Commission - Regular Meeting

City Commission meeting, today is Tuesday, August 25th, 2026. The time is now 6 PM. We will now turn to the city clerk for roll call. Commissioner Cruz?

Present.

Commissioner McCray? Present. Commissioner Kelly?

Here.

Vice Mayor Turkin? Mayor Shelton? Present. Mayor, you have a quorum. Thank you. Our invocation tonight will be by former mayor and police chaplain Woodrow Hay, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by Commissioner Kelly. If we could all kindly stand for the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you tonight with our hearts asking for your wisdom, asking for your guidance, and for your grace upon the city of Boynton Beach. We ask you now, Lord, to bless our mayor, our city commissioners, our city manager and staff, and especially for our police department and all those who work each day to keep our community safe, strong, and moving forward. Lord, tonight and in these days ahead, difficult decisions must be made. Some citizens will agree with those decisions, while others may strongly disagree. But regardless of our differences, Lord, Remind us that we are one community and that we all have the responsibility to seek what is best for Boynton Beach. Give our commissioners wisdom to make sound decisions, courage to do what is right, and patience to listen to one another. Give all of us soft words, open hearts, love ahead, even when we disagree. Let our decisions be respectful, our decision be thoughtful, and our action be guided by what will strengthen our great city of Boynton Beach and benefit generations to come. For we ask all of this in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, let all of us say amen, amen, and amen.

for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. We are now moving on to the agenda approval, additions, deletions, and corrections. Let's begin on my right with Commissioner Cruz.

I wanted to see if we could move the Protective Covenant. I hear you.

I hear Mike.

Wanted to see if we could move the protective covenant conversation for the meeting on the 16th. Yes, Andrew.

Yeah, that would be fine. So the two items that we, do you want to move both items? I would move the Girl Scout Park and the Gulf Harbor item to September 16th. Okay. That way the budget hearing on the 8th and the CRA meeting will be impacted.

Oh, September 16th for that item.

So those two items will be heard on the 16th.

I think there's people in the audience just wanted to say it's not on the agenda tonight. It's going to be on the agenda on September the 16th at 6 PM.

Excuse me. Commissioner Cruz, you're going to speak a little louder than that. I don't know if there's something wrong with your mic, but I just really can't hear you. I'm sorry. Thank you. I'm good tonight. Thank you.

Commissioner Kelly? No changes. Thank you. Okay. Do we 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 start to my left with Commissioner McCray.

Yes, I'd just like to make one announcement that is on Monday evening at 6 PM at the Carolyn Sims center. We have a community meeting where Senator Rob Long will be one of the guest speakers there along with citizens and city representatives from our city. I urge all of you to be there. We have some very, very, very important information that we need to share with each of you. Thank you.

Commissioner Kelly. Thank you, Mayor. Can I go last? Of course. Please. Thank you.

Commissioner Cruz. You don't have anything today. Thank you. Well, I guess it's me then. That's you.

I just, I wanted to kind of hijack this informational item to, first I'm going to ask if Chief Bruder would come up, because I think that we got some exciting news for our city, and I think that to give Chief Bruder an opportunity to kind of explain what this rating means to the city, what it means to our residents, and what it means to our fire department and the men and women who serve our city. So Chief, I'm excited to hear the news. So if you can explain to the members of the public and to the commission what this ISO rating means to us and the residents, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you, I would be honored to. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Vice Mayor out of town. Yes, the ISO rating actually places fire departments at the pinnacle of fire rescue services. There are over 47,000 fire departments, to give you a little perspective, that have been through an ISO audit or an ISO review, and only 400 fire departments from the cost of country have reached the ISO 1 uh, rating status. Uh, and this wasn't something that was done overnight. This is the culmination of many, many years of strategic planning and, and honing, uh, our operations to meet very, very stringent national fire rescue, uh, service requirements. Um, and it isn't just about fire rescue. Now, the majority of these ISO reviews are fire rescue in nature. Um, but I also want to thank Dr. Poonam Calcutt, the utilities director, because we cannot fight fire without water. So the Utilities Department has been a critical partner with us in making sure that our water infrastructure meets those stringent requirements. And one of the other ones is the Communications Center. So I have to thank Chief DiGiulio, the Police Department, and Communications because our Communications Center actually got like a 9.5 out of 10. So, you know, that was a tremendous rating. So again, the beautiful part about this, not only does it show that your fire rescue agency is at the pinnacle, but this will be a direct result to the citizens that we serve because the citizens could potentially be getting a break on the fire portion of their insurance, on their homeowner's insurance. So this is a big win for the city, the fire department, and for the citizens we serve. So I'm honored to share that with you. Thank you.

Thank you. And we were at the rating that we were at a 2 for how long? How many years have we never reached where we are?

To my knowledge, the last review was in 2017 and we were a 2A. The ISO ratings go from 1 to 10 and a lot of it is based on how quickly we can get fire apparatus, the types of apparatus, the types of training, the fact that we do live fire training, which is also very rare in the fire service for a department to do that. so you know we've met we actually far exceeded those benchmarks out of the 100 standard we actually came in statistically at about 97 percent uh and then they they mess with the rating a little bit to a final rating of 93 but it it's very significant for us and the city

That's awesome. So yeah, I just wanted to bring you up. Sorry, I didn't give you any heads up that it was happening, but that's super, you know, amazing news for our city, for the residents. So I just thank you and your staff and your team and your firemen and women and our dispatch and all of our staff that really, you know, serve the residents of our city and those outside of our city because sometimes that happens too.

Absolutely. And they did. They spent, my executive staff spent countless, countless hours working with auditors and getting us to where we need to be so kudos to them and the other city departments that we partner with so thank you everyone and again to you as well because without you believing in me and believing in the path and the vision that i've set for this fire department we wouldn't be where we are so it is it's it's an entire city effort so thank you awesome appreciate it thank you thank you thank you commissioner kelly thanks for bringing that up chief chief chief hello i don't know why y'all be so happy to run away

Oh, sorry, sir. You know, I'm trying to be realistic. I'm just saying, these are things that you all need to be bringing to us. I didn't know anything about this until you spoke just then. I'm just saying, you know, we should have been on the forefront saying, you know, wow, this is what's happening in Boynton. We don't get the bad news real fast. The good news goes like molasses. I'm just saying, so if anything happening in your department that you all want us to know about that, we need to, you know, be two now horns. I'm just saying this makes the city looks good, make the community looks good and make The day has looked good. I'm just saying, you know, bring it to us. This is why, you know, we work closely together. I'm just saying, but congratulations. And this is my first time hearing about it. And I do apologize. I had a meeting this morning. I invited all the top echelons there. I don't know how in the world I forgot you when I got there. I said, I should have invited you. Maybe if I would have invited you, you would have probably said something about it then. So maybe I lost out. But anyway, thank you, sir.

No worries. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we will be doing the proclamation for Hunger Action Month. Commissioner Kelly is going to read the proclamation, and the proclamation will be accepted by Allison Volks from Feeding from South Florida.

I don't see Allison. Is Allison in the crowd? Let's see. Maybe we can hold this off.

Yeah, we're going to pause in case maybe there's a delay or traffic, so we're going to move on. Yeah. Okay. We will... It's okay for that, because it's a proclamation. Okay, we will now be moving on to.

The only other thing, since you mentioned that, if we want to push the discussion item that Vice Mayor Turkin was supposed to mention today, if we're going to push that and amend the agenda, we might want to also move that to the September 16th.

Task force?

Correct. That's 10A? 10A. Or you can have the discussion without him, but I'm pretty sure he would like to be present for that. Andrew, do we have room for that on the 8th, or do you want to move it to the 16th?

I definitely think it should be the 16th.

Okay. If we're also discussing the other two items, do we have time for that as well on the 16th?

think so yes okay so we'll move the proclamation to at like the end of five just in case and if she's it's not here then we'll just hold off okay i can present it to her so make that five c right need a motion to amend the agenda again okay so i'm gonna go ahead and make a motion to amend the agenda second second

We have a motion to amend the agenda. We have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes unanimously. Proclamation. Okay. We are now moving on to public comment. As always, it is three minutes per person. The time is non-transferable. If anybody wants to speak, can you please start lining up against the wall? We're going to alternate our mics to keep things moving. This is not a Q&A. The same rules apply as always. The speaker must address the commission as a whole and not an individual on the dais or the audience. Insults, attacks, and disruptions are not permitted, and you would be asked to leave if you violated these rules. After we've concluded the in-person comments, we will then move to online comments, so you're up, my lady.

Hi, Susan Oyer, Boynton Beach. So it's been two weeks since the last meeting, and I haven't heard any status updates on the bloomer tree, our missing $100,000 piece of art, nor has Amanda reached out to me, nor have I heard anything about any investigations, so I'm just wondering what the status is on that, because as you know, I will be here forever, and I will outlast all of you, and I will continue bringing this up and our missing $100,000 piece of art until I get some kind of status update and we can figure out what's going on and get our beautiful bloomer tree either back up or sell it to me or dispose of it, but missing MIA is not a status for a $100,000 piece of art that belongs to the residents of this city. Second of all, my nonprofit that I started almost 20 years ago, actually it is 20 years, the St. George's Society of Palm Beach donated 37 trees in, what was it, 2022, to the city of Boynton, and they were planted on Woolbright, west of the fire station. Well, you know fast forward the city also put some in to get us up to a decent amount of trees on that empty parcel some of the trees have died over time apparently and they have been replaced with palms at least two of them as we all well know from my many wonderful presentations Palms are not trees. So you have a whole bunch of growing trees out there and two palms that somebody just kind of planted, and I don't think it was anyone in the city. I think somebody just went out and planted them. So maybe we want to re-look at that and find out why there's two palms in the middle of what's growing to be a native tree forest. and maybe that can be evaluated. And then I wanna say I've noticed the two pieces that I've emailed about before that are not the two kinetic pieces are still not moving. The one right out front here, it's still not spinning around and there's a decent enough breeze today, it should be moving. And then, of course, there's Rolfanzo's piece, Reflections, that's several hundred thousand dollars that is still under warranty and apparently is still not fixed because it's still not spinning, even on days with really super good breeze. And it is a heavier piece, so obviously it will take more wind to make it move, and it's still not. So thank you very much for looking into this. I look forward to the results of this investigation.

Thank you. Next, please.

I'm Susan Geary, and I live in Gulfview Harbor. I've been a resident since 1990 in Boynton Beach. I've been around since 1974 in the area, so I'm very well acquainted with Boynton as well as Delray Beach. Mayor and commissioners, I just want to go back a little bit in the city's reimagined recreation Boynton plan that you had. And when the city launched this Reimagine Recreation in April of 2022, it told residents that this 10-year planning effort had a potential to protect additional green spaces. Green spaces, that was the intention. And in the city's language, not mine, I didn't make that up, and the taxpayers did not get this plan for free. On February 15th in 2022, the city commission unanimously authorized the city manager to issue $163,751 purchase order to Gentile Glass Holloway and Mahoney and Associates for professional services for the park and rec system master plan. Within weeks, Commissioner Cruz and Commissioner Turkin came on board and then in the same year, Danielle Duggar became the city manager and Commissioner Kelly joined, thank you, in 2023. And these are not the officials who inherited some decade-old plan. This plan was in the making in 2022, carried forward into 2023. And the plan itself was about green spaces. This is a 234-page plan. The people on the plan, Angela Cruz, Woodrow Hayes, Thomas Turkin, Amy Kelly, Dan Duggar, Andrew Mack, Adam Temple, Catherine Mateos. This is all people we still know here. I appreciate that a lot. So I guess the thing that I want to know specifically is what was the result of the plan about these properties and specifically obviously the properties i'm interested in but there are other properties as well this is green space there was capital planning for this as it appeared and i'd also like to know what happened for this plan that we paid 163 751 dollars for and um i'd like to also know just three years later Why we're not even looking at this plan? What decision was made? Who made it? When did the decision redirect the Reimagine Recreation Boynton? The taxpayers paid the consultants. We were involved. And so I just kind of want to know, for the park and rec and everything else, I want to know where we stand. And I want to know how come we're unimagining now. Thank you, sir.

If we could kindly hold applause to the end of public comment.

Hello, my name is Pete Fitzpatrick. I'm a 45-year resident of Gulfview Harbor. I just wanted to come in here tonight and extend to you all the invitation to come out to Gulfview Harbor and to please go look at this area that we want to maintain as passive park space. And we appreciate all you're doing and The further considerations, I know we're not on the agenda until next week, but please, if you have the opportunity, come out, look at that parcel of land, look at the wildlife there, and see how it will affect our quality of life in Gulfview Harbor. I'm in my third home there. I love Gulfview Harbor. I love my neighbors, and I love this city. Thank you. Thank you.

Sir? Anybody else that wants to speak, go ahead and line up on the side and get to the podium.

Good evening, everyone. My name is David Hoover. I'm a 30 year veteran of Palm Beach County Fire Rescue, and I spoke with you at the last meeting about placing a training facility close to a residential neighborhood. One of the things I forgot to speak about was I hope that you understand and some of you may. Training for both police and fire goes on 24 hours a day. There's training at night. This is what keeps us sharp when we're sleepy or just waking up. Putting a facility with a gun range that could possibly be used in the evening, I ask all of you to go to a gun range when they're firing and stand outside. You can hear that, and this is only, in most gun ranges, pistol fire. These gentlemen here that are protecting us are also going to have rifle practice with large caliber weapons. It's going to resonate through our development and through the area of Gulfview Harbor, where I live. So please take this into consideration as you look at this, that this training could be going on at night for our police department. They need the training, but a residential area is not the right place. It needs to be somewhere where it is commercial and will not disturb the residents. Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Thank you. Come on.

Next, please. Hi, my name is Zariah, and I just wanted to come here to say that on my street, South Seacrest by the Rainbow Store, we really need a traffic light, because when we're turning left, it's It's like a blind spot where we can't see anything, and I'm worried that we might get into a car crash, so we really need a traffic light there. My mom always talks about it, but today I decided to step up and say something about it.

You wanna let the woman go?

Come on my lady, you're next.

I don't wanna follow that.

I didn't know if you were up or down, sorry. I just looked over and you were there. I still don't wanna follow it.

Good evening, good evening commissioners. My name is Kosti Ali and I'm representing Florida Badgers FC. We're a soccer academy in the city of Boynton Beach. We've been around since 2018. I'm aware that not many of you are aware of the Florida Badgers, and I'm just here to make an introduction. We are a little community program that is centered around getting kids off the streets, so it is a positive thing. We've started very small and now we're, this year we've grown to a point that we're playing the Argentina World Cup team. We were part of the referee cup for 2026, which is an invite only. And we're competing the US Open Cup and UPSL. So our goal is just to give the kids and young adults a structured positive environment. And our academy is structured in a way that can keep kids off the streets from little kids at the age of five all the way through adulthood. So yeah, I simply just wanted to say hi and introduce our academy, our soccer team. And I look forward to working or meeting you guys in the future. And I'm just proud to be part of Boynton Beach City. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you, David Katz. First, I would urge the commission first to look at the sign ordinance concerning the deposit during elections. The city attorney can correct me if I'm wrong. I think it only covers people running for the city commission, but as you see, we've been inundated with signs. And I think that we need to make sure all candidates who are going to put signs up in the city pay that $500 deposit. So maybe take a re-look at that. The other thing I'd like to comment on was the dog and pony show at the August 11th commission meeting that was orchestrated by the District 1 commissioner, not only orchestrated, but written, produced, and directed by her. She arranged the meeting with some of the residents of Gulfview Harbor, which she made sure the media was there. While at that meeting, she admitted that she voted for and supported the study of the location of the much needed and updated police training facility. Then proceeded to give a half-baked mea culpa there and here at the commission meeting. By arranging this meeting, the District 1 Commissioner undermined the city staff and left the rest of the commission flapping in the wind. At the commission meeting on August 11th, When at the urging of the vice mayor, she and the rest of the commission voted to halt the study, which she again had voted for. What was additionally troubling was her silence. Because of that silence, she basically encouraged the comments from the residents of Gulfview Harbor to flow during public comment. The issue had been resolved, but the orchestration continued. with inaccurate comments about the city staff and the city manager, which were uncalled for. It's my opinion the District One Commissioner owes an apology to the city staff and the commission, a public one. Thank you.

Thank you. Next please, sir. I would like to make a comment, Mayor. Let him go. Thank you.

Good evening, Harry Woodworth, resident of Boynton Beach for 40 years. Tough act to follow. Just a few comments. A quick follow-up on what I said a couple weeks ago. I know you guys are working on the short-term rental noise ordinance thing to add the electronic thing. The neighbor next to me has already ordered them. This is a big deal. AB&B supports this. Everybody loves this thing. I don't see how we can not win on this. I did some more digging. Interestingly, there's a lot more out there on this. The five things you guys need currently for a license in Boyne Beach, state vacation rental license, sales tax, Then you just have to set up which Airbnb handles for the host. The Palm Beach County tourist tax development license, which is interesting. The city certificate of use occupancy, and finally the business tax receipt. Those all seem pretty clear. You can look them up. They're listed. You can go to databases that list all these, and it gets really fun when you do that, starting with the fact that there are supposedly 6,000 short-term rentals in Boynton Beach. which obviously uses the post office definition of Boynton Beach and, you know, cities north and south. So the real number is not that. So if you do a zip code search, you come up with numbers in the hundreds, which makes some sense. You go to the tax space, which is all public databases, you can see the actual addresses. I thought, boy, this is cool. I'll do a little thing. We'll put them all together. We'll see what's going on. One next to me wasn't listed. And our entire two, three street neighborhood, there were only three listed, one was obsolete. These databases don't match at all. So I guess my question is, is there one database in the whole city of what's actually a short-term rental, and how do you know they have licenses? I mean, you can look this stuff up. They're all public databases, and you cannot merge them. The guy next to me who's been doing B&B for years is not on the county list. I called her, I said, oh yeah, she says I'm current. I said, well, you're not on the list. And it was current as of the week I searched it. I guess my suggestion is there's a way to move this along with the noise to the host. Other cities require you to put the license numbers on your advertising. Research Florida statutes. It's perfectly legal to request that and other cities do. That would make looking this stuff up infinitely easier. You could see the license. They all expire on December 1st for the county and they get to expire October 1st for the city. Have that database. Put somebody in charge of it. And you know what? There are applications that will merge those databases overnight, once a month, once a quarter, whatever the hell. Lawyers do it all the time. Tell you what the errata is on ones that don't match. Give you a report and somebody could follow up on that. Everything I just talked about took me less than an hour and a half. Thank you.

Thank you. Before we go on.

In response to the.

Hold on. Let's check public. Let's check online and you can have something to say.

Mayor, there is somebody online on public comment. So we have somebody named Gabriel on. It looks like they're appearing for public comment. So if they would unmute their microphone, they can state their name for the record and begin.

Gabriel Mishragy. Just wanted to read something quickly here. Just want to say good evening, mayor and commissioners. My name is Gabriel Mishragy, president of Mangonia Construction Group. I'm the general contractor for Pioneer Canal Park boat ramp. During construction, conditions encountered beneath the boat ramp raised significant concerns about constructability. We promptly notified the city, requested further investigation, and continued forward in response with the direction being provided. Throughout the process, we committed substantial labor, equipment and resources. Months later, the work remains incomplete and Mangonia has not been paid for substantial work performed in connection with these unresolved matters. That is why we're here speaking. We wanna complete the Pioneer Canal Park project. To move forward, we are seeking clear engineered and properly authorized direction that addresses the actual field conditions and provides a constructible path to completion. These concerns aren't recent. They're documented over months through our written communications, requests for further investigation, the direction provided, and the records of the work performed. This commission has also received written notice regarding these matters. We respectfully ask the commission to review that record, exercise its oversight and help bring these outstanding matters to resolution. Pioneer Canal Park is a public improvement supported by state grant funding and local resources. It's intended to serve the residents of Boynton Beach for years to come. The public deserves a completed facility that is durable, functional, and worthy of that investment. Mangonia remains committed to completing the work. We ask that the substantial work already performed to be addressed and that a clear path forward to be established so the remaining work can proceed. Our goal is to resolve these outstanding matters and successfully complete Pioneer Canal Park for the city and its residents. Thank you.

Thank you. First of all, those comments are uncalled for and disrespectful. I will never apologize for doing my job with my constituents. I'm happy to do it until the last day I'm in office. Thank you very much. In addition to that, I did my homework. I connected with our legal department to get full title search, which had not been done prior to this item coming forward to the commission for a vote, which I thought was important and necessary to get prior to meeting with the public so that I could have the answers and do the due diligence required to be able to answer in front of 100 people multiple questions without having to drag any of the city staff into that meeting. That meeting was organized by the residents of Gulfview Harbor and not by the city of Boynton Beach, and it was also not advertised because of that reason. In addition to that, Mr. Katz, I don't necessarily intend.

We don't address the public. Well, he did address me. Listen, we don't do that. But he did it to me. Listen, you know being up here, people are going to say things to us. But we do have the protocol that we don't address the public like that. If you two want to step out and do this, that's fine. But we're not going to do this. It's on the agenda for the 16th. If you guys wanna clear the air before that, you can do that, but everybody can talk about it on the 16th, and we're heading in the right direction with this. So I don't think to call out a constituent. That's what we get when we sign up, that people are gonna be upset with us, and we have to take it.

I will not apologize for doing my job. Thank you.

We're now moving on to... We are now moving on to administration. I have Community Support Fund requests for Men in Vision and Purpose for 500, Girl Scouts, 500, and Boynton Beach High School Cheerleaders, 500. Next, we have Vice Mayor Turkin's Community Support Fund requests for Boynton Beach Purple Cobras for 400, and East Boynton Beach Little League for 1,500. And up next, we have Commissioner McCray's Community Support Funds request for Boynton Beach Bulldog Cheerleaders, 1,000, and Boynton Beach High School Cheerleaders, 1,000.

I can see the point leads to cheerleaders in the audience.

May we have a motion to approve the community support?

I move that we approve all.

Second. We have a motion to approve all, and we have a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Motion passes. Do we know if... We have them.

We have them.

We have people that here might want to speak that's going to be receiving funds if we get one open before them to say anything at this time.

Yeah, definitely. If somebody from each organization was still part of the person to come up.

If you receive some funds, you need to come down.

Nothing like putting you on the spot. Very briefly, introduce yourself. I mean, you came here. Introduce yourselves. Let us know who you are. I see some familiar faces.

Hi, my name is Jasmine Frederick. I am the head coach at Boynton Beach Community High School. Thank you for helping to fund our cheer program, as we are super underfunded. This will help us be able to get closer to our goal to go to state. We did make it to semi-state last year, and our goal is to make it to state this year.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm glad you all came down to introduce yourself. That's why I wanted you to, because when I was approached about it, I said I never gave to a high school. And I said, Oh, wait a minute. I don't want to set protocol, but okay. I gave to you all. Okay.

Thank you. Have a good one. Thank you.

Hello everyone. To the commission, city manager, uh, I'm representing MVP men of vision and purpose. And I personally like to thank you all for your continued support in our endeavors here in the city of Boynton Beach. You have been supportive with our mentoring program. You've been supportive with our reading buddies program. Now we just created an adopted teacher program. We will provide supplies for teacher at Ponce Center Elementary School on a quarterly basis. Your continued support is allowing us to continue to do what we're doing. And one of the things I did in Delray as the chief of police in Delray, my motto was one Delray, one community, one police department. And that means that it takes all of us collectively to come together to truly make a positive difference within our community. And I see that happening in Boynton. I'd like to thank you for your continued efforts in supporting us and the things that you're also doing throughout the city of Boynton. And I personally like to thank Mr. McCray for his personal investment in our organization and Mr. Woodrow Hay for his personal investment and participation in some of our endeavors. So I truly thank you all of you all. And we continue, we will continue to do what we're doing.

Thank you, sir.

To make Boynton a better place. Thank you.

Good evening. Since Commissioner McCrae put us on the spot, I have two of my Girl Scouts here. And as you can see, we are doing some great things by our presentation from this little one earlier. We want to thank you for always supporting us, for always allowing us to be a part of the events that go on in Boynton. It's something that we do. We call ourselves the City of Boynton Troop. So we are so thankful and just want to let you know how grateful we are. And anytime you need us, just call us.

Thank you. Thank you. Mayor, excuse me, before we move on, I want to be remiss if I don't address the young lady that stood up tonight and addressed us. I'm just saying, although she was a youth and everything, you don't have to be an adult to talk to us, but I'm just saying it took guts, it took power, and most of all, it took a lot of courage. And I want to see young people continue to press that platform because we're all focused, we're moving off the scene, and young people are coming on. Keep doing what you're doing. I'm proud of you.

Yes. Moving on, we have one applicant for the Historic Resources Preservation Board. Oh, quickly, we don't see the proclamation.

No.

Okay, we're gonna push it to the next meeting. We have one applicant for the- Let's table it, please.

Motion to table. Second.

We have a motion to table the proclamation. We have a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Motion passes. We have one applicant for the Historic Resources Preservation Board. This nomination goes to Commissioner Cruz. Would you like to make a motion?

I will not be making a nomination today. Thank you. We need to table that.

Oh, okay.

Motion to table.

Second.

We have a motion to table the Historic Resources Preservation Board. We have a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. The next nomination is for me to appoint a regular member of the Library Board. This was previously tabled. I'd like to keep it on the table. We have two applicants for the Senior Advisory Board. First nomination goes to Commissioner Cruz.

It's yours, Mayor.

I would like to take that one as well. I'm the next one. Second nomination is for me to appoint the regular member of the Senior Advisory Board. I would like to make a motion to appoint Carolyn Goldman.

Second.

We have a motion for Carolyn Goldman. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay.

Motion passes.

There are no applicants for the following boards, but we strongly encourage residents to apply if you're interested. The Art Advisory Board has one regular and one alternate position available, and the Recreation and Parks Board has one regular and one alternate position available. We're now moving on to the consent agenda. If my colleagues would like to pull any items from the consent, let's begin on my left with Commissioner McCray, please.

Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to pull A, B, and J.

A, B, and J. Commissioner Kelly?

No, that's good. Commissioner Cruz? No, for me. Thank you. Motion to approve the remainder of consent.

Second. We have a motion to approve remainder of consent. We have a second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. And Commissioner McCray, since you pulled A, B, and J, let's go with A first.

Thank you. I'd like to just hear from staff in regards to A, just speak to the citizens about your findings.

Oh, sure. Alan Lawson, CFO of the city. Right now, the budget, we are on track. Same statistical spend as last year. We are on track to hit the budget. We are on track to hit the same numbers. So all things are a go. Things are doing very well. And this is transitioning into obviously our budget, which we've done a zero-based budgeting this year. So there's no real differences between this year and last year. And things are on the grain for close September 30th.

Thank you. I really wanted to have it pulled because there was some rumor going around that we was not doing well with our budget. I just want to make sure that we could be put at ease. Thank you. Yes, sir. Move on to B, please.

Motion to approve A.

Second.

We have a motion to approve A, and we have a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Motion passes. Moving on to B.

The reason I pulled this, I want to have this brought to the public attention. I just said we have all these Individuals listed, but it needs to be put up on the screen and stuff. And so the public would know how much money these people are receiving out of this fund.

Absolutely.

Please.

Deputy Chief Matt Zeller, Boynton Beach Police Department. Um, so This is one of the great honors for us in the Boynton police department to highlight the good work that the men and women are doing and receiving funds through our law enforcement and trust fund. But I also want to thank our legal team because if it wasn't for them, we wouldn't be in the situation we are. So, um, with the funds that were received, this year's donation is $147,000. With that $147,000, we were able to put $120,000 into our PAL program for the next three years. An additional $36,000 going to Trinity Counseling. Pathways to Prosperity gets $6,000. Men of Vision, $6,000. Connected Greatness, $6,000. Youth Enrichment, additional $6,000. the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, also 6,000. So I kind of feel like Oprah. I'm just giving away the funds here. But it goes back to the good work and working together, not only with our community, but our officers and our legal team.

I'm glad you brought that up. My report says 156,000. You said 147,000. Am I right or are you wrong?

That's the minimum that we had to do the distribution, but we increased it over looking at what funds you guys have been giving and realized that the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts needed some as well. We increased that over the last- 156,000 is correct?

Correct. Thank you. Thank you. Motion to approve.

Second. We have a motion to approve R26-R26. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. We're moving on to item J. I pull this.

I like for staff or whoever's going to discuss this to discuss it. The reason I pull it is I don't want people to think that this commission system will be just rubber stamp things without knowing what we're doing. You can explain please.

Good evening, everyone. Commissioners, Mayor, City Manager. I'm Poonam Kalkut. I'm the Utilities Director.

I'm Myrna Crumpton, Grants Division Director.

And I want to thank Myrna for really going out and looking out for grants. I want to thank Commissioner Kelly for bringing this to our attention and saying, hey, you want to look at this? So everybody or anybody who brings us something, we start looking into it. And Myrna did a great job in pushing forward to get this application in a short time. And this is for the Sea Meadows community area where we are going to be replacing water and sewer. and we are able to get at least 750,000 from this grant if it gets approved. So we are asking the commission to approve us going forward to get the grant. We've already applied for the grant, and we ranked really high, so I'll let Myrna talk about that.

We submitted a presentation to the Palm Beach County, and we rated number four, so it was really good. We got actually kudos for presenting this application, so thank you, everyone.

Thank you. Thank you. The reason I wanted you all really to present is that there's grant money out there, and anytime city staff can go out and help us find money to help offset the cost for the citizens, I'd like for it to be noted. Thank you for doing your hard work and your due diligence to bring this money to the city of Boynton. Thank you. Motion to approve.

One second for discussion. Discussion. Just really quick, since it's one of my neighborhoods. Don't go, don't run away.

Don't run away.

Don't run away. Really quick. No, you're fine. I just, I know I gave, you know, I learned about this grant at a meeting about a month ago, and I called as soon as I heard, and I said, there's this grant money, and I know we have these projects that are pending, and so... Just thank you for, I know it was a quick turnaround to get the application, so I appreciate all your hard work to get it submitted, and then for it to be ranked as high as it is makes me hopeful that hopefully we'll get this grant money. We haven't gotten, we haven't applied for this grant or been awarded this money in several years, So it's exciting that this is back up because we know that on the utility end, we have a lot of updates and upgrades that are needed and anytime we can get grant money, especially from our local organizations, it makes it that much better. So just thank you for your hard work because I know it was a really quick turnaround. And I know the Sea Meadows residents are looking forward to these very much needed and overdue upgrades to the system, so thank you.

Okay, with that being said, motion to approve.

Second. We have a motion to approve R26-134. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. We are now moving on to consent. My colleagues would like to pull any items. Let's begin on my right with Commissioner Cruz.

Nothing for me, thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Kelly. No, thank you. And Commissioner McCray.

Thank you.

I'd like to pull F and L. Motion to approve the remainder of consent bids and purchases.

We have a motion and we have a second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. And if you would like to pull F. F, yes.

I'd like for staff to explain proposed resolution R26-140. Yes, sir.

I can do that. Andrew Mack, deputy city manager. So as part of our contract with Comcast, there are some increases, but a majority of this increase is adding upgrading the Internet to Carolyn Sim Center so that we can host an e-sports lab there, which we're currently working on, which I'm super excited about having opening up, which we're hoping will be here in the fall. I do have marvelous that can speak a little bit more on the e-sports lab if you'd like.

Thank you.

Good evening, marvelous Washington Division Director for the Recreation and Parks Department. We are planning to open up an eSports at the Carolyn Sims Center. This eSports lab will encompass an entrepreneurship program in conjunction with the City of Boynton Beach High School, our nautical program, and we also have a eSports teacher. We're looking at possibly bringing this program to provide an additional activity for the kids that are in the Carolyn Sims area and at the Hesla Community Center. This program will be for K through 12. We'll start with Legos and robotics, moving forward with the eSports team. Our eSports team is right now labeled the best team, which is Boynton eSports STEM team. And we're looking forward to competing on the national level. So this will be an additional opportunity for kids. And not only that, we're going to be able to teach them entrepreneurship. And as you know, a lot of the companies now looking at some of the kids that are doing esports and aviation. So this will be a great opportunity for the city of Boynton. And plus, I don't think we have any recreation facilities in Palm Beach County that has dedicated a room to esports. So hopefully you guys can approve this for us because we are looking forward to opening.

Hopefully we will approve it. I'm just saying I just want to pull so that we will, you know, know what's happening for Carolyn Sims. I'm just saying we have centers that I think we could do more on the inside. And I'm just saying I'm glad to see that you all are looking and thinking outside of the box to bring things to the better the community and to help enhance our students, you know, Boynton High and around, you know, so that we have given back to the community and we want to build what we have. I'm just saying, you know, while they're young.

Thank you. And we're definitely working on that.

Yeah, thank you for partnering with Point Beach High School, you know, for this facility. I know that they are, you know, they're doing great things in their aeronautical program, and any time we can connect and partner with them, I think is a win for the children and our youth in the city, so.

Thank you, thank you.

That being said, motion to approve.

Second. We have a motion to approve R26140, and we have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. We're now moving on to L, resolution R26-146. Aye.

Alan Lawson, CFO, City of Boynton Beach.

Excuse me. Thank you. The reason I pulled this is that any time that we're spending like $8 million, you know, I like, you know, at least, you know, for the public records, what are we getting for $8 million? I'm just saying, well, I don't want to vote on something, but I have the public knowing why did I vote for something that costs $8 million?

Thank you. Understood. Um, so, uh, part of the budgeting process this year, you know, one of the things, the policies that we've had, the reason I was hired was to, Preserve cash, cash is king. I think we all know that. And then obviously that became more intense with the current vote that's heading forward as of November 3rd. So one of the things that I've looked at over the last 18 months is a lot of the predictability around how we spend our money and how we spend our cash. And one of the ways to flatten that and create more predictability instead of volatility, and I'm a million dollars out for buying two fire trucks, which is what, and fire equipment, which is what this is for, is to look at leasing. And over the last month or so, six weeks, we've been working with legal, as well as with procurement, with Andrew R. Rozbudowski, we've actually qualified for a tax-exempt municipal leasing, which is something that's great, because that also, there's not tax on this lease as well. So we're clearly paying 4.74% on this money over seven to 10 years. I'll be able to offset that interest by reinvesting that money back into our thing. So I'll offset that. So the $2 million that we'll pay as opposed to $9 million over the next couple of years, $2 million will go out instead of $9 million next week. So that's really it. So it's about preserving the cash, investing that money, getting that residual income and keeping that for future events that are required by this commission.

Thank you. City Attorney, you did look into this, correct?

Actually, that was handled by the Deputy City Attorney.

Your department looked into it?

Yes, that is correct.

That's all I need to know.

Yes, we approved it from a legal standpoint.

Thank you. Also, Commissioner, if I may give kudos, one of the things that came through is actually Chief Bruder that actually came back and found this kind of investment strategy. And then he and I looked into it and we thought that was the right thing for the city. So obviously without Chief Bruder really looking at this to try to help us conserve cash would not have been possible. So it was great to working together. And it's just one of those things that happened during this budget process this year.

Since we have citizens sitting in the audience, I want them to recognize that we're not just sitting up there spending money like it's our money, it's their money. I want to be a good fiduciary of your funds as well as my funds. Thank you.

Thank you, Alan. Do we have a motion?

Motion to approve.

We have a motion to approve R26-146. Second. We have a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Motion passes. There are no public hearings tonight, and we did remove 10 from the regular agenda. So if there's any other comments from the commission.

I have one. I'd like to say to staff this morning that I met with, I want to tell you all, thank you all for taking time. I know it was a last minute thing, Kind of a rush thing, but you know, that's the way I operate, and we got a lot done. I thank you for your input. Thank you for listening to me, and there'll be more to come. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments from the commissioners? Do I have a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn.

Second.

We have a motion to adjourn, and we have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Meeting is adjourned at 6.52 p.m. Good night, everyone.