Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Good evening everybody and welcome to the City of Boynton Beach City Commission meeting. Today is Tuesday, June 2nd, 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 to the mayor and not interrupt any other speakers. Public comments must be addressed to the commission as a whole and not to any particular individual on the dais or in the audience. Insults, personal attacks, and disruptions will not be permitted. You'll be asked to leave if you violate these rules. We will now turn to the interim city clerk for a 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 by Commissioner McCray, and our Pledge of Allegiance will be held by Commissioner Kelly. If everyone could please stand.

All right. almost already eternal God, Father, the creator and maker of all mankind. We come before you this afternoon first recognizing that thou art God and besides thee there is no other. As we deliberate for the business of this city, we ask that you would lead us and guide us and have us to go in the way that you will have us to go. Let us know that the decisions that we make here tonight will not only affect individuals that will be falling behind us, but they will be affecting those prior. Let us be in mind and pray for mankind. Let us love each other and all these blessings. We ask why, because you do live in your name. We do pray for Christ. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,

Thank you. Thank you. If everyone could just settle down so we can keep moving, I'd greatly appreciate it. Um, before the agenda approval, the city attorney has a request from the board. Yes.

Um, because we were taking that summer recess, we're requesting a special meeting that should take about 15 minutes before the August 11th CRA meeting. And if we have a consensus, we'd like to notice that there is a CDBG plan that has to be approved by the commission and sent to HUD by August 15th.

Okay. When did we want to have it? August 11th. August 11th? August 11th, okay.

Yeah, it'll just be right before. No, it's six. It'll just take a few minutes.

Okay. Okay, thank you. We are now moving on to agenda approval additions, deletions, and corrections. Let's begin on my left with Commissioner McRae.

Thank you, Mayor. I have nothing at this time, thank you.

Thank you, sir. Commissioner Kelly? No, thank you, Mayor.

Vice Mayor Turkin? No, thank you.

And Commissioner Cruz? Not for me, Mayor, thank you. Great. I have a motion to approve the agenda.

So moved. 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. We will 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, Mayor.

Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Turkin.

None for me, Mayor.

Commissioner Kelly.

No, thank you, Mayor. And Commissioner McCray.

Thank you, Mayor. I was fortunate to attend the Memorial Day service for the citizens here in the city of Boynton. Also, I was also in favor of attending the Pathway to Prosperity. They had a swinging in the spring where I got my first chance to do an official act of welcoming everybody to that occasion. Very well attended. I'm proud of Pathway to Prosperity, and I want them to continue to move the city forward as we help move them forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to city announcements, would staff please approach the podium? Anyone?

I think it's just the recognition of the police athletically.

Andrew, who's doing?

Bill.

Bill, you're up.

Hey, Bill, you can bring up Chris and Sean and also Joe to the podium as well.

Yes, could I have all my coaches please come forward? And Chief Joe DiGiulio, please, and Captain Deal. And on behalf of all our girls, guys, we want to say thank you for having us tonight. Dan Douglas, Senior Manager, Mayor, all the commissioners, it's a special night tonight. Our girls played football for the last four months. And at this time, could I have the 13- or 14-year-old team come forward, please?

The 13- and 14-year-old team, please come up. Over here, girls.

Okay, a little information on the 13- and 14-year-old team. This team is our senior team, and they made it to the championship round. All our teams made it to the championship round. They ended the season with a 6-1 record. Unfortunately, we fell short on that championship day, so they ended up running up champions. At this time... On behalf of the city and the Wyoming Beach Police Department, we'd like to present all our girls with rings. Can I also have... You know, if some of you commissioners want to come down and help us hand them out, we'd be honored to have you for a group picture also. We're handing out like 30 rings tonight. Can I also at this time have the A team for the 12 and under team? This is our junior team, guys. Okay, a little information about this team, guys.

Girls, every second.

This is our A team for the 12 and under team. They're our experienced team out of the 12 and under group. They are the defending champs from last year. They made it to the championship round and were lost by one point.

And I told them, stay up here, girls. Get a team picture, please.

I told them if they want to blame anybody to blame the coach, that would be me. Because six and one record, give it up for these girls, guys.

Right?

Could I have Chief George DiGiulio please come next to me?

A little information on Chief DiGiulio.

Since we came back to starting the PAL program three years ago, he asked us that we start a girls program. And this is the program we started, so we call this the Chief's Team. And Chief, this team here, this 12 and under team, can you please come forward? These guys were our extra team this year. We were beginning girls with no experience. They let us put in the second team for this age group. They didn't know how to play football, but since they got to practice with the bigger girls, they learned real fast.

They also ended up, Chief will hand out these rings to each girl.

They also ended up with a record of six and one, make it to the championship, and they are your 2026 champions. We want to acknowledge Chief DeJulius for starting these teams.

Bill, they did way better than the Dolphins. They sure did.

This team was unbelievable. All of them were. But they're coached by the best coaches in Palm Beach County. And these are your city employees. Joe Evans. Let's give it up for Joe Evans.

Chris Malladay, recreation department.

Gerard in the lines. Utilities department. You see it's a city thing, guys. And Chuck Treasure, we're working on getting him hired with the city. Captain Pearl Deal. And the surprise coach. All our coaches get a gold ring. And also, can I have Andrew Mack please come forward? Andrew Mack came down and supported us all during the year. And the last game on our championship day, all our teams were playing at the same time. So I needed a defensive coordinator. So Andrew Mack stepped up, became my defensive coach. He was able to shut down Davey and we won the championship 12-0. Quarterback, where's Alani?

Alani?

Yeah. Turn around. For one second, guys, with the picture, hold on. Here's a microphone. She would like to say something. Who's my quarterback for the little team? Alani.

Okay. Hi, I'll be Alani. I just want to say how grateful and happy how this team came together. Thank you for Chief. for putting this all-girls team together three years ago. I'm glad that we had a bunch of friendships and bonds made through this team, and yeah, I'm grateful.

So would you like to present the Chief with a ring? Right behind you. That's the Chief. Thank you, Chief, to Julia and all the commission, everybody for sponsoring. Let's get a group picture here now. Great season for these girls, guys. Give it up. You see their shirts? It says 6-7 on the front. So in the past, six, seven didn't mean anything. It means something now. Champions.

Come on in, guys. Come on in. Here we go.

You should have shot me out.

Thank you. Thank you.

We are now moving on to public audience.

Thank you.

I'm just going to let it clear out for just a minute so it's a little quieter. Thank you. We are now moving on to public audience. As always, it is three minutes per person, non-transferable. This is not a Q&A. Same rules apply. Speaker must address the commission as a whole, not any individual on the dais or in the audience. Insults, personal attacks, and disruptions will not be permitted. You'll be asked to leave if you violate these rules. After we have concluded those in person, we will move to anyone who wants to participate online. Cindy? Ladies first. Yeah, ladies first.

Cindy Falco de Corrado. I'm here tonight for a few things. First of all, I had just had a rude awakening in regards to $175 fee that is charged to everyone in District 3 that does not put their garbage out. I believe it has to be Thursday night because there's no actual schedule for Friday. We are told to put it out on Friday, but there's a time slot that you have to put it out, which people did not know in my community. and they were being charged $175 on their utility bills. So you're not gonna get a bill, it's just gonna show up on your utility bill. By the way, did you know it's only $23.45 per month that we pay in our bills for the utilities? Something has to change. This is $175, this is food off the table for many families for two weeks. This is gas for a week and a half. This is absurd, $175 that people are getting billed if their trash is put out after the truck goes by on Friday, and people were told they need to put their trash out on Friday, but now I'm told that it needs to be Thursday night. But most people don't understand that. They hear Friday, so they feel they can just take their garbage out, which they thought was plausible, on Friday. Both my neighbors got a $175 fee. I also learned the very hard way, which was very shocking to me. My friends came over, I do a little Bible study, and they just got in my door and less than 10 minutes they were being ticketed for parking. And I'm like, so what, we're not allowed to have company anymore? The parking description is so confusing for people, because you cannot park this way into your driveway if your car is going to be out on the driveway. You cannot park in the swells, so where are you to park? On the road. And it was less than 15 minutes they got a ticket. I thank Dan for taking care of that. But this is a problem. I know most of the people don't know that. I had no clue. I'm learning these things as it's happening to my neighbors. It's shocking. And it's borderline, like... Communist Boynton Beach. I'm sorry, but it's the truth now on March 5th. I want to go there right here in this room I was subjected to actions that resulted in injuries requiring months of physical therapy and medical treatment What should have been a peaceful exercise of free speech at a public meeting turned into something no American citizen should ever fear including a senior I suffered injuries, trauma, and emotional distress. Instead of transparency and accountability, I encountered silence, contradictions, and what appears to be an ongoing effort to protect departments rather than seek truth. Internal affairs exist to ensure integrity, not to shield misconduct from public scrutiny. When American citizens raise legitimate concerns and are ignored, dismissed, or retaliated against, public trust erodes. The people are watching. No government agency should ever become more committed to protecting itself than protecting the constitutional rights of the people it serves. I will continue to speak peacefully, lawfully, and publicly because truth does not disappear simply because officials refuse to acknowledge it. Transparency is something that needs to be done. Thank you.

next please good evening david katz first i want to say that it's about halfway since we had the last senior prom which was wonderful i hope that the staff and whatever constitutes the board that they work on bringing another one i mean that i mean this where'd he go where's woody he cut a rug that night so anyway um what's coming up after this is board appointments i'd like to speak there are two people who requested waivers i'm urging the commission not to appoint those people They live outside the city. I think if you want to partially solve the problem of people not coming forward to serve on boards, you should get rid of the term limits on boards. Just get rid of it. You'll have people who know what's going on. These are voluntary positions. They come with institutional knowledge. The other thing is that I'm sure that some of the folks, and I'm not saying the two folks that are up there tonight, one is for the Education Youth Advisory Board, the other one is for I think the senior advisory board. I'm sure there are folks, if they came forward from outside the city wanting to serve on our boards, if we turned around and told them we were gonna annex them, they'd have a, well, they'd have quite a complaint about that. So I don't see why we should have people serving on our boards from areas that don't even want to be part of our city. That's all I have to say. So I hope you do not appoint those, thank you.

Thank you, next please.

Susan Hoyer, Boynton Beach. I wanted to say, I wanted to apologize to Shawna at the last meeting. I was not aware that what you were speaking about, I thought it was directed towards me. So I wanted to take this moment to apologize publicly to you and Stacy, as I didn't realize what was going, so I'm so sorry. I also want to say I agree with David. I think that we need to get rid of term limits on our boards. You have people, for example, me, Betty Rowe, even David, we've sat on these boards for years and years and years. Betty's at what, like 18, 19 years and she gets kicked off and term limited out and no one has more knowledge about the Rec and Parks board than she does and I think it's wrong and I think you really need to go back and re-look at that and revisit that and I'm gonna say thank you for your time.

Thank you, next please.

Good evening, my name is Christy Ward and I am a Boynton resident as well as a worker in Boynton Beach and I am here on behalf of Genesis Community Health. Just wanted to put information out that we will be having our third annual back to school event and will be at the House of Kingdom Worship in Boynton Beach, which is Bishop Jones Church here on Seacrest next to, yeah, I know. I know. It is next to St. John. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. So it's on Saturday, June 20th at 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. I have a flyer. We're also on Eventbrite. So you can go on Eventbrite. There is a preregistration QR code on there. We're asking for those who are in need for their children to get physicals. to do so by scanning it so you can skip the line and go ahead and just be on the list. We will have free school supplies, DJ and music, food and drinks, giveaways and family activities and community health resources. But just a FYI, if your child is into sports and they are needing sports physicals by Florida state law, it is now required that the children have an EKG done before they can get their physicals. So therefore, if your child comes and they need a sports physical, if they don't have the EKG, we will have to turn them away. It's not that we want to do it, but due to recent children falling ill or passing away, it's just a precaution. So again, that event is on June 30th at 135 Northeast 7th Avenue at House of Kingdom Worship. And we are asking for your support. And if you can come on out, please send your kids out. Have a good day. Thank you. Next, please.

How you doing? Tyler Brunetti. I have a local pool business, and with the new parking enforcement, when I park at people's homes to service them, I service more than 80 pools in Boynton. I receive tickets on a normal basis with a work trailer, and there's no recourse for those kind of tickets.

So that's my only concern.

Thank you.

Someone from staff is going to get with you, sir.

We're going to have somebody follow up with you. We are now moving on to the, or no, anyone online?

Mayor, there's nobody online.

Thank you so much. We are now moving on to the administrative section. We have the community support fund request from Commissioner McRae for the young men of distinction. We have a motion for this. Motion to approve.

Second.

We have a motion to approve. We have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye.

I need to address, thank you.

All those opposed say nay. Motion passes and Commissioner McCray wants to address something.

Good evening to my colleagues, members of the city of Boynton. I'd like for the men of distinction please to come down front please. down and a vision i got three different things but anyway make sure that their check is right because i got i think mine is right okay let's come down and stand right here please Let me give you a background. I met with these gentlemen and the young lady a couple weeks ago, and they gave me their plight and what they was doing here in the city of Boynton, and I was 100% for them. That's why I said that I would give them the $1,000 out of my community fund. But I'd like to say to this group, you all don't know I'm doing this, but I am doing this. I'm giving you all $1,500 of my own money. I'm also giving you all a donation of $1,000, so you all should be getting tonight $3,500 from McRae District 2. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. I don't like to brag it, but except for Mr. Hay, I'm older than the rest of them. Thank you.

Good evening. Good evening.

I used to like you.

We are the men of vision and purpose. But like I said, thank you, Commissioner McCray and City of Boynton for these donations. Donations like these really go far in our movement to further our kids and our development in our neighborhood. We just want to talk a little bit about us. We've been around now about three years. We just recently finished our first Reading Buddies program at the Carolina Student Recreation Center. We've had two programs at Ponsoniana, Reading Buddies programs. And we've had two fifth grade mentoring programs at Ponsoniana through basketball. We've been a part of various community activities. We're a part of the two Mother's Day programs, just recently, where we served these wonderful mothers. And in July, starting July 6th, we're fortunate enough to have our first reading about this program right here at the City Hall in Boynton Beach.

Thank you. My name's Leon Jenkins, and I've also been involved with MVP Reading Buddies for a while, but this summer, thanks to Commissioner McCray and the rest of you guys, we're going to venture. The Reading Buddies thing is fantastic. It gives the kids, the students, a chance to practice, but we're actually going to start a summer tutoring program And I have a flyer here that I like for the public to be aware of, but I want you also to know what it's about. We're going to have five probably teachers, probably certified teachers. That's our goal. And we're going to have a maximum of 20 children that we're going to tutor. And it's going to read the program dates. July 6th through July 28th. That's four weeks total, but it's twice a week on Mondays and Tuesdays. The hours are from 2 to 4 p.m. Program location, thankfully you guys came to our rescue, is right here. 100 East Ocean Avenue, room 115, City Hall building. The main thing we want the public to know is that space is limited. Since we're trying to do more individualized tutoring, we're limited to 20 children, first come, first serve. We're gonna leave this flyer, We're going to leave this flyer, a bunch of flyers. We're going to leave it at Carolyn Sims. Carolyn Sims has this flyer now. So if you know of anyone, any parent, any grandparent, anyone that where they feel that their child is not reading on grade level, we want to do whatever we can to help the the reading crisis in the city of Boynton. We're starting out with 20, but hey, we don't know. Maybe it'll be 120 two or three years from now. Primarily, we want the parents to be aggressive in signing up because the parent orientation is June 30th. We want the parents to go ahead and sign up so we can do the parent orientation. We have a professor, Dr. Melanie Acosta, an FAU professor that's coordinating this. She's previously been at University of Alabama, University of Florida, And she's been very impressive up to this point. So we really want everyone to be aware that this is a tremendous opportunity. I've been around Bowen for a while. I don't recall any professors from any schools, any colleges. taking it upon themselves basically she really hasn't been paid she's been planning this thing for two or three years so we know she has passion for it uh i'm trying to think of something else the most important thing is we continue to get the funding right now is 20 kids five instructors we're paying them what You know, some tutors that do one-on-one tutoring, you probably know, they get $60 an hour for one-on-one tutoring. So we got five teachers. They're not getting paid that much. But if we want to expand this thing, we're going to be needing more funds, which brings me to this last thing. At Duffy's out west on Jog Road on June 8th, That's, when is that, next Monday? We're gonna have a fundraiser all day. There happens to be, we chose the date because there happens to be a basketball game that night, NBA game that night. We're gonna be there. But you can come anytime you wanna come. If you can get the word throughout the city, we will be blessed with 20% of the proceeds So let Boynton be the one city that walks the walk and talks the talk about helping kids improve their reading because it is a crisis, I don't have to tell you that. And up to this point, I don't think anyone has taken a stab at it like we have. We have all of these gentlemen, everyone has just played a tremendous role a lot of support from the community uh if we can get the city on board however you can do it to help us to move this thing forward thank you very much thank you moving on to the advisory board and appointments we have two waivers of appointment of appointment requirements to review cheryl mckeever

is seeking a waiver of the Senior Advisory Board residency requirement and Perry Jetter is seeking a waiver of the Education and Youth Advisory Board residency requirement. Is there a motion for Cheryl Keever? Is there a motion for the waiver for Perry Jetter? Okay. We have one applicant for the Building Board of Adjustment and Appeals. The nomination goes to Commissioner McCray. Would you like to make a motion, Commissioner?

Thank you. Andrew Padre.

Do we have a second?

Second.

We have a motion and we have a second for Andrew Padre for the Building Board of Adjustments and Appeals. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say nay. Motion passes unanimously. We have one applicant for a regular member on the Education and Youth Advisory Board. The nomination, what? That's the one that had the waiver. Oh, that's the waiver, okay. The next nomination is for me to appoint a regular member to the Library Advisory Board. I would like to table this because I know there's some other applicants coming in and I'd like a little more time to educate myself.

Sure, I'm okay with that. Do you motion the table? Yes.

Second.

We have a motion and we have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. We have three applicants for the Senior Advisory Board. The first nomination goes, not two, it says three. The first nomination goes to Vice Mayor Turkin. Would you like to make a motion?

Yes, it's my honor to make a motion to appoint Linda Wildman to the Senior Advisory Board.

Second.

We have a motion for Linda Wallman to the Senior Advisory Board. And we have a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Motion passes unanimously. Congratulations. The second nomination goes to Commissioner Kelady. Would you like to make a motion?

Thank you, Mayor. I will nominate Max Cantor to that regular spot. Great.

We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion and we have a second to nominate Max Cantor. All those in favor say aye.

Aye. Aye.

All those opposed say nay. The motion passes unanimously. Moving on. No, that's it. Yep, that's it. So there was no third nomination. There are no applicants for the following boards, but we encourage residents to apply. The Historic Resources Preservation Board has three regular, one alternate, and the Recreation and Parks Board has one regular and one alternate position available.

Real quick, Mayor, just for clarification for the public, I believe that when we proposed this waiver requirement, that there was an opportunity to apply for a waiver for the term limits. So I want to make sure that that is accurate.

That is correct. Thank you. We'll now be moving on to consent agenda. If my colleagues would like to pull any item, let's begin on my left with Commissioner McRae.

No, Mayor, thank you.

Thank you. And Commissioner Kelly? No, thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor Turkin?

No, thank you.

Commissioner Cruz. Not for me, thank you. Thank you very much.

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 now passes unanimously. We will now be moving on to consent bids and purchases over 100,000. If my colleagues would like to pull any items, let's begin on my right with Commissioner Cruz.

Nothing for me, thank you. And Vice Mayor Turkin.

I won't pull it, but I just hope to have the support for 7C for the Chapel Hill road paving project.

Commissioner Kelly? No, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. I don't have anything to pull tonight. I'm good. Thank you so much, sir.

Motion to approve.

Second. We have a motion to approve, and we have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay.

Pave away.

Pardon me? I said pave away. Oh, yeah, pave away. Motion passes unanimously. We are now moving on to the City Manager's Report. Mr. City Manager. Would you or staff like to provide any comments or information regarding? Yes, I figured you did. It was an interesting day today.

And we look where?

Here.

I feel like y'all enjoy this more than me. No walk down music, although I was thinking about tag team.

No more, none of that. I'm banning that.

Okay. I know I came down with levity, but today there was some pretty I guess revolutionary ways that municipalities do business from a funding standpoint. So I put together a last minute presentation and this was at the request of the board on Thursday when we did our agenda review. So it's fairly remarkable. There's a lot of unanswered questions, and I just want to let everyone know what we're talking about here, strictly tentative, depending on whether or not the residents of Florida vote for this, and it's going to be a charter adoption, so you've got to have a vote of over 60%. This is not a simple majority. You've got to have a 60% vote for these changes to pass. What I will say is whenever I did my presentation at the last commission meeting, there was a slide that was pending property tax legislation. That's exactly why we put that slide in there is because we may have to pivot on some of those initiatives. And what the state of Florida is trying to say, they want to do tax-free, and this is pretty much centric on middle class, because if your house is valued upwards of $3, $4, $5 million and a $250,000 homestead exemption, it's not really going to do as much as someone's house that, is let's say making $100,000 in their homes valued at $300,000, $250,000 exemption is gonna be significant for them. So this was definitely targeted at the middle class for relief. I'm going to start this out. with going over what do we pull in from Avalorum. So every year we pull in from Avalorum, or over the last few years, we pull in right around between 75 to 80 million dollars. This year it's gonna be right about 79 to 80. We experienced about a 4.88% increase in our Avalorum revenue. And of that, we share about 21% of our total Avalorum revenue with the CRA. Is there an echo in here? Okay. Um, so about 21% of our revenue, which equates to about 16 to $17 million goes to the CRA. So overall you're left with right between 60 to 62 million. We don't have finalized numbers. So again, this is plus or minus one to 2 million with the new initial property tax relief. If it gets voted in, you're going to experience about an $18 to $22 million loss in Avalorum revenue off the start. Now, to put that in perspective, your entire leisure services, which accounts for all your parks and recreation, all your cultural service, every single event to include your personnel, if we were to eliminate that entire swath of departments, that would save you about $10.3 million. so it there's going to be some serious questions on what we have to do there's some options towards the end but we're facing about a 46 percent reduction in uh in funding from ad valorem first year 18 to 22 the second year when it goes to 250 000 you're going to be looking at about a 32 to 34 million dollar reduction in funding for the city So the path forward, and I'm not going to go in chronological order, but you guys can actually see the presentation on your screens. I'm gonna hit different points that I think are very, very important. So the amendment directs the legislature by the general law to schedule to eliminate homestead property taxes over time. We don't have any further guidance as far as what it's going to look like past 2028. So 2029, you're gonna have a new governor, new speaker of the house, and a lot of different legislature changes. So there's a little ambiguity as far as like how are we gonna get to that 500,000 mark, which I think the ultimate goal was. School taxes are untouched. This is key. New residents will wait five years. So the overarching goal here is to provide anyone who currently has homestead immediate relief. So currently, the majority of homeowners experience about a $50,000 deduction off the total value of their home. That 50,000 is gonna be enhanced upwards of, 150,000 the first year, which is gonna go into effect October of 2027. So next year, we're gonna have to start making a lot of these adjustments in our budget cycle. With that being said, initially, there was going to be protections for public safety. That was not the case. There are no protections for public safety in this bill that was passed in both the House and the Senate today. So I know there's current legislation on the book that says you can't cut public safety below 5%. So we're gonna have to, look at all departments across the board when we're looking at making some of these changes. Of course, again, I'm gonna remind everyone, this is contingent upon the referendum in November and whether or not this bill or this referendum item attains over 60% votes. So initially it was thought that there was going to be a trust fund or a backfill for municipalities and counties. That was also removed today. There are no longer any sort of gap fill for counties or municipalities to apply for if you have a gap in your overall funding. So what the Constitution now says, The list includes a broad catch all city may fund its operation and administrators administration and any expenditures approved through its governor body, except those expenditures prohibited by general law. Now, initially it was parks, libraries, recreation events remain, um, legally funded. Originally, originally, um, originally, um, Those were all banned. You were looking at essentially all quality of life services. I mean, parks and recs, your cultural center, community support funds, all of your events, July 4th, spending taxpayer dollars on fireworks. All of these things that I had just previously mentioned, those were all prohibited to include your administrative services. So I do want to say that this is detrimental to the general fund from a funding standpoint. This is eliminating all quality of life because you're not going to eliminate the core central functions of the city. So just because they're not prohibiting those expressly in this language, you're still not going to cut your public safety. You're not going to cut your public works. You're not going to cut your streets and construction and things of that nature. Those are still core central functions of the city, and it's a need versus a want. Where the remaining taxes go? Public safety, education, schools, infrastructure, natural resources, including flood control projects, Chapel Hill. Bonds and debt services, employee retirement, operations and administration. What is the most exposed? Again, I just spoke about this, our parks and recreation department, library services, pools and recreation centers, youth programs and camps, arts and cultural centers, festivals and events, children's schoolhouse museum, all of our senior programs. My recommendation, and I'll tell you at the end, this is going to require some very comprehensive discussion amongst the board. And we're gonna have to schedule workshops, just like every other municipality and county in the state of Florida, as far as what we need to earmark as absolutely necessary. And there's also some different options that I'll get to towards the end of the presentation. that we can look at as well, which are gonna be contingent on us adding items to our own referendum here in the city of William Beach. Services that can pay their own way are code enforcement department, planning and zoning, parking services, building department, golf course, our utilities department. You have a lot of these enterprise funds, I don't want to use a lot of city jargon for the sake of the audience. All an enterprise fund is, it's an asset of the city and it can operate on its own, just like any business would on the outside private sector. So moving on, what survives? Paving, lighting, and beautification. Dedicated dollars do not depend on property taxes. We have local option gas taxes of about $1.25 million per year. That alternates year to year. What's at risk to the day-to-day street crews, about 2.9 million from the general fund, street lighting paid from the general fund, beautification, specifically median features, property acquisition for projects, any paving for upgrades beyond the dedicated dollars. So we have a, a plethora of different ways that a general fund is funded between the local option gas tax, we have revenue shares from the county, we have different franchise fees that we bring in from those enterprise funds that I briefly mentioned, probably about 8%. So all in all, your total general fund accounts for about 136, 137 million as we stand with no further adjustments. So if you cut out about 20 million and you take the mean from the range, you're looking at passing a general fund It constitutes right at about $116 million to $117 million, so you're gonna lose about $20 million in funding the way things stand now. This is the one that's going to hurt. Of the 991 employees, there will be mass layoffs in the city of Boyne Beach. I just told you guys the entire Leisure Services Department accounts for about $10.3 million and you're still short another 10 million. So there's substantial amounts of cuts that I'm going to have to be recommending to the board and you guys are gonna have to actually be looking at as far as putting into the overall budgetary process to be passed. So what we're looking at is about 991 to about 674, and that's about 72% of every general fund dollar is personnel. So a large majority of our general fund does come from salaries and pension and benefit liabilities. So where it stands, a gap of this size cannot be closed without affecting positions. With law enforcement effectively protected to a 5% degree, Reductions concentrate in discretionary departments, park recreation, events, library, code planning, and street crews. What the residents would notice, reduced librarian rec center hours. I don't feel like those will survive this. Fewer or smaller free community events. I don't feel we would have budget for any community events. Slower code and nuisance response. The code enforcement department can be maneuvered to, as opposed to being under development, we could put it with the police department to create that public safety aspect. Facility consolidation or closures. Think Gazelle Hester Center. Think Little League Baseball Field. Think your intercoastal parks. Think Harvey Warrior boat ramp. There's a lot of, we have 32 parks in the city of Boynton Beach to include Oceanfront. Those of you who heard me last meeting, I was talking about possible mergers. Now, There will be some savings there that we were going to experience, we were going to experience, key. Those savings are going to be not only shared with the county for the pension's unfunded liability obligations in the event a merger does go through. Also, in addition to that, you're going to have to determine with the remainder, since the state has preempted our initial goal of actually cutting taxes on our residents, since taxes have already been cut, so essentially we've accomplished the goal, now we gotta back test our theory. We're gonna have to look at how do we get to the same place, but inflict the least amount of pain on our residents in the form of quality services. So if the merger does go through, there will be some funding there left over to the tune And again, this is ballpark figures. There'll be extra funding to probably between two to four million dollars a year. And that's if we decide to merge with Palm Beach County Fire Rescue. If we do not, there is not another avenue to where you can retain your fire department without increasing the fire assessment fee two to three fold to make up the revenue loss. Or you're gonna have to reduce the size of your fire department. Transfer or sell of the utility. Now this is an enterprise fund. It's not gonna be affected by anything that the state legislator, this does not come out of your general fund. So the transfer or sell the utility in the event that the county does not go forward or we're not satisfied with a purchasing price of our utility to create the endowment fund, there are other options. And I know one of the options that have been floated is creating a regional utility with both the city of Delray and the city of Boyne. I have not approached Delray Beach for that yet. These are preliminary discussions, so I don't want anybody to think that we've approached the city of Delray, also Florida Gulf Coast Utility Association. We have floated that idea as far as pulling money out of the utility and still being able to create that endowment fund. So that would not be affected by this. Now, if that endowment fund were to... if the endowment fund were to be created, we're probably looking at pulling about 15 to $30 million, somewhere in there, of passive income, safely, not affecting the principal. So two paths to close the gap, absorb and the general fund. I'm going to skip to page 14. These are going to be your hardest to protect. Subsidies for senior services, neighborhood and social services assistant, community events, library, museum subsidies, unless handed to the county or a new district, beautification, median feature, street lighting, and land acquisition. So the pressure grows over time. Like I spoke about before the first year, 2027, $150,000. That's a loss of right around $20 million in your upcoming 2027, 2028 budgetary cycle. The second to 250 is going to be a loss of probably about 32 million in funding, which is going to occur during the 2028 and 29. I've seen upwards of $500,000 in property tax relief for our residents. or for the state of Florida residents who are homesteaded. This is going to obviously have residual effects on the real estate market whenever you're living in the state of Florida and you have a home that's homesteaded and you have a $250,000, $500,000 tax relief. If you have a resale that resets the overall taxation, and then there's a five-year wait period for any new resales whenever that happens, So there's gonna be some definite impact towards the real estate industry. I don't really know what that looks like. I'm assuming it's going to slow down tremendously if a lot of the residents are receiving those large homestead exemptions. The saving grace in all this, if you are a bedroom community, specifically towards the barrier islands, if you don't have a commercial aspect to your overall community. Apartments are going to bring in tremendous amounts of revenue. However, the increase on those apartments and those commercial aspects are capped at 5%. It was 10%. That has dropped in half. I can tell you that your businesses and any other commercial entities, that's gonna be where you're going to still derive the large majority of your general fund revenue from. If you do not have a commercial aspect, and if anyone's watched the news, you've heard municipalities like Parkland some other Gold Coast municipalities on the barrier islands, they don't have large commercial aspects. So they are going to be hit vastly harder than some of the cities that do have that commercial aspect to them. So the likely shape of the city, Near-term, leaner, full-service city, living within a $18 to $22 million less than the first year. Again, that's going to compound to $32 million. Police, fire, infrastructure, debt. Pension funded as core uses. Discretionary programs leaning on fees, assessments, or a district. Some facilities consolidated. Long-term, depends on general law schedule of full elimination. and on whether future general law prohibits specific uses. Either could push the city further towards a core service-oriented model. Structural moves, fire utilities reshape the payroll and the budget. So if this body remembers, year two I said we wanted to lower our millage rate to 4.19 to incorporate the MSTU rate of Palm Beach County Fire Rescue, which is 3.4581. That still holds true in the event you do not want to raise taxes and undermine the spirit of this legislation. In the event that we want to preserve those quality of services, you will have to raise your millage rate. You will not be able to go down to 4.19 in the event a fire merger does occur in the city of Boyne Beach. So that 4.19 was contingent before the property tax legislation took hold. Now, being that if it does pass in November, you guys are gonna have a serious decision to make. What the commission will need to decide. And this is what I was going to get to. There's a plethora of different options. Every municipality's gonna have the ability to go forward with. Which services shift to user fee, special assessment, or new district? You can form a special taxing district for your parks, for your library, for your leisure services, but it's going to be contingent on the voters in the city of Boynton Beach voting for additional taxation. So I know Boca Raton is a perfect example. Also the county of Palm Beach County, they did a library bond, went to referendum. Their voters voted for that additional taxation. city of Boca Raton. They have a special taxing district for their beaches and parks and that went into referendum. It passed. So they are some options as far as moving forward, whether to transfer fire and EMS to Palm beach County. Again, if the transfer does occur, there's going to be a little bit more funding available. Uh, if the transfer does not occur, There's gonna have to be some serious discussions about public safety, either staying the same or taking some slight cuts or enhancing your fire assessment fee, which currently stands at $145. That brings in about $8.8 million per year. You would have to essentially triple that to try to make up the funding difference. Four, how to fund lighting, beautification, meetings, and land in a smaller budget. Five, which facilities to close, sell, or repurpose. Again, if you do reduce your funding and we lose the Parks and Recreation Department, we're going to essentially have to look at other ways to raise revenue or how to maintain those buildings and parks. What level of workforce reduction is acceptable and over what time? That concludes the presentation. I know it was not pleasant, but I can guarantee you guys there are a plethora of municipalities across the state of Florida having the same tough discussion tonight. I wanted to stick to fact base. I didn't want to opine on whether or not the city's for it, because again, the residents are the ones that are paying our salaries, and the residents are the ones paying for services. The state made this decision. These are elected representatives like you guys are, and they made a decision today, both the House and the Senate, passed the governor's initiative. I'm 100% certain he's going to sign it, so it will be a referendum item. There's going to be a wild public relations campaign going back and forth whether or not this is gonna be passed or it's gonna be voted down. But overall, that's the facts that we have. Everything's pretty tentative. This was just passed today, so there could be some things that we are missing. A lot of different options for this body to kind of examine. It's going to require a workshop. Staff's going to have to put a lot of hours into preparing you guys. But at this time, I'll open it up for questions, and hopefully I can give you some fact-based answers. And if I can, I'll try to go to maybe a little bit better subject matter expert than I am.

No, I just want to thank you for having the foresight for this. I would argue that. Yes, municipalities and counties are having this conversation. I don't think it's the same conversation as far as being proactive and identifying potential solutions for this. I think there's a lot of solutions if. This goes forward. Ultimately, the voters are going to decide this. And, you know, I think you can bring that that same sentiment of the most pure form of democracy, which is allowing the people decide when it when you talk about special taxing districts, so on and so forth. But I think we should definitely look at these workshops in the case that this does pass needs 60 percent. I think we're definitely going to see those PR campaigns on both sides. And so I appreciate the objectivity that the city has. I just don't want to be caught. you know, with our tail between our legs, if this does pass and we haven't really put in any effort. So I think it's time to have those crucial conversations. So that way everybody can prepare residents, us employees and worst case scenario doesn't pass, um, you know, and then we revisit the budget next year. However, I think it's responsible to, keep this conversation going so then that way we can get creative. I've got a couple ideas I look forward to seeing, sharing at the workshop if we decide to move that way. But I just think it's responsible governance to keep the conversation going. I would assume after the legislative break. We're not in Tallahassee. We have our budget and we're responsible to deliver the core central functions and understand what is gonna be best for our market, so to speak. I guess if we have to make those difficult, The idea is you wanna improve your city. Quality of life, quality of life goes up. It reflects in the real estate market. Real estate market goes up, value goes up, ad valorem goes up. And so there's an opportunity to focus there, but this is gonna be a long, long conversation, so I don't have much to add except for wanting to continue the dialogue in a workshop fashion.

Real quick, Dan, I know I haven't been able to read the entire bill that was proposed, but I know that earlier in the week there was conversations about capping, forcing all the municipalities to roll back their millage, and so I didn't know if that got pulled out of this last one because That's why one of the reasons why Boynton was on kind of the the the red list along with there I think there was like 50 other municipalities because our military is so high that they were saying that part of that proposal was going to be a Mass rollback and so I was just curious if you knew if that was something that was pulled off of this final bill or

Thanks, Commissioner Kelly. My last conversation with Ballard Partners was at 5 o'clock today, and Matt was getting on a plane, and I asked him, I was like, hey, I need in lay terms, was there any last-second adjustments, anything that I need to know about? He told me about the public safety aspect. He did not mention that, but I will say, and again, this is a discussion we're going to have to have on the CRA side of the aisle, is you're giving $17 million of your revenue to the CRA. But in addition to that, you also get $10 million from the county. And I can tell you with 100% certainty, the county's general fund is hurting just as bad as ours, if not worse. So there's a lot of different, it's almost like the state took a gigantic boulder and threw it into a lake. There's a million different ripple effects that we're gonna have to deal with

Yeah, one more really quick, and then we can go, and I think it'll probably be a conversation that will continue, but I kind of wanted to just, it kind of came up about two months ago, but out of, and it kind of comes from last meeting as well, through the potential conversations of mergers and transfers and all of that, We've done efficiency budget studies as it pertains to fire and as it pertains to utilities, and I feel like that has to be a trend in especially our larger departments. So I would like to have that conversation where we're looking at doing an operational efficiency and budgetary study on police, on fire, because I feel like And I think this is, most municipalities have seen this too. Property taxes have gone up because values have gone up. Budgets have gone up. we've bought the pretty cars, we've upgraded our equipment, we've done all this stuff, and I think there is a true way that we can look at the efficiencies of our departments and make sure that they're running operationally effective, but also budgetarily effective as well, because when we're talking about losing I don't want our residents, I mean we have worked so hard on our parks and our arts and culture and moving this city to where we have residents that come from other parts of the county to come to our city, to come to our events, to enjoy what we have worked so hard to build and to create. And so to think that we prioritize fire, utilities, police, and degrade or push aside the things that, there is a balance, and I think we really need to get serious. This is a serious conversation, and it will be a long conversation that we'll be having, but I think we really have to look at the efficiencies of the departments and what we're looking at and what we're paying for and where we can make cuts and where we can look at maybe our vehicles, maybe our fleet lasts five years instead of replacing things at three years. Maybe we're not buying things that are getting 10 miles to a gallon in gas when the gas is five, we're not paying $5 a gallon at the city, but these are things that we can look at. Are we really working as efficiently as we possibly can when we're talking about losing services. Because the last thing I want to do is to look at our residents and say, yeah, sorry, we have nixed everything because our police department needs shiny cars and needs gas and needs to drive to their homes and needs you know and our fire needs that and our utilities need that and our code needs that and so i i want to make sure that we are being efficient when we're talking about cutting services And so as we go into this conversation, I really want my colleagues to, that is my position, and if that means, Dan, that we do an operational budget efficiency study on our large departments, then that's what we need to do to make sure that going into this, going into these decisions, that we have the information we need to be able to make sure that we are being responsible. because at the end of the day, we're spending, I'm spending my taxpayer money, I'm spending the resident's taxpayer money, and if we're just letting, we're gonna cut this budget so that this department can run rampant, then what are we doing? Are we really being efficient? And so that's my position on that. I know my colleagues all based on the conversations we had on this day is that they agree with me on making sure we're being efficient. So I'm throwing that out there that I think that we need to be proactive about that.

Thank you. Yeah, I want to commend you Commissioner Kelly for the comments you just made. And thank you Dan for being prepared immediately after. the vote happened in our meeting today and adding that to our agenda instead of waiting for our next commission meeting and having enough time to really review it. These are really difficult conversations to have and difficult things to even think about, right? As we think about the livelihood of the amazing people that work in our city in many different departments, I think that, you know, I do agree that there should definitely be, we should definitely look into efficiencies for all departments, maybe over time if possible, maybe looking at if there are retirements coming up, can we potentially, maybe become a little bit less top heavy in certain areas, right? And that's something that maybe you can work with our department heads and management as a whole. And new positions, right? Let's think about all of those things. But thank you for being ready and presenting this so soon. Yeah, we'll continue to talk about this and see what we can do.

Yes, thank you, Dan.

Commissioner MacRae has. Eric, thank you. I concur with what each of you have said thus far, but I really think it goes a little bit further than just the elected officials. We need to start educating our citizens like now, not later. A lot of people are saying that, boy, we're going to be saving avalorian dollars. but they don't understand what are we giving up? A lot of people say, well, I don't have, you know, I don't need the senior center. I don't need to do that, that and that. But guess what? When we was kids, somebody paid for us. I'm just saying, you know, so I don't want anybody to say that, you know, we got to still pay our fair share. Somebody paid for us, so we got to pick up the ball and continue to pay for our children that's coming on. Like the men of distinction, I probably messed your name up, but they're volunteering. You know, we didn't have money to give them. I'm just saying, how will we reach those individuals? We're talking about cutting. We can't cut programs as needed. We can't cut them. That's needed. I'm just saying, you know, years ago we worked like hell, you know, to get Wilson pool. Carolyn Sims. He's there, Hester. And now we're standing up here tonight saying, you know, I have to do away with those programs. That's a tough pill for me to swallow. I'm just saying when people gave so much to get us where we are, I'm just saying we need to educate the public and tell them don't get so happy talking about you're going to be saving tax dollars. You're gonna be giving up a whole hell of a lot. Your lifestyle will change 100%. What you used to do. You won't be able to do it anymore. What you're talking about? I want to call the police. I wanted to be in three minutes. It might take him 10 minutes to get there. Then they're talking about why didn't they come? They're talking about beautification. Morning is going to change, but we need to educate not only the staff that's sitting up here. We need to educate the public and we cannot wait until the last minute to stop putting out flyers and meeting with people talking about this is what we're going to give up like you gave this report tonight. They need to be publicized over this entire city. Let them know what we're up against. This is a fight that we're all in. Not just elected officials.

I will say the one thing I did say tonight is whatever we decide to move forward with is going to have to go to a referendum. I'm not sure. When's our next referendum, Shauna?

Ours?

Yes, ours.

Yeah, it's going to...

So I don't even know if you have the time to actually implement that on a referendum before these cuts come.

We could get it on the March ballot in 2028. Oh, we won't be able to implement it.

Correct. No. You're still going to face that $20 million cut?

Yeah, we need to focus on... We just really have to have difficult conversations, and Commissioner Kelly brought up a lot of good points. I think a good exercise would be, and I don't wanna freak everyone out, but I think a good exercise before the workshop is for all of your directors to slash their budget, look for those operational efficiencies, and again, With all due respect, the take-home cards, the benefits package, everything that upper middle management gets, we need to look at that. I'm not saying, hey, let's cut that. I'm just saying we need to look at everything holistically, you know, with every single department. I think everyone would agree if we cut out a dozen vehicles to save a dozen jobs so people can put food on the table if we get to that point. I think that's fair, right? And that's indifferent on how I feel about this referendum, but I think it's my responsibility to make sure those quality services are delivered, and ultimately, when you look in the private sector, a company doesn't do well, they do cuts, right? And they look at their assets, and they look at their people, and so, I think before, I guess, is everyone okay to do a public workshop on this? Is everyone okay to maybe get that type of exercise to look at those budget? Okay, and then come forward with that. And then we can open up the can of worms with the... with the programs and everything. And I'm sure we'll all have a different priority list, but that's how we'll get to common ground. And maybe this doesn't pass, right? But I think it's our responsibility to the residents and also to city staff who have dedicated to do what we can and ultimately try to bring the most collaborative effort.

Go ahead. Real quick. I know we have our budget workshop. I think it's on the 30th.

I'm not certain of the days, but that sounds right. There's 30 of you?

Yes. Would that be enough time to kind of do, you know, have, as we talked about having every single department potentially bring, and I don't know if the commission wants to, look at a tentative number, like a small number like 10% or something of that nature. I don't know. It's up to the board. But if we at least made the goal of having a significant reduction on all areas, and I know we've seen this at the state level where they wanted municipalities to do an example of an exercise of what it would look like to reduce our entire budget by 10%. we could at least do that and maybe a little bit more so that we can be agile and most effective. And then we can obviously hopefully not have to go to that end. But I agree with what you said, Vice Mayor, about looking at benefits and vehicles and things of that nature to save jobs, to really keep families in their home and food on the table for for families, I think that that's definitely something that I would support.

I just, I wanted to remind that the vehicles, I know that keeps coming up, that is a capital one-time expense. Operationally, salaries are a revolving expense, so even if you do eliminate every vehicle, that's going to provide monies for one time, and then you're still gonna have the salaries, whatever jobs that we do retain. We're going to have to absorb those. The fuel costs, too.

What about fuel costs and insurance? Having to pay for all the insurance.

Some of the fuel costs, yeah, we would have some savings there.

Especially now. Looking at necessary uses versus not necessary.

I can't do that. There's no way we would be able to do the entire city by June 30th. We would definitely need more time. But we can do an exercise and a workshop like that.

Yeah, and I think what we end up seeing, and what we'll end up seeing, Vice Mayor Turkin, to kind of piggyback on you, is we do this, let's say we do this exercise. Obviously this is for the next fiscal year, so we can go into this fiscal year. Let's tighten our belts a little bit and look and be realistic, but I think that if we, looking at next year, let's say it doesn't, but we've done this exercise where now we've seen we have no CIP budget. We have no paving budget. We have no money to do anything extra. So if we're able to squeeze even more and have that ability to have that CIP flexibility, if this doesn't pass and we're safe for another year because who knows what then the next year will come and then the next year. We will be looking at some sort of property tax reform down the road. I feel like it will repeat if it doesn't pass. But I think that it'll give us an exercise of maybe we see where we can squeeze and where then we have some flexibility to have some funding to do the extra paving that we still need to do. What was it eight million dollars of paving still left to be done in citywide and that just starts that process all over again So I think that I think it's a good exercise. I Agree, I think that you know, I think right now to go into this budget I think we're we can tighten our belts a little bit. I think it's unrealistic We'll get 10% but let's see what we can do and see what it looks like but I think we definitely need to move this forward and and really look at our efficiencies and That is important.

I can only move the police department down 5% statutorily. Just so you guys know, we cannot move the police department down 10%. So that'll be the one department caveat.

Last time. Although we're talking about efficiency, I don't want us to send the wrong message out to staff tonight from our discussion. For those that's looking online, saying that we're looking at getting rid of employees and They're coming to work in the morning. I might lose my job. You know, my rail will be down. You know, I'm just saying we're not trying to look at that avenue. We're trying to tighten up our bill. Those that could do more, we just request that they do more. We're not talking about job layoffs. I just want to make sure that the public understands this, that works for this city. That's not the way we're going right now.

Correct. And that's why I prefaced before I started this conversation. Everything is tentative and based off of that vote. If that vote does go yes, we got it. some significant issues to address, if it votes no, if it goes no, then I think as far as like the budgetary cycle, there'll be a little bit less, a lot less significant decisions to make that will affect my staff and their families.

Okay, thank you. At this time, we'll move on to regular agenda. I'll turn to the clerk to read item 10A into the record.

A proposed ordinance number 26-016 first reading an ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Boynton Beach, Florida, amending Article One of Chapter Two to adopt a new section 2-10 control of access to city owned controlled and leased property providing for codification, providing for severe ability, providing for conflicts and providing for an effective date.

This is the first reading for this item to staff. Yes, you do.

Is your mic on? Yeah.

There we go. Ian Gregorczyk, assistant city attorney. Have to lower the mic a little bit after that. The city has been experiencing some recurring issues of individuals showing up to city facilities and disrupting operations. They're recording employees in a disruptive manner and just generally interfering with staff and the performance of their duties. Federal courts have held that cities can regulate access to city areas, whether those areas are labeled as a public forum, a limited public forum, or a non-public forum. So one thing, come on. There we go. One thing this ordinance does is classifies the areas of Boynton facilities as one of those three. So here, a public forum, that would be commission chambers, and any designated conference rooms during a notice public meeting, such as the one that we're in right now. During a meeting, those areas are fully open to the public. Limited public forum, that's gonna be your lobbies, reception areas, service counters, the library. These areas are open to anyone who's present for legitimate public business. And then a non-public forum, that's employee work areas. So here at City Hall, that would pretty much be the entire third and fourth floor. But this would also include the other city facilities, so fire, police, and utilities, et cetera. And also chambers when no public meeting is in session. Those areas, no public access is permitted unless you're currently being escorted by city staff. And as part of the ordinance, signage would be placed letting you know that you're in a restricted area. This area is for employees only, that sort of thing. The ordinance also lists out a number of conducts that is prohibited at city facilities. Most of these are already in place. There's a sign in the front of this building. Most of these are on this sign. One that's new is materially disrupts city operations. That comes into play later in the ordinance. So one issue that we've been having in particular is individuals showing up and audio and video recording staff and disrupting staff. So under this ordinance, so under this ordinance in a non-public forum, in non-public areas, recording can be prohibited to protect safety, privacy, and security of employees. In a limited public forum, again, that's your lobbies and your service counters, reception areas, recording is permitted unless it materially disrupts services, impedes access, or captures legally exempt information. Basically also if you're preventing staff from performing their duties, if you're blocking someone from speaking with the customer behind you because you're standing in front of the desk and shoving a phone in their face, that sort of thing, that's considered materially disrupting their duties. And in public meetings, recording is permitted in accordance with Florida law, but you need to do so in a quiet and respectful manner. So, failure to comply with the recording rules and a verbal directive could result in removal from the premises and issuance of a trespass warning. What does that trespass warning look like? It could be issued by the city manager, the manager's designee, or law enforcement. It's going to be in writing, and it's not going to exceed two years in duration. It's also limited to the scope at the premises where you receive that trespass warning. So if you received it here at City Hall, it would be limited to City Hall. And then a violation of that trespass warning can result in you being charged under Florida statutes. So I wanted to give an example of what the entire process might look like. So using audio and video recording as an example. Say that someone is here in City Hall filming in a disruptive manner. Staff would assess the form type and whether the recording is actually causing a material disruption. They determine that it is a verbal directive to cease recording can be issued. If the person refuses, they can then be removed from the premises and can be issued that written trespass warning. then again violation of that written trespass warning can result in arrest under florida statutes i do want to emphasize though that it's not the recording itself that would get the person removed in this example it's the material disruption it's preventing staff from performing their duties shoving a camera in someone's face that sort of thing if you do receive a written trespass warning there's an appeal process in place You would need to file a written appeal with the city clerk within 10 days. The city clerk would then schedule a hearing for the special magistrate. That hearing would normally take place here in this room. You would show up, present your evidence, and then the city, or excuse me, the special magistrate would then issue a finding, either upholding, modifying, or vacating that written trespass warning. And the last slide is just a summary, so I'll open it up for any questions. Thank you.

Anyone have any questions or comments from the commission?

I have one. I just want to make sure you send city facilities. Will this include parks and recs? It does. It does. That's what I want to make sure. Okay.

Any other comments?

Yeah, just for me, I just think this is too close to like the First Amendment. I understand. I understand like we don't want disruption in City Hall. I get that. I think there's an opportunity where you can just ignore those individuals. And if they do become and get to a point where they're... materialistic distraction or whatever the language was I think that can be resolved but I just think this opens this opens up like a can of worms especially when we look at like all city facilities so say someone here's the other thing say someone that you know you have someone doing something at a park and they work for the city and it's wrong and so now this person who's videotaping this could essentially be subject to disrupting city services?

No, that's not. Let me just give a little bit more explanation. What this does, so this is for the type of person who comes in and is not just sitting in our lobby in a chair or something like that. These are for the type of people who are sitting in front of the information desk for six to eight hours at a time. These are for the people who are getting involved in police investigations that are happening within our lobby. Let's say someone comes in to report a crime, they're recording that person and then getting involved, asking questions, doing those things. Where some of the issues has come from is that staff gives out their contact information and the person is then disseminating that information with staff's contact. and many staff members are getting threatening phone calls, threatening emails on city staff time to the point that it is disrupting them. What we have found out when we have tried to remove those people, there's nothing in place. What this ordinance does, it specifically protects constitutional free speech. Those certain situations where you have someone acting inappropriately say towards a child at a parks and recreation. That's totally acceptable and that technically should be recorded and reported to the city. But these are for the individuals who are using this to create a narrative, let's say, or to harass city staff. The city manager and the city has a duty to protect your staff from harassment behavior. Now, when that harassment behavior becomes sexual or bullying and all of those things, we as a city have a legal duty to protect them from that. What we have realized through these incidents, we have zero, nothing in place, which lays out what materially disrupts us. And so this defines that and it also goes further and we have due process in place. This is actually preventing them from getting arrested. It gives them a warning and a trespass warning, so it prevents an arrest. So it's less, what's the word I'm looking for? It's less serious than say an arrest, right? They then have the right to appeal just the warning. So this is protecting your staff and those places, and it's also telling the individual who's coming here to record, this is what material disrupt means, right? So if you're just sitting there and you're recording, have at it, have a nice day, no problem. But when you're repeatedly keeping staff at a counter for one, two, and three hours, so that person has done zero work for the day, that's where you're having the problems. And this defines all of that. I do want to mention one other thing. This has been upheld by Florida courts. When it is limited, it doesn't interfere. We are not regulating the speech or the activity. We are not preventing recording. What we are preventing is the inability for staff to do their job. These are taxpayer dollars. People want their staff to do their job. You have situations where maybe a permit isn't done because that person was stuck at the counter all day you know we have certain deadlines and things that have to be done those are taxpayer dollars to be done efficiently and unfortunately you have a couple of bad actors who are making that impossible for staff so i do want to point out that just in recently this has been passed by we will not be the first city okay that was the next question yes so um We have Village of North Palm Beach just adopted it about a month and a half to two months ago, City of Longwood, City of Winter Park, City of Marathon, City of Sanford, City of Apaca, and then the big case that went to federal court where their ordinance was upheld was Punta Gorda. But I will tell you, we initially started looking at these and we went further than those, right, with giving them the due process so that they can go to the special magistrate if they do feel that this was regulating their First Amendment protected speech. So I am very aware of your concerns and courts are very aware of your concerns. So we have done this one, it gives staff what is materially disrupt, right? Staff didn't know because One person is like, I can't spend 15 minutes speaking to you. And one person is like, okay, it's now been three hours, right? So this is going to help us staff. And then it also gives a way for us to say, okay, because currently there was no one who could authorize a trespass warning at city hall or anywhere. so this gives law enforcement or the city manager the ability to do that because what we found was a huge gap when you have those you know those incidents that and we're talking the big ones we're not talking the day-to-day where someone comes in to ask about their utility bill and they record the situation they have a 15-minute conversation we're talking about six to eight hours not once a month three and four day times a week how often does that happen We had over 19 incidents in the last, and don't quote me, I don't know if the chief is here, over 19 incidents between police fire and city hall within the last, since three months ago. So this is not a one-off. It's happening a lot.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Yes, thank you. I did have a conversation with the city attorney before the meeting and I asked a few questions and you were able to provide the answers in a little more context. And I had the same concern, constitutional concerns versus amendment concerns. One other concern that I had that we briefly discussed was, I like the fact that the ordinance provides an opportunity for a magistrate to hear for the person to appear. But when I asked who pays the magistrate to do their job, it appears to be the city. So just trying to be fair, I don't know if the city paying for the magistrate and then the magistrate coming in against questioning the city and something from a public individual Could that have any potential bias there? I don't know, right? There's always the possibility, not that it's going to happen every single time, but I did want to bring up that concern. And then I do want to discuss areas, and can we go back to the definitions of what's a public versus mid-range versus not public at all? Thank you. Limited public forum, we're looking at lobbies, reception areas, and service counters. What about rooms that are at the library that the public can reserve? Because I think in the ordinance, the language utilized was the city may regulate public access to areas within enclosed facilities owned, controlled, or leased by the city. depending on whether such areas are classified as a designated public forum, limited designated public forum or non-public forum based on their intended use. I don't know if I like intended use versus actual use because we could intend for a room to be utilized for X reason, but the actual use of it might be a little bit different, right? So I don't know if intended might be. the best way or maybe adding intended and or actual use of the room. And the reason I'm bringing that up is because there was a specific room, right, that somebody used from allegedly the public. And so is that considered a public forum or would that be considered limited public forum?

These are court-defined terms. So these are not things that we have defined. These are court-defined terms as to when it's a non-public for a public. So for example, If we go into a room, but it's more than just the type of the room. What the courts look at is they also look at who was in the room. So if you and I go into a room, say in the library, and it's intended just for you and I, then that becomes a non-public forum. Because even though you're reserving it and it's a building, because it's a one-on-one meeting behind closed doors that other people don't have access to, it becomes a non-public forum. And all of that is defined. by court and case law and those sorts of things.

And I think that's kind of where my concern lies because if maybe somebody internal determining this to be a private conversation versus a member of the public feeling like I'm speaking to a public employee and this should be a public conversation, I don't know what a judge might say on that.

And it also differs, right, because they treat police officers and they it's how they're gonna look at the position is how public facing is your position, right? So may perhaps a meeting between one of you guys with someone is gonna be more public facing than if my assistant who does not have a public facing job has to meet with someone to sign a notarized document or something like that. So those are all things that the courts look at and go through. and making those determinations.

Thank you. And it does get a little bit complex when it comes to defining certain things or determining what a judge would say. I don't know if making the public jump through those hoops to be able to be at a public building where we're trying to figure out if a certain room is limited public forum or public forum, per se, or non-public forum. Yes, we have to look at two things. Obviously, as you mentioned, we have a duty to protect our staff and that's definitely important, very, very important. And at the same time, we also have a duty to transparency and allowing the public their constitutional rights. So that's kind of where I have a concern.

Well, there is a general misconception that because a building is owned by a government that the public has unfettered right to that building, and that is the misconception. If there are areas that require badge access, that is a non-public forum. So if I take a person into a room that requires my badge access for me to escort them into that room, that becomes a non-public forum, and Florida is a two-party consent state, regardless of the person's position.

And that's a great point. So can we get a little bit more I understand the intent of this and I respect the intent because the intent is to protect city staff and everything that we just talked about. But is there an opportunity for us to potentially be a little bit more detailed with regard to the definitions of certain things or maybe making it Boyne Beach specific, knowing that there are maybe potentially areas, and again, not to go back to the downstairs of City Hall and the rooms down there, but maybe we need to define that here and decide if that's something that we would consider X, Y, or Z.

For two things. I cannot define every potential room and every facility in City Hall. you would not put that into an ordinance. Additionally, these are defined by the courts. And I am, if I do that, I am concerned it opens the ordinance up to a challenge if I define it differently than the courts do. That's my concern.

And so, so then what happens to, and again, I'm just playing devil's advocate. what would happen to a room inside of our city hall that's, you don't need a badge to get into, and a member of the public comes in, then in that case, it would be.

And it's a limited public forum, and so long as they don't disrupt, then it's acceptable. For example, if they go into our library, and it's not a special room that they need badge access, then it's gonna be, as long as they are not disrupting staff, and they're not preventing ingress and egress or causing a safety concern, then it's not an issue.

We're good? Okay. If there's nothing else, does anyone want to make a motion to approve Ordinance 26-016? Motion to approve.

Second.

We have a motion and we have a second. Tammy, would you do the roll call?

Commissioner Kelly?

Yes.

Commissioner McCray? Yes. Commissioner Cruz?

No, I still have more questions, thank you.

Vice Mayor Turkin?

No, I have more questions than answers.

Mayor Shelton? Yes. Roll call vote, the vote passes three to two.

Tammy, could you please read in 10B into the record?

Proposed ordinance number 26-018, first reading and ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Boynton Beach, Florida, amending chapter 18, article four, pensions for firefighters, creating section 18-195 of the city code regarding membership, creating section 18-196 of the city code regarding optional transfer rights of fire chief, providing for codification, providing for variability, providing for conflicts, and providing for an effective date.

This is the first reading. Is there a presentation from staff?

Me. Can I please ask Tammy to read 10C together because they go together. Thank you.

Opposed to ordinance number 26-18, first reading the ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Boynton Beach, Florida, amending chapter 18, article four, pensions of firefighters creating... I'm sorry, I feel like I'm reading the same thing. All right. Pensions for firefighters creating sections 18-195 of the city code regarding membership creating section 18-196 of the city code regarding optional transfer rights of the fire chief providing for codification, providing for their ability and providing for conflicts and providing for an effective date.

This is the first reading for this item, too, so you're going to be presenting both of them?

Yes, I will present them at the same time. Currently, Florida statute allows that a fire chief can elect, typically at the time they're hired, to participate in either the fire pension or the general employee's pension. What we would like to do is to allow... Our current fire chief, because he wasn't given that option, and any future fire chief, that option to elect one time general employees or fire. And what this does is it amends those ordinances to match state statute. Any questions or comments?

Motion to approve.

We need to do them separately. Correct.

Motion to approve 10B.

Motion, do we have a motion for ordinance 26-07? Do we have a second?

Second.

All those in favor say aye, say, oh no, it's a roll call, sorry.

Commissioner Kelly? Yes. Commissioner McCray? Yes. Commissioner Cruz? Yes. Vice Mayor Turkin?

Yes.

Mayor Shelton? Yes. Roll call vote, the motion passes unanimously.

Do we have a motion to approve ordinance number 26-018? So moved.

Second.

We have a motion and we have a second. Please do the roll call.

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

We are now moving on to item 10D, proposed resolution number R26-095. Who is representing it from staff?

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and members of the City Commission. As Ms. Celica Brown walks up, I just want to, so state law changed a few years ago as it relates to building permit departments. They're an enterprise fund. As you know, we've been very successful, very busy over the last several years. And so we've been able to make a lot of good investments in both technology and our people and the tools that we use. So our staff has crafted a creative measure in order to provide relief to our residents and encourage building safety and hardening for their homes. And so with that, I'll turn it over to Ms. Brown to go over the proposed program.

Thank you, Adam. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Commissioners, and City Management. My name is Celica Brown, the Division Director of Development Services, and this is John Koontzman, our Building Director. The month of May is recognized nationally as our Building Safety Month, and we would like to provide support for storm hardening improvements by establishing the Building Permit Rebate Program. Next slide, please. Oh, sorry. Just to highlight, we wanted to support homeowners by temporarily refunding 100% of building permit fees, excluding any regulatory fees for qualifying improvements for properties that are homesteaded within our community. This program is intended to support homeowners by reinforcing safety, strengthening properties for severe storms and weather events, improve energy efficiency, as well as lower the overall cost of permitting for qualified improvements. Some of the qualified improvements would be roof replacements, impact windows and or door replacements, hurricane shutters or hurricane protection, air conditioning replacements, generators, And customers will qualify for this incentive by being a homeowner in our community. They have to use that home as their primary residence, own and occupy a homestead or residential property within our jurisdiction. And they have to apply for the homestead exemption and have it approved by January 1st of this year. And they must have had the application submitted for the building permit improvements from May 1st, so we will retroactively refund those permits through September 15th. And our customers will receive these rebates automatically. They will not need to apply for these rebates. We have a reporting system put in place and we put all of the algorithms in to make sure that we can filter out who would be qualified for these incentives. And customers would need to submit during that time period The plan review must be approved and the permit must be issued. Once the permit is issued, we will process it automatically for refund and it will be mailed to the property on the property appraiser's website as the mailing address for the property owner within 60 days. Sorry, I missed my slide. So this just shows a brief process of how that will undergo our system. and how we will issue those refunds automatically. We have partnered with finance to make sure that this goes smoothly, and also it will be easy for our customers. And if you have any questions, John and I are here welcoming any questions you may have. Any questions or comments?

I have one. Okay. Over the past year, I'm just saying if the rebate program would have been in place, how many would we have issued? I'm just saying money-wise, how much would we have? I'm just saying we're talking about finding ways to put the budget going the way it's going, and we're talking about giving back money now. I'm trying to get my head wrapped around it.

Yes. Commissioner McCrae, the building department is one of those special fund departments, so the revenues that we generate is used exclusively for the building department. We have reached revenues for our goals for this year, so this will have no financial impacts on our department currently.

Yeah.

Okay.

What a way to give back.

And just to give an idea, when we ran numbers over the last year for the time period, we anticipate that more than 1,000 homeowners will get these rebate checks mailed to their homes. So probably a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of rebate checks will likely go out.

Go ahead. Great. On our social media, it would be so great to let people know that this is available for those that are not watching.

Yes, just in preparation, hopefully you guys approve it. We have a media release prepared. We have letters also prepared to send out with the rebate checks just to educate the public. And we will work with marketing as well as our IT department to make sure it's posted on our website.

Thank you. Yeah, I just want to give kudos. This is amazing. Great, great, especially great for our senior citizens and going into hurricane season. And I really hope if the news is listening that they like promote this. Probably won't because it's not a bad thing against the city, but I would love to see it. So if you're listening, please share this information and do your due diligence. And thank you guys so much.

Excellent. May I have a motion to approve? Second. We have a motion for resolution R26-095. We have a second. Oh, roll call. Or no. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, say nay. Motion passes unanimously. Now we will be moving on to item 10E, R26-096. Come on down.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. I do have a presentation. It's the school zone speed enforcement camera presentation. Just to preface, the presentation was including the item that you already addressed in 7E, which is the cancellation of the Vero school zone speed enforcement camera, but the second part is the hard pivot. As you guys know, you approved item 70, which was to rescind the resolution for the red light camera. It expired May 14th. Also to provide a 30-day notice to Vero Mobility to cancel the current school zone speed enforcement camera program. The timing right now actually has been beneficial because school is no longer in session so we do have a few months to to do a quick pivot and when the staff's recommending a piggyback contract with the city of newport ritchie which is an apples to apples comparison to our program here because it's both the red light camera and the speed zone enforcement program as well so i'm just going to zip through these first couple slides because this is the information from previous. So essentially, the reason why we went with Red Speed with the piggyback, like I mentioned, it's an apples to apples comparison to the program we have, but they also have a history of similar contracts that Vera did have in the past and they have shown a history of being able to turn the program around because at the end of the day is we want to make sure these programs go back and are operational with little downtime so that the history they had with the city of Sarasota were able to reach out to them and provided a good testimonial of Red Speed and how they were able to take the program that Vera had and Become operational within 60 days the red light in the school zone I believe because of the the break we have a lot of enough time to have that operational again Before school starts because the program itself is a very beneficial program to the city. We've seen some great results in it and Everybody actually is driving less than 20 miles an hour during the active beacon time, which is great. So positive results. We want to continue the program. So the recommendation is to adopt the piggyback. And I know we do have some people from Redsby here. I don't know if they want to come up and say a few words.

Good evening. Kevin Milan from Red Speed. We look forward to the partnership with you. As the chief has said, we've done this before with taking over for another vendor, and it has been a very quick and seamless process, which we are ready for the entire team.

I have a question. You can come back. You said that you, I'm talking to you. Yes, sir. You said you did this in Sarasota, right? Yes, sir. It was a seamless process, right? Yes, sir. It's still going smooth? Yes. I want to make sure. I just want to hear it for the record. Yes, sir. You got it. You got me on the record.

Any other questions from my colleagues at the moment or any other comments? If not, do we have a motion?

I move.

Second. Second.

We have a motion and we have a second for R26-096. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Thank you so much.

Chief, did you have more presentation?

I cut it down. I actually have two presentations. So this presentation was the abridged version.

Just want to make sure we didn't cut you off.

Yeah, no, it's a moot point because it was covered under a different item.

Thank you, Chief, for meeting with us before the meeting. Thank you for answering all of our questions during our one-on-one.

Of course. Yeah, thanks for your time. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you, chief. We're now moving on to item 10 F discussion and consideration of erecting a statue for Jaime Solomon for America's 250th anniversary. This item was requested by vice mayor Turkin. Vice mayor, would you like to begin the discussion and present your proposal to the commission?

Yeah, thank you. Um, because of the legislation today, I just want, I don't think this is an opportunity for the city to pay for anything, but if we have the ability for a private, um, like donor to do that, I would like to ask for support to open that up. I have been approached. There is someone that's interested. I don't know the exact details, um, but just to at least keep the conversation alive and maybe have that person communicate with the city manager. But at this point, I just don't think we should utilize city funds is where I'm at. So just looking for support to just continue that conversation. with the city manager if there's someone interested or a group of people interested to donate. So that is it.

You have my support on this and I also think it might be something that we talked to Rabbi Simon about because he saw the, when I talked to him after the agenda review, so I think that might be an option.

Yeah, no, that's, I support that. I think that, you know, we are, because we are coming up to the 250th, I think that, you know, I know the, you know, the reason behind it and the history. And I think that, I know that the city has some cool things in play for the 250th, but I think we also can look at different ways to, whether it be to honor maybe, you know, On our way up to that maybe I know I've seen other cities and I'm just throwing it out there We're like during a specific special month Each of the Commission selects a person that they want to just recognize and it could be somebody who's passed or somebody who's alive but somebody who's had some meaning and and maybe that's something that we do leading up to the 250th is we can each select someone in our history or something to kind of discuss and bring forth because like you, you brought up somebody that nobody has really heard about that doesn't have books and movies and films about them and so it's cool to learn that history. I know that former Commissioner Hay liked to do that where he would bring up history And I learned a lot of things I had no idea just sitting up here on the dais and having those open presentations. So it might be something to consider, something that we do where we can honor, choose somebody in history to honor as we're coming up to the 250th. So I think it's a, thank you.

Yeah, I definitely, I support potentially maybe each of us can

support someone or or it doesn't have to be a person it could just be a really great cause for the 250th anniversary good if there's no there's no more any final comments do i have a motion to adjourn we have a motion to adjourn we have a second all those in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed say nay motion passes unanimously this meeting is adjourned at 7 59 p.m good night everyone thank you