaining time that I might have.

You have it. Thank you, Mr. Millig. Any questions for the applicant? Mr. Rucker. Thank you, Mr. Millig. I do have two questions. So on your energy conservation, are they going to be EV ready? You're going to have like electric charging stations?

We we haven't proposed anything. Um the biggest difficulty with EV ready parking spaces is uh well with EV. So the city has the EV ready, the EV capable, and the EV something. But um it comes down to uh the conduit, the wires, and then the the transformer. Uh FPL requires larger transformers for sites that do it. We haven't analyzed that to see what we would be able to do with the existing transformers, but we're happy to look at it um to provide some spaces if it's available, but right now we're not proposing any.

I I would like to see that. And the second thing is is there any incentive like they're doing at link at bo link at bokeh which is the property that's being built right on tri rail site or adjacent to tri rail site for any transit passes or anything to the residents that are going to be in order to encourage them because you can have everything the El Rio trail which is a great trail we you know if you haven't taken a bike ride I recommend that you guys try that out it's awesome um obviously try rail but everything else in that area that would be something that I think would be beneficial if you're really trying to activate that area.

Yes. So, we do we will we are providing uh 30% subsidy on Palm Tran and Tri Rail passes. Okay. I missed that. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for the applicant? No. Okay. Six minutes or thereabouts will be reserved. This is a public hearing. So, anyone else wishing to speak, please come forward if you've been sworn. And if not, we'll swear you in. State your name and address for the record and uh you'll have three minutes. Mr. Warner.

Hi, Richard Warner. 1322 Southwest 9th Terrace. I don't want to oppose this. I just want to point out something I consider in Congress actually two points. Over the past year or two, we've all seen a parade of people wanting to build hotels because theoretically Boca Raton needs hotels for all the people who are coming here, which is a fraud, of course. But here we have a guy taking a hotel out of circulation. Doesn't that seem a little shaky in view of the fact that we have the cruise ship hotel coming up downtown and another one at Royal Palm and God knows how many others. That's the point I was trying to make. Nothing no specifics about this one. Uh, I'd also I I I know this is a little off target, but very quickly, the advisory board seems not to be able to deal with the 7.2 acres, just the rest, and the consultants coming into play and the advisory board doesn't get to deal with those. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm confused. Just a question.

Thank you, Mr. Warner. Anyone else? Mr. Leonson, go ahead. I don't think I was sworn. Do you swear or affirm that any testimony you may get before this public hearing will be truthful and accurate? I do. Thank you.

Mike Leonson, 398 Northeast Third Court. I hadn't taken a look at this uh project presentation until tonight. And you know, we're so used to development proposals coming before this city council that are asking for variances that are testing the limits of what we have in our general plan or our zoning ordinances that were that are increasing um uses a big apartment complexes right next to our single family residential neighborhoods. and and this one is not asking for any of that. It seems really a uh very good proposal. I would be in favor favor of it. Um I don't need to repeat what Mr. Militch said in terms of, you know, all of the relative positives of the project, but it seems like one of the the type of project and the type of analysis here, including traffic where they went to Palm Beach and got that certified in terms of the traffic study as well as our uh city staff saying the same. So, um I would be in for in favor of this project myself.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to be heard on this matter? Please come to the lectern and state your name and address. Miss Madson, Mary, I have to Let's pause here. Anyone else thinking they may want to speak about this? Let's swear you in. Go ahead. Do you swear or affirm that any testimony you may get before this public hearing will be truthful and accurate? Yes. Thank you.

Meredith Madson, 1193 Southwest 19th Street. I also think this is great. I agree with everything Mike Leonson said, and I think that we're often being asked to build when you have something that's already built. It already has old oak trees. It actually reduces traffic. I also agree that it would be great if it has, you know, charging stations, but I think that this is something that should move through pretty quickly. It's not um asking anything actually of the residents and it brings more value, more housing. You won't have to build housing because housing already exists. So you don't have any real construction other than conversion. So I don't know what would stop this from going through, but if anything would stop this from going through. I think that the residents in general think this is a great idea. And we don't all agree on everything as we see every single day, but this is something I think everybody should get behind. So that's it. I just wanted to say that out loud positively. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you, Miss Madson. Anyone else? Last call for opportunity to speak on item 11A. In that case, we will close the time for public comment on this matter and we will ask for a motion, a second to adopt resolution number 45-2026. Do I hear such a motion? So moved. Very good. Second. Is that to the left? I heard a second from Miss Sipple. Excellent. Any further discussion? Members, did you have something to say, Mr. Kaylor?

Mr. Mayor, I just would defer to the planning and uh zoning director in connection with the uh presentation by the applicant. The applicant had shown on the screen a couple of statements and made some verbal statements about five parking spaces being available for use and and so I understood that to be a voluntary profer. I asked the development services uh director if there was anything in the current development order that documented that and the answer was no. And so my recommendation would be again if if that is what the applicant is uh voluntarily profering that there would be five non-exclusive uh spaces available to the public to access the Elrio trail. We would we would say that in writing in the development order and I guess I would just ask the applicant to to confirm that's correct.

Thank you Mr. Kaylor. Uh that is correct. I will have a small caveat that we would like these spaces to have an hour of operation. There's no need for anyone to be accessing the trail at night. So, our suggestion is that the the spaces are available non-exclusively between 9 and 6. Um, we thought that was appropriate. Seems sensible to me. Any for Mr. Rucker? How late are the restaurants or the mixed retail use going to be open? The so the the restaurants um I mean 10 11 I mean

so what my recommendation would be is not till 6 but till hours of operation are either of the mixed use or the actual trail which opens from daylight to dusk. Mhm. I So my So anybody accessing the restaurant, you know, through a a vehicle would have access to any parking space. Um I think that we can get behind the dawn till dusk. Okay. Because the trail is being um and I know they're working on and I don't see Mr. Beer in the audience today, but I know they've been working on the lighting because that was one of our big projects to get the the the trail

lit up so from safety and just for people to use it. um into the evening. So, my recommendation would be to go from sunrise, I guess it's sunrise to dusk, like our parks, kind of like the park, how we run our parks today. Our trail is part of our park and recreation system. Yeah. And and uh Brandon Shad can read some language he's prepared into the record and add the uh sunrise to sunset in there. But I again I guess I would ask you Brandon just to confirm these are spaces in addition to and separate from the spaces to access the restaurant and access the retail.

Yes. So they had uh nine spaces in addition to the minimum requirements. So they have the capacity to do that. Um I was going to suggest and I'm not familiar with the lighting project but sunset seems pretty early. If the trail was eventually lit, perhaps we should just say something more general that they can set reasonable hour restrictions subject to approval of staff or something like that or we would be acceptable to that. So I think that would be getting us more open spaces for longer which I think is a good thing. So I think that's a we have consensus that that's acceptable. Okay. Do we have is staff satisfied or do you need to read the language in? Go ahead. I can read the language to you if you like. Yeah.

Okay. Um, it says the applicant voluntarily profers the designation and maintenance of five parking spaces on the property at the southwest corner of the parking lot for non-exclusive public use associated with access to the El Rio Trail. The applicant shall provide appropriate signage identifying such spaces which shall be subject to review and approval by the development services director. Additionally, prior to the issuance of a building permit, the applicant shall execute and deliver to the city for recordation and the public records of Palm Beach County in a form acceptable to the city attorney, a legal instrument granting the right of the public to use such parking spaces as determined necessary by the development services director. And then I would add, which I haven't drafted yet, um the applicant may impose reasonable restrictions on the time of use of such spaces subject to the approval of development services director.

Beautiful. Um I think we need to amend the motion to include that profer which we do want to accept and I'll need so I'll need an amended motion and we'll need a second on that. So Mr. Ducker, if you could please. Mayor Thompson, I move that we amend resolution number 45-2026 to include the language provided by Mr. Shad and agreed by the applicant. Yeah. Very good. And a second whoever I mean I can second it, but I believe Miss you had second. Okay. Excellent.

All right. So, we have an amended motion and a second. Is there any further discussion on this matter? I have a couple comments that I can go through quickly. Uh to me I think this is as was stated a great example of a good change to an existing property to make it better. It complies with our code. It complies with our comprehensive plan. It's below the permitted F there. It exceeds the required setbacks. It's below the permitted height. It is increasing or it's well within the parking requirement. It reduces traffic and there are no technical deviations or variances. That is one of several of of many reasons why this is a project that we I can support and I intend to support it tonight. Is there any other discussion?

Uh may I ask Mr. Shad a couple questions? I suppose. Yeah. Um these 125 unit first of all this zoning district um without a CIMD can you build residential units in this zoning district?

No. the state legislature passed the um affordable housing um regulations for in the in the live local act. This CIMD um designation that that was passed through by the city council in 2024 after the live local act. Can you confirm that the maximum affordable housing which is reflected in this um project is 10%. So there's uh 10% of the units are uh classified as affordable. That's for moderate income up to 120% of the area median income. And then there's additional 5% that are um workforce which is defined as up to 140% of the area median income. So it's 15% total that are income restricted.

Right? to the lower of those, the more affordable units, the maximum is 10%. Yes. If this were if CIMD was not in in existence, um, and this were a live local project, how how many uh what percentage of this uh development would be affordable housing? 40%. Okay. So, if this were an affordable housing project, sorry, if this were a project of the live local um designation that was passed by the state legislature, this would have four times the amount of affordable units. Is that correct? It would have four times the amount um at that 120% of area median level. Yes.

Okay. Um we spoke a little bit about CIMDs yesterday. Um given that you just explained that this zoning district doesn't allow residential development and we're adding 120 potentially if this project is approved adding 125 units of residential development to the city. Are those is the density in zoning districts that do allow residential will that be reduced to mitigate the addition of these 120 units in some way? Uh no, there is no um reduction elsewhere for uh to to compensate. No, but but as we discussed yesterday, the the PM designation does in the comprehensive plan does contemplate residential in in this area and those impacts have been analyzed as part of the comprehensive plan.

Yes, but I'm I'm the PM is a future designation. I'm talking about right now given that right now in this zoning district where this project is you cannot build residential housing without a CIMD which is being utilized today to to to make these 125 units is that just please confirm one more time that's not going to be offset in terms of lower density in zones that do allow residential development. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. Thank you. Any further discussion, Mayor Thompson? Okay.

I just want to thank the Thank you, Mr. Millich, for the project. I think this is a great project. Everybody knows if we had a live local act project, we would have no say in the project. It could be whatever wanted it to be and it wouldn't be as thoughtfully um procured as you've thought of everything in terms of our mobility plan, RCIMD. Thankfully, we still have that in place because if not, we don't get to see any of the live local act projects. It could just be dropped to us. It could be whatever anybody wants. That's a legislature. If you have issues with that, you know, you could uh, you know, talk to your Florida legislators or you could run to be a senator or house representative. So, I appreciate you connecting the mobility, connecting the trail, activating the mixed youth, uh, honoring the 10%, the 5%, which is an ordinance that we passed in order to get more housing into our area. And I think that that area is really ripe because the trail connects not only to try rail, but it connects to FAU as well. And I think that could be a good area um, for some student and also professional housing. So, with that, I will be supporting this today. Thank you.

Mr. Thompson, may I ask one more question? Sure. Uh thank you Miss Ducker for further elaborating um information about the live local act. um right now how how many um we addressed this yesterday, but is it accurate to say that since the passage of the CIMD regulation in 2024, there's been roughly there's been seven projects totaling roughly 2,200 additional residential units added to the city in zones that currently do not allow residential development. Uh approved projects. Yes.

Yeah. And those projects provide the ba this bare minimum of of 10% affordable housing those CIMD projects. I'm talking exclusively about affordable housing. Yes. How many how since um during this time how many live local projects offering 40% affordable housing have been passed in the have been approved in the city? There have been none approved. There is one in process.

Okay. So there's been no approved live local project. So, had these seven projects, these 2200 units, um if they if these units had been live local projects, is it accurate to say that we would have roughly 8,800 affordable housing units right now instead of 2,000? Um, well, I'm sorry, it's a percentage of that, but it it's accurate to say that we would have four times the amount of afford affordable housing across these seven projects right now had they been live local projects. Is that correct? If the same projects had been approved under live local. Yes.

Okay. Do you feel as though this current zoning regulation CIMD is given that seven CIMD projects with this vast amount of units have been approved in this time period, but no live local projects have been approved in this time period, which offer four times the amount of affordable housing. Given that affordable housing is is recognized as less profitable to developers and potential builders, do you feel that this zoning designation has limited the the passage of live local projects in Boca Raton? I don't know. Okay. Well, we're going to have to look into that. Thank you, Mr. Shad.

Thank you, Mr. Pearlman. And let me I'll I'll make this suggestion. This is you had sections for Mr. Shad both yesterday and today a lot of them were about the same. It strikes me and just just one guy. It strikes me that a lot of the questions relate to things that you could have discussed with Mr. Shad during agenda review because they weren't even at least in tonight's case they weren't specific to this project. I would recommend that all of us take time during our agenda few process or the fact that staff is available at all times to us just about to have these kinds of questions answered in that setting because um there's a lot of folks here that want to be heard potentially on other items and it's at least for me anyway the time may be better used if we do so in uh a time when Mr. Shad is in his office or during a general review rather than than here but that

Mr. Thompson, one response, please. Okay. Yeah, thank you for that. The reason I was sent here, the mandate that I'm here to fulfill is full transparency for the residents and therefore all of these questions need to be asked in a public setting so that all the residents can hear the answers. Uh okay. Uh again, maybe we want to maybe maybe let me make the suggestion. Maybe we restrict them to a time when we're not at a quasi judicial hearing when an applicant who's deserving an answer on something like this has to sit and listen to questions that have nothing to do with their application. Just just again just my two cents. It was on CIMD which this application is. Any further discussion? No. Okay. Well then, Miss Sittens, please call the role. Ducker,

yes. Pearlman, no. Sipple, yes. Thompson. Yes. Growl. Yes. Motion passes four votes to one.

Very good. We now can move on to that concludes our quasi judicial hearings for the night. We can move on to regular public hearings. Uh the public hearings on items 12A and 12B will be combined as these items are interrelated, but a separate vote will be taken on each item. So, Miss Sittens, if you could please read the title of ordinance number 5784, resolution number 35-2026, and if you have any breath left, ordinance number 5783. Ordinance number 5784, an ordinance of the city of Boca Raton, Florida, providing for amendments to the city code of ordinances to create a new section 2-4 protection of city-owned lands code of ordinances providing that the city council shall not in any manner alienate from the public, lease or sell any land that is owned by the city of Bocaraton greater than 0.5 acre except upon approval of the proposed action at a referendum election providing for limited exceptions, providing for severability ility providing for appealer providing for codification in the code of ordinances providing an effective date. Resolution 352026, a resolution of the city of Boca Raton providing for submission to the electors of a proposed charter amendment prohibiting the lease, sale, or other alienation of city-owned land greater than 1/2 acre without voter approval by referendum subject to limited exceptions. providing for a special election to be held at the next available election but no later than the March 2027 uniform municipal election providing for severability providing for appealer providing an effective date. Ordinance number 5783, an ordinance of the city of Boca Raton, Florida, providing for amendments to the city charter to create city charter section 7.11, protection of city-owned lands, providing that the city council shall not in any manner alienate from the public, lease or sell any land that is

owned by the city of Bocarone greater than 0.5 acres except upon approval of the proposed action at a referendum election providing for limited exceptions providing for severability providing for appealer providing for codification and the city charter providing an effective date. Thank you Miss S. Mr. Sahaney who will be introducing the presentation doing the presentation on these matters. Thank you Mr. Mayor. The city attorney Mr. Kaylor will make the presentation. Thank you Mr. Kaylor.

Good evening uh mayor council members of the public. Um, I'm here tonight to present item 12, which uh we have referred to as the Save Bokeh citizen petitions. As the clerk uh read into the record, there are three items tonight. Um, there is ordinance number 5783, which is a proposed charter amendment creating a new section 7.11 of the city charter, and that we're referring to throughout in the staff report and the agenda as the Save Bokea charter amendment. Um the ordinance that's the public hearing tonight and I'll explain about the charter amendment in a moment is ordinance 5784 and that's creating a new section 2-4. Uh same title and identical language. It's just in the charter and we're referring to that as the save uh bokeh ordinance. And then lastly is the resolution 352026 which provides for the submission of the charter amendment to the voters at the next available election and we're calling that the ballot resolution. The state book charter amendment is presented in ordinance form as an exhibit to the resolution but it can only be put forward by the voters by the people through a majority vote. That's how the charter can only be amended by the voters of of the city uh at a vote. Um but the way that it is done procedurally is you have a ballot resolution and you attach the charter amendment to that. All that said, the language of the charter amendment and the ordinance are identical. the ordinance that would be adopted by the council tonight, if that's the council's pleasure, um would affirm the rule and the ordinance would

go into effect immediately. The charter amendment, of course, would require the vote of the citizens to uh have that become part of the charter, which again is the city's constitution. Um they both say the same thing. They would require voter approval before the city can alienate, lease or uh sell or lease city- owned land greater than 1/2 acre. And then uh there are certain limited clarifying exceptions to enable the city to function efficiently. And I'm going to go through those in a moment. Uh this matter absolutely was the product of cooperation and coordination. Uh the city attorney's office as directed by the council uh worked closely with petitioners committees. The ordinance was in introduced by council member Pearlman. Um and it was based on those discussions that the city had council had throughout April 2026 at least as to these items and of course the broader public discussion has been ongoing uh for almost a year. Um, as mentioned, those specific uh exceptions were worked on and drafted in coordination with the representative of the petitioners committee and uh the parties are being the city as as presented tonight and the petitioners committees through their representative um have felt comfortable that these clarifying exceptions are consistent with and that the fundamental rule uh is is in place and so the the purpose and intent of the initiative petitions is fully satisfied. Um the rule is again as as state stated this is in section 2-4. Some folks may have seen through the agenda materials there was a reference to 7.11. That's just numbering. One's for the

charter, one's for the ordinance. Um again the language is the same uh on the operative rule. Um and and again it states the rule that was uh uh effectively the is the save BCO uh rule. The city council shall not in any manner alienate from the public lease or sell any land that is owned by the city of Boca Raton greater than 1/2 acre except upon approval of the proposed action at a referendum election. Then again as directed by the council and as uh stated in the last slide uh there are the limited clarifying exceptions um set forth under two and so those fall into four groups. Um the first was the discussion regarding uh nonprofit uh leases and as discussed at the uh workshop. I can't recall which one it was, but there was um a desire to see some added language to make sure there was no loophole that was allowing for an amendment that would also somehow get around the rule. And so the language as mentioned in the staff report uh now says provided that those things don't add new land to the lease that is greater than one half acre. Um so that's the nonprofit uh existing uh nonprofit uh uh exception. Um and the next was the the easements discussion for utilities. um uh again with the qualifier that they serve the residents of the city or Palm Beach County. And then there's this clause at the end including placement in in the rights of way. That's just a a technical reality that we have some things that are technically an easement and some things that are tech technically a rideway. Um I like to think about it as my front yard is grass. I play catch with my kids, but

part of that is actually the rideway. um as opposed to uh land on which that utility or or government would have to put an easement in place. So that's just a technical um uh uh language. Uh the item C was the use of city-owned land by the city for public facilities or operations. Again, consistent with the purpose of the Save Bokeh citizen petitions focusing on third parties uh using city land. And so naturally use of city-owned land by the city for public facilities of operations um is not uh inconsistent with that. And then lastly is um a little bit longer condition, but I think when you read it as a whole, it it does a really good job of narrowing in the exception. And it talks about a temporary use of city-owned lands by others for recreational or community activities where the city keeps possession and control of the land and doesn't give anyone the right to take over or control the land on a ongoing or long-term basis. Um, council may be aware there was, I think, a lot of discussion may still be about that language. Um, I do feel comfortable that when you read that clause as a whole, it is sufficiently narrow. Um, certainly others may disagree and reasonable minds can. Um I I I think that this is enough considering the entirety of the ordinance to do one safeguard the underlying rule which is you you don't get to sidestep the underlying rule but also two make sure that these recreational community activities that again where the city is keeping possession and control of the land and people are not really effectively taking it over. I think this is a enough of a rule that it gives clear guidance not

just for this council but for future councils and if it ever came to it for future courts which hopefully would not be the case. Um there, as you may recall, there was some language in the Save Bokeh citizen petitions that was circulated that said or any part thereof. And so there had been some discussion to put more uh words to that and and the intent behind that and and really the intent was not to uh subsume the halfacre rule that the halfacre threshold is still the rule but that that really that you can't you know get clever and get cute to try to get around that rule. And so this uh language um affirms that you know you can't divide a parcel to try to avoid that rule. And then I I believe deputy mayor Grow had pointed out and you also don't want the other other way where if you might have contiguous parcels that are 3.3.3 you don't get a get around the rule that way. So this was um uh done to uh really uh affirm what or any part thereof uh um uh means and and then of course as as pointed out that was taken out of the the rule itself so that it now works in conjunction with three it's greater than 1/2 acre and then you go to the protection against the uh the workaround the subversions uh in in Um lastly going on to the resolution um which would set the election of on the charter amendment at the next available election but no later than March 2027 uniform municipal election uh is the uh ballot language itself. Um the ballot language there there's no magic

to it. Uh unfortunately he got 75 words to say it and 15 words in the title. Um and again working closely with the petitioners committees. Um there was some revisions to affirm what the rule is. So the voters are on clear notice that this is uh creating a new section entitled protection of city-owned lands and that fundamentally it does require this voter approval before u the these transactions involving greater than a half acre. Um so my recommendation certainly from a legal standpoint is that's legally sufficient. The policy decision is of course up to the council. Uh this is of course uh is unusual and that its genesis is the save bokeh initi citizen petitions which everyone in this room is very familiar with. Um but it does represent an implementation of those uh citizen petitions again as as worked on in coordination with the petitioners committees. Um so that is what I have to present tonight and I'm available to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Kaylor. Members, do we have any questions for staff?

Mayor. Yes, Mr. Mr. Kaylor.

So, the two ordinances are interrelated but independent. Correct. So, the reason we are discussing them together is because of the interrelated dependency. If you're asking, yes, they have different legal effect. The ordinance is an action of this body that would take effect immediately and be the law of the city immediately. The resolution takes that same policy and duplicates it in in the charter and so they are independent actions. So you can vote. So in hypothetical you could vote for the ordinance which is protection of land etc etc and still vote against the actual resolution to go to referendum.

That that's permissive. Correct. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions for staff? If not, we can open up the public hearing. So if anybody wishes to speak on these matters, please step forward, state your name and address for the record, and you will have up to three minutes. I think I have a couple cards on this. So why don't we start with them? No, no, no. First card I have is from Dr. Lorraine Blank. Hi, Lorraine Blank, 545 Northwest 7 Street. I just want to say I do support the There we go.

I'm a shorty. I do support the ordinance, but um I'm concerned about some of the language in it. um and that there could be loopholes that would um that would allow even though they're not the intentions of this of this council later on that could allow um to other councils to take advantage. I'm concerned about 2C the exe two of the exemptions 2C that exempt city-owned land. Um of course I want city-owned land exempted but I want limitations. I passed around some of the the wording things for you to read. Um, I'm concerned that it needs to be more specific. It doesn't say how long that's would be. Is it a permanent building? It doesn't limit the size of the land that can be used. Um, it assume it there's no limitations at all. I think the wording should be that if the if the land to be used, even if it's a public building, is larger than the half acre, then it should go to a public vote. In this way, it's exempted from a public vote. Um, with respect to um 2D, I think the wording I had some communication with Mr. Cola. I still disagree. I think the wording is problematic because the words temporary, ongoing, and long-term remain undefined and that could allow for ambiguity and potential grounds for dispute. I don't think they should be left to interpretation as Mr. Kohler says because we know interpretations change. look at the voting rights law, look at abortion, look interpretations change. I think you should be specific. Um, and that also another problem is that it doesn't prevent short-term long-term control through short-term mechanisms such as serial renewals, rolling 30-day permits, or back-to-back exclusions um through exclusive use. So,

I would like to ask that you consider a change uh some amendments to the wording of the ex of the exemptions. I do, as I said, and I think um support the um the ordinance and the charter. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Blank. Who else would like to be heard on items 12A or 12B? Actually, no. I have another card. Mr. Mike Leonson. Mike Leeson, 398 Northeast, uh Third Court. Uh this is great. It's been a long road. Thanks to John Pearlman and Save Bokea members for getting this far. Um I spent a lot of time looking at the amendment language. I sent an email in. I think you both had a chance to review. Mr. Kaylor gave a very detailed and very good response uh to that email and I'm entirely uh satisfied. I even see that uh we went beyond the recreation exception uh comments I had to tighten up a bit the amendment language on the nonprofits. I think the most important um thing here is and let me just say there's always going to be exceptions. I'm going to give you one exception. The beach and parks district now is looking at a cell phone tower. I bet that's not even a half acre. But obviously impacts from that cell phone to tower are huge, right? And so we're going to still have to rely upon a good council and good analysis of anything we do that goes beyond, you know, what specifically this amendment and ordinance language has to say. Um I think the most important issue here is speed. So, even though we can always look at this language and come up with other little changes, it needs to get passed to tonight and it needs to go up to a vote as soon as possible by the voters and citizens of the city of Boca Raton. We all know that one of the reasons that the original save bokeh lang save bokeh petition was struck down

by the courts was because the s soe uh Palm Beach County did not put that petition up for election within the time period that was mandated by the uh city's uh regulations. In this case, I understand that we've been told by Wendy Link and the SOE that she will not put this up for election until March of 2027. Please let me know if I'm wrong. That is completely unacceptable. Unacceptable. The city of Boca Raton is responsible for its own elections. We delegate that authority and we pay Palm Beach County and the SOE to do those elections. If she will not or if the S so SOE will not conduct an election within the next 60 to 90 days on this charter amendment then we have to do that ourselves and I'd like to have some discussion I'd like to see some discussion from the council on how we're going to handle that particular election. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to be heard on items 12A and 12B? Mr. Mayor. Yeah, Mr. Kaylor. May I just comment on on the 60 to 90day issue? Sure. We can stop that clock, but it's running out anyway, but go ahead.

Um, and I appreciate Mr. Leson for raising that. Um, the 60 to 90day timing issue. I think there's one for 30 to 60, another for 60 to 90, but those are only applicable for a citizen petition. What is occurring through items 12A and B is it's a joint resolution of the citizen petition process through the council's independent authority to propose amendments to the charter and the co the charter is very clear that the timing provisions don't apply to the action of of the council to put forth uh a charter amendment. And so again with the agreement of the petitioners committees, it is a function of our charter that that that limitation whether it was read correctly or incorrectly by the court doesn't apply to this action tonight. So I just while the broader policy question may be certainly an appropriate discussion about how elections are conducted, I just wanted to assure uh the council and the public at least my opinion is the charter is pretty clear that that doesn't apply in this instance. So we don't have to worry about that issue.

Thank you, Mr. Kaylor. Uh Mr. Ducate, I believe you were up next. Wherever you went. There you are.

Thank you, Robert Dukate, 5351 Northwest Third Terrace. I have a question for your legal counsel for possible amendment. Is a lease the same as a concession agreement? The SE Boaton ordinance proposal states that a lease is prohibited on this land but does not restrict a concession agreement. Uh for your reference, the local beach and parks district is not allowed to sell, lease, or otherwise convey their land, but the district has entered into a 99-year concession agreement to get around the term lease. that is for the indoor pickle ball ball court they have uh built at North Park. Therefore, if a concession agreement is not pro prohibited, then this concession agreement uh should be added as an amendment to a prohibit prohibited action for any land in addition to a lease. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on items 12 A or 12B? Miss Parker?

Martha Parker, 64 Northwest 7th Street. I really wasn't planning to speak, but I'll keep it um kind of brief. I think that um getting the ordinance in effect would be really great because it will protect us. But I also think as a fiscally responsible um person that uh waiting until March when we're already going to have an election is a very fiscally responsible thing to do. When we had um a special election a few years ago, it was several hundred,000. And I would like to see that several hundred,000 go into improving the parks or or doing something of that nature. So, thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Yep. Please step forward.

My name is Harold Chaffy. I live at 6200 Northwest Second Avenue. I'm the president of Keep Golf and Bokeh. It's a 50 503C. I represent over a thousand people in Bokeatica. Um the gentleman that spoke about the uh concession was correct. you know the beach and parks. We fought for two years to get the property away from this the 210 acres ocean breeze fought for two years to get the property away from Lenor. We then basically the city was going to basically swap the municipal golf course over to uh over to Ocean Breeze so that the golf course and that would be in the city. We found we found out the best uh place for us to basically to give the land to was the beach and parks and because they had restrictions. They had a charter. They couldn't uh lend seal a whole bunch of things. He had said they can't do anything with the property. Uh all of a sudden they came up with this word concession. I mean, I I I think that what we need to do is and you know, and I even said to one time at the meeting, I said, "I need to bring a dictionary to this bill this meeting because every time I talk to you, you're using another word to circumvent your charter." You know, I know that they said in a couple meetings, they said they they asked the state, the state said it's approved. They can use this word concession. That we don't want any dupes. We don't want any people duping us. We worked long and hard to get the 200 acres away and now they're doing whatever they want with it. They don't listen to us. They don't pay attention to us. They just ignore us. That's why you people are elected. You people are elected because basically you wouldn't listen to the people that you wouldn't city wouldn't listen to you about downtown. We have the same problem up here. We have the beach and parks running rampant doing whatever they want to do with this land. You know, they get the city and they made an agreement in the beginning that it was going to be a golf course. They have they now we have everything in the world. We have a boys and girls club they want to put on the property and there's going to be a lot of problems with with parking with uh and because they're going to continue

Jeffrey Street through which is another topic they should never the residents do not want this uh the Jeffrey Street cut through and the people on 28th Street don't want 28th Street closed. So, I don't understand why even going forward with this. You know, we had a gentleman uh basically going back maybe almost 10 years ago that brought it up out of the blue, you know, that they see to put this the Jeffrey Street on the contract with the with the breeze line with Bright Line. I mean, uh that they would put it into their contract that they would assist the city in in doing the crossing on Jeffrey Street. The railroad came back and said, "We will not do another crossing unless you close a crossing." So the sacrificial lamb which is 28th street which everybody uses even the children to cross that to get to the school on the other side of the street. What are you going to do with them? All this is closed down. There's so many factors involved. You're not listening. You know you're going by all kinds of reports and everything else that you should do it shouldn't and and I'm saying it doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense. You know common common sense and logic has to be put into a lot of your reports that you read which you're not doing. And also community. Where is the community? Do you ever think about the community?

Mr. Chap, your time is expired. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to be heard on items 12A and 12B specific to the charter amendment and ordinance? Mr. Warner,

Richard Warner, 1322 Southwest 9th Terrace. Boys and Girls Club sounds good to me, but anyway, not my business. I at the risk of being redundant, uh, I want to echo what Mr. Leelson said. Hallelujah. What an achievement. Thank you, John, Stacy, Michelle, Mayor. Maybe there'll even be an epiphany here tonight about No. Oh. Oh, well. Uh I I think this is a real achievement. I I think all of us should recognize that it is. I think that nobody's saying it, but the reason that the court struck it down was mischief makers, people people with bad intent. It was not unconstitutional. It was a game. I don't think that'll happen this time. But I wonder if I mean, people were willing to have a city election, one issue election about extending terms and nobody cared about the money then. I won't point fingers but at any rate uh I think it's important to separate these issues which are overwhelmingly important to me and to the citizens of Bokeh from an election. There's going to be a council seat up in March if I'm not correct.

And I would hate to see it become entangled with this charter amendment. I guess that's all I really want to say. I'm not sure exactly what can be done to avoid that, but if it's possible, if it's feasible to separate this vote and give the citizens a clear focus, let's have a vote on this issue and not cloud it with political aspirations and people supporting ing or opposing it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Warner. Yes, sir. Step one up.

Name 290 West Palmetto. Yeah. While the public comment period's open, I'd like to hear if John wants to. I'd like to hear uh Councilman John speak to uh about everything that was just displayed for this uh 12 AMB, but leave the comment period open. I think he's going to like make people have additional comments. It tends to be the case that we we handle public comment all in one period. I think we should continue to do that. Do we have anyone else who wishing to speak on this item or items 12 A and B? Last call. Public comment 12 A 12B. In that case, we will close the public time for public comment. Close the public hearing, I should say. And I'll entertain before we undertake our discussion among the members of the council. We'll ask for a motion and a second to adopt ordinance number 5784. Do I hear such a motion?

I'd like to make a motion to adopt. And I will second that. Now we can discuss. So, who would like to go first? I can go first. Don't want to dominate though. Anybody else want to go first?

Okay. Well, I I'll I'll give my comments if it's okay with everybody. I think this is an example of democracy and action. It started with citizens circulating petitions, availing themselves of our petition process, and it generated significant public interest and support. Obviously, since then, the end result, what we're voting on now, the version of the ordinance that's before us tonight, I think represents cooperation and common sense because we made revisions to the language to incorporate what I view to be reasonable and sensible exceptions regarding things like nonprofits, utilities, easements, city uses. And so I believe that this is a a good example of when the public pays attention, mobilizes, and I think galvanized the community in an effort to make sure that they that their government represented and and that our laws represented what they want. And I think this is a great way to to great culmination of that process in my view. So, I intend to be supporting item 12A. I intend to be supporting item 12B because I think this was a really good step to making sure that we know what we're getting ourselves into, but then also keeping open the possibility that language can be improved, dare I say, even when lawyers get involved. So, I think that o overall is a positive for our community and I'll be supporting these two items tonight. Anyone else wishing to discuss?

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. And I want to just thank all of the citizens because without you, we wouldn't be in this position that we are today on the on the verge of pushing this forward and which would if it's passed tonight would be an incredible step for us. By no means a victory. We have to stay vigilant and continue to keep city hall accountable to the taxpayers, but to push this through to protect our public land, our parks, and our way of life. That was the mandate why we were sent here. So, I hope that everybody can support this tonight. Thank you.

Any other comments? Say something real quick. Yeah. Um, I just want to say that this this one issue really brought our community together. We may not agree on everything, but on this issue, residents came together to protect our public lands and our parks. And thank you, John Pearlman and Stacy and all the residents who signed the Saboka petitions and who worked tireless every day to bring this to a vote today. And to Mr. Kohler for his work through the process. I know there was a lot of back and forth discussions and numerous emails from residents and he answered all those and helped ensure the wording was done properly.

Thank you. Anyone else? Miss Sibil like to thank John too. I don't think people really know how much work was behind the scenes that he actually did. I don't think he slept for a year. But um I'm thankful that he came forward and brought the community together and this is the result of it and may it pass tonight. Any further comments? In that case, Miss Sins, could you please do a roll call for item 12A

for ordinance 5784? Pearlman, yes. Sipple, yes. Thompson, yes. Growl, yes. Ducker, yes. Motion passes, five votes to zero.

And at this point, we can entertain a motion to adopt resolution number 35-2026. Do I hear such a motion? I'd like to make the motion. And I will second. Do we have any further discussion on this matter? Doesn't sound like it. Miss Sipple, yes. Thompson, yes. Growl, yes. Ducker, no. Prman, yes. Motion passes, four votes to one.

Okay, that concludes our regular public hearings. We can now No. Yeah, regular public hearings. We can now move on to regular public hearings and settlements, which for which we have none. So, now is the time for public requests. I have a couple of cards and after those folks go, if you are interested in speaking during public comment, please step forward, state your name and address and you will have up to three minutes. Number one on my list is Dr. Robert Otto.

Good evening. Robert Otto, 233 Northeast 31st Street. A little bit of a history lesson. Eight years ago, this city council, it's before you all were on it, passed an ordinance that restricted what could be talked about in my counseling office with my clients. And that was a violation of the first amendment in the United States Constitution. So, I sued Boca Raton and Palm Beach County in federal court. And I won at the 11th circuit. And that case set up an opportunity for Charles v. Salazar out of Colorado to be heard at the United States Supreme Court. And that was uh the opinion was released by the acc court um at the beginning of uh March this year, end of March I think it was. And it was an 8:1 decision in favor of freedom of speech. So when the 11th circuit ruled in my favor, that forced the city council, which two of your current members were part of at that time, to resend the ordinance that was a violation of the first amendment of the constitution. And the very next pit of business that you did that evening was to pass a non-binding resolution which still stands. And so we need to do a little correcting the record here and we need to re remove that non-binding resolution. I've got a packet I'd like to leave for each of the city council members with just a three-page summary on that. And this is a freedom of speech issue. But I think that the city council acted in good faith because I believe they were told that counseling for certain clients raises their suicide rates. I've enclosed an article to show that that's bad science. Current data is that counseling in my office can reduce suicide rates for this particular client group by up to 82%. And so I think when the city council acts in looking out for citizens, we need to have good data for that. Um Mr. Pearlman, you mentioned accountability for city hall to the taxpayers. This case cost the city of Boca Raton a million dollars. That's paying my attorney. That's paying your outside counsel. that's paying for lost wages for me and my co-plaintiff. That's a million dollars that we could have spent a lot of different ways in this city council. And I think that there is

some accountability that needs to happen there. And good intentions are fine, but good intentions cannot be replacement for facts and good data. So with that, I' I'd like to leave a packet for each of the five of you all. and I'd like to follow up with a phone call and schedule some time individually with you one-on-one and pursue rescending this ordinance so that we don't have an ordinance in my city that is uh that is in uh contrast to what the United States Supreme Court and United States Constitution have said. So, thank you for your time.

Thank you, Dr. Otto. You can leave that with the clerk. Thank you. Next card I have is Mr. Ducate again. a lot of money in law. I shouldn't even have to pay property tax.

Hello, Robert Dukade, 5351 Northwest Third Terrace. I'd like to thank the uh uh city council for reversing an obvious error in judgment by the past city council and removing the memorial park plaque uh that was passed or installed through actions by uh city staff andor uh past elected officials. Um, I gave out a brochure here with some uh documents. Uh, these documents show that the uh beach and park district approved on October 3rd, 1922 their master plan uh for North Park. Uh the following month uh the city council was given a presentation by the leaders of the beach and park district showing the approval of this plan. Five months later, uh, a staff member generated a report, an application to the Florida Department of Transportation, uh, for the opening and closing of uh, ingress and egresses on Jeffrey Street and 28th Street. In this, the report specifically states there were no approved plans for anything regarding the Jeffrey Street area. Obviously wrong from 5 months before. So far, there has not been any shovels turned on this project. I think there was a contract that was signed, but I think this is something that needs to be stopped from a public safety standpoint. Putting a road through a 70acre park is certainly not safe. closing 28th Street where those uh children who go to school on their bicycles or walk will have to

go down to 20th Street and back up Second Avenue. Certainly not safe. So, uh this is again something that has not started yet uh from a standpoint of construction and it's going to cost the city $15 million that they otherwise would not need to to do. Uh something that uh was talked about yesterday at the meeting uh was the plans for the police station headquarters in city hall. Uh at the last uh effort in handling this, it was about four meetings in before anybody knew how many square feet was even going to be needed for city hall. So I'm glad to hear that you're going to do RFP process for this as opposed to opening up blind blindly to different uh uh developers. with many staff moving moved to this area. Obviously, a lot less space is going to be need for downtown. Regarding the police station, please look into the consideration of this over 80,000 foot building we're in now. How many other similarsized cities have an 80,000 foot auxiliary police building? So, uh again, the amount of square footage that should be needed should be a lot less than similar cities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ducate. Next up is Michael Schneider. My name is Michael Schneider, 5500 Northwest 2nd Avenue. Um, I'm going to start basically in my thing is about compatible uh compatible uh desires of the community in a residential area. Basically, there was a Miller leg report on 410 418 2022. This was the beach and park district program priorities. There were 24 priorities such as golf course, preser preserving open green space, community center, recreation center, golf training facilities and driving range. There was nothing and talk about a skate park and a boys and girls club. So in a sense they even violated the priorities of what their initial priorities were and basically here uh basically Mr. uh Pearlman brought up a compromise with re doing the comp compatible for residential area I mean would be putting it downtown the skate park I mean to redevelop it to change it. We even have another uh compromise is basically the skate park uh to be put downtown at the Spanish River Park. Same with the Boys and Girls Club because the traffic with the Boys and Girls Club for a day program would be crazy in the mornings. And I would probably say I have two resolutions signed by two presidents of condo boards of the desired development that they want. the res. They don't want a boys and girls club and they don't want a skate park. They would prefer it

it would be some other place as the Spanish River Park. Listen, uh we seem to get the runaround with the uh with the beach and parks department. We tell them the type of development or resolutions or should be in front of a residential area, but they they don't listen to us. So basically it's usually the building uh tells the build the building manager tells us it's their responsibility. The Norwegian balls upon say it's your responsibility. No more rabbit and Costello on who's on first, what's on second, third base. We want to have so our rights protected. We want you to be the ones to protect our rights. The president of the condo boards, the residents and everything. That's what we want to protect our rights. We given compromises, but nobody wants to listen. I have h I have two condo members, two condo presidents signing a resolution. I'm going to hand it to the clerk. We've also had a condo board number three, which I've done before. It It's about 650 voters. I even went I knocked on door to door. Out of the 80 people in my condom, two wanted a skate park. two and a half percent people are going to tell inccompatible uh residential presence. It's ridiculous. Thank you for your time. Good night and good luck.

Thank you, Mr. Schneider. Anyone else for public requests? Go ahead. Mike Leson, 398 Northeast Third Court. Um, I would like to talk about the council process that occurred yesterday with respect to the 101 East Palmetto Park uh development proposal. And for those of you who didn't watch the CRA uh meeting and I wasn't here in person, uh basically this is a very uh small building that was is across from where the old tuis was where they want to put in a restaurant, four residential units. They're supposed to have 59 parking spaces and their proposal is zero. And it was actually approved by the city staff. They recommended approval. I mean, on the face of it, that makes no sense to allow a restaurant downtown with zero parking spaces. But that's not my question and my issue. My issue is that the developer who was represented by Ellie Zacharias, she had and that developer had 20 minutes to make their proposal. During that time, the city council could ask questions of the developer. Then they also had 10 minutes of rebuttal. There was public hearing or public comment period. But then what happened? The the hearing was closed for the city council to talk amongst themselves. But during that time, there continued to be questions of the developer. I guess that's allowed. It's somehow a quasi judicial hearing. I don't know why that occurs after the public comment because

the public comment can't come back and say, "Hey, what the developer said here is not true." For example, Tui is not having any parking spaces when they were there. That's not true. They had three or four parking spaces. I remember cuz I used to park in the back there. and you know equating their sidewalk uh you know usage which was going to be blocking you know bike traffic to what's happening at um you know at the Hyatt restaurant. You know they they've got 60 ft there. The point is is that public comment and every other comment was closed and yet the developer still got to speak and still was asked questions. That's totally inappropriate from any other public hearing I've been associated with. What was really inappropriate was then the city council engaged in a negotiation with the developer to modify their proposal. That clearly in my opinion is illegal because if you're going to if the if the council had voted on that negotiated modification to that proposal, it would have been illegal because public hearing was not noticed. Public comment was not available on that modified proposal. So, I would like to see this city council to say, "Hey, when when you're closed and you're in deliberations, there's no further discussion from the applicant. No further comments from anybody else, just amongst yourselves and then you have a vote." Thank you.

Thank you. I think Dr. Blank may be next and then after that, why don't we have Judy Mororrow? Lorraine Blank. Um, 545 Northwest 7 Street. I'd like to talk. Why don't you move it down again, Mr. Dr. Blank? Sorry about that. Sorry.

Okay. We could just make me taller and then I can, you know, we solve that problem, but it hasn't worked so far. Um, I want to talk about the plan for downtown. Um, I've reviewed the scope of work and I now understand why you've been dithering over whether there should be a task force. The scope of work is so narrow and it doesn't reflect the fights and the battles that we had last year. Um it is actually borderline dishonest because the document only limits planning to 17 acres on the northwest second um west of northwest 2nd avenue not east doesn't include the east it doesn't include the the land at the center of the final battle for say you know for say bokeh doesn't talk about the police headquarters site the cit campus that's all just the 17 acres of the park I don't remember any discussion that We limited, we were only going to talk about the park. We talk about downtown. Downtown concludes all of the acorage, all of the land that we battled for in the in the fights against the terror of Frisbee. Um, so this is not a fresh start. This is a selective retelling of history. If you want the public to dress to trust the process, then the planning area must include the 8 acres that the community fought for and one back from Terara Frisbee. you chose to leave it out and I don't think that was an oversight. This was the site of our last battle. We won the right to have that included in the plan and the RFP or the RFQ. And by the way, Mr. Sohaney, there's a big difference between the two. Um, is poorly written, the scope is vague, the timeline is unrealistic, the deliverables are undefined, and the engagement lacks subs substance. It should never have left the um the manager's office. I will submit detailed comments to you and I hope you'll read them. I believe I believe as I said last yesterday that the plan

should cover the entire the entire city but at the very least it must cover all of the public land that we fought to keep. That land is part of the story and it must be part of the plan and yes a wider honest plan requires a task force not as a decoration not as govern but but as part of governance. So you have a rare opportunity to rebuild the trust in Boca Raton government. But trust requires honesty and honesty about boundaries. So honesty about intent, honesty about the process and what what it is and what it is not. So tonight I ask you to reconsider the plan. Don't get let that RFP or RFQ go to bid. You need to rethink it. You need to talk to the community about what it should in be what the scope of it should be. and then you send go out to bid. Thank you. Do it right because the community is watching. Please.

Thank you, Dr. Blank. Uh, Miss Morrow. I'm not sure you got the light on. There you go. Try one more time.

Push. Okay. Good evening. My name is Judy Marorrow, 1305 Northeast 5th Avenue. I am so happy tonight that you passed what we did all our petitions for because people kept asking me, "When are they going to do it? When are they going to do it? Did they do it? People even came to the meetings, the first couple meetings, and they were so disappointed that they left because But tonight, you fulfilled that requirement. Going forward, one year waiting to vote is too long. If you can have a special election like what was said tonight for you know to make the mayor's seat from three years to four years then we should pay for uh you know the people to vote so that it is solified. Okay. Um, what I wanted to talk about tonight is that we have to think of the city of Boca Raton maybe as a brand and as a brand we want good publicity. We want positive publicity. We want positive attractions. We don't want to be known for, you know, 10tory, 12tory, you know, highrises. We like to be known for gumbo limbo. It would be so nice if you all funded the hospital for the turtles. $750,000. That would be so nice because Gumbo Limbo is an attraction that brings people preserves our our nature and our turtles and everything. Also, when you go to Patch Reef Park, their awning is beautiful. They have a

giant awning for pickle ball players, 18 courts. That awning is built like a fortress. A hurricane wouldn't knock it down. It is beautiful. It provides shade. It provides protection from the rain. I mean, you could almost live under there. It's It's so, you know, nice. And guess what? For tennis, we run more than pickle ball people usually. We sweat more than pickle ball people usually, unless you're high professional pickle ball people like Jack Sock, who I like. But, um, what do you call it? So, it would be so nice because 404 people signed my little petition wanting to keep tennis in the city of Boca Raton in the downtown area. So, please, please knock down our old clubhouse with leaky windows, whatever they say, and build us a nice clubhouse with a second floor observation. And please, please put a marquee in front of Boca Raton Tennis Center and give free lessons once a week to kids, you know, 12 and under to let them play tennis, but keep Boca Raton positive. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Marorrow. Anyone else? Mr. Warner, go on ahead. Richard Warner 1322 Southwest 9th Terrace. I also was watching yesterday afternoon and I'm admittedly an unabashed opponent of development in general. So I that's my disclaimer. But I agree. Not only was I opposed to what they were proposing for that little house and the units above the restaurant and this the sidewalk. I think it was I don't know about it being illegal, but it certainly seemed inappropriate to do things the way they were done. I think people have talked about caps on uh development. I myself years years ago before most of you were around u favored a moratorum on development which can't be done. I understand all the the legal problems. I think the answer to a cap is to make it ownorous for developers, no matter how small, to get what they want. We don't do that. We've never done that. We've give them what they're asking for. And I know that's easier and

more copacetic, so to speak. Uh, but maybe we can change L's position as a legend or Bonnie, you know, and have these people lose a little more often to stand up and use the power you've got to act as a cap on development literally by making it unpleasant. That that you can do legally. You can't just say no more. But you can say you got to do the parking spaces. You got to do this right. You can be a nitpicker. That hasn't happened. Maybe that's too much to ask, but it's just my opinion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Warner. Next up. Yep. Step on up. Name address. Three minutes. Mike Hunt, 290 West Palmetto. Uh, under the Singer City Council, he he thought nobody knew to come to Florida. So, he spent 70 million in advertising. So, if you take 300 employees, you could pay them each 233,000. I think a lot of employees that are working for the city, I mean, even myself, I'm starting to see that the cost uh this 30% bump and and everything, mostly taxes, insurance is really hurting everybody. I mean, used to be able to make two people, 30 grand, 50 grand. I think the employees that are working for the city are really hurting. If you ain't making 150,000, 120, I don't know. I think you're you're in poverty. I mean, it just seems what I'm seeing out there. Uh the city hall. So, I want payraises for the employees. The city hall on the west side there's the FPNL station. I don't like it was it um I think I I feel it emits it's high voltage. We all know that high voltage electricity emits ionized radiation. I think we should uh somehow plan on moving that out of there or uh then the park now switching to parking spaces. I have a a large vehicle. I'm a large person. I look at people getting out of like $70,000 cars. I don't want to just open my door a jar and make this like figure to get out cuz I think I'm going to get old. So, I I would like

parking space where I can open my door fully. I mean, we need to press on planning and zoning to hold them accountable for this. Um, the Whole Foods Plaza, this is a code enforcement building department thing. That entrance on the north side closer to the uh the Glades Light or 12th A light, but that entrance on the on the north side there, you can't see when you want to leave. uh if there's a pedestrians or bicyclists and then the 28th Street closing developmental services boy they are out of control I mean they I see that a lot of stuff I blame the city council it's really them uh rosemary uh preserve is another one they asked the USDA for $175,000 they moved the uh it's just north of Hidden Valley Boulevard West of Dixie. They took the stuff out of a uh it didn't cost the city anything. It was for a hundred years. I think 1999 they did it was like the year 2099 the city could decide. Then they sold it to the Florida Trust. Now they're developing it. I mean it is off the chain the amount of money and the amount of turtles they killed. I mean you could even see them when they're pitching it. It's like they know they're doing wrong. Uh the vendors

Mr. I would back away from the city. Could you conclude your comments? Your time is I have concluded my comments for the time. Thank you, Mr. Hunt. Go get them, John. Who's next? Mr.

Chaffy. Uh, Harold Chaffy, 6200 North Second Avenue. I'd like to talk about a better use of my tax dollars. Um the beach and parks is now actually it must have started when they were going to close down or they were going to do the development in Meisner uh the um downtown area and it was uh basically to deal with the skate park. Uh so they were going to close that down. The beach and parks got involved and said okay we'll help you out. We'll build a beach we'll build a skate park. Somewhere along the line it it's gotten crazy. Now they're going to build a skate park. 42,000 square foot ska skate park at probably it's going to be about maybe $4 million for only 40 people that are use this facility. It doesn't seem right that you're spending my tax dollars basically for someone in the city who's not even going to use it. What I perceive basically is that the people who are going to build it are going to use it use it on my dime. Okay, to make a profit. They're going to run events there. They're going to make it a world class worldass facility, right? There's people in Del in Deerfield that basically uh were very involved with it also that want to use this area basically and and there's no return on investment. Uh you're putting $4 million and basically it's it's not really justified. The second thing is you you were going to hire a consultant to basically find out what you were going do what you're going to do downtown. the skate park is in that area and one of the items that you brought up that you were going to talk about whether to regenerate it, revise it, whatever you're going to do. I I don't think the beach and parks can go forward until basically you do something as far as what you're really going to do with that skate park. I mean, I have no objection about a skatepark. It's great for the kids, stuff like but $4 million and 42,000 square feet for 40 children, you

know, that probably half of them don't even live in the city is ludicrous, you know, especially especially my tax dollars. Thank you. Thank you. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. We're not going to just start We're not shouting stuff, sir. We're not going to start shouting stuff out.

Who's next? Miss Hagquist. Brianna Hanquist, 5710A, Coach House circle. First of all, thank you so much for passing the Save Bokeh ordinance that made every minute of sitting out there in the library, in the crazy weather, in the rain, in the extreme cold, in the heat and everything. every minute was worthwhile. So, thank you so much. Now, on to environmental stuff. Of course, with me again tonight is Thaddius and his buddy Ted the Hatchling. Thaddius represents our parks, green space, and wildlife. He is an endangered gopher tortoise, but he's expanded his role to parks and green space. Ted is also an endangered gopher tortoise. He is a hatchling and he advocates for the future of our parks and our wildlife. We go to the beach and parks meetings. They do not listen to the residents. I speak every single meeting about wildlife and environmental. The um pickle ball thing that looks like it could be an Amazon warehouse and it's uh a P3 that appeared very quickly. Um now there's the 42,000 square foot skate park. I'm not sure quite the um um if the P3 a contract. We really don't know. I specifically asked if it was

going to go forward, would they do an environmental study. It came down to a vote and they had about 20 people that were supporting the skate park. Every single commissioner smiling. Oh yeah, skate park. Yeah, a wonderful 50 vote, no environmental impact study on 42,000 square ft. Residents spoke specifically about the abundance of wildlife in the area and a creek in the back. They don't care and they don't listen to us. And if you can do something, would you please do something because they're out of control. Um, you'd think that maybe people don't care about our wildlife anymore. They do. Just to see what was going on, I started a very rank amateur because I am tech challenged Facebook page called Save Sugar Sand Park. It's been up about a week now. You can go on, you can follow me. It has now had almost 8,000 views. I have a follower from Chicago who is very interested in turtles and tortoises who's listening. Also, people care about our wildlife. We don't want it destroyed and we want things to be taken care of. They are also now talking about putting a cell phone tower in Sugar Sand Park between the community center and baseball fields one and two.

Miss Hackquist, I'm sorry your time has elapsed. Can you please conclude? Sorry. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else for public request? Miss Parker. Thank you,

Martha Parker, 64 Northwest 7th Street. Um, I just kind of wanted to quickly u say how important I think it is to have a task force for the downtown government campus area. Um, a lot of times people interact in different ways. they might be more comfortable in a different setting. They might not be comfortable talking to uh a council member. They're not maybe they're not comfortable coming up and speaking at a podium at a meeting like this. And um if you've ever been to any of um these input sessions that are run by professionals, they know how to run the focus groups. They're professionals. They know how to document it. Having the right one is very important. I think in the past we've had some that have maybe given the information in uh not the best way. Um but um sitting at the tables and some of the ones that I've been to throughout um the time that I've lived in the city, you're sitting at a table, you're talking to other residents, you're learning about um how they use the space. The way that I use Memorial Park is probably different than the way that you use Memorial Park. It's different than my next door neighbor how they use the park. Um, and when we all talk together in a room as residents, um, it really, really, really helps, um, to get consensus in the community, uh, we need consensus on what to do with the space, redesigning, rethinking it. And I do think, um, like, uh, Dr. Blink mentioned that it should be the whole area, um, taken into consideration when we're thinking about how that space should be designed. Um the other thing that I did want to kind of mention is that um I know um Miss Ducker you had maybe a year ago mentioned about having a recreation study for the city. the needs. What are the needs for the that is very much needed and it's um needed to be done um with the beach and parks district because even though there's technically

outside of the city um having all of the recreation kind of more comprehensive between the two and having um having it work together I think would be really great. So maybe like a joint commission meeting or a study that's done in partnership with the beach and park district I think would be really great. Um I also do think it's important that when when we think about things that are are happening in our city that um you know we think about strategic partnerships that we can have. Some people have been speaking uh tonight about having a Boys and Girls Club. Affordability in our city is not just about housing. It's also making sure that there's child care, afterchool care for kids. And if you don't know anything about the Boys and Girls Club, if you want to reach out to me, uh my email is gu iML.com. And I'm very happy um to um see what we can do to work with them so that you can tour the current facility that they have and learn a little bit of more about what they want to do and their expansion. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Garrick. Anyone else for public requests? Last call for public requests. Thank you everybody for those comments and those thoughts. I think there's a couple of items that Miss Mr. Sohaney might be able to follow up on. We have the name and contact information for some of those folks. Let's make sure that we do that. Uh I think then we can move on to introduction of ordinances. I would ask madame clerk to please read the title of ordinance number 5785. Ordinance number 5785, an ordinance of the city of Boca Raton, Florida, amending chapter 28, zoning, article 1, section 28-9, standard application processing procedures for development approvals to establish lobbyist certification and disclosure requirements for development applications, providing for severability, providing for appealer, providing for codification, providing an effective date.

Thank you, Miss Siddens. Colleagues, who would like to introduce ordinance number 5785? I will. Introduction by Miss Grow. Did I hear that right? Yes. Okay. Very good. That concludes our introduction of ordinances. We have no quasi judicial public hearings, variances, or appeals. So, we can move on to city manager reports. Mr. Soy, what do you got?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, just want to mention a few things. Over the past several weeks, we've received a lot of resident concerns uh regarding speeding and aggressive driving. Uh in response to that, our acting uh chief of police along with our traffic enforcement team, they've implemented some enhanced targeted uh enforcement efforts uh and and that's like additional traffic patrols, some datadriven uh hotspot enforcement as well as some Wolfpack operations. And what that is is we have multiple police officers from different agencies that are saturating certain areas of the city. Uh and so over the last couple weeks we've had over 800 traffic stops, over,00 warnings and sightings issued. Uh and just today uh at 3:00 I pulled the numbers for just today we uh we had 150 speeding tickets uh related to traffic stops today by 3:00. So uh my message to the residents is you know we hear you uh enforcement is increasing uh and the message really is slow down in Boca Raton. So uh I encourage uh folks uh to take a look at our our police department social media. We're also putting that type of en enforcement uh measures online so you can kind of see that uh for yourself. I also want to mention uh the police department uh was pretty busy this week as well. Responded to several uh recent swatting incidents uh involving schools, the town center mall, and other community locations. Uh and really my hats off to all the the officers and the dispatchers uh and the partner agencies involved. this pretty complex uh stuff especially in today's environment uh to be able to respond so quickly uh and their professionalism and rapid response

uh was just well noted and and commended by many residents. So my hats off to to those folks. Uh also an update on our police chief interview process. Uh we start interviews tomorrow and uh we've got eight candidates and we're looking to have uh an early selection uh in June. Also, I want to mention hurricane season approaches. Just really want to encourage our residents to participate in the city's clean and cut program. Uh and and you can also sign up for Alert Bokeh for emergency notifications uh for any emergency, but obviously for the hurricane season that might be of value uh to you. And that's available on my Bokeh uh us. And then just a reminder, uh we've got our memorial ceremony. Uh it's going to take place on Monday, May 25th. uh from 9 to 10 am and that's going to be followed up uh by a plaque unveiling at Memorial Park uh at 10:30 and you can find additional details on those uh events on our city website. So uh thank you mayor.

Thank you Mr. Sohaney and I second uh all of what you said regarding particularly the enforcement that we've been undertaking and the progress that we've made in that way. So thank you for following up on that. Does that conclude your report? Yes. Okay, Mr. Kaylor, city attorney report. No report. Thank you. Thank you. We'll go back uh we'll go counterclockwise today uh on commissioner reports or council member reports. Mr. Ducker,

so just a couple things. So I know that Bright Line's been in the news and so has Trial been in the news. So I've been working, you know, with all the folks that I know from the different angles. Um Bright Line, they're working with the federal government. It runs on a federal and the FAC. So I'm I've I've reached out to them for more information. In terms of tri rail, there was a article in the Suns Sentinel that said that the House had put in the funding, but the Senate side had not put in the funding. I reached out to Senator Psky, Senator Burman, the leader uh of of of the leader of the of the Dem Party, and the funding is in there. What they're doing right now is that they're jocking to who's going to get what and how things are going to be funding and they're using it. If you saw again today, there were some discussions doesn't affect the cities, but about the universities and the fundings and they're just going back and forth. So, um I've been I've been really tracking uh the Tri Rail stuff and also the Bright Line stuff because I know that it's really important uh to get people uh moving around. And then lastly, um I want to congratulate all the seniors that are graduating. But most important, I want to congratulate my senior, my son Elias, who will graduate this Sunday. And he is taking his efforts. Eli, I'm so proud of everything you've done. And I know that you're going to continue to make your mark uh in this world as you head to the Ohio State in the fall. and uh me, Dad, and Selma. We have never been prouder than you, and we can't wait to celebrate you on Sunday. Thank you.

Thank you. And congratulations to Eli. Miss Grow, nothing to report. Very good. Miss Sipple, nothing to report.

Very well, Mr. Pearlman. Thank you all so much for carrying out the will of the voters tonight. That is why they sent us here and why we ran. And I am so grateful for all of you for coming on on board to fulfill the mandate of why we we were sent here. This is a great step forward, but we by no means declare victory. We can we must continue to stay focused and keep city hall accountable for us the taxpayers. An email came through this afternoon in from the city manager indicating that his intention to put out the RFP, the RFQ I should say for the RFQ as it was laid out by staff uh prior to the discussion yesterday. Uh the after the discussion about the police station um whether to incorporate it or not, we had a robust discussion and two of us were in favor of incorporating it and two of us uh two two council members did not want to the the last council member was requesting more information before her decision. She specifically requested a post-mortem analysis on the failed referendum of the police station and was inquiring to get more info about whether the fac whether it had to do with the facility size, the scope, the cost and she was requesting to get that data before making a decision to proceed.

So uh that was council member Grow. Therefore, given uh that the consensus on on the RFQ has not been reached at this time uh and I welcome further clarification on the position of Miss Grow, but if she would wishes to offer something more tonight, but given where we stood yesterday, the RFQ cannot cannot uh be proceed we cannot proceed with it until those questions and uh that Miss Grow had the the answers and information is provided to her so she can make her decision on how to proceed. Thank you.

I mean, I guess we can have a discussion about that, but I note that Miss Grow didn't raise that issue tonight, the having this. So, I I this I I I say that because I I'm hesitant to ever put words into other people's mouths, both as it relates to the public, but also as it relates to this council. Um, I I am not aware of any issues that she raised that would have stopped the RFQ from going out per the city manager's email, but Miss Grow, if you'd like to clarify, by all means.

Um, well, as I mentioned last night, I believe that the process was going to work parallel. Um, we are going to study the police station and figure out what went wrong with the referendum, why it was voted down, and so we don't make the same mistakes. I want to proceed with RFP, RFQ, whatever you want to call it. Um, and I just think that we need to move forward with both, but I don't think that that RFQ would entail including the police station. Okay. Thank you for clarifying all the more reason why we don't put words in other people's mouths. Any other report? Mr. Pman, like to continue. So,

uh, Dr. blank. Thank you very much first for your continued participation with us and you care deeply about this city. So, thank you for that. Um, tonight Miss Blank made a very astute observation in that the current scope of the RFP does not include the land east of Northwest Second Avenue, which was actually the exact land that was held at the referendum vote. uh the land that that we the community fought for that 75% of the residents stood up for to save for for us the taxpayers in our city and future generations. And therefore the this RFQ we're going to be spending likely hundreds of thousands of dollars with this consultant who's going to be taking a very quite a bit of time up to six months and taxpayer dollars allocated to this consultant. I I would like for the RFQ to include uh in in in their scope uh that the addit all of the public land in as Memorial Park to the west. I would also like the scope of their uh consultant work to include plans to expand Memorial Park and other possibilities and pulling the community everything that they intend to do to also include those 8 acres because those are val that's valuable land. The citizens fought hard to keep that land for us and keep it public and we should include that land within the RFQ as it's going out in within a couple days. We we need I I I'd like to um get support for that that to that we include those those parcels as well in the scope.

Mayor Thompson, did I did I miss something? Are we in reporting or are we in a workshop? Because we've had this discussion and I think it's time to move on to the next report. We did have that discussion, but Mr. Pearlman is allowed to be heard and I have Does that conclude your report, Mr. Pearlman? Yes. So I given that the RFQ as I stated is is set to be released um this week the the discussion needs to be had tonight. So I would like to um get feedback from my the fellow council members on this. Anybody want to offer feedback on that?

Uh my feedback was that we go to RFQ. We had a robust discussion I think almost two and a half hours or so. We gave direction as to how we were going to proceed. We discussed postponement of the task force which we agreed to earlier this morning and this is a reporting time. This is not a discussion time. All those discussions should have been held yesterday at workshop. The RFQ wasn't released so we couldn't discuss it. Dr. Blank, I appreciate that but we we can't have Yeah, you understand. Um any other feedback from members of the council? I told you.

Okay. Does that conclude your report? Mr. Promo? I'm disappointed that no other discussion has been had on this matter given that the citizens fought very hard and 70 record turnout at the election on March 10th. 75% of the voters demanding that this land be kept public that this land be kept in the public's hands and we're we're set to proceed with significant community engagement in the next in the next 6 months and we're not including this valuable land within within that scope is disappointing. I will tell you that I can we can revise a scope of work after it's been released or once we find a consultant that we're willing to do business with, we can revise the scope then. So I don't think that this is the last possible moment to do that. I appreciate your points though. Um seeing as that that conclusion

I'd like to not conclude. I'd like to mention one additional item. Go ahead, Mr. Pman.

Yeah. on a on April this is I'd like to mention this because we're having this discussion now on April 22nd there was a presentation led by Miss Ducker in which prominent members of city staff were present at including Brandon Shad and Zack Beer. It was a presentation made by a couple dozen professionals, architects, engineers and others. the primary agenda item on on in this presentation. And again, April 22nd, we're talking about a month and a few days after a record amount of voters turned out to turn to turn down the Terara Frisbee project and retain the public land for the citizens. The primary agenda item at this presentation in this discussion was transit oriented development. Within this within this presentation, there were slides uh continuing a discussion about the possibility to move forward in the future with a transit oriented development on these same eight acres. There were slides depicting the the updated zoning regulations that had been constru that had been worked on through the uh with the prior city council that was pushing the government campus having to do with this uh government campus subdist pertaining to those 8 acres and significant discussions were being had about a transit oriented development. Right now, we're about to undergo a six-month process, a very long process in which the scope is doesn't include this this 8 acre this these 8 acres. Uh it's seemingly that these acre these 8 acres are being pushed to the side. We're not addressing them. They're being

shelved, I guess you could say. What are they being shelved for? I mean given that there was this recent discussion less than a month and a half after the election continuing to discuss to discuss possibilities for a a transit oriented development after the voters 75% in record numbers came came out to say no. I I find it very concerning that the uh the the current scope that's been laid out in in conjunction with these recent presentations that involved Councilwoman Ducker and city staff continuing this discussion about a transit oriented development to the east of Northwest Second Avenue.

Does that conclude your report, Mr. Pman? Yes. Thank you. Okay, very good. I have no report and I think if there's no other business before the city council on this. I I'm going to respond to his comment associating me with something that is inaccurate.

So, as everyone knows here, I am the MO chair for Palm Beach County, which we haven't had that seat in 10 years. I'm very proud of that because we protect a lot of things with the city. I was asked to do a welcome, not a presentation, a welcome to members of our community and our county, welcoming them to our city and explaining our first TOD, which in fact is Meisner Park that's actually considered a transit oriented development project and one of the first ones. So, we can release a presentation, but Mr. Pearlman, we are not, you are not going to accuse me or staff of saying anything about that parcel because that is not what happened in that meeting. We discussed the project at link. We discussed all the different projects that we had in our city. You are not going to sit here and you're going to accuse me of something that I didn't do. Get your facts straight. You ran on lies. You ran on a lot of misinformation. And you are not excuse me. You are not going to sit up here and accuse me or staff cuz that was not the presentation that was given. That presentation was simply a welcome to welcome the folks here to our city to show them our TOD and we do this throughout the entire county. So that is incorrect.

Mr. Thompson, may I just brief respond? If the invoke Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. as best we can, let's do our best to maintain the decorum. And by that I mean addressing the comments to me, okay? Everybody's comments are supposed to be addressed to the chair. Says it here on our on our comment card here. Um, also, let's do our best not to snipe back and forth to each other. I appreciate feeling like you had to say something. I appreciate you feeling you had to say something. Remember, there's a whole community watching us. May I briefly?

You may once I'm done. Just a second. I the city's turned a page. I'd like to think that we've moved past that kind of back and forth. All right, I'll just leave it at that. Mr. Pro,

thank you for saying that, Mr. Thompson. And I completely agree with you. And actually, I'm very disappointed by the way I was spoken to just now at at the invocation. I specifically stated I said, "Let us listen to us. Let let us listen to one another and show each other respect and kindness." And I don't feel that that was demonstrated just now towards towards me. And with that said, and I'll say it one more time, I find it deeply troubling that discussions are currently being had continuing to be had about a transitoriented development which was present on slides specifically about the the these eight acres. and these eight acres are being shelved and not included in this robust six-monthlong discussion that we're about to embark on. Thank you, Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Pearlman. We've had a lively and robust discussion tonight, which I believe we can conclude now at 8:42 in the PM. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.