Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the City of Boynton Beach City Commission meeting. Today is Wednesday, September 16th, 2026, and the time is now 6.34 p.m. We will turn to the city clerk for roll call.

Commissioner Cruz.

Present.

Commissioner McCray. Present. Commissioner Kelley.

Here.

Vice Mayor Turkin.

Present.

Mayor Shelton.

Present. Mayor, you have a quorum. Thank you. We are now moving on to the agenda approval additions, deletions, and corrections. Let's begin on my left with Commissioner McCray.

Thank you, Mayor. Not at this time. Commissioner Kelley.

Thank you, Mayor. I would like to add for future agenda, maybe in October, to revisit some areas of our parking ordinance that I think are not working or need to be slightly adjusted. One in particular has to do with parking on the roadway during business hours. We're having a big issue in District 4, and I would like to bring that to the board's attention and see if we can come up with some alternatives that make sense. So I'd like to, and I believe there was also some things that we were gonna get updates about, about some roads that, what we were gonna do and what future plans were as far as whether we were going to have parallel parking on some streets, put up no parking signs, have some streets that were completely no parking. So we also kind of would like to have an update on those other things that were still pending out of that parking ordinance. But I think there's a couple of things in particular in my district that I think need to be addressed. So I would like to put that on a future agenda.

I agree with that. I think that there's some miscommunication about when people can come and park in front of your house up to 12 hours and I've been told that people are starting to get some citations or warnings and that's just, that wasn't what we discussed when we were up here. People should be able to have a dinner party or they should be able to have a caregiver. So I'd like to see that put on our agenda sooner than later. Yeah. Anyone else would like to add anything or change anything while we're here? Okay. Staff is requesting to add R26178. Shawna, do you want to?

Yes, the board just approved this, the changes to the master interlocal agreement, and so since that passed, we would like to add that onto the agenda as, on consent agenda as 6-I. Okay.

If nothing else, do we have a motion to approve the agenda as amended?

Motion to approve it.

Second. We have a motion, 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 today, thank you. Vice Mayor Turkin.

No, I just want to thank Will and his staff, Andrew, meeting with the county, finally get some safety measures for across Seacrest going into the Forest Park neighborhood. It was nice to see the county respond and have an action plan, so I appreciate all the efforts for that. Thank you.

No, thank you, Mayor. Commissioner McCray.

Thank you, Mayor. Kudos to staff for the presentation at the 9-11 ceremony. Job well done. Also at the groundbreaking for Octavia, job well done. And on Sunday, that was a green market. I was passing by and I said, well, what the world are they doing out there? And I had enough sense to turn around and go back and come back in and Excellent job with that as well. I'm just saying, staff, although we don't say thank you enough, I just want to make sure that you all know we do appreciate you all. Thank you.

Moving on to 2B, discussion of Gulfview Harbor. Vice Mayor Turkin, this was your request, so would you like to open it up?

Yeah, the last meeting we asked legal to provide some information. If we can have that information and those options, that would be great.

Sure. So just for background, the city holds title to this parcel. We acquired it from FPL back in 96th. Parcels approximately seven and a half acres, right around four of those acres are restricted. That restricts that easement area to a nature preserved trail or parking with no permanent structures. That was the restrictive covenant on the parcel imposed by FPL. The remaining three plus acres outside of that easement is currently developable. So the question before you is, related to preservation and what restrictions you may want to impose on that entire parcel. A restrictive covenant is an option that this board has considered previously with a unanimous vote, that's the standard here. There are some options with respect to how you would frame a restrictive covenant, but if your goal is full preservation, You know, I look at that as restricting the entire parcel to passive recreation, open space, conservation trails, and parking only, which aligns with what those restrictions on the FPL portion of the parcel already are. If there's something else that you would like for us to consider, we're happy to work with you and implement whatever it is the board desires.

Awesome. Yeah, no, I think the ultimate goal here is preservation. We've heard from the neighbors, and we appreciate the civic engagement, getting your feedback, and getting involved. So I would like to go ahead and make a motion for staff to draft a restricted covenant consistent with the same restrictions as we saw with the Boynton Forest requiring a unanimous vote of the commission to repeal and further authorize the mayor to execute that restricted covenant.

One clarification, there was in the Boynton Forest restrictive covenant reservations regarding a future station, yeah, lift station.

Minus the lift station.

Yes, thank you. Do you want the exact language or do you want the language that lines up with what's currently on this parcel, which would be passive recreation, open space, conservation trails, and parking?

Correct, the language that you had mentioned earlier. Okay.

So we will go ahead, and if that's the will of the board, we can prepare that. And then dependent upon if you'd like to direct us to prepare it and just arrange for the mayor to execute that without bringing it back, we can do it that way, or we can bring it back depending on, again, what your will is.

The other question, I guess, I don't know if you have anything, Andrew, regarding the bridge there and FPL, and if you want to give kind of a background story. So we're mindful that if we do preserve this land, that we have the ability to have that conversation with FPL. So we're not maintaining that bridge. And you know, so if you want to dive into that just for the record, the public to know.

Sure. Thank you. Andrew Mack, deputy city manager. When we did take this parcel from FPL, I think in the minds of the staff at the time, they did have future plans to do a park here. Obviously the sentiment of the community is that they just wanted to stay natural preserve. As a part of that, trade-off for developing a potential park there. We took on the maintenance obligation of the bridge that basically only services this site. So if it's the will of the commission, I'd love to be able to, if we put the restriction on and give it back to FPL with the restriction to potentially negotiate a transfer back to them so that they were in charge of maintaining the bridge and that they're kind of in charge of their own destiny with the bridge, but the restriction wouldn't be in place for them, so this would be a preserve. on that area that that's the area in question.

Do we have the ability to do that and maintain those protections that this board decides to move forward?

Yes. So this would be a restrictive covenant that gets recorded in the public records and it runs with the land. So even if the city conveyed it to, whether it be FPL or some other third party in the future, those restrictions would run with the land as well.

Okay, perfect. Do you need any additional language in my motion from what Andrew had mentioned?

No. Okay. If we are successful in negotiating something with FPL, we'll bring that. There'll be a deed transfer and stuff. So we'll bring that. We'll come back to you. But the restriction would go in now.

Okay.

Thank you. I'm all in favor of this, but my whole take is that I'd like for it to come back before us. I'm just saying. You know, just don't say give you all the leeway to go do what we requested and we don't see it again. We need to follow this all the way through to the end. Thank you. That's Mike.

I do want to add one thing to it, and I agree with creating a restrictive covenant for the entirety of the parcel and to make it five commission votes to undo, but I want to specify to make it in perpetuity, which means forever, going forward with the land. So in perpetuity would be something important.

That's what it is, right?

That's what it is.

That is what a restrictive covenant is. It runs with the land in perpetuity. It can be made for different types of time frames.

We have made it. Well, we're talking about this one right now. I just want to put it on the record that I want it in perpetuity. Okay.

I mean, as long as you don't get another commission in 10 years that wants to do something different. So, I mean, to say it's in perpetuity, it's not something that we can, if a future commission has five votes and changes it, so I just want to make that clear. It's something that we're making clear that we... sitting up here as the five of us are not going to do that, but that doesn't, we have no control over what somebody's gonna do in 20 years. So I just wanna make that clear that we can say in perpetuity all we want, but it takes five votes and we vote.

In perpetuity unless a new commission. We have five votes on the majority of our agenda items.

So I think we have clear direction. The only direction we need is whether you want it to be signed by the mayor or come back before the board. I'd like it to be done right away.

I'm okay.

To execute it. And if we're all ready to execute, just go ahead and execute on it. The mayor signed it.

Okay, I'll make a motion then.

Wait a minute. These things have always come back to the board so that we can read the actual protective covenant. We did that for Leisureville. We did that for other parts. So I don't understand why we don't want to have this come back to the board.

Because it's not in front of us today. There weren't options in front of us today.

We have a meeting in... October 6th.

October 6th is the next meeting.

Two weeks, two and a half weeks.

I recommend we do a special meeting next week.

I would have to.

Excuse me, let me. Is that an urgency that we cannot wait until October the 6th for this? Well, I just don't want to kick the can down the road.

Well, I think we have.

And we appreciate everyone coming back in here. And like I said a month ago, I believe we've always been on the right direction with this. It's this government procedure.

Yeah, it just takes time.

Is it something that the board can...

So, I mean, the board, we can send it to the entire board, but obviously the mayor is going to be reading it as the signing member of the board. And if it doesn't look right to the mayor, then she will not sign it and it will come back before this board.

And is it something that you can go ahead and circulate? Yes, absolutely. Just to make sure everybody's comfortable with it and then I'll come in and sign it and...

Correct, we can do that, absolutely. And what if any member of the commission has any questions or concerns with any part of the restricted covenant?

We'll bring it back for the 6th. We'll add it to the agenda for the 6th.

Just don't reply all, because we don't obviously want to violate Sunshine, but you can certainly bring that up with me or the deputy city attorney. We can either address that at the time to make sure, and then recirculate it and get it signed so these people don't have to keep coming back.

One quick thing, we did this with Boynton Forest and I would like to do it. We started on this parcel doing studies and feasibility studies, environmental studies. Just like we did with Boynton Forest and we really pushed to do those environmental studies, I would like to do the same thing so that we know you know, we're talking about, you know, future, if we do parks, we need to know what is under that land. I mean, it could be sitting on a brownfield that is full of chemicals and all that stuff, and so I just would like to do just like we have with Boynton Forest and other lands that we've done, is to move forward with just doing the studies, the environmental studies that we need to, so we know what's in the... We didn't do the environmental studies.

I'm focused right now. I've made the motion. There's a motion on the table and so.

I would just amend the motion to clarify that it's not gonna be exactly like Boynton Forest and that it will actually match the FP&L portion with a unanimous vote in perpetuity to overturn it with direction that the mayor can sign it.

So I will amend my motion giving per the city attorney's language.

When it comes to the environmental study, we end up not spending the money on the Boynton Forest because that was going to be about $60,000, I think, and we were all pretty unanimous in saving that.

And given that that whole situation has progressed and the neighboring parcels are county property, which I believe... The St. Boynton Forest Group has entertained and have made a lot of movement for that area. And I think they have had some subject matter experts go out there as well. But again, that's a different item than this.

Board Member McCray. Commissioner McCray. I'm switching from CRA to city, guys. Let me.

Thank you. I'm ready to vote. But, you know, forest kicking the can down the road. We are the policymakers for this city. But the citizens sitting out there, they have already spoken. They told us this is what they want, and this is what we have to abide by. We represent you all, so I'm definitely in favor of it. Okay.

Last thing I want to say. Sure. Real quick. Yes, I am in support of the protective covenant for the entirety of the parcel in perpetuity with a five vote to underturn for any future city commissions. But I do want to say for the record that we've always had eight. whether it's an ordinance, a resolution, or a protective deed covenant in front of us to be voted on. I don't, just in general, I don't feel comfortable voting on something I haven't read yet, so I will be reading you know, just to make sure everything makes sense.

And consult with legal or consult, you know, you're free to discuss it with any, anyone you want to make sure that it's okay. Um, okay. Do we have to, there are a second.

Okay.

We have a motion. I actually, what, what is the exact, I know you amended it, but why don't you say the motion one more time?

A motion, um, to direct staff to make the restrictive covenant as it relates to the remaining parcels to match the FPNL parcel. in perpetuity, and it will require a unanimous vote of this commission to overturn that.

And authorize the mayor to execute.

Correct, that is the motion.

So moved.

Second. We have a motion and we have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes unanimously. Okay, now we're moving on to 2C, the discussion on the Girl Scout Park parcel. Again, I know this is pretty much the same discussion, I feel.

Yeah, I got the memorandum from City Legal. It looks like our protections are there. So I don't have any other further questions.

Excellent.

We don't need to do restricted covenant. It's already there.

It's already done.

I have comments about the Girl Scout Park parcel. And all you have to say is that ever since I've been sitting up here, the Girl Scout Park parcel has always been before this commission or a commission or something like that. But I'd like to hear from you all that lives around there to let us know really what you want is if you want it to be a park. So we need to do improvements there or what?

So I'll tell you, that being Chapel Hill on the east side of 95, not the west, they want nothing done there, similar to what we see with Gulfview Harbor and the FPL property. So I think we're there now, and we're going to maintain that. Thank you. Motion.

That is closed. Question.

I don't need nothing, but we're good.

I hope we're good.

We're good.

No, it was just a discussion item.

Next, we're going to be moving on to item 2D, proposed resolution number R26153, authorizing the City Commission to set rates, fees, and charges for water, wastewater, stormwater, or used water for the upcoming fiscal year 2026-27. This item was tabled at the September 8th City Commission meeting. We have a motion to remove it from the table. We have a motion to remove it from the table. We have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Staff, you're up.

Thank you. Alan Lawson, CFO, City of Boynton Beach. Would it be possible to get the deck up, please, for 2D? So I'm going to hand off to the city manager. He would like to have opening comments.

Thanks, Alan. I appreciate it. Mayor, board, I wasn't here... last meeting to actually provide any remarks in reference to the increase. I know this item was tabled, tabled with good reason. I don't feel that the board I don't feel like the board was provided the necessary talking points and the education that you guys deserve. What we did is we went back and we looked at what the overall increases were going to be on the average citizen when it comes to these utility increases. And what we found was we had some room that we were able to adjust the millage rate to where overall the average homeowner isn't going to experience an increase overall in their costs based on those lower millage rates. Now what I will say, and I've heard the term, the windshield is always bigger than the rear view, don't blame predecessors, things of that nature. That's not the case here. The reason why you all, are sitting here now and you're facing making these large increases is because our predecessors failed to do what was just to provide the utility department the resources that they need to make sure that we're able to provide clean, safe drinking water to all of our residents. And that's why we're here today. And when we bring up this deck, you're going to see that money doesn't stay stagnant. Money loses value based on inflationary issues. That's been the case since they took us off the gold standard back in the 70s. So every single year, your money loses value to the tune of three, four, five percent, depending on what that is. What we did is we went back there and we did it industry specific in the utility sector. So we looked at what the rates should have gone up as. And since we Since we came into leader in 2022, we instituted a resolution to where that CPI increase is automatic. So you guys don't vote on it if there is no increase. So you still stay up as far as like what the CPI increases are when it comes to your utility. That didn't happen for a period of six years. And even when they were raising the rates, they were raising nominally to where it wasn't keeping pace. That was done for political reasons. Safe drinking water is not political, okay? If you don't raise rates and something catastrophic happens, you all will be held responsible. You'll get a consent order from the federal government and the state. They will come in and they will regulate your utility. So this board has a duty to put those rates in place so we're able to provide safe drinking water. You're getting a recommendation from the utility director the city manager, as well as the finance department. This has nothing to do with politics. No one likes to pay more for a product. But at the end of the day, we're beholden to what the free market charges us to provide those products to the customer. They're the customer. You can't provide unsafe drinking water as well as substandard sewer services. So that's what you're here today. That should have been told to you guys. And I wasn't here. I was under the weather. If I was, I have no problem like saying the bad news or being the bad guy when it comes to operating an organization efficiently. So that's, uh, that's what we're here today. We, we, we looked at the utility importance and tightening our belt on the millage rate. Um, also, so I'm asking the board to go below the rollback rate. And we're going to look at doing a 7.2 millage rate. That way it offsets it for the residents so they don't pay any increase for those utility increases.

Really quick, City Manager, can you just explain to the public, because we have a lot of people in the audience that were here at the last meeting that don't normally come to our budget meetings and don't really understand also what an enterprise fund is and that we're only taking in what we actually need. Can you just very briefly explain, or somebody explain to the audience, the utility fund is not trying to make money, I guess. That's a comment that I've heard, and that's not how an enterprise fund works.

So enterprise fund is city jargon for basically we're operating a small business in the city, and that business could be privatized. And unlike the private sector, we're not looking to make profit. Basically what cities do is you try to operate like a nonprofit plus 10%, meaning that you have a rainy day fund. If there's a downturn in the economic cycle and we lose money, we have a rainy day fund or a savings account that we can dip into and we're able to still provide those same services. So the small businesses that we have We're not looking to make money or profit off of a utility service or off the golf course or off of solid waste. We offer those services at the cheapest possible level we can, and we're beholden to the private sector because we still have to have our vendors that provide certain services in the form of chemicals, infrastructure, things of that nature. So that cost, unfortunately, gets passed on to you guys. But we do not operate our businesses just for profit. So that's what an enterprise fund is. Police can't be privatized. Fire departments can't be privatized. Those are general fund and that's just essentially your parks and recreations, your library, your police, your firefighters, those type of things. And then we have inter service departments which they service those entities and that's going to be finance, human resources, things of that nature. Hopefully I did a good job explaining that without the city jargon because I used to sit out there and I'm like, what the hell are these people talking about? So hopefully I did a good job of that.

Commissioner McCray. Thank you. Dan, I heard what you said about don't blame your predecessors and all that stuff. I was one of those elected officials who sat up here some years ago. The people that was reporting to us, sir, we was going by what they was telling us. We was making decisions by what they was telling us. We are not in the water business. We can only vote and go on what they was telling us and they was telling us that everything is okay and Boynton is great and when we did the, I call it the whatever that, the martini glass and all that stuff and ran pipes all the way from east to the west and all that stuff because I thought we would never finish it. We're not blaming anybody but nobody looked into the future to see that we was gonna get to this crossroad here where we are now and it doesn't look so good as it did when they was telling us because we went on just like we're going on what you're telling us we took your advice and they said it's good you're solvent the water's great and everything and now this point of the junction was hearing it said you know that we got to do something sure we got to do something and I'm just saying I'm not blaming the predecessors but you know what I think everybody that has something to do with it, we're always at fault, okay? Thank you.

Thank you.

One thing I do want to say, and I've had some questions with staff, it's that the changes in the rates are going to affect not only Boynton Beach residents, but also outside residents that are utilizing our water services. And that's something important to know. Unfortunately, the price of chemicals is out of control. The same thing with the new regulations that have come in. Yeah, it's a tough pill to swallow, but yeah.

Well, we had the presentation last time, too.

Yeah, I would like to pivot real quick to kind of add to what, and I probably should do this, but I'm going to do this. So one of the things I want to make sure that this has been a chart that's been shown over the last several months, and it's a very powerful chart. What we did, went back, we dollarized what the impact was. The blue line is what the rate increases were over the last decade and a half. The important piece here is I wanna make sure that we point out is that this particular commission, if you happen to look at 2024, 2025, and 2026, when Dr. Calcat started coming in here. This commission started to take ownership and started to pivot, and you can see that there's not a 0% increase in 2023 or a 2% or a negative one. You can see that, what that does over time to what, the CM was saying was that this actually created a $300 million plus gap of lost resources of investment over time that we were not able to stop the dilapidation of our current infrastructure. So I want to make sure that everybody's crystal clear on that, because that's important. We're moving in the right direction. You've been listening to your director here at utilities, and we're going into a positive direction. Now, the thing with that is we're currently at this point where we have really kind of three risk platforms, right? Number one, the first risk is to provide, and I'm going to have Dr. Calicat speak to this, but provide a quality product. Make sure that it's safe and reliable. then there are fines from the government that could happen, which the CM discussed, and then ultimately consent orders, which would be kind of a dire situation. But what I'd like to do is just, go ahead.

Mayor, I heard you say that you guys heard the presentation at last meeting. I just wanna make sure there's consensus that you guys wanna go through the slide deck again.

Yeah, I think it's important because I think there's other points here when you look at the federal government coming in, and the biggest one is the timeline. So if this were kicked down the road, then we might... It's just going to exacerbate itself. Yeah, then you have the federal... government coming in and take over utility. We all want that. But I think also, too, and I don't know if it's in this deck or not, but for me, and I think the big conversation last hearing was the cost, right? And so we need to offset the cost. And so if there's anything in here that shows the proposed reduction in the millage rate, because that's the next item we're talking about. So I want to make sure that When we're talking about it's public facing, we have that information easily and accessible in this meeting. And we explain it in a way where there's no misinformation going around.

And then I have that there to make sure to be fully transparent. Thank you. So to go back to kind of the risk and kind of with a big concern, what Dr. Calcutt is responsible for, I'm going to have her talk about risk one, which is providing that safe and quality product.

Thank you.

Thank you, Alan. Utilities director. Thank you, CM. I appreciate Dan understanding where we're coming from. And we've sat down with him in many meetings and explained why we are here, what we are doing. And I want to thank the commission, too. Alan and city manager, you're right. This commission has really started taking the bull by the horns in my opinion, which is what when I came in, I had to do. I had to look at the utilities, see what the needs were, what the future needs were going to be. And it's not easy. You don't want to... You don't want to levy any increases if you don't need to. Our problem is operationally we can manage, but for our CIP, we will need these investments. So basically the major mandate, the main mandate for us as a utility is to provide you a quality product, which means safe, reliable drinking water, and then drinking water and sewer services. That's what my job is. And our infrastructure at this point is the equipment and the treatment processes at both plants are at end of useful life, which means that they can break down any time. And we are not even able to get parts for some of that stuff because it's become obsolete. So we have to replace these things. With that, combine that with a regulation that's coming down from the federal government as a mandate to meet requirements for treatment. And that treatment requirement has a timeline to it. And that's why we are here. Those two things are really driving the cost. The cost has been derived from, and we have our engineering consultant here, if there are more questions on that, based on the condition assessment that they did, looked at what the federal requirements were going to be, not just right now, but into the future, as much as possible, and then build, have the plant upgrades and replace all the aging infrastructure to be able to provide the safe, reliable drinking water, which is what I look at every day. So that's why we are here. It's not for any other reason. And the reason we need to do it now is because if we don't do it now and things start failing, we will not be able to provide safe, reliable drinking water, which is because when pipes fail or when pumps fail or treatment processes don't work, you can't provide that. And when that happens, we get into what Alan was talking about. You can start getting into fines with violations, notifications that the water we are sending out doesn't meet all the regulations for drinking water. And then if you don't do something even then, then you can start getting into consent orders. So the government is going to come down and regulatory bodies are going to come down and force your hand. And you'll still have to do all of those things along with having to pay some fines. And then the cost of trying to do that in a rush is going to be hard and it's going to be more expensive. So I just wanted to reiterate some of those points again. We have our rate consultant here. He's based the rates on what is the borrowing rate. that we need to do to be able to meet these requirements of fixing these plants, making these treatment work, which is mandated by federal government. So all the rates are based on that. What is the borrowing capacity that we need and how much the debt payment will have to be. And the timing is crucial because 2029 As you all know, construction projects can take easily two to three years, especially with a big project like this. So if we don't move this now, we won't be able to meet those deadlines. So we'll be doing interim solutions and other things to try and meet it. And that's just going to be more and more costly. So we're just adding cost if we don't act now. So I appreciate the time and I appreciate the dedication of looking at everything, listening to us. I know this is not easy on anyone, but those are the reasons we are here today. I'll punt it back to Alan to talk about some of the financial stuff.

Thank you, Dr. Calcat. So just to get kind of risk two and three, right? So... We are going to miss the deadline. We are going to miss the deadline of April 29th, the current. It's just it is, and we're going to walk through that here. But we know that because if we act now, that we'll have that relief from the fines. But the fines, just so we're clear, could estimate up to over $9 million a year that could be assessed on the city if we do not act forward and we actively address it. And that will fall upon the taxpayers. Then on top of that, once you're into that fine stage, you will migrate to consent orders. Those consent orders basically mean the government steps in, they take over, then you will have to follow their guidelines. And we will have to foot that cost automatically. Again, that will fall on the taxpayers. Now, from a timeline perspective, if I work backwards from five to one, It's going to take, which is April 29th. We are currently right now in the bond funding stage. We know what it's going to take, the $325 million this rate will help secure to get that money. We know it takes five to seven months for me to be able to secure that funding for the city. From there, we will be doing a, you know, at the same timeline, the design, right? That's roughly 10% of the actual cost of the actual bill that's required. And then the construction expected to start, and this is aggressive, is September 2027. Okay, which is next year. From there, it's going to take two to three years in order for this to happen. That means we are going to miss the April 2029 deadline. However, if we are actively working towards the endgame, we will get a reprieve from the government. We're expecting to get a reprieve from the government. Nothing is going to happen. Right, so that's the expectations. So again, I'm gonna go back to this chart. So where did the 300, basically the 325 million come from? It came from two things. One is we know we were behind based on the lost resources over time, as we can see here. But we have started to make those strides with this current commission, right? You guys are taking the ownership. It's the past lives, you can see that gap that's worth about, I think we estimated about $335 million. I had an estimate between 300 and 350. So that's where we are right now. We know the gap is, and that's the cost that came back from Jacobs and Maneering Group. Their estimate, who they're best in class, as far as those type of studies, they've come back with what it's going to cost to fix those two plants. It's $325 million. Now, to Commissioner Turkin's request. The last time that we showed this slide, I dollarized it. So this is what the current impact is to the citizens of Boynton Beach, right? So if we have the utility increase that's expected, plus the current at the millage rollback rate, which was the original budget that was presented on September 8th, which is another negative 80 on average to our local Citizens the average monthly bill was going to increase between three and a half and six dollars a month That's what we were talking about originally Questions on this one okay, so what if we go back and we move the military to seven point two and I did the math. The math is going to be there is virtually in between zero, in some cases negative, to about a dollar is what we're expecting the impact of the monthly impact to be if we go back and we adjust the millage. What we will do at that point in time when we get to the budget presentation, which is after this, we will then revisit that. We will look at that and we will work with legal on how to change that language to make sure that we make the changes to the budget. But there will be some implications on that as far as the impact to fund balance. But that is where we are right now if we decide to move forward with the millage on that.

I have a question, thank you. Alan, with regard to, so you just mentioned fund balance, so the thought and the plan is by decreasing the millage rate again, that money will come from fund balance to make up that difference. So that means every year, and then we're looking at potentially with November 3rd, I mean, we're gonna run out of fund balance if every year we fund balance the difference of this utility increase. So I'm concerned with decreasing the millage and using fund balance to make up the difference Our fund balance is our savings account. That's our rainy day. That's our hurricane savings fund. That's our put money away in case an emergency happens or something catastrophic. So I worry that we... I can appreciate and understand the need. I get it. And trying to decrease the... the pain to the residents, I pay my water bill too. But I worry that making up the difference from fund balance then next year, potentially with November 3rd, we're looking at a $9 million decrease in general fund if that happens. And then we're making up the difference from fund balance for utilities again next year. And so I just worry that we're getting into this trend of using the fund balance to make up the difference. And so I guess that's my hesitation with that is that I worry that that will, if that's the trend that we're going down, I have concerns with that because of what that sets.

Thank you, Mayor. Part of that conversation regarding fund balance and budgeting includes what you're paying for, what you're willing, what your needs are, what's important and what is urgent. There's a lot of uncertainty for next year with November 3rd. I think the city manager and this board has done a great job with our fund balance. When you look at the prior city manager's office, it was extremely tight. What we haven't gone over is how healthy that is today. But what we do know is that the sentiment of cost is on everybody's mind. And so I'm not going to operate on next year discussing fund balance because pulling from fund balance comes at the very end after you go through your full budget analysis and identifying what you want to pay for and what is important to you, what is urgent. And so I respectfully disagree with the sentiment that just because we do this means we're going to pull from fund balance next year. I don't think that's the case. I think that... Depending what happens on November 3rd, we are going to potentially have to make some very vast decisions with time balance, with not balance. without fund balance regardless at our budget before we get to operating from our fund balance. So it's not just about pulling from our fund balance, it's steps before that and looking at the budget in its entirety. And so, you know, I don't see an issue to provide relief with this millage rate and, you know, be able to offset the cost for the utilities based on everything that you're presenting in front of us today. You know, so seeing that there's almost going to be a negative, not negative, $12 annually potentially increase. If we go back to, you know, 7.2, I'm in favor of that. The beauty of, you know, the millage rate and the budget is we revisit annually, right? And if we need to do amendments, we have the ability to do those mid-year amendments, right? but um we've heard time and time again affordability is the number one issue not just in the city not just in the state but in in in the country in you know as a whole and so um you know people are gonna they're gonna look at this and it's about making an effort um to at least for me my opinion is making an effort to listen to our residents take action and so i commend Alan and Dan Fabio for presenting this option because what you're doing is you're listening to the feedback that we're hearing from residents and you know, while our partners and other jurisdictions. seems like they're being a little bit more complacent and just raising the rates and not going into a deep dive. You know, it's my opinion that, you know, I think that's laziness and it's easier just to, you know, tax more and more and more, right? It's very rare that you'll see a government voluntarily shrink itself. And so I think it's important that we listen to our residents, we take action. And again, you know, we have the beauty of revisiting this mid year or next year depending on what happens November 3rd with the property tax amendment. So that's my position.

Yeah, I don't disagree with you. My only issue is this is the first time I'm hearing about this too. So it's a little frustrating that I feel like some people have been more educated than others when it comes to this village decrease. And so I'm just now learning about this and what the plan is in the future. And so, Vice Mayor, I respect your sentiment. I don't disagree with we should look at ways that I just, without having spoken to staff until right now I have concerns with I don't even know what I mean I know that we've been doing a great job with increasing our fund balance but I feel like every time we turn around we're taking a little bit out of fund balance to make up a difference from here and there and so I don't even do we have a true right now sitting here right now what is our fund balance where are we sitting our fund balance right now is around 33 million and and just so we're clear when the audit came through we did draw from fund balance last year to the tune of what two point

2.8, 2.8, 2.7 million. So then we would draw from fund balance again guaranteed with this current reduction. So you're looking at essentially anywhere between being $4 to $5 million drawdown from fund balance over two years.

And what was it before?

It was, we went 3 million, I think it was 3 million the year before I got here. It was positive.

Right.

And what was the fund balance?

No, the fund balance in 2022 was 15 million.

Yeah, 15 million. We're up to 30. Almost double.

Right. This is the first time we're having this conversation, so I need to ask the questions for myself so that when a resident asks me why we're doing X, Y, and Z, I have an explanation from staff and that we can educate the public. I don't disagree that any time we can save money and decrease the millage because we know that by decreasing the millage, we're increasing our outlook for companies and other people to come to our city. So I don't disagree that we need to do that. I just want to make sure that we're being responsible when we make those moves. So those are my comments.

If we look at it on an annualized basis, I want to say we had a $2.8 million draw last year. This year that draw has reduced. And I want to say it'll be right around 1.7 million. So we're still moving in the right direction. And those are kind of one-offs where we've made a conscious effort because we have the third highest millage rate in the county. Businesses don't want to move into cities that have high taxes, high crime, poor schools, and don't have a real kind of strategy for robust economic development. So we're kind of moving towards making Boyne one of the more successful and economic drivers in Palm Beach County. And we're making a lot of headway, and that's thanks to all of you guys. So I will say that that communication aspect falls on me. That's my fault. I take complete responsibility for it. This was more of a last-minute decision to where I was trying to look at things from a resident perspective to where we could give them some sort of relief being that Extreme importance of getting these utility increases across the finish line.

So at the end of my fault Thank you, let me make sure I'm sitting up and understanding where we are We keep talking about fund balances the fund balance with this city is the same as the reserve for this city. Yes, sir Okay, how much money I'll be supposed to have in the reserve and

So our city policy or what the GAFO recommendation is is right around 10% to 12%. But what we have right now, we are floating around 20% to 22%. So we go above and beyond that just because I've been in the city, I'm in my 22nd year now, and I saw what happened during 08 and 09, and I don't want a repeat of that. So I purposely make sure that any sort of acute cash injections during that year, we utilize those funds to go into fund balance, meaning that if we have a situation like this, or if we have an Amendment 3 situation that we have a buffer put in place to where we're still going to abide by the policies this board put in place, and we're going to do it in a safe financial fiduciary manner. And that's going to allow us to get another year In the event Amendment 3 passes and we need an additional year, a lot of cities may look at the fact that they want additional time and they may pull from their fund balance next year. If Amendment 3 doesn't pass, then we're having a completely different conversation. So to answer your question, it's 12%. We have an emergency cash of 17%, which is 5% over that. But we exceed that to the tune of probably about 21 to 22%. And when I came on, we were floating around 12%. We were very, very tight of going against what that recommendation. Comparatively, other cities, when we look at overall operating income, Wellington operates on about 100% reserves. meaning that if they took in $0 for one year, they could still operate their government efficiently in the same with absolutely no interruption in service. We're looking at probably about three to five months operating costs out of our reserve fund.

Let me go ahead and say this. We talked about predecessors before, and predecessors before got us where we are now. So follow what I'm going to say. We look to you all for guidance. And we have to go on what you all say. That's the way we make our decisions on how we're going to vote. So the only thing I can do is depend on what you all are telling me. And I hope that you all are telling not only me, the rest of us, the correct information. I'm just saying because down the road again, I don't want to say, uh-oh. We've been hearing too much uh-oh. But we need to go ahead and do what we need to do tonight. And hopefully and hope that we're doing the right thing. Because like we're saying, we don't know what's going to happen with Amendment 3. We might be at this junction again trying to figure out where do we go from here. Let me give you some information about Boynton. I was here when Boynton went into a lawsuit because of Home Depot. And we just threw money away, I'm just saying, for that lawsuit because we was wrong. And that was millions and millions of dollars that we paid. And I just don't want us to get into another predicament where we being fined and money that we could use by the city is being just like thrown away. So I'm going by what you all are saying, and I hope that you all are telling me to correct information. That's the way I'll be voting.

Good, okay, no other comments? There's nothing else, do we have a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second. We have a motion to approve number R26-153 and we have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Thank you. Moving on, the final millage rate and the final budget will be presented and discussed together and then voted on separately. So I'll turn to the clerk to read item 2E into the record.

Public hearing and approval of proposed resolution number R26-163, a resolution of the city of Boynton Beach, Florida, adopting a final millage rate for the city's general operating fund for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2026, and ending September 30, 2027, providing that a final millage rate of 7.4257 mills is equal to the rollback rate of 7.4257 mills, providing for variability, conflicts, and an effective date. Public hearing and approval of proposed resolution R26164, a resolution of the city of Boynton Beach, Florida, adopting final budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2026 and ending September 30th, 2027, providing for sustainability conflicts and an effective date.

Has there been any changes?

Oh, we do need to move forward so I can show both what the 7.205 and the other one. So what I'm going to do here is I'm going to bring us back to last week, September 8th. This is where we were from a millage review and the fire assessment, right? So at that point in time, the rollback rate was 7.4257. which created a negative $2.5 million and the $600,000 impact to the CRA. And then we had the fire assessment with offset debt, which created a negative $800,000 negative to the city from a cash flow perspective. Now, when we presented last week, We were actually the draw for fun mounts look at the right hand side. It was zero We had balanced that budget that there was not a draw Through the zero based budgeting process with the team They came through and we were able to hit the mark as well as doing the colas as well now under what this new proposed millage would be there's two impacts that would happen so you basically offset that fire assessment of 1.7 which would add that to a 4.3 and But the critical impact here, too, is the CRA, which means I would have to go back and work with Amanda and Adam because their budget has already been adopted. That half a million or $600,000 is going to impact that significantly. So we're going to have to revisit that budget. Let's sit down with them and revisit that budget as well. But what that does is that creates a $2.6 million delta. Now, when you look at that same chart, right, and you can now see the new proposed rate at 4.3 million, and I'm sorry, it says rollback, but it's actually a new proposed rate of 4.3. It creates a $1.8 million impact draw from fund balance. Because what I can't, just so we're clear, this year's budget was very, very tight. And there is no juice left to squeeze right now in that lemon. And we're not possible to find that 1.8 where we are right now. So the time frame that was given. So we're looking at drawing that money out of fund balance in order to facilitate this new proposed rate.

Comments don't just maintain the position of the going to the seven point two zero fifty two Rollback right or not be a beyond the rollback right below the rollback new proposed millage rate.

Yes Yeah, I'm sorry just for the record what was the new proposed millage rate so the new proposed millage rate is seven point two zero five two and

Yeah, I think this is a step in the right direction, giving the residents an additional break. I think it's a good idea, especially knowing that the utility rates are paid for not only, again, by residents, but also people who live outside of the city. So that's important. So we're focusing on giving the savings to the people that live inside the city.

If there's no other comment, we can open it up to public hearing. Are there any, anyone like would come down and speak? If so, please come to the podium now. You can line up on both sides and you will have three minutes. It's just this item. This is just this item, not regular public comment. We'll get to that after. This is just for this item.

Sir, you're up. Come on now.

Yeah. It's only about the millage rate. Yeah, just this. Go ahead, Mr. Grant.

Good evening, everyone. Stephen Grant, PO Box 424, Boyden Beach, Florida.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Commission. Is your mic on? There's your mic on.

I'll repeat myself, Steven Grant, PO Box 424, Boynton Beach, Florida. Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Commission, and city staff, thank you again. That's an amazing gesture of what you're doing to lower the millage rate further. I just heard the comments of the city manager talking about the predecessors me being one of them, and how originally in 2017 when I got first elected, they said, oh, we have this new water treatment plant renovation, the MyEx, and that is where they were like, oh, we're good for the next few years. We don't have to worry about raising the water rates, and then so many years, nine years later, We're facing the issue of not increasing it properly. I am very pleased to hear that we have this fund balance to have the ability to give it back to the residents. The issue that you're facing is that do we use the money to invest in the city or do we give it back to the residents so that they can invest it in the city? My position is that whatever you feel is right is right. I just wanted to make sure that you're doing what's right, not just for today, but for tomorrow, because it could hurt us much more later if we're not saving enough today. So thank you.

Mayor, I just want to make a point of clarification. When I said that predecessors, I meant my predecessors. The staff educates the board. my predecessors failed to do that. So it wasn't pointed at the board because you guys depend on us to make that, make those choices and to have that knowledge.

So would you like to speak on this issue?

Tony Senkar, Boynton Beach resident. I want to commend all of you for government is hard choices. And we talked last week about needs versus want water is obviously a need, right? So I think it's important to make the hard decisions now and they are hard decisions. I, I talk to clients who are in some of our cheaper 55 and older communities. And insurance rates, there's a lot of reasons. HOA fees have gone through the roof. One of those items is water. And I know clients that have left Boynton Beach and left this area to go to other states in northern Florida because they're on pensions and they can no longer afford to live down here. But we have to raise this money, right? It's a hard choice, and that's part of living in South Florida. We know it's expensive. I don't know if it's possible. I commend you for trying to lower the rate, the millage rate for Boynton Beach residents who are zoned within the city's jurisdictions. Is it possible to raise the rate for people who live outside of city limits on their water rate, or do we have to charge the same rate for everyone, it sounds like? So, I mean, there has to be alternative ways to raise this revenue, right? where our oldest and most vulnerable citizens that are on fixed incomes are protected. That's all I have. Thank you.

Yeah, if you're outside of the city limits, you get a 25% surcharge attached to your utility rate, and that's put in place for infrastructure repairs and things of that nature. So, yep.

I just want to say you've really, really worked hard on this. I've been listening ad infinitum to your meetings, you know, that you've had in budget meetings. This has not been an easy thing. And thank you very much. This is a hard choice. I understand the situation you're dealing with, with the development. You know, you're developing, you want people to come here. You want them to live here. They are looking at the millage rate. My gosh, it was all over the paper a couple of years ago, comparing every single city. And I, you know, it hurt. I mean, there's no question, but we are really sitting in a crisis moment right now. And just, it's just that moment. I personally, while the millage rate rolling back, I get it. It's a good draw card. It needs to be done. Eventually. I'm just not sure that maybe today is it. I would rather take the money and invest it in the infrastructure because it's spread out across everybody, but these rate increases, that we've had with utilities have really hurt. I've watched my water bill, because also remember, they drop the amount of water, but increase the rate. So, you know, what we used to get in the five gallon bag, we're getting now, it's like the cereal, you know, you're getting less of it, you know, and paying the same price or more. And that is what I think, you know, really when it comes down to everything, we're looking at that. I'd rather have the rate of the millage rates stay the same, start amassing this, because as you say, You can adjust that a couple times a year or revisit that. But this 17% increase, which she came up with, plus the 3% that is automatically put in every year, it's killing us. That one lady that was here last time said her water bill was more than her electric bill. I believe her because I see it in my house too. And I've got a well, but I see people that are using city water to water their lawns and so on and so forth. That's their choice. I chose not to because I don't want our water out in my grass. But you got a hard choice. You really do. I commend all of you for all the thought you put into this. I really do. That's just kind of my opinion. But I really, honest to gosh, you guys are the best for even thinking about this way or that way.

Do you have someone online that would like to make a comment, if you would like to unmute yourself?

Paul Klutt, if you could unmute yourself and state your name for the record. I'll let you know when you have 10 seconds remaining.

Okay, I'm just calling or speaking in general. I didn't realize the vote would already be taken as a business owner. With this last increase, I'm up 44% my water rate is over the last 3 years. And that's unsustainable. I know you've got a tough job to do, but you're killing businesses. I mean. Restaurants, medical facilities, large user, large users of water. This is just unsustainable. We can't do it. And the part that to me is frustrating is I don't feel there's a lot of confidence and a lot of visibility going forward that this is going to be the end of it. I mean, nine years ago, as somebody said, the MIACS project, like everything was supposed to be great, literally to quote, I pulled this up from nine years ago, so that in their life spans, in their kids' life spans, we don't have to worry about water utilities. I mean, Come on. I'm disappointed. I understand infrastructure is expensive. It needs to be done. I would also, in the future, to the Commission and to staff, I got my rate notice six days prior to the last Board meeting, and there's been just a ton of information numbers thrown around at the very last minute. I DON'T THINK PEOPLE HAVE THOUGHT THIS THROUGH AS WELL AS THEY SHOULD HAVE. I LOVE THE CITY OF BOYTON. IT'S A GREAT SLICE OF OLD FLORIDA. I'M HONORED TO HAVE A BUSINESS HERE. BUT I THINK THIS GROUP NEEDS TO DO A LITTLE BETTER. THAT IS THE EXTENT OF MY COMMENTS. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

THANK YOU. IF THERE IS NO FURTHER PUBLIC COMMENT, THE PUBLIC HEARING IS CLOSED. STACY, YOU'RE GOING TO PICK UP?

SURE. I MEAN, I'D LIKE DIRECTION FROM THE BOARD BEFORE I bring forward a proposed motion for you to consider. Okay.

So we'll take up the millage rate first. The rollback rate is 7.4257. We're proposing it to 7.2052. Yes.

Do you want a motion for that?

I'm happy to read the appropriate motion, but I'd like consensus that you would like to adjust it.

I'm in favor. Okay.

Okay. So then the motion that needs to be considered is a motion to approve resolution number R26-163 as amended, which is a resolution of the City of Boynton Beach, Florida, adopting a final millage rate for the City's General Operating Fund for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2026 and ending September 30, 2027, providing the final millage rate of 7.2052 mils is 2.969%, below the rollback rate of 7.4257 mils, providing for severability, conflicts, and an effective date. Okay.

So move.

Second.

We have a motion, we have a second. Let's turn to the clerk for a roll call.

Commissioner Kelly?

Yes.

Commissioner McCray?

Yes.

Commissioner Cruz? Yes. Vice Mayor Turkin?

Yes.

Mayor Shelton? Yes. In a roll call vote, the motion passes unanimously.

Thank you. Next is the final budget for resolution number R26-164, adopting the final budget for fiscal year 2026-27. There are no changes on this.

Motion to approve?

Second. We have a motion to approve and we have a second. Let's turn to the clerk for the roll call.

Commissioner Kelly? Yes. Commissioner McCray?

Yes.

Commissioner Cruz?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Turkin? Yes. Mayor Shelton? Yes. And a roll call vote. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you.

We are now moving on to public audience. As always, it's three minutes per person, non-transferable, not a Q&A. The same rules apply. Speaker must address the commission as a whole, not an individual on the dais. Insults, personal attacks, and disruptions will not be permitted, and you will be asked to leave should you violate these rules. After we concluded the in-person ones, we will move to online. So anyone that would like to speak, please come up at the podium and be ready, lined up. None of them are coming up. You will have three minutes, and we're going to keep it moving. Ms. Hoyer, you're up.

Susan Oyer, Boynton Beach. So I'm back on my favorite topic about our missing art. So in addition to the bloomer tree and the pieces I've mentioned before, including the Frankenstein-looking fish, which is scary, and I got some more information. The Bernard Thomas mural that is missing is the cyclorama from the library. It has pictures of mountains and snow caps on it. It's approximately 12 feet by five feet. So, you know, length and height. And I had no idea where that is. I know there was a Bernard Thomas mural found in a kayak of all things. Apparently that belonged to the Arthur Marshall Everglades group and it went back to them at some point. So that was one question solved. I reached out to Bernard Thomas's family because they live here. And the great Floridian round plate that was given to the family, when Bernard was named a great Floridian by the governor several years ago. It was installed in the Woman's Club next to his mural, and when the CRA bought the Woman's Club and it got renovated, the mural came down. It's moved around a couple times. Well, no one has found that historic marker, and that is an official state of Florida historic marker that is missing. It needs to find its way back. The 1913 schoolhouse, school, as a historic marker as well from the national government. It's missing. We need to find that. And there was a piece of sailfish art, and this is the one I wasn't sure about last meeting, and it was apparently the one that was by the old library before it was knocked down, and it was supposed to be put in by the Sailfish cafe that was supposed to come in this building that never happened. It is still missing So that's the update I have on the art pieces that are missing in our city and I think that's an excessively large amount of missing pieces and in addition to the bloomer tree and the Frankenstein-looking fish, that maybe we need to truly do an investigation, and should I be reporting this to Internal Affairs to find out where our missing pieces are? Who do I report this to? Because this is over, you know, you're approaching $200,000 worth of art that's now missing in this city, if not more, because I don't know how much the Bernard Thomas pieces are worth. Thank you. Thank you. Next piece, sir.

Good evening. My name is Gary Phil Weber. I was here 12 months ago and spoke before the Commission about a health and wellness program that about 4 million employees around the nation has been using over the last eight years. It's not to replace a group plan. It's in addition to extra benefits. And there are zero net costs to the employer and zero net costs to the employees. This is the program, quite simple. If we had enrolled, it was only presented to, I was instructed only to speak to the PR girl, Heather. But the financial impact of this not being enrolled is that The city employees lost $1,000 times 1,000 employees, a million dollars cash increase in their paychecks at no cost to the city. And the city lost $640 times 1,000 or $640,000 in payroll taxes that had been redirected and put back into the budget. So the financial is quite high. And I liked an opportunity to speak to Mr. Duggar or have someone else's financial On the presentation that corporate does, corporate's made up of lawyers and CPAs because we're dealing with payroll. And if payroll's not done 100%, you go to jail. We have not gone to jail. We have over 4 million people in over 2,000 companies, cities, hospitals, states. We have over seven state employees, seven states, that are using the same exact program. So I want to revisit for the city and the employees the opportunity to have financial department besides HR or payroll revisit the program and go on that presentation with corporate so they understand.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

David Katz, Boynton Beach.

First, earlier Commissioner Kelly added to a future agenda item about a deep dive into the parking ordinance. I would hope that, again, the commission would take a deeper dive into the deposit for political signs and expand that to other candidates besides those running for the city commission. I'd like to speak towards item 10D, which is the flock hammers. There's no doubt it's a hot button issue, mostly concerned because of social media. I know it's a political hot button. I spoke to somebody who I would call the sage of FAU, and he pointed out that if there was a mother who had a child and the car was hijacked and the child was in it, would you want to have those flaw cameras and those LPRs in operation? And the answer is, of course, yes. There's no doubt. There's stuff out there in social media that flaw cameras access your cell phone. Well, that is what I would call a legal term. It's BS. That's not true. It's not true at all. And if those of us are worried that the flock cameras are invading our privacy, I suggest we take our cell phones, throw them in the ocean, and create a really nice big artificial reef. And I think that would solve that problem. And in Florida, there's no legal expectation of privacy when it comes to your license plate. And that's why you can get a ticket if it's obstructed or if it's not lit up at night with the lights behind it. And so there's no expectation of privacy when it comes to the license plate. What I'm asking for is not to kick this to the curb. I know it's a hot-button issue, but to let the police department give its presentation of why it may be a good idea to keep it and whether that would be you're the five wise souls and you'll decide after that. I mean, you need to let the PD and the chief show you the guardrails that might be able to be put into place so that those who would be bad actors possibly in our PD, like there have been some across this country, the county, the state, and the country, that the punishments that would be available to the PD on their personnel, and that because of those punishments, they really wouldn't go around trying to access the flock camera data. And there's also other data that's out there that the PD can access, which is a much larger deep dive into what they can look at as far as you personally. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next, please, sir.

Hi, my name is Pete Fitzpatrick from Gulfview Harbor. I want to thank all of you for your considerations on the forest there. I call that the forest at the end of my canal. But I want to give you a suggestion. When you have an issue, A suggestion for a resolution to it is important, I feel. And I think you might want to consider the area behind the Home Depot for this training and gun range. It's a huge area there. There's no nature things you're going to interfere with. There are trees to cut down. And I believe it's owned by the Winchester family, who is an old family here in Boynton. And I know that they would work with the city in selling that land. And again, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, please.

Hi, my name is Kelly Alford, 235 Southwest 6th Avenue in Boynton. Good evening, Mayor Shelton and commissioners. I'm the outreach specialist for a group called the I Care Program. We are a nonprofit social club for adults with autism and related intellectual and developmental disabilities. I wanted to really, really thank you all because our members had a great time. We got to come on a tour of City Hall and see how the city works, find out what the mayor does, the different departments, things like that. They had a blast. Our tour guide, Jay, was outstanding. If there is an employee of the year award, I would love to nominate him for it because he is, you know Jay. That applause is people that know the man, the myth, the legend, Jay. He's outstanding. We want to give a special thank you to Mayor Shelton as well for facilitating the use of the projector equipment. We have our gala coming up, and that's going to allow us to share photos and videos and make it more inclusive for everybody to appreciate the things that we see every day that they may not get a chance to. That brings me to our formal invitation. We would love to have mayor, vice mayor, commissioners, anybody here is welcome. Our Golden Gala is on October 10th from five to eight at the Boynton Beach Arts and Cultural Center. This is our inaugural gala fundraiser as an independent nonprofit. It's going to allow us to keep our program to be something that everybody can participate in. We don't want somebody to be held back because of cost. We aim to offer friendship, adventures, inclusion to everybody. So we'd like to see all of you there, anybody that would like. We have some flyers and a pamphlet about our program on the back table. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Hi, I'm Stacy Deloy. I live in Gulfview Harbor directly across from the property adjacent to Florida Power and Light substation. I want to thank everyone for hearing our community's concerns. I'VE NEVER SEEN MY COMMUNITY GET SO CONNECTED AND ORGANIZED AS WE HAVE OVER THIS ISSUE. SO IT'S BEEN KIND OF HEART WARMING TO GET TO KNOW MY NEIGHBORS BETTER AND TO APPRECIATE HOW MY CITY WORKS. SO THANK YOU. I AM LIVING DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM THE SUB STATION AS I DO. I can tell you Florida Power and Light is not exactly a good environmental steward. And I have deep concerns about just giving the land back to them. I like it in the city's ownership because it gives me as a citizen an opportunity to be heard. Florida Power and Light doesn't care what the community thinks about the property. So I don't think that's a good solution. Frankly, if the city is absolutely committed to not owning the property, then I think we should come up with something more creative, like creating a neighborhood entity, a nonprofit or something that could manage it. But I don't think that Florida Power and Light is the right place to give that to. By the way, their substation is required to have landscaping on all four sides, That was in their original permit when the substation was first built there. There is no vegetation whatsoever there now. I would ask you to enforce that. And also to do something about the parking situation with the Asplund tree trimmers. They have turned their piece of that property into a moonscape. And having lived there 30 years, I can tell you it used to be beautiful. So that's my concern. And I'm happy to be part of the solution and be involved in any way I can. Thank you again. Thank you. Next, please.

Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. This is our second time before the board. We were here about two months ago. This is regarding 2003 Southwest 20th Place. We invested with a realtor by the name of Debbie Altman, who's a sole proprietor of Paradise Assets of $130,000 each. with the $20,000 investment in renovation of the property the the home at the time was purchased at auction sale and The certificate of title was issued to paradise assets the funds our funds are 50% of the funds were issued directly to the clerk of courts Palm Beach clerk of courts and The over $20,000 investment to the individual contractors to finish the property, renovate the property, if you will, was issued directly to those contractors. And we were told to speak with Detective Drury, Brittany Drury. So far to date, we have not heard one thing from Detective Drury. We have contacted the state attorney's office, and they told us to, they said that they would make inquiries, and here I am a second time because it's creating an obvious financial burden on our company and my family's company. And so the comment from Detective Drury I think she called me once I said that there's a lot of other pressing cases in Boynton such as knife things and killings and so our case is at the bottom of the pile and so we're just concerned that this is simple I understand that the police have certain restrictions, but they can subpoena documents, and that was suggested by the state attorney's office. The subpoena of documents would very simply and very quickly show to the world whether this item, these $130,000 plus $20,000 in renovations were gifted. Because that's what Debbie Altman of Paradise Assets is claiming. After all these years, she's stating that it's gifted to her. So is it my understanding that in the city of Boynton, if I was to steal something and the police catches me, all I have to do is say, well, it was gifted to me. And I can just go back home. I don't think so. And so I think this is a pretty straightforward matter if they would subpoena the documents and the opposing party can show that this was gifted at any point in time, case over. But that's not the case. We've never gifted it to her. That would be ridiculous why we would gift $130,000, spend nine months renovating a property for a flip, to a real estate agent who has a fiduciary duty.

Thank you, sir. Next, please.

Tony Sankar, Gulfview Harbor resident. Thank you. Yes, I'm sorry. Thank you for listening to all of our concerns. I can't thank you enough. Vice Mayor Turkin said last week one of the important duties of governing is to improve the citizens' quality of life. And I can tell you this improved all of our quality of life. I went with my son door to door throughout our neighborhood, and it was like Stacy said, it was amazing to meet so many of our neighbors that I didn't know before. And it struck me at the end of it, not one person said, no, I'd like to see those woods torn down. That would be awesome. So on a bigger picture, there's very few places of woods left in Boynton Beach. So many people say, boy, that was amazing seeing that otter or that roseate spoonbill or gray fox. I don't think anybody has ever said, boy, that made my day seeing that high rise. So just consider the few places that we do have left when developers come with a nice shiny package saying what they can build in those places to consider protecting them and giving them their own protection. As far as delineating that land from the Boynton Forest and the Restrictive Covenant provision, I want to make clear that is a sound barrier as well. So if you say we're going to put up parking lots and we're going to put up trails and other stuff, every tree you take down. When I lived there, the trees came right to the woods. You couldn't hear the train track. you couldn't hear 95 and then Lake Worth drainage bulldozed several of the trees and now the sound is annoying but it's livable but if you take down some of those trees to build parking lots or other things that you're considering to make in the language that will make it unlivable again so I would ask save your money on doing the soil studies and the other studies that you want to do and just leave the woods the way they are thank you thank you next please

Harry Woodworth, Boynton Beach. I'm talking on item 10D, flock, of course. Before I say that, I'd like to thank Chief DiGiulio for a week of putting up with my questions and concerns. He's gone out of his way to listen to what I have to say. He's helped me understand his view on all of this. And this is going to come as a shock. I agree with Mr. Katz. Do it. Just do it. Why are we talking about this stuff forever? He's got the solutions. Have the man come in and start doing the stuff. We need a presentation. Do it. They got good ideas. You saw some of the results. Anyhow, what I want to talk about tonight is, you know, I'm not against technology. Improve your efficiency. Do it. What in the hell are we keep talking about this for? Why are we having an October meeting? Do it. You didn't get permission from anybody to put it in place. You didn't talk to the public. Fix the problems. You know what the problems are. The data's out there. We talked about it here on March 3rd. We talked about it again. We talked about it last week. We're talking about it again tonight. What else is there? The data's in. The facts are here. Okay? I sent you an email this week summarizing some of the stuff. What are we waiting for? Okay? You know what this technology is? It's overreaching. It's got some problems. It needs some solutions. The chief has a long list of those solutions. Why in the world are we still talking about this? We didn't talk about some of the things. I mean, I don't know. Do you guys know there are open web-facing cameras? There are. You know they keep your metadata. You know they keep all their work products. You know they keep the derivative files. You have been signed a line of, what was the technical term, bullshit, okay, by this company. Why are you dealing with them? Okay, here's the thing. They've been vague. They've lied to you. There's no independent research anywhere on the entire planet that shows this stuff solves Prime. Not a single report. Believe otherwise if you wish. Inadequate safeguards. Do you watch TV? You see the poor lady in Volusia that spent 13 days in jail with no bond because she drove by a flock camera? You listen to Chief Flowers this week? Oh, that was fun. There's nothing wrong with this stuff. Go fix it and move on. And while you're doing that, think about the thing that nobody talks about anymore. Privacy. It's the foundation of the freedoms we have in this country. Okay, I'm an American citizen by choice, not by birth. Okay, I came here not speaking English. This stuff is important. Privacy matters. Four of the first five amendments to the Constitution talk about personal protection. Four of the five. Bill of Rights, go read it. And we don't even talk about the privacy impact this stuff has on us. So you're the last question. Florida is going to do something. The states, the government's going to do something. None of us care. You are the only people that have a voice. Make that voice count for the people that sit in this room and what the citizens want. And privacy is the cornerstone of freedom. Let's think about that as we make the decision, because you guys are the only decision that's going to get made. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, please.

Hello, I'm Hunter Sankar and I live across from the forest that you guys have decided to preserve. And like my dad said, we went door to door petitioning, getting people in support of preserving the forest. And it was very interesting to me speaking with all my neighbors, hearing all their opinions on it. So I just wanna thank you guys for recognizing that all of us as neighbors and Point Beach residents had a strong opinion on preserving it. And then for all of you guys for remaining informed on the issue and then making a decision based on all of our opinions as residents. So thank you guys for governing in the interest of us as the people.

Thank you. Next, please.

Good evening, my name is Barbara Reedy. I wanted to say that I agree with Harry, what Harry said. If there's kinks in this flock thing that the chief knows can be worked out, let's work it out. This is an opportunity for us. I mean, hindsight is 2020. We all know that. There are moments in our lives where you have an opportunity to do something right so that we don't have to look back 10 years from now in this mad dash to the surveillance state that we're on our way to doing. where you can tweak, if you can tweak it to make the chief happy, then do that. Because seriously, this needs to be fixed. We still live in America and we still have rights to privacy. The other thing that I wanted to add is, The Historical Society has produced a book. Some of you may be aware. We're very excited about our book. We have compiled stories from different people that submitted their stories, and it's a fun read. It's available on Amazon.com. The name of the book is We Remember Boynton Beach. The launch of our book is going to take place on September 26 in the community room. The library is sponsoring us. So if you're not doing anything on September 26 at 1 o'clock, come on over and have a cookie and a cup of coffee and take a look at our new book. We're also considering doing volume two. So if we missed gathering your story of growing up in Boynton Beach or how you remember Boynton used to be, we're looking at creating volume two and you're not too late. So we're still collecting stories at Boynton Historical Society at Gmail. Thank you. Next please.

Again, Susan Geary, Gulfview Harbor, Boynton Beach. I just want to thank you again for listening to everybody, and all of you gave it very strong consideration, pros and cons. I want to make sure that you, the mayor, the rest of the commission, the city manager, everyone concerned here understands that we never, ever were against the training facility. We believe that our police force have done well by us. We like our police force. We want them to have the best tools, the best advantage, and we do want them to have this training facility. There's no question about it. We appreciate the fact that you will look at other locations. We hope that we can help you find that location, and we want to make sure that you know we support them. This is important to them. It's important to our city. It's important to the rest of the state and the people around us because they too will have an advantage by what our people learn.

So we're with you.

You were with us. You helped us. We are here to help you as well. And we will stand by that. Our community has three and four generations of families that live in it. This is why that keep it green was important because people move away, go to school, come back, start their businesses, pay the taxes, the water rates, whatever comes up in Boynton because they like it here. We want to keep it that way, and we really appreciate everything you have done to help us preserve what this city has. Thank all of you. Thank you. Very much.

Thank you. Anyone online?

Mayor, there is nobody online for public comment.

Thank you, everyone. Public comment is now closed. We are now moving on to administrative item 5A, community support funds. We have Commissioner Cruz's support fund request for Young and Faith 500, Boynton Beach High School Cheerleaders 250, and Boynton Beach Bulldog Cheerleaders 250. Next, we have Vice Mayor Turkin's community support fund request for Boynton Beach Purple Cobras for 1,000 and East Boynton Beach Little League for 1,000. Next, we have Commissioner Kelly's support fund request for Friends of the Library, $75. May we have a motion to approve the community support funds? Second. We have a motion. We have a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Motion passes. Moving on to Item 5B, Advisory Boards. The first nomination is for me to appoint a regular member to the Library Board. This was tabled on June 2, 2026.

Motion to remove from the table. Second.

We have a motion to remove from the table. We have a second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. And I would like to nominate Christine Roberts.

Second. Second.

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

Aye.

All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. The next is for Commissioner Cruz. It's to appoint the regular member to the Historic Resources Preservation Board. This was tabled.

It's also a library. I'll go ahead and appoint Brittany Patterson.

Can we have a motion to remove it from the table first?

Motion to remove from the table. Second.

We have a motion to remove it from the table. We have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Okay, now it's untabled. Go ahead.

Motion to appoint Brittany Patterson to the Historic Resources Preservation Board.

Second. We have a motion and we have a second for Brittany Patterson. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Moving on, a motion passes. Next one is for the Recreation and Parks Board. This nomination also goes to Commissioner Cruz. Would you like to make a motion?

I'll go ahead and nominate Allen Jones.

I believe that item was also tabled.

Motion to remove from the table.

Second.

Okay, we have a motion to remove from the table, and we have a second. Now you may go with your motion.

Motion to appoint Ellen Jones to the Recreation and Parks Board.

Do we have a second?

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Don't we need to finish the motion to remove from the table?

Correct. And just to clarify, the Parks and Recreation Board was tabled at September 8th. That's why it had to be removed from the table. Didn't we?

We need to finish the motion of removing from the table.

Correct. We need to vote on it. There was a second.

All those in favor of removing it from the table, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Motion passes. Okay. Now this nomination goes to you, Commissioner Cruz.

I'll go ahead and nominate Ellen Jones to the Recreation and Parks Board.

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

Aye.

All those opposed, say nay. Motion passes. Chair. Yes.

I'm confused. Maybe you're just as confused. There's multiple applicants and positions available. Yeah, historic resource. Right. There's another regular. And also the library board, there's another applicant and there's other positions open. So we skipped over. We just did the ones that were tabled and not the other ones.

Yeah, we did the table. Next we have the senior advisory board.

We can come back.

Okay, so that was the historic. Now we're moving on to parks and recs. We didn't? All right, okay, hold on. Now we're moving on to the Senior Advisory Board. Next, we have one applicant for the Senior Advisory Board. This was tabled by Commissioner Cruz. Would you like to remove it from the table?

I'll go ahead and remove it from the table.

We have a motion to remove from the table. We have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes.

I'll go ahead and nominate Benoit Joseph Mala to the Senior Advisory Board.

We have a motion. We have a second for the Senior Advisory Board. All those in favor say aye. Aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say nay.

Now going back, it looks like some were skipped. So if we, can you, Commissioner Kelly, if you could just advise what two boards were skipped?

There's another applicant on historic resources and also library. Okay.

So who has the nomination for historic resources?

Historic resources. I have my script. Great.

All right.

And I nominate Letta Rees-Abner.

We have a motion and we have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes.

And with regard to the library, it looks like it's Commissioner Cruz's next appointment if she so chooses.

The next name, Cruz was already appointed, so the name that's left there, it's Pamela . I can nominate her to join the advisory board, library advisory board.

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

Aye.

All those opposed say nay. Nay. Motion passes three to two. Okay.

Sorry, those were not in my list.

Oh, I just, I was confused why we were skipping over, but it's fine.

Because you were looking here and I'm looking here, so I appreciate it. Oh, yeah, I always look, yeah, I look at the computer. Yeah, I was looking at my paper, so we're now be moving on to consent. If my colleagues would like to pull any items from consent, let's begin on my left.

Yes, I'd like to pull item B.

Okay. And F. B and F. Okay. Commissioner Kelly? No, thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor Turkin? No, thank you. And Commissioner Cruz?

No, thank you. Motion to approve the remainder of consent.

We have a motion to approve the remainder of consent. Do we have a second? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. And we are pulling B and F. Yes.

The reason I pulled B is I need to know what is the balance for those write-offs. What is the total?

I'm Lawson, CFO, City of Boynton Beach. Real quick, I just want to preface a couple things while we're doing the write-off. So when I started here 18 months ago, my first thing was to get the cash management in order. From there, it was to get the audit done. And then through the ERP process, which we're going through right now, we have taken a different approach as we're looking to clean up the balance sheet. Going forward. We have a process in place that going forward We'll be looking at this on a quarterly basis as opposed to doing it on an annualized basis so these particular items are part of the Florida statute title 895 11 which allows us to write down receivables that are over four years old. Just to be clear, with this particular item, this does not affect the budget, it does not affect revenue, and it does not affect expenses. Because we operate as cash, we do not do accrual accounting for revenue when we book revenue. It's strictly cash basis. So going through that, we're looking at writing off about $1.5 million for this year. which is based upon October 1st, 2022, backwards. When we did the cleanup, when I charged the DLC to take a look at this balance, there are things that are dated back to 2008, 2016, things that are almost 20 years old, and we're going into this new ERP environment with a new general account ledger cleaner.

Alan, thank you. I don't know who dropped the ball before, but every year we would do write-offs. I don't know why we had to wait so long to do write-offs this time. Every year.

We have a specific control in place now, and we will be doing this at a quarterly basis so that you will see these little bits and pieces coming forward, not these big nuggets that seem to appear on an annualized basis. And we look at every single account. We do not miss them now.

I hope we can go back to doing the little bits and pieces because when I see 1.5 million at the end, it's something hard to swallow.

I do not disagree.

Motion to approve.

Second. We have a motion to approve and a second, R26165. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Moving on to item F. Thank you.

I pulled this because it says the Boynton Beach City Library long-range plan, but I'm looking at a long-range plan for five years. 26 to 2031. Tell me what's in that plan.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, City of Administration. My name is Christina Graves, Senior Librarian. The long-range plan is our library's five-year roadmap for fiscal years 2026 through 2031. Most importantly, it's a requirement for our annual state aid to libraries grant application. It outlines our goals and priorities in various sections and provides a framework for measuring our progress and success. Every year we do evaluate and make changes as needed. Any questions?

So yes, the question is, I know you said you have to do it every year. Have we done it for this year?

This is what, so this year it expired and we had to redo it for 26 to 27. 31. Okay.

So when we approve it this time, you're not going to let it expire. This is what I'm trying to get at, you know, because if it expired, you know, because this is a long range plan. Do you all get anything in returns for doing this long range plan money or anything like that?

It's our state aid application. So every year we do get, um, state aid, um, uh, awarded to us every year. Yes.

Well, you know, I'm, I'm voting in favor of this. And the reason I brought it up is that I don't like to lose money when I see money that we could have.

Thank you, sir.

Motion to approve.

Second.

We have a motion to approve and we have a second for R26-170. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. And then we were adding aye to this. We already approved it, so we're good. We already did it. We will now be moving on to consent bids and purchases. If my colleagues would like to pull any items, let's begin on my left.

Yes, I'd like to pull item C. Okay.

Commissioner Kelly?

No, I'm good, thank you, baby.

Vice Mayor Turkin? Nothing, thank you. And Commissioner.

Motion to approve the remaining. Second.

We have a motion to approve, and we have a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Motion passes, and item C. Thank you.

The reason I pulled this was when we was talking about equipment, you know, and buying trucks, et cetera, and all that stuff, and I said, is there any that we can get out like the lease? My question is, Why are we increasing like $50,000? How long was this? Was it for a year? And when is the year end? Because we're getting ready to go to a new budget. And I'm like saying, you know, I'm seeing $50,000 added now and we get ready to go to a new budget October the 1st. What's going on?

Okay. The reason for this increase is that our spend right now on the $100,000 is just under $97,000. And this company.

I don't think they can hear you because I can hardly. Can you hear me now? I can hear you.

Okay. Right now our current spend is $97,000 on this $100,000 item. And we will exceed that before the end of this month with this company. You will exceed it? We'll exceed the $100,000. Yes, sir, we'll do that. This company is a sole source that comes out to our site to fix our Cummins engines. They warranty. We have 25 fire apparatus that they work on, and they're the only company that comes out to our site. Otherwise, if they broke down, we have to tow them. So the money is advantageous for us to do this through the sole source vendor.

Okay, follow me.

Okay.

How much you already spent? You said $97,000.

Just under $97,000.

And then you said that we're going to be spinning up the 50,000 that you're all requesting.

No, we're going to, no, I, we put the 50,000 in there because we want to exceed the 100,000. Okay. So we're probably, we're, we're making sure we have a buffer. That's what it is. Buffer. Yep.

Oh, okay. That's good. Follow me. The budget. Did you all put in enough this year? Next for next year's budget. Did you all, so you have to come back before. So I don't mind doing it, but you know, that's why we do budgets. I know some things we can't see and some things, you know, but I don't like to see people coming back saying we need additional. I don't mind minuses.

Next year is still budget for $100,000.

Okay, so we got $100,000, so you might be before us again.

We might be, but not if we don't have to be.

Okay, thank you. Motion to approve. All right. I did a motion to approve.

Second. We have a motion to approve. We have a second, R26-176. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Okay, moving on to public hearing. I'll turn to the clerk to read item 8A into the record, please.

Post-Resolution Ordinance Number 26027, First Reading and Ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Boynton Beach, Florida, Amending Part Three, Land Development Regulations, Chapter One, General Administration, Article Two, Definitions to Add a Definition for Charitable Institutions, AMENDING CHAPTER 2 LAND DEVELOPMENT PROCESS ARTICLE 2 PLANNING AND ZONING DIVISION SERVICES SECTION 4 RELIEF APPLICATIONS TO ADD A WAIVER FOR ART AND PUBLIC PLACES PROGRAM FOR CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS AND AMENDING CHAPTER 4 SITE DEVELOPMENT STANDARDS ARTICLE 14 ART AND PUBLIC PLACES AND PUBLIC BEAUTIFICATION SECTION 2 ART AND PUBLIC PLACES PROGRAM TO PROVIDE 40% REDUCTION OF THE REQUIRED PUBLIC ART BUDGET FOR QUALIFYING CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS PROVIDING FOR CODIFICATION PROVIDING and providing for conflicts and an effective date. You're up, Gabe.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Gabe Savini, Interim Director of Planning and Zoning. So what you do have in front of you is for the charitable institution waiver for the art and public places. A little bit of background and just a reminder that every project that is over $500,000, unless they meet one of the exemptions, is required to pay up to 1% of their total overall cost. And to that account, they can't choose to do a fee and waiver of the program. That's a 30% administrative fee at front, plus the remainder 60 at the end. So the planning department was tasked with looking into a possible fee waiver for nonprofits. So what this is doing is it outlines that process for the code to be able to do, as well as the actual application. Again, Chapter 2 was modified. That's our application processes. Chapter 4, and we also added a definition for charitable institutions, is the route that we ended up going to. We also identified four criteria for someone to be eligible when a product is brought to City Commission. And a reminder that City Commission does have final approval on it.

My question is... I understand what we're doing, but right now, you know, Mrs. Oria's always before us talking about we've lost art. I'm just saying, who's responsible for keeping up with the art for this city? If I ask somebody for a list, say, do you have a list to show me where all the art is?

We do have catalogs. Right now, this is talking about the Public Art Master Plan. There's also different programs for kinetic art, things like that, but we do have an ongoing list and a catalog of what the art is. Yes, sir.

Right there. You got a list, okay? The ones that she's been talking about, are they on your list? This is what I'm trying to get. I know what I'm voting on now, but I'm trying to get to the heads of tails. So every meeting, I don't want to say we're missing some art. Art is valuable.

Some of the art that was brought up tonight, I haven't had a chance to review what those are. I haven't seen that request. We have reviewed some of the other ones, and we've provided comments and responses to those.

Requesting a report for all of us sitting up here. You know, I am. I don't have any questions. A motion to approve this. R-26027.

Second. We have to have a public hearing on first reading.

Would anyone like to come up and comment? Please come down now.

Thank you.

Susan Oyer, Boynton Beach. Thank you, Commissioner McCray, for noticing that I've come up for every meeting for a month now and talked about this. I'm wondering why we're making an exception for charitable institutions. I thought we were moving away from encouraging religious and charitable institutions coming into the city because they don't provide a proper tax base. So does this mean we're having one coming in and we're anticipating one or more charitable institutions coming in? Or are you just doing this to clean up language? Because normally you guys have been working away from this just because, for example, they're not paying taxes and that hinders our city, especially considering what might happen in November. So I don't think we should be, unless this is just cleaning up language, it doesn't seem like we should be encouraging this. This would encourage more charities and groups like that to come in that would not be paying the appropriate tax base. So I don't think we should be encouraging that, especially with what possibly is going to happen in November. I think we should be looking to get in all the money we can, and I don't think we should be doing this. So I'm going to suggest you vote against it. And thank you again, Commissioner McCray, who's one of my commissioners, for taking charge on art. And they have not reported to me, by the way.

Mary Woodworth, Boynton Beach. I won't yell.

Thank you, Commissioner McCray. Bring that up.

She's gotten up here for months. How hard could it be to make a list of the stuff she's asking about and respond to it? I mean, either you got it or you don't. You know what you did with it, you don't. Just make the list and tell her. I mean, how many more months does she have to get up here and say that? Thanks.

Do we have a motion?

I don't have a motion, but I do have a comment since Mrs. Hoya got up and said about religious, all religious institutions are not charitable. I'm just saying, and sometimes you have charitable organizations, they come in with some super duper art, and I'm just saying, I'm just one of those, I'm still in favor.

Do we have a second? Second. Roll call. Roll call.

Yes. Commissioner McCrae?

Yes.

Commissioner Cruz?

She had to go home sick.

Vice Mayor Turkin?

He had to step out for a call.

Shelton?

No.

I'm sorry, lost count.

It fails on first reading.

Okay, thank you.

Moving on to 10A. Discussion on the formation of task force for updates to the land development regulation. Vice Mayor Turkin, this was your request.

All righty. Why don't we go ahead and move to the second reading of B?

I will turn to the clerk to read item 10B into the record.

Proposed ordinance number.

Dropping like flies up here.

26025 second reading an ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Boynton Beach, Florida amending part 3 land development regulations chapter 4 article 10 flood prevention requirements section 1 general and section 5 specific requirements by type of improvement or development of the city code of ordinance to ensure compliance with the state statute fighting for codification providing for spare ability providing for conflicts and providing for an effective date This is a second reading has anything been changed?

Good evening. Mayor and commissioners, there are no changes.

Are there any comments from the commission?

Motion to approve.

Second. We have a motion to approve and we have a second on ordinance number 26-025. Let's turn to the clerk for a roll call.

Commissioner Kelly? Yes. Commissioner McCray?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Turkin? Yes.

10B.

Yes.

Mayor Shelton? Yes. Roll call vote. The vote passes 4-0.

You want to go back to? 10A. 10A.

Yes, task force.

Moving on to 10A, discussion of the formation of the task force.

Yeah, no, I know. We've had a discussion before. And once again, like there, I'm assuming there's nothing brought back, you know, there's, and I mentioned, and I put, and I didn't say, let's look at other cities. Let's also identify like what that task force looks like, you know, whether it's business leaders, that was something that said local contractors, residents as well. So, you know,

I just, this was on future agenda items for a long time.

I don't, I don't believe we had, um, to get it on the future agenda item. I, we had that discussion before. Um, so I, like, I guess I'll repeat what I'm looking for again, and maybe I'll add in the, uh, the directive in there. So there's no confusion. Um, so again, looking for support for a task force to look at our complete LDRs and building codes, right? A lot of times I'll listen to contractors, smaller contractors, and they get jammed up with getting their, you know, final inspection or CO because there's piece of sods not there, right? Or there's a certain vegetation that needs to be there. you know, that, you know, necessarily doesn't, you know, have a real rhyme and reason besides preference. And so what I'm looking for is to create a task force or, you know, at least a conversation where we can have residents, we can have contractors, developers as well, um, sit at a table, you know, sit down and, and I know that this is done probably a lot informally, right. But I think to have a formal process to identify, and I think staff, um, has a lot of input to this as well. Um, as what are, what are the things that, that hem up staff? What are the things that hem up the community? Right. Um, cause I can, I can go on and on about, you know, like, like you shouldn't fail an inspection because there's a piece of sod missing, you know, like little interesting things like that. And, again, that's on this body because ultimately we're the ones that manage the code, manage the LDRs. You guys, as staff, have that playbook. You guys just hold that playbook accountable, right? You guys have the instruction manual. It's your job to deliver on that instruction manual. It's our job to rewrite that. So I'm just looking at like forming a formal task force or maybe it's quarterly meetings between individuals. And I say that because I don't wanna necessarily create another board. And that's why I mentioned task force because I know the resources and time and money that goes into having those board meetings. And I think this is something that could be a little bit less Formal and more on, you know, quarterly basis, you know, or whatever that looks like to have those conversations, have those people, you know, in the same room. Maybe it's a Zoom call. I'm not sure. But looking at, like, getting feedback on what to change to make construction especially easier for, like, smaller remodels, you know, new home builds, things like that. That's exactly what I'm looking for. I guess that's the end game, right? And you can't do it all, Adam. Amanda can't. I can't. The mayor can't. Commissioner McCrae can't. Amy Kelly. Commissioner McKellie. You know, like, that's... There's a lot of people that, you know, have this experience and, you know, I'm sure would want to volunteer and give feedback. And then, you know... identify all right hey here's what we don't need here's what we run into the most um and you know here's here's maybe something we should do right that other cities do so that's ultimately what i'm what i'm looking for um and i mentioned those stakeholders before so yes you're correct some of these things were were mentioned when we were adding it to to future agenda item the reason why we're here to discuss it tonight because there's there's some more information that we need if the if the body

and the board wants to create an official task force. Do we want it to have a limited scope? Are there particular chapters in the land development regulations that we would like this task force to concentrate on? Because your land development regulations are extensive. How long do you want the task force to be operating for, 12 months, six months? So there's some parameters and information that we need in order to form this task force and carry out what it is you guys would like us to do. you know, separately, you know, when we talk about, um, building codes and construction, um, you know, I just want to reiterate, I know I've said it before, uh, we enforce the Florida building code. So there's nothing that a task force would be able to recommend as far as the technical requirements of construction. Uh, so that task force, you know, would, would not be able to opine on those. So what would be the ultimate outcome from this task force? Do we want a final report delivered to the city commission? when they're completed. So, so those are the things that we're kind of looking for so that we can bring back a resolution to form this actual task force.

Yeah. And I think, I think this goes back to the discussion about the Gulfview Harbor is like, Can we have like a deck or a one pager or a slide with those questions? That way we're visually looking at it. You know, we know what those questions are. We can have the dialogue because I think, you know, and again, do doing that research ahead of time. So I'll say if I bring up a discussion item, let it be known as a disclaimer for every discussion item that I bring up. We'll ask for research before that discussion and looking at those things. So that way we can have the discussion with some research, if that makes sense. And that's not just for this item. I'm just saying it would have been a lot easier earlier had we had, you know, like a deck or, again, like a one-pager slide, something, you know, here's what we found, you know, here's a couple options, here's what some other cities do. And that way, you know, we have something to build off of is kind of what I'm asking for. And that's on me for not being clear.

We can do that. I could have done that as well. I didn't want to assume all the different things that you guys may have been looking for. I'm not sure which pain points I personally know of several that I would address. So I don't know where we want to go from here. If you want us to come back and bring some of these questions, do we want the composition to be made up of staff, developers, stakeholders, how long, those types of things that I mentioned earlier. I can bring that back at the next meeting if you'd like, and we can talk through it.

Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, the more minds at the table, the better. Obviously, you don't want too many opinions. But, you know, having, you know, identifying stakeholders from the big business, right, development community, then you have, you know, maybe smaller contractors and um, you know, home builders, right. And obviously staff, um, landscape architects, you know, things, things, things like that, that can look at the cities. Um, code, as you mentioned, not, you know, we can't do anything about the state.

I'll be better. I'll be better prepared. Uh, next time I have been involved in a number of task force related to similar topics. We know there's a couple of pinpoints. So I'll bring some of these questions and things that we need. I know, you know, typically you wouldn't want, anybody that's currently doing business or actively developing to be on a task force should be some conflict issues. So we'll talk through that. I'll be better prepared next meeting.

Is there a consensus? I just didn't make sure. Okay. Thank you.

Moving on, we'll turn to the clerk to read item 10C into the record, please.

OPPOSED ORDINANCE NUMBER 26026 SECOND READING AND ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF BOYTON BEACH FLORIDA APPROVING THE ABANDONMENT OF A PORTION OF A 20 FOOT ALLEY WITHIN BLOCK 5 LINE BETWEEN LOT 22 AND LOTS 23 TO 25 INCLUSIVE LAKE ADDITION TO BOYTON BEACH AUTHORIZING CITY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A DISCLAIMER WHICH SHALL BE RECORDED WITH THIS ORDINANCE IN THE PUBLIC RECORDS OF PALM BEACH COUNTY FLORIDA PROVIDING FOR EFFECTIVE DATE AND FOR ALL OTHER PURPOSES.

This is the second reading. Have there been any changes?

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. Yes, on both of planning and zoning, no, there is no changes. Motion to approve.

We have a motion to approve, and we have a second ordinance, number 26-026. All those, oh, let's turn for the roll call.

Commissioner Kelly? Yes. Commissioner McCray? Yes. Vice Mayor Turkin? Yes. Mayor Shelton? Yes. A roll call vote. The motion passes unanimously.

Moving on to item 10D, proposed resolution number R26-173, authorizing the city manager to send a notice of non-renewal of the Flock OS Elite and Flock Safety Program Order to the Flock Group, Inc.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Chief DiGiulio. The item before you is a non-renewal of our flock operating system, aka OS. When we're going through the budget process and identifying our software, we're looking at some redundancies and what some of our platforms are doing that others do. And the Flock OS initially was designed to be a, we call a one-screen dashboard to the entire RTCC, where if you wanted cameras, you click on it. If you wanted the LPRs, you click on it. Radios, body cams, patrol cars. We realized through... some trial and error through the RTCC that our RTCC analysts and our detectives just found it easier, more convenient to operate through the native software programs like Command Central Aware and Axon instead of utilizing the Flock OS dashboard. So as we came to the renewal, we decided not to move forward with any future years.

Go ahead. Thank you. So just for clarification, this is just for the operating software. Not the actual cameras.

That's correct, sir.

All right. That's all I got for now. I do have a comment about the flock cameras on the agenda. I would like to see that come sooner, if that's something you guys are prepared for. Absolutely.

Can we put it on the next meeting? No, we talked about having that discussion tonight at the agenda review.

Okay, I wasn't on that.

But I thought you needed more time for the full presentation. I can speak on it.

I don't have a presentation. The presentation I can provide at the next commission, but I'm certainly open for Q&A, and I'm prepared to talk about some changes in policies.

I believe you also want a legal review of what their policies are, and obviously the chief and I will have to have time. I just want to mention with the next meeting, Dan and I both have our yearly reviews as well. Won't take that long. I believe neither of us are asking for a raise, so if you wanna just skip it, we're fine with that too, but I just don't want the agenda to get incredibly large. So just keep that in mind.

I mean, I would like to see the presentation on sooner than later. Yes. I mean, there needs to be some changes to this, obviously, and I have to say I get as many emails and phone calls in support of this as I do against it, but we all know that there's the issue of the data and Privacy and I think that it is only fair to give you a shot. I just don't think waiting Until the end of October.

I think we talked about that was a big problem So if we can make sure that is on the next meeting we are you okay then with bumping our reviews then to the second meeting in October?

Yeah, I'm fine with that. But this this has to be taken care of is there a consensus for that?

Okay

Can we just, Chief, I know we have had.

The reviews to what?

The reviews to the second meeting, not the first, so we can have him present.

The second meeting in October? October. Okay, yeah, I'm okay, yeah. Yep, and have the presentation on the sixth? Sixth?

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Let's put it up on the agenda, like not at the end of the night so that we're all thinking clearly.

I like it when it's at the end.

I'm sure.

I like to be the closer.

Okay.

Really quick.

Do you want to do, well, Chief, since you're up here, I know we've had a lot of discussions. I know that you've implemented some policy. I just wanted you to briefly just kind of go over some of the things that have been discussed and that you've done based on some of the conversations at the previous meeting. in particular around data and I know there'll be a presentation on next steps and what options are and what's out there and what your feelings are. I feel like, I mean it was said by somebody from the public, but I feel like we were kind of led to believe one way and I think doing a little bit of research and looking into it, it's a different, we're in a different environment than what we were told. And so it is not, and I feel like you're in the same boat. You were fed the same information. It's been said numerous times tonight that this commission, this board and staff, we only can go by what we're being told. And so I think that I am, you know, there's some uncomfortableness about the system and so, but I know that you have put some safety measures in place and I wanted you to just briefly kind of go over them for the commission and for the public because I think it's important to know that we are taking steps, being proactive about it, so really quick.

Yeah, absolutely. So like I mentioned last commission meeting, is that the police department has access to very sensitive databases to begin with. And at the end of the day, it just comes down to we have to be able to have policies and controls in place that safeguard that data. Because at the end of the day, we're always gonna have access to data. Evidence.com, which is our body cam repository, has tremendous amount of sensitive data. So going forward with the FLOC or ALPR, I think that we're just better off mentioning it from that way, because it really deals with any ALPR that we currently use. We had original 30-day data retention period, which I know was one of the items that some of the community members definitely felt uncomfortable with. So we actually implemented it yesterday. We're going down to a seven-day data retention window. We're also implementing three mandatory fields on any search that really narrows down the scope of the search. So it'd have to be for something with a case number, obviously for law enforcement investigative purposes, the crime that's associated with it as well. Those are mandatory fields. Without any of that information, you cannot do any searches. And those are things that have been implemented already. Going forward, we do recognize that the sharing with outside agency has also come under scrutiny. So we're looking at reducing that. At this point, we're having these conversations with command and trying to really establish the best policies and look at some of the industry standards. But we can definitely say that we're going to restrict the sharing component as well. Additionally, we're looking at fine tuning our user roles and having a tiered approach on who can actually access the search function versus just receiving alerts and also from the administrative capacities. And we're also looking at narrowing down the specific crimes that we can be looking for as well. So those are the things that we're going to be working with at the PD that I'll be able to share with you all on October 6th, a finalized policy. But right now, what we put in place is the seven-day data retention and the three mandatory fields for searches.

Great. On the sharing, one thing that I would like an answer to when you do the presentation is is if anyone that we share to, if we can restrict or prohibit them from sharing. So because what happens is once we share that data with another agency and they have open sharing, then our data is now being shared across the web to whoever. And so I want to know if that is possible when when we do share, let's say we just shared in the Tri-County area or whatever we were, I know you and I have spoken about that, but then not allowing whoever we shared it with to be able to share it again and that without some sort of authorization or some, if there has to be a criteria. So I would like that answer. on October 6th when we recirculate that. That's something as important as that data and sharing it and knowing where it's going and if we can restrict that.

Absolutely. We're actually in the process of getting the answers from that as well. So we'll definitely have an answer to you by October 6th. Just want to put this out there that if an agency that we're sharing with is conducting a criminal investigation, nothing says that they can't download it and enter it into their evidence management system for future use. And it will follow the retention period of whatever the crime specifically they're investigating.

And will you be also providing any information on an alternate company that may Be more transparent and clear and protective than FLOC was initially?

Absolutely.

Okay, thank you.

Mayor, excuse me. Are we going back to proposed resolution R26173? Are we going to do that tonight? Are we going to do that after y'all do y'all presentation?

Tonight.

Tonight, okay. So I'm good. So let me ask you the question. You're good. You're telling us that you don't want us to approve this. You want us to approve it because you want the city manager to...

Yes, sir. For this program, yeah.

For the flock OS to be very specific.

There's no other comments. Do we have a motion? Motion to approve.

Second.

We have a motion and we have a second. All those in favor of R26-173 say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. One more thing I'd like to add quickly on the future agenda items is I don't know where we are with the Airbnb project. Situations the complaints regulations noise ordinance and stuff, so I don't know if staff's been working on that But if we can just add that somewhere we can talk about it offline, but I don't want to forget about it Yes, ma'am, and if there's no final comments for tonight. Do we have a motion to adjourn? Second we have a motion to adjourn we have a second all those in favor say aye aye Good night names meeting closes at 8 45 p.m