Commission - Regular Meeting

Oh my God, I know you. How you doing? I'm good, I'm good. Good to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I usually have two. So we're every part of the problem. Thank you. That is so funny. Thank you. Thank you. . . . . . . . . .

Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the City of Boynton Beach City Commission meeting. Today is Tuesday, May 19th, 2026, and the time is now 6 p.m. Before I continue, I'd like to remind everyone of our rules of civility and decorum. Speakers must first be addressed by the mayor and not interrupt any other speakers. Public comments must be addressed to the commission as a whole and not to any individual on the dais or in the audience. Insults, personal attacks, and disruptions will not be tolerated, and you'll be asked to leave if you violate these rules. We will now turn to the interim city clerk for roll call.

Commissioner Cruz? Present. Commissioner McCray? Here. Commissioner Kelly? Here. Vice Mayor Turkin?

Present.

Mayor Shelton?

Present.

Mayor, you have a quorum.

Thank you. Our invocation tonight will be held by Commissioner McCray, and we will be doing the Pledge of Allegiance led by Commissioner Cruz.

Let us bow. To the creator and maker of all mankind, we come before thee this afternoon, first recognizing that thou art God, And besides, there is no other. As we stand tonight, begin to recollect on our 250th anniversary for the United States of America. We want to pray for this world in a whole for all the turmoil that is going on. Let love abide. Let peace abide. Most of all, you reign. Why? Because you're king of king. And as we deliberate tonight, let us know that we're doing it and everybody's watching, including you in your name. We pray. Amen. 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.

We are now moving on to the agenda approval additions, deletions, and corrections. Let's begin on my left, Commissioner McCray.

I'm good, thank you.

Commissioner Kelly. No, I'm good. Vice Mayor Turkin.

uh yes thank you mayor i'd like to add for a future agenda discussion around uh looking at our procurement policy in respect to um allowing a preference or point system for veterans specifically disabled veterans this is something that the state of florida does other municipalities have done um so i'm just looking for consensus to move forward with this um and then you know hopefully have staff bring back something in front of us i agree

Commissioner McCray, do you agree? Sure. Okay, we have a consensus to be added.

Okay, perfect. And then the other thing is looking at our permitting system and identifying, you know, how we can scale the costs for these for senior citizens, especially when it comes to these low hanging fruit, such as like HVAC. um you know the overnight permits i know adam your team has done a great job with expediting this but i think when we look at the building fund you know and you look at legislation that tallahassee is passing they're looking to try to eliminate that so i think scaling down uh some of these permit fees for our you know residents and and most um vulnerable communities you know i think this would be a home run especially given that we have a large senior population here in the city of boynton beach so looking at some type of tiered system And, you know, I'm not saying overhaul, but something that allows to alleviate some type of cost because people are getting hit everywhere with home insurance, property taxes. There's there is some relief with the home insurance and maybe relief with some property taxes. But I think looking at what we can do for those on fixed income would be would be crucial because every dollar does count.

Commissioner Cruz?

Nothing for me, thank you.

Thank you. We'll now move on to informational items by the members of the city commission. Let's begin on my right with Commissioner Cruz.

Nothing for me regarding this one meeting, thank you.

Vice Mayor Turkin?

I did attend the retirement ceremony for Lamar Jackson's jersey. It's good to see Andrew jumping up like he was a Taylor Swift fan. And, you know, I got to say, Andrew, I really hope you keep that enthusiasm and bring that into cleaning up, you know, the neighborhood and improving the city. You know, I've never seen anything like that. So let's keep that continuance. Thank you.

Commissioner Kelly. That's Andrew at sports, anything sports related. I just, Mayor, I just wanted to, this past week was, I feel like it was Boynton Beach High School week for me. I attended the Boynton Beach High School graduation, which these kids are doing amazing things in the city. And then I also, on Thursday evening, I attended the awards ceremony for I had donated at my last meeting, I donated some of my community funds to their BASA program. It's their drone aerospace program that Emery Riddle teaches at the high school. It's an amazing program. I went to their awards ceremony and these kids, they really, they grow up to be a family. It's a small knit group and their families are great. We had a whole dinner and awards ceremony. It was really nice. The football game to close out the week was a super special event to have Lamar Jackson come back home to Boynton Beach. It was always good to see and I know he was happy to get all of his signs and all of his memorabilia. So it was a cool week of Boynton Beach High School. So that's it, we're moving into just congratulations to all of the teachers and students who survived another year. We're rounding the end of the school year. I know my kids are excited to be done with school. I'm happy to say my daughter got a five in her civics test. So I feel like I'm doing something right if my daughter is acing civics. So just a shout out to the teachers and students. You're almost there. I think you have seven more days. So thank you. Thank you. Commissioner McCray.

Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I'd like to say Saturday night, I did attend at 6.30 the concert for Adele, the candlelight. Awesome, awesome, awesome. I want to commend staff in regards to what you all have done with the Culture Center. I was one of those that when I sat up here prior, I was one of those that was a true advocate and that it should have been torn down. I'm glad they did not listen to me because it is very well done. You all took pride in refurbishing it. You took pride in doing what needed to have been done, and you put us on the map with that adult center over there, and I want to just say thank you. I don't want to be the dead horse to death, but I'm going to talk tonight about the cemetery. First of all, I'd like to say thank you all for going ahead and starting Sarah Sims. I see dirt turn over. The citizens there are so, so excited. I want to say thank you for doing that. Also this week we received letters about the rules for the cemetery. I received one phone call, but it was positive and they told me that it was long overdue. It is anything about the fruit tree that had grown in there, but it was long overdue. And I want to say that we are on the right path Boynton. Let's continue to push forward. The star and nothing but the moon is what we're going to achieve now. Thank you gentlemen and ladies. Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to city announcements. Would staff please approach the podium? Oh wait, we have to approve the agenda.

Second.

We have a motion to approve the agenda. We have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes unanimously. Now come on down.

Hi, good evening, commissioners, mayor, city manager and assistant city manager. My name is marvelous Washington. I'm division director for parks, recreation and parks. And we have two announcements. We have the flag planning event, which is Friday at eight a.m. at the Boynton Beach Memorial Park, 1611 South Seacrest Boulevard. And then we also have a Memorial Day celebration and ceremony at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 24th at Boynton Beach Memorial Park, 1611 South Seacrest Boulevard. Hope to see you guys there. Thank you. Thank you.

Next, we are moving on to a presentation of transformative city initiatives presented by our city manager, Dan Duggar.

much like bone thugs and harmony in 1999, the city of Boynton beach is at a crossroads.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the board, the community, what if I told everyone the ultimate goal of municipal government wasn't to collect taxes, but to completely eliminate them? How do we do that? We need a roadmap. This PowerPoint clicker should work, Tammy. All right, so on your guys' screen, You'll see two separate paths. You see the status quo, which I'm going to go over first, and you're gonna see what our path, the possibilities are. Status quo, we remain the sixth-highest millage rate in Palm Beach County out of 39 municipalities. Our expenses continue to outpace our revenues resulting in fee increases and millage rate increases. Unfunded liability continues to expand and we have one of the top five largest CRAs in the state. Currently we're a full service city. Now our path lower taxes for every household same or better city services a municipal endowment fund smaller more accountable government and the commission controls our future now before i get into that to the actual granular details of the presentation i just want to let everyone know on the board everything i'm about to go over is preliminary and tentative there's talk still going on in the background between both county entities and city entities And what I'm looking for tonight from the board is consensus to continue or to put a pause and overall direction. So this presentation was born out of Vice Mayor Turkin's initiative to get a presentation on macro tax reform. And really what it's coming from is from the state and their overall property tax legislation that we're looking for as far as coming back in a special session in June. What that's gonna do is, from most municipalities, to include counties, it has the probability to decrease the amount of revenue that most municipalities receive from Avaloram revenues. Because the city of Boynton Beach, just like other municipalities, we're in a service industry. We provide high quality service to our residents and we want to continue to do that. Now, for most municipalities, when you come to the red and butter of budgetary preparation, it's two entities. One is gonna be police, the other one's gonna be fire, public safety. There are high-risk employees. They deserve enhanced benefits, and everyone recognizes that to include the state. That's why they've carved out an amendment saying that there will not be any defunding, even in the event that revenue is reduced from property tax legislation to public safety. So then that brings me to a third organization within the city that also has to be funded, which is our CRA. So combined, those represent probably about $117 million in overall funding. And the city's funded mainly through ad valorem revenue, but also franchise fees, transfers, and enterprise funds. What I wanna get across to the commission in the most basic terms is right now, if we continue down the path we're going, our expenses are going to continue to increase. So what that's gonna have is the residents are gonna ultimately be responsible for those higher fees, higher millage rates. So I want to propose an alternative plan for the city's future tonight. So, first one, you can see we have eight strategic initiatives. and I'm gonna go through each one. One is a possibility of Palm Beach County and Boynton Beach Fire Rescue merger. These are two A-plus organizations. They provide high quality service to all of our residents, response times, and if we do decide to go forward with the merger, there will not be any loss in quality of service to our residents. So the second one is gonna be the utility transfer of ownership. Three, we're gonna go over the property tax bill and probability of revenue reduction. Four is gonna be the possibility of a land acquisition aspect to a lot of our municipal endowment initiatives that we're looking at. Pension risk reduction from a risk to a stable pension fund. CRA restructuring, millage rate reductions, and an endowment fund of 400 to 500 million dollars. So the first one I'm gonna go over currently right now is a fire rescue merger. So when we started the fire rescue merger talks, initially it was born out of our annexation initiatives, and that started off a little precarious in the beginning, and I think cooler heads prevailed, and we've been working for a compromise in the background for quite some time now with the county, and I can't say enough about County Administrator Joe Abruzzo and his staff to include County IAFF. They have met us halfway during the negotiation process. They've been nothing but professionals. So currently we have an allocation from our general fund to fund your fire rescue of $20 million. County Fire Rescue also brings in about 19.8 in revenue. So they account for almost 50% of their total budget in revenues. That is funded through their ALS transports, that's funded through our fire service agreements with our four servicing cities to include their ALS transport fees and some other oxygen fees. So the overall unfunded liability comes to right around $4 million per year with the city when we talk about the pension. Now what we've done over the last, I'm going to say probably about six months, is we've been doing appraisals, analysis on all our fire safety equipment as well as our real estate and our buildings and our infrastructure. And that came up to a total of about 95 to 115 million lump sum payment to the city of Boynton Beach in the event we decide to merge with Palm Beach County Fire Rescue. That's gonna be a reduction of the unfunded liability to the tune of right somewhere in between 30 to $60 million. And that's gonna be a net annual savings of $20 million to our general fund. That's also going to account for 185 employee transition. There's gonna be lease back agreements for the city's EOC, and also station agreements which still need to be finalized. Now in year one, what we're looking at is moving to about 7.65. There will not be any MS2U rate imposed on any residents. The MS2U rate is right around 3.458. The city's ultimate goal is going to be to reduce the 7.75 millage rate in year two down to 4.19. That's going to be our ultimate goal. Combined with the 3.458, you're going to go back up to the 7.65 millage rate. But you're going to drop the fire assessment fee and every resident, every single family household is going to save approximately $145 per year without paying any additional taxes. So we're gonna go forward. Utility transfer. So right now we're in phase two of negotiation. I can't say enough about my staff. They've really been burning the midnight oil. working with their county counterparts. Right now, we're looking at a valuation between $375 to $470 million. So if you look back, you can see the combined value of the fire rescue merger along with the utility transfer. We want to use these monies to create a municipal endowment fund. What's that going to do? That's gonna give this board the ability to truly have transformative property tax reduction across the city of Boyne Beach. You have the possibility to create a municipal utopia in the state of Florida. I'm gonna go further into detail, but ultimately what's gonna happen is you're gonna eliminate the need for a $300 million infrastructure bond. You're gonna remove the exposure of new utility surcharge legislation, which the state, anyone's been paying attention they're not in the business of helping municipalities key considerations we got a depreciation gap the city is 12 to 18 million versus the county's 28 to 30 million we still need to work through some severance obligations with the the employees of the utility department and I do want to say to them The anxiety that these employees are going through right now isn't lost on the executive staff of the city. The only reason why I'm before you guys as a city manager is because close to 1,000 employees put me here. And I just want to say that to those who are listening, I will maintain to have their back so not one of them lose their jobs. We also have an obligation to the city of Delray Beach. We sit on the South Central Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant Board, which is, we have to govern.

Next slide. I think some of the content you're speaking of, there we go.

My apologies. Some of the governance transition we have to work through and be resolved. So currently we have two and a half treatment plants. One is, the half is the one we set on with Delray Beach. We have the Eastwater Treatment Facility and we have the Westwater Treatment Facility. Moving forward, property tax legislation. Currently a lot of this is unknown. We have no agreement that's been reached on property taxes during regular session. The governor has around six to seven months remaining in office. The special session is anticipated later on in late in the month of June 2026. Most likely everything that's being heard, especially from our lobbyists that we have in Tallahassee and locally, is an enhanced homestead exemption, which is going to be phased in over the next few years. Any exemption increase is gonna result in a loss of revenue for every municipality across the state of Florida. So how does the City of Boynton Beach's initiatives respond? Diversify revenue. The endowment fund means a stable income even if our tax base does shrink. You're gonna get 8.8 million in tax relief in year two with the elimination of the fire assessment fee. The ultimate goal is to lower our millage rate continually year after year after year while maintaining the same level of services and to be a model city for the state of Florida. Let's talk about land acquisition and the Live Local Act. And I've heard this over and over and over again. I can go back to the former mayor and he told me in his office, he says, Dan, a lot of people don't understand this, but the only way Boynton is gonna dig itself out of this hole is to build up, not build out because we don't have the land. I beg to differ. We have a way out. We don't have to lose our character. We can still maintain low density, and we can still maintain our green spaces, and we can still have free parking. Right now, developers use the Live Local Act to bypass you. You don't have any say. Los Mangos comes to mind. Vice Mayor Turkin, did you have a say in that project? No. High rises, maximum density equals maximum profit. We lose our character. The city loses control of its design density and what Boynton Beach actually should look like. If we move forward, you're gonna have a passive income stream between 25 to $40 million a year. The city buys land when you allocate $10 million to the land acquisition. You can actually purchase property and design You can actually purchase properties, payback for the Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, I appreciate it. You can actually purchase land that control the design of your city, which I know a lot of the residents, I hear it constantly, are like, Dan, why are these high rises going up? And I go, these decisions were made some over a decade ago by your predecessors that you had no control over, but who gets blamed? You guys do. So land acquisition, we set the terms, we own the parcel, we offer developers with design requirements, and we get the Boynton we want. The commission controls the city's destiny, character, and the number of rooftops. The more land the city owns, the more the commission is gonna be able to control how Boynton Beach grows and looks. Pension risk reduction. Currently right now, public safety for as long as I've been in the city, 22 years, it's always been public safety, and the general fund has mostly been fully funded. It fluctuates between 90% during down markets, up markets, it can get all the way up to 107% funded. Public safety, because you have enhanced benefits, you end up with what's called an unfunded liability gap, or for the pension people in here, UAAL. So basically all that means is it's a mortgage payment, just like you have a mortgage payment on your house, and you're making monthly payments on it, and slowly but surely you're ticking down that note to where eventually you pay it off. We're not doing a balloon payment, so even in the event that you have a $40 million unfunded liability, the plan sponsor, which is the city, we come in annually and we buffer whatever shortfall those pension plans have. Currently, fire and police make up for right around 90% of your pension shortfalls. So what we're looking at is working with the county to absorb some of the unfunded liability risk and reduce the pension exposure by approximately 45%. Never in the history of the city has that been done. 10 million a year from the endowment fund, you guys have the option to be able to pay some of that debt service obligations down on the pension and you could actually fully fund your pensions for the first time in the city's history. Hard and lugging benefit liability eliminated upon merger, the county would absorb that. Invested fire employees may stay in the city of Boynton Beach pension plan, and what I want to say is we conducted a survey with the Boynton Beach firefighters, which come in, I want to say, at 91.7 to right around 8% that were against the merger. So we're still keeping our employees in mind. Against the merger? No, for the merger.

Okay, you said against.

91.8 for the merger, correct.

So 91.4%? 91.7. 91.7 were for the merger? For the merger, correct. Okay.

I've got Giorgio and Johnny McMahon and Jeff Newsome. Are you guys in the crowd? Can you just raise your hand? Are those numbers accurate?

All right.

So when we talk about— Excuse me. Yes, sir. He's supposed to talk to us, not to audience.

Got me. You got me. I wore my glasses for you guys tonight too. All right, so here's the con of all this. Because Now I have two hats, I put on my CRA hat. Not for this meeting though. So currently right now in TIF revenue, the CRA receives right around, currently right now, the CRA receives right around $16.7 million rounded up plus or minus 17 million a year in TIF revenue from the city. That represents about 21% of your total Avalorum revenue. So of that, if you move in 27-28, meaning we're doing the budget this year, 26 and 27, Chris Persaud, we're going to 27-28, and we're going to be able to reduce the millage rate to 4.19, but the issue here, the true issue here is we're gonna lose some funding on the CRA side. So by our estimates, if you cut your millage rate to 4.19 in the second year, you're gonna lose right around eight million, and you're gonna drop your city revenue down to 9.5 million per year, but the county revenues that come into the CRA do not change. Now, I don't wanna get into the overall specifics of the funding from the CRA. I've had a couple of conversations with some of you guys that we had a CRA meeting, we went over the monetary values and some of those changes that we've made, so there is some savings on that side to kind of offset that overall numerical number. Now, the new CRA structure removes redundancy and cost savings, reduces the footprint focused strategic mission aligned with new revenue reality, and we swapped some of our high-value areas for new growth zones, like Forest Park, Rolling Green, and the Sandcastle area. So millage rate reduction. There's some loss of control here. Gonna lose control of... You're gonna lose control of... some of your departments too, specifically. But what I want everyone to understand is you're going to gain tax savings that your residents are going to benefit from. And we're not talking about small, 10th of a mil here, 100th of a mil there. These are gonna be substantial savings that I'm gonna go into, and I want everyone to keep that in mind. So the first year, We're gonna lower the millage rate. There's gonna be no changes. The MSTU will not be levied during the first year of this merger. The county's gonna absorb the cost of that. We're going to lower the city's millage rate from 7.75 right now down to 7.65. The second year, year two, you're going to see that we dropped the millage rate to 4.19. we're going to combine that with 3.458 on the mstu rate with that mstu rate levied within the city of boynton beach fire assessment completely goes away you're still realizing a 7.65 millage rate which is a tenth of a mil savings combined with 145 savings to every resident every single family home to include commercials Our businesses, our residents, everyone, fire assessment goes away. In year three, you're gonna continue to cut taxes. We're gonna move to the rollback rate, true tax cuts, to where the city no longer is going to be relying on the addiction of ad valorem revenues. I go to these meetings as a city manager. I see all the other city managers. West Lake, West Palm, Jupiter, Palm Beach Gardens, they're all sitting there waiting for the property tax appraiser to announce what their city got, how much additional revenues they got. It's like a lottery. That's not appropriate. That's not how you do business. You need stable sources of income. That's not stable. That's peaks and valleys. And if you were here in 2008 and 2009 like I was and you saw employees crying in the parking lot because they're losing their livelihood, and the city was helpless to do anything about it. Probably could have used an endowment fund at that point to buffer the losses, to get off the ad valorem heroin. Long-term goal, zero city millage rate. Wellington, 2.48. Jupiter Colony, 1.5. Destin, 1.3. City of Doral, Adam, what's the city of Doral's millage rate? We're at 7.75. It's time Boynton realizes its potential. Let's talk about the municipal endowment fund. Target fund size.

Next slide.

Target fund size, 400 to 500 million dollars. I've told you both, fire rescue merger, utility merger. At that rate, realistically, safely, we could bring in right around $30 to $40 million a year. That's not realizing any inter-service attrition, inter-service departments that we're going to continue to reduce those because we also have to understand that If you're reducing the city's workforce by 35%, you also have to reduce the people that support those city workers by a commiserate amount. But we're gonna do that through attrition. There will be no layoffs within those inter-service departments. Each mill in the city represents about $10.1 million. So remember what I told you guys. I told you that we're moving our millage rate down to 4.19. If I told you you're bringing in 30 million of passive income, you have the ability to reduce your millage rate to one, Vice Mayor Turkin? 1.65, lower than the row, Adam, sorry. Workforce realignment, currently we have 991 employees. I love you guys. Self-esteem board. After we're gonna have 665 employees, leaner, more efficient city government, 185 fire rescue goes to Palm Beach County payroll, 141 utility, Palm Beach County payroll, 33% inter-service headcount reduction, 20 to 25% ERP efficiency gain catalyst. Your ERP system, your enterprise resource planning system that you funded and implemented in two years, you're going to see real cost savings there in the millions. Final general fund savings, $20 million. That comes in fiscal year 2026-27 this year. Fire assessment fee elimination, $8.8 million a year. Utility sale lump sum, 375 to 470 million to be determined. Fire rescue pension liability absorbed by the county. This is tentative. We're still in talks. That's post-merger. Debt service bond savings. We have some bond savings that we're paying off early that come to about $2.6 million per year. The endowment fund passive income, 6% on 500 million comes to about $30 million. ERP catalyst optimization savings, we're looking at probably about one to $4 million between year two to four. Fire utility benefit reduction, we're gonna save money on our health insurance guys, probably to the tune of about four and a half million dollars a year. And that's gonna come between fiscal year 26 and 28. And the resident savings in year two, like I said, $145 per household. So the millage rate timeline. We're going to look at roll after year two. We're looking at rollback. The millage rate timeline. This year, we want to reduce the millage rate from 7.75 down to 7.65. Year two, we want to lower that to 4.19 mills. Year three, we go to rollback. And then so forth, the commission can have a decision based on operational necessities and what our overall passive income looks like on our endowment fund for any further millage rate cuts. We have a roadmap to almost get to a zero millage rate within the city of Boynton Beach. Strategic initiatives in the event that a fire merger fails. In the event that a fire merger fails, You're going to have to increase your fire assessment. Close between $280 to $350 per household. Utility sale fails. You're going to have to do a second round of rate hikes necessary if the sale of the utility does not, and you also are going to need two years from now and a $300 million utility bond that's required for plant upgrades. You guys have all been brief one-on-ones by members of staff. No endowment fund, the city remains fully dependent on ABA Valorum taxes and there's no stable revenue alternative. Status quo continues. Expenses continue, outpatient revenues, unfunded liabilities expand and you maintain a high tax rate on your community. I can tell you guys it's not lost on me. I've heard it. The entire two decades I've been in the city, full service city, Boynton's a full service city. Boynton's a full service city. There's a motion attached to the city. But sometimes when you reach a crossroads like this, you have to make a decision. And the decision is you relinquish the full service city mantra and you realize that you have true financial potential in the city to be i tell you guys there's not going to be another city that has this capability in the state of florida like we do lower property taxes for every resident business same or better level of city services jeff i agree with you a leaner more accountable city government financial stability through diversified passive revenue streams commission control over how boynton beach grows and looks to include the community's input Commission control over how Boynton, a city positioned to thrive regardless of state legislative outcomes, a model for municipal fiscal transformation in Florida and beyond. We see the train coming down the tracks. These initiatives are our path. Lower taxes, better services, smaller government, and a city designed the way our residents want it. With that being said, I'll take some questions, and if I can't answer them and they're too technical, I'll definitely... turn to my subject matter experts with my staff and I'll get you guys the answers that you need.

Starting with Commissioner McCray, do you have any questions?

First of all, I really don't have questions right now. I just want to tell you, thank you for your report. Thank you for thinking outside of the box because when citizens come to me, they said, are you all going to raise taxes? What about the fire assessment? What about water? This is what we hear as elected officials. Anything that we could do like to lower taxes, I'm in favor of it. I also like what you said when you said that we would not lose employees. When you start bringing new programs in, the first thing staff start thinking about and looking towards, am I going to lose my job? That's a benefit for us. That's a big bullet for us to bite, but it's time that point that we need to bite it because people are saying, you know, Taxes, taxes, taxes. They said that's all government, we do is just tax people, tax people, tax people. This is just a plan. I'm not 100% sure that it's going to work, but I hope it will work. You also said about our utilities. I said in the audience and I heard people say that we shouldn't get rid of our utilities. I beg the difference. If we get a main water break or anything major here in this city, that's going to be a bill that Boynton is going to pick up. We need to start looking down the road. We need to stop playing games game days are over with. We don't know what Tallahassee is going to do. And when you start thinking about where we're going to get money from, the citizens in District 2, they already said, Commissioner McCray, we're down to the bare bones. That's why I'm up here is to help them save money. You said that you're going to get rid of fire assessment. They would jump over for joy. I probably need to jump in because I'm just saying, you know, taxes, taxes, taxes. We live on a fixed income. We have groups over in district two that don't pay, pay their fair share of taxes because they senior citizens, That's the way they built their lives, and that's the way they live. Billy Troy Yellow and the Green is what I call names. I don't mind. They don't contribute what they should because why? Because 65 and older. This is a big pill that you gave us to swallow with little water. With little water. But if we come on board and say that we're going to support this and see how it work, I'm one that don't mind taking it. It's not a risk, and it's not a gamble. Because I'm just saying when we have leadership that want to lead us, and we as elected officials need to follow, I will take your advice because if anything go wrong, I'm going to come back to you. Thank you.

Commissioner Kelly.

I'm gonna reserve most of my comments for later. I mean, it's a lot to take in, it's a lot. I envision that we will have lots of conversations with the residents about this. But as being up here for over three years, we hear the common thread of don't raise the taxes, but keep providing services. We want more, but we wanna pay less. And so, you know, we have been, and like you said, Dan, you know, this is something that we did not create, that, gosh, probably, there's very few staff that was here, you know, when this, you know, when the barrels started rolling down the hill, especially when it comes to utilities. You know, I've heard time and time again about in meeting with utility staff about how they'd come to admin and say, we need money to fix this, and admin would go, not today, not today, not this year, not next year, not the year after, and now we're put in a situation where we have to make huge decisions. We talked about it last year. Nobody wanted to increase the utility fee. We get it. Nobody up here wanted to make that commitment, that necessary commitment, because we had to We had to make repairs, we had to do those things to provide services. So when we talk about doing what our residents want and what's responsible, sometimes those are really tough decisions and really hard. I have concerns about the long-term effects because We know, everything is shiny and pretty when it's in a little packaged bow on Christmas and then it tarnishes. I don't see that as much on the fire side as I do with utilities. I have concerns if it's not Palm Beach County and we have to go with other alternatives, how that then looks to the residents when we lose control. and we give up that control. So there's a lot of conversations that will have to happen.

I do want to address one thing, and I'm glad you brought that up, and I didn't bring it up there in the presentation. We have contingencies put in place that I don't really want to, I guess, opine from the podium here in public at this time, but there are contingencies in place that we have. We have options. So, but right now, I will say that the county's been first class. I can't say enough positive things about the working relationship that we've had with them. And we put in a lot, a lot of hours to include our fire consultant, Neil DeJesus. He's put in a lot of hours as well. So I will say that the progress that we've made, I do like the fact that the county's our partner in this.

No, I get that. Like you said, we unfortunately have been put in a situation like this. It's not anything we did. The annexation conversation was 20 years ago with the county, and now the county's like, we didn't say that. We're being put in this situation where should our residents an entire $300 million bond for outside of the city limits residents to get water and then we can't surtax them. That's the latest law that was just signed, is that now we can't even recoup that 25%. that we were without really showing cause that we need to. So now the county residents get our water, our great water that we've worked really hard to keep and use, and they get it without any surtax, and we have to provide it. Dan, this has been a thorough presentation and I appreciate it. I think that there were residents coming to this meeting that were unsure of what, you know, it was gonna be a quick little presentation and they were gonna leave with questions. And I'm sure there's a lot of residences still have questions, but I think this was so thorough that it answers a lot of those questions and what things we still have to discuss. So I, There's a lot of conversations that have to happen. But I respect these proposals and I respect this plan. It's just gonna take some time to get through those questions and to feel comfortable with making these decisions for our 86-ish thousand residents. So thank you.

Commissioner Cruz? Thank you. Any comments?

Yes, thank you. First, I wanted to say thank you for your presentation. I was really curious to see what that looks like when it comes to comparing our city with other municipalities that have significantly lower millage rates. I think we have to definitely take the time to make sure we're comparing apples to apples. I know some of the cities are full service cities versus other cities that are not. So I do want to keep that in mind when we make our comparisons. I think not just myself, but the entire board has been a huge advocate for reducing property taxes and would really try to move forward in that direction ever since we were elected. So I think that this is definitely something that we can, on a general sense, support, bring in savings to our residents. I do want to see what more of the details and the actual numbers look like. Again, to make sure that we're comparing apples to apples and to making sure that we look at the long-term effects of any potential opportunities that we have in front of us. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Let me remind everyone, it was a couple hundred years ago when people freaked out over a three pence T-tax, right? And now we've gotten to a place where it has become a common thing again and again and again. And that hardworking people, like everyone in this audience, become called tax cattle. This allows an opportunity to eliminate that. And I think that when we hear about all the talking points about affordability, about live local, about providing quality services, but not wanting to raise taxes, this is your solution. You have the ability to maintain quality services, if not better, while creating probably the most municipal, creative-minded thing that anyone probably has ever seen. I think this is a no-brainer. I think that when you look on resident forums about what their concerns are, I would argue that the number one is density and traffic, and maybe it's services as well. And so the question I do have is, you brought up Live Local. Did you bring that up because, of utilizing the interest revenue from the endowment fund to purchase properties? Was that the idea by bringing that up?

Yeah, I just wanted to use some examples of what the possibilities to the board is because you guys are ultimately going to be the fiduciaries of the overall passive income that we receive off that endowment fund. Whether or not that's a million, whether or not we do do that to purchase property, completely a board decision. It was just an option that we went out as well as the debt reduction. So I'm not a fan of reducing debt if you're paying around, a lot of our debt service obligations we have right around three to three and a half percent, and right now in the market, even money markets, you can get close to that. And if you're non-committed funds, you can be right around five to seven percent. So it's not a good idea to pay off debt when it's a lower interest rate and you're making more money on your money that you have static.

Right. So I think that that is a huge win if we move forward. Hopefully we do. I think this is an absolute no brainer. I would like a digital copy because I'm going to make sure every resident in the city sees this and see the generational change that their families can have for those who want to stay in the city. You know, Commissioner McCray hit it right on the head about. incorporating you know the the worry of um you know employees with a full service city i know those kind of go hand in hand and so to be able to ensure that there's elements in place that those jobs remain i think kind of suppresses any worry there and so really it creates This is a no-brainer. I mean, every person on this dais, I believe, has advocated for being fiscally conservative. There is nothing more fiscally conservative than reducing taxes, becoming more efficient, and then ultimately creating an economic spear within the city because it's not just the residents that are going to benefit from this. You are now going to have people... knocking at the door to move their businesses here and what does that do that creates great jobs what does that do that creates an opportunity to get class a office space and no more multi-family that gets opportunity to get brand name recreational companies into the city because people want to do business in a city where the leaders are fiscally minded And what does that do for the residents? They're going to stay and you're going to build a stronger sense of community because their kids are going to stay here. Their grandkids are going to come back. And so for me, you know, I don't know if we need a motion or whatever it is, if it's just consensus. But this is a no brainer. Obviously, there's concerns. This is a phased approach. It seems like the first one is the fire merger. So I will say, you know, I hope that if the county is listening, they don't take the interest of this. and abuse it, you know, for leveraging negotiations. That's gonna be my one thing is, you know, I think the city manager and staff has done a great job and providing such a thorough presentation and whatever discussions they're having. you know, with the county. But I think, you know, ultimately, we want a fair and transparent negotiation that people can swallow and that getting resident buy-in involved is good. And I think if that happens, you know, obviously... you know, the county will then, you know, become a part of the city and our community. And so there's a lot of, you know, events and minute things. I think about that. I hope that the county will observe like the fishermen's tournament so I can win it again. You know, but in all seriousness, you know, I think it's in the county's best interest to operate in good faith moving forward so that way, you know, the residents are welcoming everyone with open arms. And, you know, again, when you look at this, this is a no-brainer. I would even argue that majority of people... don't know the difference between a full service city or not a full service city, but what they do notice is that their trash hasn't picked up. When they dial 911, how fast does someone get there, or how much they're paying on their property tax bill every single year. When people start to see that reduce, When other municipalities are increasing, everyone's going to ask why. And then you're going to have people, again, clawing at the gates of Boynton Beach to do business here, and that just creates such a huge economic ripple that everyone benefits from. So, I mean, my position is no-brainer, move forward.

If this is a home run for the city of Boynton Beach, it's a grand slam for the county. I can promise you guys that.

Okay, so do we have a consensus from the board to continue to move in this direction?

Yes. I'm in favor. Yes, real quick. I am in favor of moving forward with continuing to do research and continuing to have conversations. At the same time, I think it's important to maintain public trust, and as we're having these conversations, making sure that we bring actual numbers. I know a lot of the figures were preliminary, so I want to make sure that we continue to have that conversation. And if the board does decide that we want to move forward with further negotiations, I think there's a lot of value to having town halls with our constituents and make sure we educate the public in the future.

Thank you.

I appreciate it. And I'm not going to serenade you guys with any more bone thugs in harmony.

Please don't. Before you leave, excuse me, turn around. You look kind of nice down there.

I was very Clark Kent-ish today.

Thank you, guys.

And to wear the glasses to make you look smarter. We're now moving on to public audience. If people would like to speak, please come down. Same rules applies as I stated in the beginning. You have three minutes. It cannot be transferred. Please don't insult the board and only direct the board. After we have everyone speak in the room, we will then move on to anyone that's online. So if you'd like to speak, come on down. Line up at both podiums so we can keep it moving.

Where do you start?

Here we go, before you start, are we gonna be able to speak on any of the other issues at any other time, or is everything just flat out right now?

Do you have public comment? No, there's public comment on the second reading items. Okay, so. Item A to A.

Okay. And A to B. That will have public comment. Okay, so don't start my time yet. Here's one for everybody. Oops, oh, that's mine, sorry. Here we go. One for everybody, I'll take the extras back.

Back.

Okay, thank you. Susan Weir, Boynton Beach. So what I'm passing around is I know flock cameras are coming up and that's quite the hot topic, especially with all the invasions of privacy and how things are going to be run with this. I really think you guys need to put some controls on this and be leaders in the field like some of the other cities around the nation have done. with these types of systems where they put rules in place and say, hey, you don't get unlimited. Please don't shake your head, Shauna. We do not get unlimited 10 years to go and pull data. If you want data, you have to pull it in 30 days. Here's examples of where flock camera data has gone evil and bad. because it's been used and abused. And while I certainly don't think that would come from our police chief or any of our police officers, that's right now. That's not to say what's going to happen in the future. So please think and please put some brakes and guardrails if you do decide to go forward with flock. Please also look at, I know there's some information out there that possibly they're able to tap it and use wifi from your phone and your house and use your personal wifi. to run these machines. So please look deeper. Don't just take it off the top. So as far as the utilities goes, I personally worry. I see both sides of this. Stan did a great job. My issue is right now you're paying three people, one of whom has a high school diploma. I believe his name is Josh McDermott. And then there's two other people from West Palm Beach that have just been employed by utilities. They're making high six figure incomes. And one of these people only has a high school diploma. I believe the other person is Charles Phoenix and Amelia Holmes. Maybe you wanna re-look at how much you're paying these people. because no one should be making six figures and you're sitting here talking about how there's no money coming in and we need to sell this, so maybe you wanna reevaluate where that money's going, especially to someone who only has a high school diploma. I think if you're looking at doing this going forward, maybe you should start, as Commissioner Cruz said, doing meetings with the public, and maybe you should be looking at, if you're gonna sell off our major assets, and I'm not for or against either one either way, you really need to sit there and go, we need to have the residents vote on this. You need to educate everyone, and then you need to put this to a vote. The last thing I handed you is on 10A. As you guys know, I'm the biggest arts supporter in the city, and it's coming up for discussion on how we're moving forward with the arts fees. So I brought you all the information on the cities across the state. I highlighted in orange Boynton Beach, all the rest are in blue in Palm Beach County, and then I wrote the couple that are not on here down on the bottom so that you can see we are fully in line with the rest of the state. What we're asking for is not outrageous, and we really do need to support our arts. because it brings this tourist, it brings us positive attention. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, please.

Welcome back.

Nice to see you.

Good to be seen. Woodrow Hay. I just wanted to put my stamp of approval on what our city manager just presented. I would caution us to move slowly and cautious with this because I do have uh, friends in the political world and other cities that went this route and, uh, it didn't work out. Some, some did, some didn't, and they tried to go back and it was just too costly and they found themselves in, in, in, uh, in hot water. So I just want us to be mindful of that. Uh, I think that, uh, I know we can do this. I've been talking with, uh, staff members about this for a long time. how we can increase our revenue sources and make more money for the city as well as maintain the services. I just want us to be mindful and move slowly on this because once you get out there and it doesn't work, it's almost impossible to get back. I was glad to hear that Dan, well, City Manager Dan Douglas said that we do have some contingencies that we're looking at. Lack it or not, I still get calls from many of our citizens, and I'm sure I'm going to get calls about this particular one. And so I would like to, as much as possible, stay in the loop and have discussions with our city leaders. on this matter because I like to give, I don't want to refer everything to Commissioner McCray. I'd like to help him out where I can. And those questions that I can answer, I would like to be able to answer. So just keep me in the loop if you don't mind. Okay. Thank you very much.

Thanks, please.

Thank you, David Katz, Boynton Beach. Burning the midnight oil sounds like Hanukkah to me. I want to talk about the Art in Public Place item 10A. Nonprofits serve a city, serve the county, serve the country, but they don't pay any real estate taxes in the city, and they avail themselves of our services, police, fire, utilities, garbage, all of it, and they don't pay for it. So I'd ask you that you move with an abundance of caution by reducing completely what they might pay on expanding their buildings as far as an art and public place. It's a small price to pay. Maybe take it on a case-by-case basis, not totally eliminate it. Maybe lower it for nonprofits to 0.25% instead of the 1%, but don't eliminate it. We have the right to get from them something for the city, and that's what I would ask you. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, please.

Cindy Falco de Corrado, good evening. I stand here today not just as a woman with a complaint, but as an American whose heart has been broken by what I have witnessed inside of our system. From the time we are children, we are taught to respect the badge. We are taught that the police officers, prosecutors, and public officials are people to honor. People who swear oaths to uphold truth, justice, and the Constitution of the United States. We want to believe that. We believe the badge stands for integrity. We believe the courtroom stands for justice. We believe truth matters. But what happens when the very people entrusted to protect the truth begin speaking lies? That is what grieves me, because when an ordinary citizen attacks someone, they can be charged with assault or abuse. But when officers use excessive force, falsify reports, hide evidence, intimidate witnesses, or distort facts, too often they are protected by the very system that should hold them accountable. And that should terrify every American, regardless of political party, race, or background. A government cannot remain free when truth no longer matters. A justice system cannot remain just when accountability only applies to the citizens and not to those in power. There are not simply personal grievances. These are injuries against public trust. When Americans begin fearing the people sworn to protect them, when prosecutors seek convictions instead of truth, when integrity becomes secondary to protecting departments and careers, then we are no longer dealing with isolated incidences. We are witnessing a moral crisis. I still believe in justice. I still believe there are good officers and honest public servants, but silence protects corruption, not integrity. And if we truly love this country, then we must have the courage to expose wrongdoing, even when it's uncomfortable, because truth is the foundation of freedom. Without truth, there is no justice. Without justice, there is no liberty. And without liberty, America becomes nothing more than the words wrote on this paper. I beseech you and I encourage you as a woman who has been at the hand of the injustices of this governing government here, Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, and Palm Beach County, we must do better. And I'm asking and beseeching each one of you sitting on this dais to hold those accountable that have done harm to we, the American people, who are innocent. Thank you. Thank you. Next, please.

Hello, everybody. Hello, Mayor Shelton. Vice mayor and everyone sits on the dice. My name is Andre Thaddeus and I'm the executive director for connect the greatness. I wanted to share that. Um, thanks the chief Julio that we're going to host a voting information. It's called. Are you registered to vote? Really? So this is gonna be an educational opportunity to share all the new rules, all the new legislation, all the new needs that will be accounted for for this election cycle. This city will be hosting it, and along with Connect to Greatness, we'll have shared with League of Women Voters, YWCA, EJS project. And one of our goals is to really inform in particular the students, because right now what I just found out a little while ago is that the 16 year olds with driver's license, they can pre-register to vote right now. So I know just, I've already talked to the athletic department at Boynton High School and they will be present. And I've started talking with the churches here in the city of Boynton Beach so that we can really all come out and inform each other and so everyone can be kind of up to date of what the new changes are. And I just wanted to say thank you to Boynton for allowing us to do this. It's going to be on Saturday, June 13th. 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Boynton Beach Police Department and we're just gonna have tables and inform information we'll have food and just really try to understand you know the advocacy pieces for these young people so we can understand why you guys sit here like you do and how they can be informed and also for the parents that needs to re-register or maybe the women that are divorced or just got married, the new rules that you need with your new ID and how it has to match everything perfectly. So on that day, we just invite you all to come out. The whole city's welcome to come out and we just want to share and give back. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, please.

How you doing? My name is Nikki King. I'm following up on arrivals through the County Commissioner Office, Mr. Greg Weiss. I'm an employee of Washington, D.C. I'm also here just to let you guys know that I'm back in my community home area, following up about my three daughters that's been missing. of a kidnapping for these five to eight years. And also I believe that the community is totally different now. There's lots of new neighbors that I'm in dislike about. It's not polite to do that in the community because it's lots of people that's on a trespass that really shouldn't be in this community. um so moving forward just wanted to let all the commissioners know that nikki king is back home in her original home area from washington dc following up on their u.s senator rick scott for the state of florida and of the state of florida when he's let him tell he's of the state of florida too thank you anyone online

No, Mayor, there's nobody online.

Thank you. If no one else will come up, there's no one online.

Public comment is officially closed.

Moving on to Advisory Board and Appointments. We have two applications, two applicants for the Building Board of Adjustment and Appeals. The first nomination for me to appoint a regular member to the Building Board of Adjustment and Appeals. I would like to make a motion to appoint Gary Swanson.

Do we have a second?

Second. We have a motion and we have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes unanimously. The next nomination is for Commissioner Cruz to appoint a regular member to the Building Board of Adjustments and Appeals. Do you have a motion?

Thank you, Mayor. Yes. I'll go ahead and make a motion to appoint Michael Casale. Second.

We have a motion and we have a second to appoint Michael Casale. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Thank you very much. There are no applicants for the following boards, but we encourage residents to apply if you're interested. The Education and Youth Board has one alternate and two student member positions available. Historic Resources Preservation Board has three regular and one alternate. The Library Board has two regular and one alternate. The Senior Advisory Board has three regular and two alternate positions. We will now be moving on to the consent agenda. If any of my colleagues want to pull any items from consent agenda, let's begin on my left with Commissioner McCray.

Thank you, Mayor. I don't want to pull anything. I'm good. Thank you.

Commissioner Kelly?

No, thank you, Mayor.

Commissioner Cruz?

No, for me, thank you.

And I don't have anything.

Motion to approve consent agenda. Second.

We have a motion to approve consent agenda. We have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Moving on to consent bids and purchases. We will now be Would any of my colleagues like to pull any items? Let's begin to my left, I mean, I'm sorry, my right with Commissioner Cruz.

No, thank you.

Commissioner Kelly.

No, Mayor, thank you.

And Commissioner McCray. I'm good, Mayor. Thank you, sir.

Motion to approve consent bids and purchases. Second.

We have a motion, we have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Moving on, we have two public hearing items. Public comment will be permitted. I'll turn to the clerk to read item 8A.

proposed ordinance number 26-014 second reading and ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Boynton Beach, Florida, regarding chapter two, article one, section 2-15, and any amendments thereafter, which establish limitations on board member advocacy and lobbying in the City of Boynton Beach, providing for codification, providing for variability, providing for conflicts, and providing for an effective date.

Thank you so much. This is the second reading for this item. Have there been any changes from staff? There's been no changes. Okay. Um, um, before we get a public comment, is there any comments from the commission or questions? Okay. And if anyone has public comment, now's the time to come down. There's nothing else. Do we have a motion to approve proposed ordinance number 26 dash zero one four on second reading? We have turning to you for roll call.

Yeah. Commissioner Kelly? Yes. Commissioner McCrae? Yes. Commissioner Cruz? Yes. Vice Mayor Turkin? Yes. Mayor Shelton? Yes.

Interval call vote. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you. And I will also turn back to you to read in item 8B.

Proposed ordinance number 26-015, second reading and ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Boynton Beach, Florida, amending chapter six of the code of ordinances relating to Boynton Beach Memorial Park Cemetery and Sarah Sims Cemetery, revising policies governing the transfer and resale of cemetery plots, providing for transfer limitations to immediate family, prohibiting private resale, recurring resale to the city, providing for a prospective application, providing for conflicts of variability, codification, and an effective date.

Thank you. This is the second reading for this item. Have there been any changes? Changes?

No changes?

Okay. Any comments from the commission or questions before we open up to public comment?

Okay.

Public comment will be permitted at this time. Okay. If there's nothing else, may we have a motion to approve?

Motion to approve.

Second.

We have a motion to approve ordinance number 26-015. We have a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. You need a roll call. Sorry, roll call.

Commissioner Kelly? Yes. Commissioner McCrack?

Yes.

Commissioner Cruz? Yes. Vice Mayor Turkin? Yes. Mayor Shelton? Yes. In a roll call vote, the motion passes unanimously. Thank you.

Next, we're moving on to regular agenda item 10A. The staff is requesting commission direction on whether to incorporate a commission approved waiver option in the Art in Public Places program for qualifying nonprofit organizations. Commissioner Kelly, we will start with you. Are there any questions or comments?

Thank you, Mayor. No, this was brought up to me, and it's not, it was brought up, and the reason I asked for it was because of a not-for-profit in an industrial area that was kind of like, why do I have this public art fee, but I'm in an industrial area, who's really seeing this art, and I can feed so many more residents with the money that we would be paying into an art fee, So it of course had me speak with staff about what those options are. And so that's where this discussion came from. And so thank you to staff for doing this research and for having this presentation. I think it's important that we're always looking at, and I agree, I don't think there should be 100% waiver of any of the art in public places. I think it is important, but I think there's unique situations where you have maybe like in the situation I'm speaking of where it's in an industrial area and nobody is ever going to see this art and so what's the value in it? And so as opposed to the value in feeding our senior residents and our other residents who are food hungry. So anyway, so thank you to staff. Take it away, so thank you.

All right, good evening, Gabe Savini, Interim Director of Planning and Zoning Division. I do apologize, I can't compete with the high video, so we'll try to keep it to the arts and public places. So again, this is a direction from Commission to bring this before you for non-profit exemption request. Currently I wanted to go over how the AIPP process works. Projects that are over $500,000 are required to enter into the program. They can agree to install art or they can do a fee of. The amount of the art or the fee is 1% of the overall budget of the construction cost. If they do agree to go into the fee in lieu of, on top of that they get another 10% reduction for those overall fees. So at time of building permit, they would be required to pay 30% of that administrative fee and the remainder at time of CO. Again, right now, what we consider current exemptions are going to be projects with construction value under $500,000, affordable or workforce housing projects, and normal maintenance and natural damage repair. How Florida cities handle, we did research several of the jurisdictions. There's two that only have an outright exemption, and there are five that actually do a commission-approved waivers. Staff is in a position that whichever route going is that it is commission-approved for the update, excuse me. Financial impact of the blanket exemption, currently we have 126 projects that are in the public art program since 2021. As you know, a couple of years ago, the amount went from 250,000 to the 500,000, therefore aiding several of the small businesses that are in town. If there was a current exemption, outright exemption, or for any 5013C, you're looking at an overall 15% reduction in the Art in Public Places budget. Some of the examples are Feeding South Florida that was mentioned, and it's federal to hospitals, hospitals being probably one of the number one 501C3s that would be exempted. So considerations for the discussion, obviously the scope of the 5013C status, equity among the participants, impact to the public art fund, eligibility criteria, and one of the bigger ones, change of use or ownership, some kind of agreement that if it's sold at the end to then a for-profit group that we would be able to come back and obtain those funds. Again, the alternative, and this is what staff supports, is a commission-approved waiver, establishing those criteria, as mentioned on the previous slide, for the 501c3 status, demonstrate that the project primarily serves a public benefit, that the facility will be used principally for admission delivery, submits required financial documents, and, excuse me, there's a glare on the screen, I can't see that last one. Executive compensation and organizational expenses meet the IRS reasonableness standards. Majority of the budget allocated to direct program services supporting the community. This would mirror five of the seven that we did find. So what we're seeking now is for the guidance is option A, the full waiver process that would again come back to commission, a blanket exemption not recommended, option C, not changing anything. One of the options that could be as well is that was spoken of tonight is reducing that 1% portion of it down. But this would be a land development regulation change. So with the direction of commission, staff would be able to do that and bring that back to you for any final approvals. And that's it for staff.

Thank you. Any questions or comments from the rest of the commission? I have a question.

Thank you, staff. Option C, is that the one that we're presently operating under?

Yes, sir.

That's all I need to know. Thank you.

I do have a quick question.

Can't hear you.

Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?

Yeah.

Great, okay. When it comes to the waiver process, I do wanna thank Commissioner Kelly for bringing this up. I know it comes from a very good place and you just wanna have a heart to help the nonprofits that are helping our community in a very tangible way. So I commend you for that. I do wanna ask legal potentially if there is, is there, and I guess there's no right answer, 100% guarantee, in a world of litigation as this world is, but if we were to create a waiver process where the commission were to decide on who gets the exception and who doesn't, is there a potential for someone to litigate and say, well, you gave them a waiver, but you didn't give me a waiver? That was, thank you. I always think about possibilities for litigation and trying to protect the city from having to spend a lot of money in those sorts of endeavors?

So because this would be part of your land development deals, we believe it would fall under quasi-judicial. And under that, you would have to obviously, I believe, develop criteria that would be part of your ordinance because quasi-judicial can be appealed to circuit court as opposed to legislative. And so yes, there is a possibility for suits. So I think whatever you guys decide to do, there has to be a criteria, and then they would have to prove that criteria so that it's fair and unbiased for it. And if they don't prove the qualifying criteria, whatever that is, and then you did approve it, then yes, obviously that opens it up to challenge.

Thank you for that. Okay, so in that, in response to that, I would propose that we, I'm sorry, can we go back to the options? Um I would and again up to Commissioner Kelly because you're the one you're the one that brought it up um but I would support a potentially a waiver process that creates um you know certain rules that are used the same way for for everyone and and maybe it could be it could be two things right it could be potentially being a non-profit and if we want to make it you know serving food to the community that's directly going to Boynton Beach Residence or whatever we come up with I think maybe those two things could be reasonable.

Go ahead. Just for clarification, I'm a little bit confused on what. So are we looking to just eliminate the 1% art fee in totality for nonprofits? Or do we have the ability to scale them down?

I think that's what we're here to see guidance on where we can start drafting and bring back.

I'm open. I don't want to eliminate it in totality and cherry pick who does and who doesn't, because there's a lot of people in the political world that run nonprofits. And if they have friends in here in the future, then you're going to have nepotism. And so now I'm not, that is not an accusation. Let me make that first and foremost clear. That is just forward thinking. And so I think even though like a, a, Maybe it's a waiver process and maybe we hash it down to like half a percent. Is that maybe a compromise? I do like what was brought up about like if they opt in to the like in lieu of, that is better. I think I'd be more inclined to do something that incentivizes that because then that allows the city to kind of, you know, have more control with how those funds are expended. But I don't want to eliminate it altogether. Definitely just want to maybe reduce it because I think there is, you know, there is a realm where we can, you know, again, attract more nonprofits to expand or move here by having, you know, friendlier regulations, no different than for-profit businesses. You know... dynamic conversation, because then you could argue that, well, you know, these for-profit businesses are now bringing higher end jobs. They're not getting the same treatment. You know what I mean? There's, there's a lot of variables that go into this. Um, but I would definitely like to expand and explore some further option where we reduce, we reduce it maybe a little bit, but not eliminate it is my position.

Good evening, Amanda Radigan. A couple of things. I think we can combine all these ideas into one.

Can you hear me now?

Yes. Okay, I think what we could do is put together an ordinance that combines several of these ideas. I think that the waiver process is important, that it is commission approved, and then on top of that, we have a draft of criteria, so the waiver process will have criteria that it's reviewed against, and then we can set maximums. So if you meet this criteria, instead of paying the 1%, you would get a higher reduction for the pay in lieu of program. Meaning if you are building art, it could stay at the 1% and we can incentivize the pay in lieu of option the same way we did recently with the revamp of this program. So right now there is a blanket 10% if you are doing the fee in lieu of. We can up that to a 40% reduction in fee or whatever the board is comfortable with through this waiver process for nonprofits.

Thank you. Staff, how long has we been doing art in public places? I'm just saying. I know for years.

1006. That's about right. About 20 years or so.

About 20 years. Have we had any changes within those 20 years to this process?

Absolutely. So just recently, I would say in the last year and a half or so, we did a full revamp of the process. And the direction from the board was to incentivize the fee in lieu of program over the art program, which would allow the board more control for spending of public art in public places. We also expanded the use of the public art funds to go towards beautification of public spaces as well.

Thank you, because I was going to say, not broken, don't worry about fixing it. I'm just saying, but I had no idea that you all had made a change, so I'm trying to catch up with the change that you all have made prior. So I'm with the majority up here.

Yeah, I think the other notable change is that this threshold used to be $250,000, which was killing small businesses, and the commission raised that to $500,000, so that way they weren't taxed.

I said, well, that wasn't a waiver. That was to try and get some small businesses outside of this threshold.

And we created a maximum cap.

Yes, there's also a maximum cap of $1 million.

Yep.

Okay. So for direction, I just want to make sure that we have our marching orders. We're going to bring back a code amendment that creates a waiver process for specifically nonprofits that would allow them to request a waiver or a reduction in the ART fee of X percent.

A half of a percent, isn't that what you? Yes. Yeah.

So it would be a reduction. I like the 40% in lieu of. 40%. Yeah, if they want to pay 40% in lieu of, that's great. Because it almost, it selfishly forces their hand. They're going to give the city the money and then staff can do that as they will.

So we'll bring it back at 40%, obviously, at first reading if there are any changes staff can make at that time.

Thank you. And I wanted to see if we could make it a two-part system where it's first being a nonprofit, the first condition, but then having a second condition of providing a certain service or feeding or some detail.

That would be part of the criteria. So there are six that we presented, but we'll continue working through some of those to make sure it's rich and we can take feedback at first reading as well.

Yeah, and maybe we can look at also their annual revenue. I mean, I don't know if anyone up here has gotten a hospital bill recently or not, but it's hard to believe that hospitals are run as not-for-profits because I can promise you There's people making profits out there in the hospital business.

Yes, and I will say, Jess, from being part of this process, they are the highest contributors when we are talking about nonprofits. But they would have to come in for the waiver.

Right, of course. No, and I think... Yeah, I like lots of criteria, because I think that once you really look at the criteria, you really truly have to be not-for-profit, giving to our community. It's not just you're a not-for-profit, because that's what looks best on your business profile. So anyway, yeah, so thank you to my colleagues, and we'll look for the draft.

thank you thank you we are now moving on to item 10b discussion and approval for legislative break staff is recommending canceling the july 21st and august 4th 2026 are there any questions or comments yeah instead of cancel i would say consolidate i don't want city like if we can consolidate any forward-thinking items that need to be brought up in earlier in the month and then later in the month in august i think that would be important

Yeah, we'll do it like we did last year where we triage the most important items. We'll definitely front load them, make sure that all the operational necessity items are passed.

Say that again because I wasn't with you all last time, but as an emergency during this period, we have a way to work it. Hamlet. Yes, sir. Thank you.

I'll be on the vice mayor because I'll be out of the country.

Yeah, I'm not going anywhere.

I'm not going anywhere. I don't reckon.

If you guys wanted, you could pass a resolution to temporarily up my threshold of spending the $10 million.

What?

If there's no further comment, do we have a motion?

So moved.

Motion to adjourn. I have a motion and we have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. If there is nothing else or any more comments tonight, do we have a motion to... We just adjourned. Oh, we did. I thought we just did the... The time is now.

I can't see the clock.

7.30 p.m. And we are adjourned. Mm-hmm.