City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon, everybody. This is your Boca Raton Community Redevelopment Agency. We're here for our regular meeting. The date is Monday, August 24th, 2026. The time is now 1.34 in the p.m. First thing we'll do is pledge our allegiance. So if everybody could please rise. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Miss Siddons. If you could please do the role.

Chair Thompson.

I'm thankful to be here.

Vice Chair Drucker. Here. Commissioner Grau. Here. Commissioner Perlman.

Here.

Commissioner Sipple. Present. All present.

Very good, thank you everyone Mister director do we have any amendments to our agenda today.

Thank you Mister chair, there are no amendments to the agenda.

Very good that means we can move on to our minutes, I believe we have one set our minutes from the regular meeting of July 2720 26 are there any revisions or corrections to those minutes if not all entertain a motion and a second to approve them as presented. Some of thank you, Mister.

Second.

Thank you, Ms. Sybil. All those in favor of approval of the minutes, please say aye. Aye. Thank you. Ayes have it. We have no presentations today. We have no quasi-judicial or related public hearings. We also have no resolutions in regular public hearings on our CRA agenda, so we can move to public requests. If you all, anyone in the audience, has something they'd like to be heard on relating to our downtown area, the Community Redevelopment Agency area. The time is now yours. Please step to the podium, state your name and address, and you will have up to three minutes. Last call, public comment, CRA. All right, in that case, I'll close the time for public requests. Moving on to other business and settlements, we have none. We can move speedily on to the director's report. Mr. Sahany, what do you got? Thank you, Mr. Chair. No report. Mr. Kaler, do you have an attorney's report?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No report.

We're setting records here. We can move on to commissioner's reports. I'll start on my left. Ms. Sipple, do you have a report today?

No report.

I'll go towards me and we'll pretend Mr. Perlman is here physically. I see you're on the video, Mr. Perlman. Do you have a report, sir? No report. Very good. Ms. Drucker?

No report.

Ms. Grau?

No report.

I, too, have no report. So I think that means that we can conclude our CRA meeting in record time. The time is now 1.36. Stay tuned. Don't touch that dial. We'll be back in just a minute for our regular council member meeting. back in just a moment. welcome back everybody thank you for your patience we are here now for a workshop yes i said it right this time workshop meeting of your boca raton city council's day is still august 24th the time is 1 37 p.m the first thing on our agenda for our workshop meeting is board interviews we have a series of boards that have some vacancies the first one we have is the affordable housing advisory committee is anyone here to APPLY AND INTERVIEW FOR THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING ADVISORY COMMITTEE I DON'T THINK SO SINCE WE DIDN'T HAVE ANY APPLICANTS SO THAT MAKES THAT EASIER NEXT BOARD WE HAVE IS THE COMMUNITY ADVISORY PANEL I BELIEVE WE DO HAVE AN APPLICANT AS MR. FERRIS HERE I DON'T SEE HIM I don't see him. Anyone else wishing to apply and interview for this board? If not, you can submit your application and come back tomorrow or appointments will be made tomorrow night. Next board is the Community Appearance Board. We have no applicants for that. If you are an architect and wish to serve in that capacity, we would love to have you. turning now to the financial advisory board same deal no applicants but if you want to serve in that important role please let us know we have next the marine advisory board i do have one applicant for the vacancy on the marine advisory board is this applicant here mr ireman all right very good please step forward state your name address you'll have three minutes

Good afternoon. My name is Mark Ironman, E-Y-E-R-M-A-N, resident of 4857 Northwest 3rd Avenue in Boca Raton. We've been there 31 years. Other than that, I have a few years of experience with the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary. I'm also been a safe boating instructor for the same auxiliary for the last couple of years. And also, I've been a CERT member, Community Emergency Response Team, and also volunteer at Gumbo Limbo over the years. Also a guardian ad litem, in which case I have eight students I am caring for now. And then finally, again, a proud resident of Boca Raton. Any questions?

Thank you, Mr. Ironman. Do we have any questions for the applicant?

Nope, seeing none, thank you, sir. Thank you.

Our appointment will be made tomorrow night. Last board we have on our agenda today is the Sustainability Advisory Board. We have no applicants there, but if you're interested in applying and interviewing, please do so. You can come back tomorrow night and interview with us then. That concludes our board appointments. We now can move to proclamations and presentations, of which we have one, a Vision Zero update. Mr. Sohaini, who will be making the presentation on this matter?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Zach Beer will make the presentation.

Mr. Beer, take it away.

All right, I see Police Services Complex up on the screen, so I'll wait just a moment. All right. Vision Zero Action Plan. Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council. Zach Beer, your Public Works and Engineering Director. I'm here to just give you a brief update on the Vision Zero Action Plan and then just say right out of the gate in the presentation, this is the update and the agenda item will be coming on the first September meeting for adoption. So that's the actual adoption of the Vision Zero Action Plan. So the background, the agenda for today, we're going to go through what is Vision Zero action plan, our safe streets and roads for all, the SS4A, which you may hear it named as, and then, of course, the adoption and the next steps. So the Vision Zero policy, really some background for those listening and newer council members. is related to crashes should never result in injury or loss of life. So really a little bit is culture and nomenclature of identifying things like accidents and changing those to crashes and things of engineering terms that we're using to really try and be proactive versus reactive. And on October 25th, 2022, the City of Boca Raton City Council resolved to really adopt a Vision Zero City and really work on the Vision Zero Initiative. So that is, sorry to explain that a little more, a federal program run by the U.S. Department of Transportation down through the Florida Department of Transportation, so a lot of agencies, but the feds, the state, and then the county and city working together to really enhance the safety of the roadway system and transportation network. What does that mean for the residents? It really means grant funding. With this Vision Zero policy and the policy direction we got, it unlocks substantial grant dollars that staff is utilizing to make our roadway safer. In 2022, that was the original grant, which is what I'm presenting today, is the Vision Zero action plan. That provided us a $300,000 grant to really establish this plan and set up the roadmap of how we'd be moving forward. Then in 2024, which after the plan adoption, that's what we're going to be moving into. That's really implementation projects or sorry, demonstration projects that are going to show opportunities to enhance road safety and give the city the opportunity to develop those demonstration projects that would evaluate alternative measures for safety and roadway corridors. Then the one in 2025 which was another grant award win, really focuses on emergency response vehicles. I'm really excited about the award in that one because it really enhances our transportation network for our first responders and emergency vehicles. So that would be the next phase. And then with that, that's not the end of this story. Staff is going to continue to apply for these grants and continue to pursue this project. So right now, the program goes out and is funded out through 2028 through grant dollars. and obviously we're gonna continue to pursue grants. As of today in the state of Florida, the city of Boca Raton is the number one grant award recipient, which I'm incredibly proud of staff to be able to pursue that and say it. That might not always be the case, but it was an incredible Herculean effort for staff to put this information together and an excellent pursuit to be able to pursue those federal dollars. So then the Vision Zero Action Plan. It's really, it comes down to a safe system approach. And that safe system approach is talking about, just like I said, changing that language and really looking at things such as the traditional was crashes are inevitable. You hear things like people just get in car accidents, it happens. Humans have perfect behavior when they're driving. And ultimately, we're all aware when you add in the additional distractions of today and cell phones and other activities, those things are challenging. We have humans that have the error and at greater speeds, there's additional chances for either fatalities or severe crashes. So that's something that has many different controls in ways for us to reduce the likelihood of that happening. So let's get into the numbers a little bit. Over the past six years, Boca Raton has averaged seven crashes per day and four that are serious in injury or fatal that have resulted in a fatality. So just giving the kind of overall averages, that's about 45 incapacitating injuries and then about five to six or so average fatalities. And with that, the general average comes from about 2,500 average crashes per year. And you can see we've got over the years in the study, and somebody might ask the question, well, why are we looking at 2018 to 2023? So with these grant dollars, this was the specific time range that staff was looking at in order to pursue the grant. But this is a living document. So of course, we're gonna continue to evaluate what those numbers look like. And then we're gonna update the Vision Zero Action Plan and we're gonna update our strategies based on the information that comes back. And I would just like to note really quick, obviously, if anybody looks at the year 2020, It's really fascinating that we still have the kind of scars of the pandemic that came through. We did see a much lower number of crashes at that timeline, and we also saw volumes dip at that time. But what we really got to see, which I'll show you in a couple of slides, is we had some learned driver behavior during that time because there was a lot less people on the road. So we saw speeds go up a lot and unique to the city of Boca Raton. So if I go to this slide, and I'll give everybody a minute to look at that. We had off road crashes. So at 13%, that's something that staff is really looking at because within the city of Boca Raton, that's probably our most unusual statistic. You would see most of these off road crashes, which what does that mean? That means under normal driving conditions, not inclement weather or heavy traffic or some other construction issue, just driving down the road, a vehicle suddenly loses control and departs and either hit something on the side, a light pole or leaves the travel lane. So even anecdotally with the department, we've seen a significant number of light poles that we've had to repair in the last few years, which is significantly higher than some of the other regional areas or I would say above average. And then some of the other crashes are things that you would expect to see at intersections and those that we highlight. Now, this is the most important slide of the entire presentation, which is really about partnership. So I'm going to go through it really carefully because I think it highlights the partnership and really how we've got to navigate with our our other regional partners. So the Florida Department of Transportation has 30%, 34%, and Palm Beach County has 33% of the city's overall road network. So some people don't realize when they call in, they think, hey, I'm in the city of Boca Raton, I'm on a city road. But example I would use is Glades is a state roadway. And then Clintmore is a county road where you can also use portions of Palmetto Park Road or Camino Real. So these are other jurisdictional roadways. And when you look at the percentage of crashes, so while DOT and county have six and 8% of our roadway network in the city, they make up approximately two thirds of the high injury and severe crashes. So and then and then proud to show those numbers in the city of Booker Tone that while we have a pretty significant share of the roadway network, ours are well below that. So it's really as we continue to work with our partners and our agencies to really work on that, that's an important part of the program. So this is really it. I mean, this is the slide of all the effort that went into. On the left of your screen, you'll see the intersections. Yellow is severe crashes and red is fatalities. Those are at intersections. And then on the right side, you'll see a system of roadway segments that have been identified as really data-driven approach. So we definitely, from Public Works and Engineering, we have two elements that we really try and do. a service oriented department. And so we really try and take resident requests. We take feedback from the community and we really try and work on that. And at the same time, part of this entire program is really to take that data driven approach and not say, well, you know, we've got a few calls at this intersection. We're going to try and make a change. This is a significant amount of resident feedback that we've got throughout this process. and a significant amount of data that we've collected and gathered over this process to identify these. Now, if anybody looks up at the screen, they might say numbers and say, are those numbers on the right side with the roadway corridors correlating with the most serious roadways? And that is not the case. Those are just numbering them for the table that it goes back to. So that that is correlated back to a table that shows the most severe roadway corridors. Those are not them. And then really going through the continuation. So within our high injury network, what tools do we have to manage this process? It's really speed management. And I won't identify each one of those things on the screen. But just note that staff is looking at variable tools that are available to us in different scenarios with the right roadway context classification to really try and enhance the safety of those roadway corridors. Again, another slide identifying all the different areas where we have our technical tools from the engineering perspective to try and enhance the safety of our roadway network. And again, as staff was looking at that data and getting feedback of the off-road crashes, that's something where we're looking specifically at roadway departure tools to try and identify how do those things correlate and how do we enhance safety. And then just really wanted to highlight quickly that this process was done really engaging with the community. I saw several council members and certainly the mayor throughout the process engaging in this process, coming out with the community, having conversations, talking about the different charrettes, and really doing a lot of those engagements. And at the same time, I also wanna note that this process is not over, right? With the adoption of this Vision Zero Action Plan, while there are those high injury crash networks that are tied to the grant dollars, looking within that system, it's not completely set in stone for which ones we prioritize first as a city. So it's definitely a continuous dialogue with the community. And I really talked about that, but the next step is council adoption of this action plan. And then this information will continue to be posted and transparent on the city's website. And we are excited to get it rolling. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Beer. Members, do we have any questions for staff? Ms. Sybil? Go ahead.

How much have we spent so far on this?

Overall?

Yes.

specifically the plan or on traffic related projects related to that?

We were given 300,000 and then we put in $79,270. Of that $4 million in 2024, what have we spent that on?

OK, excellent question. So I don't have the exact numbers off the top of my head. I can get that for you. But we are working through the spend on the $300,000. That grant was for this Vision Zero Action Plan. We have not spent any of the $4 million up to this date. And I'll quickly look at staff to make sure I'm not making that up. Yeah, we have not. We work through the grant agreement, but those are when that became available. It's not when that spend happens. To give you an idea, the 2022 is happening now, so we have to go back and forth with the DOT. There was a time when the agency was temporarily closed, so that halted the agreement finalization. So after we've gotten all that work through the process, it's likely that those activities are going to start happening in 2027. So we'd be starting to spend the $4 million through 27 and 28.

Is there an expiration on the grant?

Not to my knowledge. At this time, the FHWA has not identified there's any expirations on those grants.

So we've identified high-injury corridors, intersections, whatnot. But a lot of those aren't BOCA. They belong to FDOT County, like you were saying. So are we going to use that money for those roads? Or are we going to ask for something written from the county, from the state, to provide additional funding to make those intersections safer? since this money is given to the city for our roads?

Yeah. So the main focus on the demonstration projects off the top of my head is really focused on city roads. I can name a few like 20th Street, 13th and 12th. So a few of the top locations we've identified are city roads. And then really what we've done is use this as a tool to advocate. So we're using our grant dollars related to the city network and then really advocating for the county and the FDOT for those type of enhancements. An example I could use is that 12th and Palmetto, we actually put in the county's transportation and work plan for them to evaluate that intersection. So we're really communicating that back for our partners to engage with that data and share that back to them. Yes. As far as I know, I can't say every single dollar will be spent on a city road just because it could cross a county roadway, but we're really prioritizing. The way I would describe is we're prioritizing the grant dollars to enhance the city roadway network.

Okay. If we go ahead and adopt this, how are we going to gauge success? let's compare it to Fort Lauderdale because Fort Lauderdale is the only person that's the only city that's has some robust data they've it's been since what 2015 that's generally yes and the first year they claimed it was a success and now they're at their highest rates of serious accidents since it was implemented and I know that correlation isn't causation but When we're adopting this, I think we should have something that we look at this yearly. Is it making a difference? Because you can put anything you want up to try to stop accidents, but when people are driving like idiots and they're going 90 miles an hour, A plastic cone isn't going to stop them. A rumble stick isn't going to stop them. So, you know, we can just by adopting this, it's not a blank check for the city to keep matching money. I mean, I'm all for saving lives and, you know, decreasing serious accidents, but I really don't know how much this is going to help. I mean, they put up those three little sticks that were on, I think it was Northeast Second Street. So when you come out, the cars have to go one way. They were run over within two weeks.

You're right.

roundabouts, people don't even know how to use them. And if you look at 18th Street, they actually just stop. It actually almost creates more of a chance for a crash. So I'm concerned about that. So how will we measure success?

Yeah, it's a really good point, because even when we had the debate all the way back when we were adopting the original Vision Zero policy for the city, there was a really careful understanding from staff that we watched a lot of other cities post a very large document and then post on their website like we're doing Vision Zero. We'll have and then they would kind of chart on a plot where they were going to be in five years. And of course, inevitably in like 95% of the cities, it went in the wrong direction. So I think Ours is a bit more of a humble approach where we're we're identifying grant dollars that are available that I do think can can help. But it really ultimately comes down to direction and that community engagement part of identifying what works for the community and specific to Boca Raton and where those where those dollars are spent. So I would say from you, ours is going to be measurable where we're going to continue to update the update the plan. And ours is only utilizing this report to identify that data-driven approaches are generally more effective than, you know, the kind of a couple phone calls that we get about an intersection. So our general approach and way to measure it is going to be what I would call a compass for areas where we can improve safety. I certainly will not sit at the dais and identify in the next five years we're going to be at vision zero. That is not it is more of a change in our focus from an engineering perspective to try and be more proactive versus saying you know in the next five years we're going to have a solution to the problem because certainly it is a very very complex and of course with you know human error that makes it additionally complex. So I I think that that's our general our general process of how we use the data to help make better decisions about where the engineering dollars are spent.

I mean, I think it would make sense if we identified the top 10 intersections that are city roads or, you know, and then focus on them and see, you know, like pilot program for those. But that's my opinion.

That's all I got.

Okay. Thank you, Ms. Sipple. Any other questions for Mr. Beer? Ms. Grau, go ahead.

Yes, I was just wanting to know if we are taking a look at e-bike regulation and how we can incorporate this into our plan. We've seen a tremendous amount of use of e-bikes and speeding. We get a lot of emails about it. I'm not sure if there's been any fatalities, but I think that's something that we also need to look into.

Yeah, we have had fatalities with the bikes for sure. And one of those elements where we we were evaluating the state that had potential regulation that they were they were looking to pass and we were kind of evaluating how that was going to be. But now that that isn't the case, it's something that staff is is looking into as part of this overall policy.

May I just add to that I believe the county is undertaking a study as well to determine if they should have and we I think we were hoping maybe to see what the outcome of that was to see if those kinds of regulations might make sense here too is that right Mister beer that's my understanding is okay. Good struck her.

Thank you. If I could just add to the e-bike discussion, there's going to be a presentation or there's a seminar coming up in September. I'm not sure the date, but I can find out by tomorrow's meeting on e-bikes. So other cities throughout the county have started to adopt e-bike ordinances. So, for example, I think last week Wellington passed one of their ordinance, which I don't. know how they're going to enforce because they have age restrictions it's hard to know like when someone's on e-bike what age are they are and you know there's a bigger conversation piece so i'm looking forward i think i sent that to mr beer i'm looking forward to that um review it has uh e-bike specialists from throughout the country like creating policy so that's coming up um so it would be good for us to listen to that and i'll participate on that So that's on the e-bike discussion. And yes, the governor, we had a, I understand that there might be an e-bike resolution brought forth in the next session. When we go back to Tallahassee next year, the commission week starts January through March and session starts in March. But the governor in the end vetoed that particular e-bike regulation. Also, at the federal level, there was also discussions on e-bike regulations. And a lot of that has also been postponed in addition to the Reauthorization Act on roads and water. So we're tracking a lot of that information as it comes through. So now back to Vision Zero. So Zach and Naresh, I see you back there. It's a good day to be a good day to talk about Vision Zero, where it all started in 2022. Anything we could do to keep people safe is a step forward in the right direction. And we know throughout the country that there are cities that have achieved Vision Zero, and I can name a few, like Hoboken, Minneapolis, there's a city that has Vision Zero. And we understand that the plan is just a plan to get to that moment. I believe that all roads are for all roads. When you and I are driving through the roads, we don't know if it's a county road or city road. I might know because of the work that I've done on this council and on the MPO, but most people do not know what road they're on. So for me, it's always going back to making sure that whatever we do as a city, we partner with our county and our state folks. Obviously the monies are coming from the federal funding, but to make sure that everyone that comes here is also safe, like throughout our cities. So again, all roads for all roads. Very proud of that number. We are the largest award of State Streets for All. And it is a very hard thing to accomplish. And I can tell you that because everybody fights for those dollars. And that's just a testament to this um staff how much time and effort you've put to keeping people safe and we know that with speed management whether we put a delineator whether we have um c gloves or we have a robust systems it always helps with the impact because if you see something and you're driving the goal unless you're not paying attention which happens is that you're going to stay away from it So I know that we've done incredible efforts to not only come up with a plan that's going to be fluid and it's going to be able to grow with the city and the demands of the city and the people that are using all of our roads and our our sidewalks. So I'm really, really excited to see the work plan, to see all the work that you've put into it and to continue our efforts with keeping people safe and moving throughout. And the fact that the city of Boca Raton is one of the trailblazers in this effort It's a good day. It's a good day for me, at least someone that has dedicated the last six years of her life on this day is trying to bring policy in that protects individuals. So I'm really, really excited to see the actual plan. I'm really excited to continue to work with you all as I transition off the council and to I think Mayor Thompson mentioned the Palm Beach County transit plan. And so did you, Zach? We've been working on that. I've attended multiple meetings. I encourage anyone of the Council when they have another outreach session for you to go and listen as a participant and you can also provide input. But I think we're working towards the goal, which is to keep people safe. So thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Drucker. Any other questions, comments? Go ahead, Mr. Kaler.

Mr. Mayor, just one point. I don't know if this council followed the legislature this session. I'm sure everyone did. One mistake I've made multiple times, including at the beginning of this presentation, is I've confused Vision Zero for Net Zero. So I just wanted to clarify for the council, Net Zero has to do with greenhouse gas emissions. There are some new restrictions on local government, and those policy staff is looking at that. But Vision Zero, of course, is traffic safety. It is not affected in any way by that new legislation.

And Net Zero was also an internet service provider in the early days, weren't they? Only people of a certain age remember that. Any other questions, comments? All right, seeing none, I think we can conclude our presentations and proclamations, and we can move on to public requests. So now's the time, if anyone in the audience wants to be heard as it relates to the Boca Raton city generally, not just the downtown, please step forward, state your name, and you will have up to three minutes. First card I have is Mr. Starkoff is on his way, must be seeing the future. Go ahead, Mr. Starkoff.

Well, thank you. I wanted to get up real quick because I wanted to follow on their report. And Earl Sarkoff, 3260 St. Charles Way. And good afternoon to counsel and the mayor. I strongly support Vision Zero. Obviously, anything that saves serious injury and death is obviously top of mind and top of priority. The report was wonderful. The background work was wonderful. But my request is that this is too important to put on the consent agenda. I would prefer that it be presented as a separate resolution so that it's in the public eye from the get-go. From what I heard of the city manager and our new chief at Let's Talk Boca last week, I think we're going to have an all-of-government approach. And I would ask that one element of that approach receive particular attention, and that's communications and education. I'm a career marketing and communications professional, and I believe that Vision Zero should become known by everyone in Boca. omnichannel communications program using blogs, social media, and search engine optimization with targeted campaigns to reach drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and particularly young e-bike drivers. Meet them at the media that they're on, not only in Boca, but in the surrounding communities that travel our roads. Those campaigns can drive people to useful information on the city's website, not just waiting for them to come and access it. Supported by signage and partnerships with schools, community organizations, an all of government approach. Most of the message should be positive. Education, safety, improvements, results. But some of it should be enforcement. Because people need to understand, if you're going to change behavior, that Boca Raton is serious about this. So visual of whether it's Wolfpack or two motorcycle cops handing out tickets, but regular, 20% of the time campaign showing enforcement is regular. This is also, let's not kid ourselves, all of government. It's an economic development benefit, not just the saving of lives, which of course is the most important. But a successful Vision Zero program can become another competitive advantage to bring companies to our city. Many of our high-injury roads, as was pointed out, are owned by FDOT and Palm Beach County. What's in the plan for us to collaborate, or more particularly, will they collaborate with us? So let's get this launched. Let's make it public. And if it would be of any help, I'll be glad to sit with the communications team, because believe me, I could go more than just the four minutes on this topic. I believe you. Thank you for the overage. Bye-bye.

Thank you. No problem. anyone else for public requests relating to the city at large please step forward state your name and address and you will have three minutes more or less anyone else last call all right we will then close the time for public requests we can move on to our next item which is future agenda matters does anyone have any questions relating to any items on our regular agenda tomorrow night No?

Very good. Then we can move on to city manager reports. Mr. Sahaney. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to go over a couple of things. I provided council a quick brief on Thursday regarding an update to our police services complex. Today, I just want to provide a quick recap and then highlight one additional slide. that was developed in response to some of the questions we got from our first community outreach and then move to the primary purpose of today's presentation and that is the results of our community polling just a quick recap is i don't know if i can get the presentation up but i can keep talking as we get the presentation up thank you So there's our project timeline. After March, we took a look at scope, cost, location, operational requirements. We took a look at some alternative sites and a couple other things. And we really came up with two options. And option one was a central complex and a downtown station. Option two was a downtown complex located at our base parcel there. That's our building administration code enforcement parcel. And then after that, council directed us to continue with our community engagement on both of those options and that's what we did. We also took a look at other locations in this process. We did our due diligence and this one additional slide I just wanted to point out we did get some questions about the current police department headquarters parcel. You know why didn't you look at that and of course we did. uh we took a hard look at that and the big the big thing that the reasons why we didn't recommend that to Council is because there were a lot of things involved on pre-development costs such as real estate acquisition power distribution modifications and then of course relocating the police department personnel for four years in order to be able to do the construction so that was something that I wanted to include in a slide presentation because we have another community engagement opportunity on September 2nd with our community advisory panel and we'll continue with that engagement so I want to say thanks so far to everybody that's involved with that and and really at this point I really want to turn it over to Jim and he'll introduce our polling and kind of walk us through the council through the survey results

THANK YOU, MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL. THIS AFTERNOON, YOU'RE GOING TO SEE A PRESENTATION BY DR. RICHARD BERNARD WITH FAIRBANK-MASLIN-MAULIN METS AND ASSOCIATION, OR FM3 FOR SHORT, MUCH EASIER TO SAY. THEY ARE A NATIONAL LEADING SURVEY OPINION POLLING FIRM. THE CITY BROUGHT ON EARLIER THIS YEAR TO HELP BETTER UNDERSTAND THE COMMUNITY SENTIMENT AROUND THIS DISCUSSION ON THE NEW POLICE DEPARTMENT HEADQUARTERS PROJECT BOTH IN GENERAL AND SPECIFICALLY WITH REGARD TO LOCATIONS. SO DR. BERNARD HAS A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF EXPERIENCE IN WORKING WITH A VARIETY OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AS WELL AS NONPROFITS IN THIS SPACE DOING THIS TYPE OF WORK AND I'M PLEASED TO GO AHEAD AND INTRODUCE HIM TO PRESENT THESE SLIDES.

Good afternoon. Thank you, Jim. I want to just thank the mayor and the council and the staff and the community for inviting me to present the results of your community survey. We began the survey or started fielding the survey between August 1st and the 16th. It was a dual mode survey which means a random half the respondents took the survey online and a random half on the phone. We interviewed a random sample of 256 city of Boca Raton registered voters who are likely to vote in a March 2027 municipal election based on their past voter history or if they've recently registered to vote. For questions asked of everyone, the margin of error is plus or minus 6.1. I'll be reminding you of that during the presentation. And we contacted folks by telephone, landline, and mostly cell phone, because we're in 2026, and by text. And if you notice something doesn't quite equal 100%, I blame that entirely on rounding. So I want to start off by showing you a few questions about just the general perceptions of a new police headquarters. We asked them a conceptual question if they thought that there was a need for a Boca Raton police headquarter. And new headquarters. And we gave them the option of great need, some need, a little need, or no real need. Or they volunteered, they didn't know. Slightly more than half said there was at least some need for an additional or a new police headquarters. With a relatively modest 24% that said great need. So because there may be, I don't want to get ahead of the council, I don't set policy, but since there may be some kind of measure on a future ballot, I'm always looking at a 50 plus one as a threshold for 50 if you're an opponent, you're successful, for supporters it's 50 plus one. So I'm always considering that margin of error of plus or minus 6.1. So a great or some need of 53% is relatively modest given the margin of error. And we'll come back to those discussions a little bit later. We then asked them if they favor or opposed, either strongly or somewhat, building a new Boca Raton police headquarters. And here you can see 56%, this is without any information. This is just a basic baseline question. 56% said they favored it, 34% said they opposed with a slightly stronger, stronger favor than strongly opposed. And then we gave them some information. We tried to make it as objective as possible. We indicated that the building was currently as 40 years, was built 40 years ago when the population was 75, it's now 75%. increased from that time, that there is not enough space for all the staff to work together in one location, and that it is not considered hurricane rated. And then we asked them again if they favored or opposed a new headquarter. On the left-hand side, unaided, you saw this data just moments ago, was 56-34. After giving them some information that I just presented to you, there was an increase overall of 21 points in the favor column with a 14-point increase in the strongly favor. So now it's 77% favor, 21% opposed, and you could see a slightly less than three to one ratio of strongly favor to strongly oppose. Most of this coming, not all, but most of it or some of it coming from the don't know column and some of it coming from the initial opposed column. Now we're going to introduce the two options, but before I do that, I kind of want to lay out the plan of the survey. So the first two questions which I've already presented were just general opinions about whether they wanted the city to build a new station or not. We've seen that with information there was an increase. Now we're going to focus on location. The two locations that the city manager has pointed out and I'll remind you of those in a second. Then we'll give them some supportive statements for each of the locations. We've tried very hard throughout the survey to not put a thumb on the scale as to the preference for any particular location. And then we're going to talk a little bit about the building size and height. We're going to talk about the costs. And throughout all of them, we're going to ask, do they favor or oppose each of those locations? Now, for some folks, they will favor both. And for some, they will oppose both. And for some, the intensity of support or opposition will vary. And you'll see that in a moment. And then we will come out with sort of a forced choice. If you had the choice between one of these two locations, which would you choose? Always allowing for someone to say, well, I prefer neither. And then we'll end by having some general supportive and critical statements about headquarters in general. And we'll be following this level of support for each of those locations. So everyone hears the central location and the downtown location. Half the sample hears the downtown location first and then the central location and vice versa. So we're not favoring one over the other. And we ask after each description, do you favor or oppose? So just giving them the location, no other information. 64% say they either strongly or somewhat favor the central location. And that includes not only that, but also a police station downtown. 27% oppose it, 9% are undecided. On the downtown location, 59% favor it, 28% oppose, 13% are undecided. If you're thinking about that margin of error plus or minus 6.1, at this point in the survey, there really isn't a statistical difference in terms of which location they favor. The numbers are greater for the central location. but that may statistically be explained by the margin of error. However, I want to point out something that is a consistent theme throughout this presentation and your data. The central location always has a much stronger strongly favor. In this case, it's 31 compared to the downtown location at 20%. So in this case, 11 point differential on strongly favor. So just to compare the last information when we gave them information about the just general having a headquarters, you'll remember the high number with 77% favor, 21 opposed. When you start to get more specificity about location, both locations drop in terms of favorability. So whatever you do, you will not please everyone. That is clearly the case. So we then present a favorable argument for the downtown location and a favorable, sorry, yeah, for the downtown location and for the central location. Half the sample, here's the favorable statement about the downtown first. And then the central, the other half here, the central favorable, and then the downtown. And you could see in the case of the central location, it talks a little bit about ease to freeway access, more central where the population has grown. It has no impact on public safety services downtown. The same number of police officers will remain assigned to the downtown patrol areas and station. In the case of the downtown, it's keeping the new police headquarters downtown, moving it five miles away. The arguments from that side will increase 911 response times, reduce the ability to fight and respond. crime and homelessness, which is considered by some to be largely downtown. And since downtown attracts large crowds, tourism, nightlife, it should stay near where the officers are more frequently needed. Again, trying to make the arguments for both sides and having them hear them randomly so that we're not, again, putting any finger on the scale. So what happens when we give them information, positive information, about both locations? Again, we ask them, do they favor or oppose a central location and the downtown location? You could see for the most part with that additional information, very modest changes on the level of support. on the central location total favorable drops down just three points within the margin of error the only thing that really appreciably moves is the opposition to the downtown location it started with just hearing about the location 28 percent opposed it and now it's at 36 percent opposed but again favor favors 61 for a central location 59. No statistical difference. But again the theme of the strongly favor continues to favor by 11 points the downtown location over the central locations. Then we introduce building size and height. Sorry?

It was the other way around.

Sorry. Sorry. Apologize.

Yeah. We're tracking.

All right. Thank you. No, I appreciate people who are listening. Thank you. Keep me honest. All right. So then we introduce about size and height. We tell them it's the same square footage in either location. So that's the level playing field. However, at the downtown location, it would be six stories. That includes four stories of parking for police vehicles and visitor parking. And it would require two stories at the central location with street level parking. And you should know those were the plans at the time that the survey was introduced. And remember, I don't set policy, I'm just testing it. All right, so after giving that information, we re-asked it again. So you could see support on the central location goes up overall three points. But most importantly, the downtown location drops 10 points from 59 to 49. You can see the 49 circled. and the intensity continues to favor the central location over the downtown location. Now we introduce cost. And again, I understand that may change over time, but at the time of the survey, this is where we were. One, the police station downtown is estimated to be between approximately 100 and 125 million, and the cost of the new Boca Raton police headquarters downtown, sorry, the central location and the police station is 100 to 125. The one downtown is 112 to $140 million, and we re-ask that question again. So you could see once hearing the cost support on the central location drops five points still within the margin of error. But that's a sizable drop. And the downtown location only drops one point. Now when you're higher up you have more to fall. One could argue that. But I'm still tracking that strongly favor. On the strongly favor in the central location, it's 33%. On the strongly favor on the downtown location, it's 13%. A 20-point differential on the strongly favor as we go down and tell people information. Here's the forced choice. Half the sample, here's one first, and then the other second, and vice versa. we asked them uh you know based on all you know which one would be your preference relocating the new police headquarters from its current location downtown to a central location and establishing a police station downtown just slightly more than half 54 percent choose that in that forced choice 24 so about a quarter say replacing the current headquarters with a new headquarters in its current downtown area location So slightly more than a two to one ratio of central location with the downtown police station versus the downtown headquarters. 18% said I oppose both and 5% remained undecided. We gave them some benefits or some advantages of having a new headquarter in general, we randomized this list and we said regardless of whether you support a new headquarters or not or where it is, how important would it be to have the headquarters have this as a benefit for that investment. Each one, we gave them the option of extremely important, which is the dark blue. Very important, which is the mid-color blue. Somewhat important, which is the dull blue. Orange is not too important. And the slight sliver of gray are the folks who don't know. I've taken and aggregated the extremely and very important on the right-hand side and I've ranked it as such. You'll notice that all of these, I'm presenting 16 items to you, nine of them are in the 80s and I believe nine of them or slightly less are in, no, sorry, seven of them are in the 80s, but very high intensities of extremely or very important. And you'll notice disproportionately these are about services. People typically don't support the buildings as much as they support the services. What's interesting to me, I mean you can see the list, but what's interesting to me is normally I see maintaining emergency 911 response among the top. But I rarely see improving emergency 911 response surveys as high as that is. And that intensity of 62% is very, very high. It suggests to me that people both like what they have and they want to maintain it, but they even want it to be improved. And that is striking. Typically, most people don't call 911. They assume they're just going to show up when they call them, and they're generally happy with the services. But here, they're happy, and they want it to be improved. So we then provided supporter statements and opponent statements for the building of the headquarters in general. So we're not specifically talking about geography here. And we tried to... You know, we worked with the staff to hear what the arguments were in the public square in the previous election to try to reflect both sides. And depending on which or if you're on any side, the other side will be cringe-worthy. But we try to really be fair to that particular side. So you could see on the supporter statements just for a new headquarters, You could see that, you know, we've already mentioned, but we'll mention again, it's a 40-year-old, it's not to the size of this particular population now, as it was back then 40 years ago, that all the duties can't be done in a central location, and it's not considered hurricane rated. On the opposition side, there was a discussion about this is always on the backs of property owners. Voters have already said no in the last election. that more of the events are happening downtown, the headquarters are in the right place, and we then ask them after hearing all that, when you go back to the central location and the downtown location, where do you stand now? The final in each of these four different bars, the last one for the central location is 61% favor and 32% oppose. And then on the downtown location, it's 58-36. Very, very close statistically. But again, I will go back to the strongly favor that intensity. Note 36% strongly favor the central location. And after all of this, 21% strongly support the downtown location. And then finally, we asked them, Who do you most feel reflects your opinion? The opponents of having a police headquarters or the supporters? And one in every two said the supporters, 37% said the opponents, 1% said both equally, 7% said neither, and 5% said they didn't know. All of this in terms of level support has ranged around at best around the slightly more than 50% or one in every two element. It's that intensity that really has distinguished everything. So we asked at the end of the day five times whether they favor or oppose each of those locations. If I said strongly or somewhat favor all five times, I'm a consistent favor. If I said strongly or somewhat oppose all five times, I'm a consistent oppose. And if I've moved from favor to oppose or opposed to favor or undecided, somewhere I'm moving in all those five times, I'm what's called a swing or persuadable voter. That means I'm open to hearing the story and that may impact my opinion. In this case, with respect to the central location, 49%, almost one in every two, are consistently in favor of the central location, 19% opposed, and almost a third are persuadable. Downtown, consistent is 36% over the five asks, 19% opposed, and 46 move in some from favor to opposed, opposed to favor, or are undecided. So I'm going to hit the conclusions. I want to thank you for your patience. Overall, majority of voters, about 53%, believe there's at least some need for a new police headquarters. However, that intensity is kind of modest. It was at one in four. When first asked, 56% favor building a new police headquarter. But with information, that increases to 77%. That was the highest information favor in the whole survey, but then we get to the location. And that's where it's, that's the conundrum. Initially, there's statistically little difference in the proportion favoring each location. After hearing building size and height, the central location holds its support at 64%, while the downtown location drops to 49%. After hearing cost, the proportion in favor remains lower for the downtown location at 48%. After hearing detailed supporter and opposition statements about a headquarter in general, support for locations are statistically equal, but that intensity is 3621, almost a three to one, sorry, Less than a two to one ratio, but in favor of the central location. The survey suggests the voters are open to the central location more so than the downtown one. The central location proposal is consistently favored by around 60%. Across all questions, all queries, 49% of voters consistently favor the central location, while 36 consistently favor the downtown location. The intensity of support is higher for the central location throughout the survey. That, to me, is one of the biggest takeaways. Voters named the central location over the downtown location in a forced choice, 54-24. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, doctor. Any questions for Dr. Bernard? No? Okay, Ms. Sipple, go ahead.

Why did we use such a small number of interviews?

Well, response rates are what it is, but we started out with a likely March 2027 scenario. I will remind you that in March of 2026, 17,800 people in the entire city voted in that municipal election for referendum one, either yes or no. In referendum two was 18,954. So we have a relatively small pool to start with already, because we anticipate maybe around 17 to 18,000 people who will vote in a March 2027 electorate. And from there, we had hoped to get 300, but we didn't. So it's a random sample, and what I can assure you is that the demographics of the likely voters mirror the demographics of the respondents. But I give you a margin of error of 6.1 and am mindful of that.

Is that the normal confidence level for a survey?

95% confidence. 95% confidence. That's correct. So we usually have our average is about 12,640 voters. So to have a confidence level of 95%, you would need to do 373 interviews.

That's less than a hundred.

That's a hundred and seventeen interviews less Well, actually in 95 not not to not not to disagree with you 95 percent confidence level means if I were to do this survey a hundred times with the same sample that 95 percent of the time I would get those results within a plus or minus 6.1 percent

Can I interject for just a second, Ms. Sippel, to say that 300 responses seems to be the customary amount for even much larger areas when you're polling. I've seen samples of 300 used for counties, even states. Is that right, Doctor?

Yeah, I mean, our goal was to get 300. I would have liked to have had it, but yes. I mean, if you think about nationally, we generally do about 3,500 surveys for a state, such as I do a lot of work in California. We usually do 1,000 surveys. If I was doing one of the largest cities in the country, I'd probably do between six and 800. So if that's helpful, I agree with you. I would have liked to have gotten 300, but I can't harass your voters. So we got the best we can.

I didn't get harassed.

Yeah.

Any other questions? No? All right. Thank you for your time, Doctor. We appreciate the results here. Thank you. Anything else in your report, Mr. Sahany?

No, Mr. Mayor. That concludes my report.

Very good. Mr. Kaler, City Attorney Report.

No report. Thank you, Mayor.

Great. We'll go back around the horn again, if you don't mind. Ms. Sipple, do you have any report?

Nothing to report.

Mr. Perlman?

Thank you for the presentation. The only thing I would say is I do stand behind what I presented to the Council over the last several months and. It was a small sample size and I believe that the downtown location would be favorable for the city. And beyond that, I just want to thank you and. For thank you for the work and the presentation.

Thank you Mr Perlman, Mr.

Yeah, just go over a couple of things as we have a little bit of time. So our last MPO meeting, they presented the 2026 annual report. Deputy Mayor Grau has a copy of this. I have a few samples here if people want them. It's also online. Just wanted to bring to everyone's attention. One of the things is that we got a tip, which is a transportation improvement program allotted to Boca Raton for FY30 for our traffic signals. So again, it's important to track these projects. Infrastructure projects are costly. They take time and they're earmarked years in advance. So we're always working together with our partners at the MPO to make sure that Boca Raton makes a list. And we're very fortunate because we have two members that vote on the MPO. And as I transition off CITY COUNCIL IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS. I WANT SOME OF YOU TO START THINKING OF HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS AS YOU ELECT NEW PEOPLE TO THE COUNCIL AND AS YOU APPOINT NEW PEOPLE TO THE MPO. I WANT TO THANK THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MY VICE CHAIR, MAYOR for all the work that we did as a collective body this year but a lot of good data and once again the MPO is a federal agency that prioritizes plans and implements federal funding for the county the other thing too that I wanted to give an update is we just some of us attended Florida League of Cities the weekend before last I believe it was And I want just to give an update on the federal. I alluded to it earlier. The reauthorization bill that I've been monitoring with transportation, it's been bumped out. So we're monitoring that there. I have a meeting today at four for NLC. So I'll have more data for tomorrow night. And they're, we're monitoring some of the grants because they're looking at how to, not the grants that have been awarded, not the Safe Streets for All grants, just other grants that are federally funded back to the state, county, and cities on how those grants would be allocated. So we're monitoring that as well and I hope to get more information today at four also school zones are back i've seen people out there but school is back in action so just make sure that you are monitoring uh your speed zone and with that that concludes my report thank you thank you miss trucker

YES, I JUST WANTED TO DISCLOSE SOMETHING THAT I LEARNED AFTER THE LAST MEETING ON JULY 28TH. WHEN WE WERE RANKING THE FIRMS FOR THE MEMORIAL PARK MASTER PLAN, WHEN WE RANKED CHENMORE AS NUMBER ONE, FIVE TO ZERO VOTE, I LEARNED AFTER THE MEETING THAT CHENMORE IS A CLIENT OF MY HUSBAND'S COMPANY WHERE I'M AN OUTSIDE EMPLOYER. I WAS COMPLETELY UNAWARE OF THE CONFLICT WHEN WE RANKED THE FIRMS, BUT I REACHED OUT TO THE CITY ATTORNEY.

and as full transparency i will be upstanding for voting on awarding the contract okay does that conclude your report all right thank you ms grau i have no report so that means that we can conclude our business today at the boca raton city council at 2 40 p.m see you all tomorrow night 6 p.m