City Commission - Regular Meeting

my dad's. Hey, watch. I uh Yeah, I think we're ready. Okay, I'm setting it up. Just bear in mind there's a little delay. Okay, just because there's a delay in the Okay, it is 6:04 and we are live. Thank you very much and good evening everyone and welcome to the city of Lakew Worth Beach regular city commission meeting of Tuesday March 31st 2026. May I have the roll call please? Mayor Betty Rash here. Vice Mayor Sarah Maliga present. Commissioner Christopher McVoy here. Commissioner Mimi May present.

Commissioner Anthony Segri present.

Thank you very much. I will lead the invocation and Sarah Mlega will lead the pledge. And all I really want to say is those of us who are up here, let us be guided by the love of this wonderful city, the best interest of this wonderful city and everybody that lives here to put whatever feelings, personal feelings we have aside and again work just towards the betterment of this city which we love so much. Thank you. to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Are there any additions, deletions, or reordering? I do not have anything, Madame Mayor.

Anybody from the DAS? All right, then let's just go. Let's just go. Okay. First up is our water utility update by our own van Baker, director of water utilities. Hello, Von Baker, water utilities. Um, I know that everybody's anxious for an update on the subregional force main study which is affecting those odors on South Lakeside and Palmway. Um unfortunately our consultant had a death in the family and um I believe was you out of town for a while but has promised that we will have that proposal this week. So we are very much looking forward to executing that task order and going ahead and getting started. Um some good news that we have is our water utility engineer Ribb Chowdery is now a certified engineer intern which is the first step on the way to professional engineer lensure. Um, and Christopher Bedford, who was previously a B-level water treatment operator, is now an A-level water treatment operator. So, we are really taking advantage of um, you know, education and our staff seems really uh, motivated to to continue achieving more and more. Um, they're doing a great job. Um, some more good news in our lawsuit for the Forceman Break against AT&T. um and the other parties, but specifically AT&T, had filed a motion to dismiss and they were turned down.

All right. Not kidding. But yeah,

so now we're continuing to move forward. Um I think that there we're hoping that it can be done in mediation. So hopefully some of those steps will start coming up soon, but that was the first step that needed to get through. um our water mane replacements in the downtown area. So we are fully complete with the water man replacements that were between I believe C and F Street in the alley between Lake and Lucern. So that's really good news. We were able to upsize from 4 in to 6 in. Um it's gotten our fire flow much higher. We've already done hydrant testing and um you know obviously it was it was really old cast iron so we're always happy to have opportunities to do stuff like that. And the alley behind 2J's I know that I've discussed the pipe bursting project that is now underway. Um they haven't started the actual bursting yet but we're we're making our way and that's a pretty quick timeline. They expect to be done within six weeks so we're looking forward to that as well. Um, and the last thing I wanted to mention is the awards that we got from the fiscal year 26 state legislative requests. We now have two executed agreements out of three awards. Um, we just have to go back and forth a couple times. It is through the D with them to initiate these agreements. Um, but most importantly is the dual zone monitoring well, which we finally received this week.

Jamie signed it. So, we should be all set to put that out to bid. We really are excited to get that going. It's that money that was $750,000. Yes, that was last year's. Yes. It's it's I think between my maternity leave and then just kind of the back and forth that it takes to get these agreements executed, but we are finally moving on that and we're very excited to start using some of that money. Great. Anything else? That's all I had for you guys today. Light on. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, really quick, can you touch upon any progress with the um, illegal grease trap and smell in the downtown?

On that, it was just the letter that FDOT sent to the business saying that they had an illegal connection, that they needed to eliminate it within 30 days, and that it had been previously plugged, somebody had removed the plug, um, and that it was going to be plugged again. Okay. And when is that 30 days up for them or is it already up? That I'm not sure about. We're coming up on it. Yeah, it should be about soon because you know it was right after our meeting last month that we discussed it. So I would assume next week.

And has our city code been involved at all in in that? the only code that we would be able to enforce there because it's well it's not our storm sewer but um we do have a mention in our code of illicit storm water discharge as just an overarching uh code violation. So the FDOT has asked us to enforce that if they don't comply within the 30 days. Okay. So at the end of the 30 days, it was the business that it was it wasn't the city. It was the business that the city really has no

um we're kind of just mediating. Yes. Uh we we seem to have taken on like a middleman role in this. Um but yes, it's the FDOT, the business owner, and then we are there to I guess you know try the code violation if nothing is happening. Okay. and and complying. That could be as easily as a temporary grease trap for them to use. Is that allowable? There really hasn't been any mention of a grease trap as part of this. They connected their kitchen drain to the storm sewer.

So, it's they should have a grease trap, but we're we're not even certain if that's, you know, a part of what's going on here. So, if they do have a grease trap, it's very likely that that is not attached to this illicit discharge and doesn't really have any bearing on the situation. Thank you. You're welcome,

Mr. McCoy. Um, two things. one uh with the business and the odors. Thank you for working with me as the middle burden and um I am aware that the restaurant or the business does not believe that they have any issues with their grease trap. I this is the first I've heard of a regular sanitary sewer kitchen sink drain connection to it. I've never heard of that before. So, I I don't know whether they have an opinion about that, but um I would just caution us all that maybe the problem is with that business, but maybe it's not. I don't know. Um hopefully we get to the bottom of wherever the source is.

We're um we are to the bottom of it. I just don't really feel comfortable speaking on that in public meeting. That's good. That's fine. Um, the other one is, uh, just so the public is aware that the city is not spending tax dollar monies busting our pipes. Can you explain a little bit more of I know what it is, but of pipe bursting because it sounds a little scary to the average person.

Um, sure. It's it's essentially replacing a pipe exactly where it was before by quite literally what it sounds like. essentially driving a bit that has flexible tube piping attached behind it through the old pipe, which because it's cast iron, bursts. So when you drag this bit through, you're essentially pulling the new pipe directly through the path of the old pipe while that just kind of separates into the soil and is abandoned. So cool. It is cool. Yeah,

it stays there. And yeah, um it's it's a better, I guess, method than traditional pipe abandonment and replacement, which would require trenching and then filling the old pipe with concrete grout. So, this is, you know, the best use of space, especially in a congested alley like we have behind 2J. There's so many utilities back there. We really don't want to mess with opening up the ground and finding out surprises. So, I see Mr. Brown's light is on. Thank you. Oh, well, you got nothing to say to me. I didn't want to do um No, just uh on that last topic, the actual DOT letter was March 4th. That was the date of the letter.

Um so, we'll find in about a week here. We'll get back with DOT, the NPDS manager down there, which is the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. Um and see if they complied or not, and we'll see what the next steps are. So, was that I was just going to ask if they could update us on the South Palm Park and that as soon as it becomes available. Yeah, of course. I know that that's a priority. Yep. Okay. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you. Thanks for the good work and congratulate those staff members for moving up. I definitely will. Thank you. Next up, we have the um electric utility update from M, our own Mr. Mr. Ed Liberty, the director of the electric utility.

Take it away, Mr. Liberty.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Uh, and commissioners. Um, hope we have a good evening tonight. We'll start with a few people items. Uh, first of all, some great news. Uh if you happen to follow Citizen Owned Energy, uh you'll see on there that one of our uh apprentices from years ago who came to us as a lifeguard, then became an apprentice, then became a lineman, and most recently became a foreman of a lineman group. So I think that's a great career path. uh he's done a wonderful job and uh it shows that we can take somebody from the lifeguard role who's really properly motivated and can climb uh and and go on to become a lineman and uh he's become a great lineman. So much so that he also excelled at the rodeo. Uh recently he placed third on behalf of the city in what they call the mutual aid uh competition. So, uh, we haven't, uh, won anything at the rodeo for many, many years, and glad to see that, uh, he he brought home a tro third place trophy, but it's a trophy and and, uh, and, uh, that's good to have. So, congratulations to Kyle.

Uh, we do have a new team member here tonight, Daniel Montero, who's in the back. If you can stand up, say hello.

Uh, Daniel joins our project management office, what we call the PMO function, and, uh, he'll be assisting Marcel Corman in that department. and he's comes with a construction background in residential and commercial construction which is what we need in that role. Okay, other news um FMEA u we did or they did drop and go ahead with the uh the power what they call the power podcast. I don't know if you got a chance to listen to that or not but it's on the FMEA website. It's also available through the uh citizen energy uh website. That particular episode is an interview with me. If you got about 15 minutes that you don't have anything else to do with, maybe it'll help you get to sleep. You want to hear about the transformation and from my perspective, what what it was like going through that transformation here. I think it's it's helpful. Some of the staff that's listened to it, particularly new staff, find it helpful to understand how we got to where we are today as a team.

And where would we find that? You can find it on a citizen-owned energy uh website. We call it COE, but it's citizenowned energy.com, which is also linkable from the city's utility page. Uh, if you go to episode-2, uh, you'll you'll get to it, but you can also find it under Florida Florida Public Power. So, it's the FMEA website and it's flpublicpower.com and you can go to flpubower.com/mpodcast and you'll find a podcast there and you'll I'm not the only one on there, but I think I'm the second one up there. Did you say 15 minutes or 50 minutes? 50. 5. That's what I thought. Trouble sleeping. That's what I thought. Mr. Liberty. Nothing is brief with me, right? I

was gonna say 15 was cut in short. So, it's available. It's a it's a good piece of history. Uh, the other thing that we had and it was it it was in the desk that I inherited is the history of the electric utility from 1914 I believe to 2014. Wow. And um we're not exactly sure who put this document together. It's possible that it's somebody who's since retired and may have passed away, but that document is on what we call the COE, Citizen Own Energy website. It's a lengthy read, but it's a very good perspective on what it was like going back to the day the lights came on in uh which none of us were here for uh but the pioneers were.

And uh so it's a good piece of history. We're going to work on an update from 2014 to 2026 because we've had obviously some great things happen and we don't want that history to be lost. So, we'll get it while it's contemporary. But the the older document is on that website for everybody to see. That's great.

FMPA solar, we talk about that a lot. The whistling duck site, uh we had the ribbon cutting um a few weeks ago was actually on March 18th up in Willist, Florida. Uh almost near Gainesville. So, it's a four plus hour drive from here. Um it's a great site. I was uh had the opportunity uh I think I was the ranking owner representative there or buyer representative not the owners. So I got to do the the main ribbon cutting and then we just did a few smaller after ceremonies for cutting the ribbon. It's a quite interesting site. It's it's literally um in the middle of pastures. You can't see it from the local county road that goes by. So you have to quickly realize that there's a gate there and drive up the gate and it's got the cobblestones to prevent the cattle from wandering out to the highway. And uh you drive a few hundred yards, a thousand yards up that road, dirt road to get to the site and it's uh hundreds and hundreds of acres of solar panels. It's a tracker, so it's tracking the sun and it's quite interesting. So our stake in that project was uh roughly 20 megawws. So our 20 megawws from Whistling Duck and our uh 13 megawws from Rice Creek uh were all flowing strong that day. It was interesting because it was raining and cloudy here, but it was bright, sunny up there. It was actually in the below 40 I think in the morning. Uh by the time we did the ribbon cutting it was very windy and about 50° so it was quite cold but uh we were making a significant amount of solar energy and sending it to Lake Worth Beach through the transmission system to to have it right here. So that's we're fully up and running operational and things seem to be going well.

Do they have batteries? I mean do they store as well or is it just when the sun is out? just when the sun is out and uh we're talking about a a storage project, battery storage project here. Uh we did receive a grant from the federal from DOE to uh help with a project like that and that's under development and DOE will announce something more definitive on that in the future.

Great. Thank you. FMPA Stanton project that was the coal plant that we became part owners of going back in the 1980s uh is retired when when um we're working through the final terms and conditions of of of the dissolution of the of our role as owners. You've heard me mention this before. The last hurdle, one of the last hurdles was how we were going to account for um the we can say it, you know, the internment costs or the long-term uh cost to u to put it put it away. And there will be long-term cost because for you know 40 plus years it produced coal ash uh that is stored in uh ponds and and uh landfills on the site. So there'll be long-term liability uh that has been reserved for by project funds which were collected over the life of the project and um FMPA and and OU were in a disagreement in trying to hammer out the the settlement to to formally retire the unit and put everything to to rest. So glad to report that as of the last FMPA board meeting uh about 10 days ago, uh the parties have reached what appears to be a a reasonable agreement on how to handle those costs going forward and whether or not they're going to need to be segregated discreet account and how much we'll have to have in reserve. So that's headed in the right direction. I don't have a final number on what our share will be. Um, I don't anticipate that we're going to write a check because it's been overfunded from our point of view for many years and it's collecting interest so it should keep up with what we may need to pay in the future. So, we we're currently not receiving power from it. We've replaced that with solar energy and um and that's going well. So, we expect to be able to resolve those issues um by the end of April. All the documents should be signed, we would think. And then after that, FMPA staff will begin to look at what what a reasonable amount is to hold and reserve and how it's going to be accounted for and sequestered and and and how the

individual participants may or may not be able to get access to those funds. So, more to come on that. Thank you.

Answeret is the company that answers the phones for us when you call customer service. We're very pleased in the time it takes to get the phone answered. were not very pleased with what they do after they get the call. Um, they've been complaining that they're not making enough money on the transaction. We've been pushing back counsel. Uh, Christie is involved with Nette from from our team at customer service and we are seriously considering ending their our relationship with them. Uh, what they've been doing is as these calls for them get more complex, they've been answering the call and then transferring the call to us.

Oh, no. That means that they're earning the fee for having answered the call. But they didn't solve the problem. They're pushing as many as 40, 50, 60, and some days 70 plus calls per day over to us, which is bogging down our staff and creating the need to work overtime to keep up because our staff in-house was not anticipating taking those calls. That's why we hired an I was going to say that's why we did that in the first place. Right. I'm saying this in public because hopefully Anthony will hear that the director is not happy. They know that council's involved and um we we may ask you for an approval to uh switch uh providers.

Let me just ask a random question. For the money that we would spend a third party, wouldn't would there be any sense to going back inhouse, hiring more of our people that are more accountable to us?

That's a very that's a good question. It's not a very easy answer to provide. So, one of the challenges that we have is that imagine that our storms create an awful lot of phone calls. And if if we get in a situation where in a period of storm where we have a lot of phone calls and our own call center doesn't have power, that's a problem. Our storm center, which is non-existent for this purpose, um our offices at 120 North Federal are not in a hurricane rated building. uh and we don't have the the phone systems and this the seating space to have the booths for reps to take calls. So, we'd probably have to hire another 9 to 12 employees. We'd have to have a category 5 rated storm center with hardened uh infrastructure, both power generation and the systems to take those calls and we'd be working seven days a week. So, AnswerNet, the calls do come into that system and they work Saturdays and Sundays. You can get to a live person. So we we would have to create a staff that could do that. Um the other thing that we point out is what we all do when a storm is coming. We say to employees, take a half a day or or so, go get your home ready for the storm, then come back. And when the storm comes on strong, stay home until your department gets the all clear to come back. So if our folks go home, what's our ability to answer all the calls during that period of time? So having a ability to take calls off the platform or off the boat here if you will in some place that hasn't been impacted by the storm is valuable to us. Now should we have more of our own and keep a and have a balance probably. Um but we'll have to do the math on that. Employees uh come with cost of benefits and salary increases and they take vacations and they have holidays and all those things. Whereas with outside call center, we just pay a certain amount of dollar per call. It's six or seven

dollars. So you have to will you look at both options? Yes, we can take a look at both options and see what's the most economic. We also have to take into account, of course, what's the investment we'll need to make in order to have that capability. Now the new utility building which we've proposed to build at the 1900 site right um will have the capability to to do that but that's you know two to three years from you know a ribbon cutting and do the does the third party group that we use currently or that we would use if we hired somebody new um in a category 5 safe building

they're dispersed around the country some of their operations are actually in Pennsylvania so um they and they do business not only for us but also some other utilities in Florida. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. McCoy.

Yeah. Um this question of how we deal with calls has interested me for many years now, decades I guess plus. Um a couple of thoughts. One in thinking about our options. I'm always thoughtful or or thinking about not necessarily thoughtful thinking about how is government perceived by our residents and we know everybody here knows that the electric utility is not Lakeworth city government but once you get out the door and into residence that distinction blurs a lot. So whatever you call that's related to Lakew Worth is city some portion of city government in many minds. And so I'm always interested in how can we improve that relationship and improve the impression that residents have of city government. Um, and how can we serve them better? Of course. Also, and I've always been kind of hesitant about the outsourcing part because obviously somebody sitting in Pennsylvania doesn't know anything about where the joint of a street and something else is other than what they see on a map. They don't know anything. They don't know the history. And uh I think you've heard me occasionally tell stories of that I've heard from foremen and and linemen who at the end of their shift might stop by and talk to one of the residents that you know had a call about something in the past and check in on them if it's an older resident. That kind of interaction is wonderful. That's part of what creates positive feeling about government. Um so I hear you on the hurricane concern. One thought that comes to mind is what we did at the water management district where we had a similar problem. Calls go

up during hurricanes and staff I believe we were volunteers. I don't remember anymore but other staff were asked would you like to train to be in the call center and take calls and many people did and it was it was a good way to interact with people. Um, so that is an option I think or should be considered as an option if you have to deal with a surge time whereas the rest of the year most of the time, knock on wood, we don't have hurricanes. Um, so you don't need that but you could do it as special. The other thing is in terms of technology, I think that the phone technology is out there that you don't have to physically be in some place. You can disperse that and there are ways to deal with that. Um, so I would ask that we consider I'm much more in favor of having it be local employees who know something had developed long-term relations with the community rather than an outsourced call center. That's my two thoughts and a couple of specifics on how to deal with some of the, you know, very valid concerns that you brought it up. Yeah, Mr. um Se. Thank you, Madam May. Um, about how many calls are are we seeing and and on on a monthly or yearly basis and how does that compare to basically the number of accounts that we have?

I haven't seen the numbers in the last few months, but my recollection is in the range of 3500 to 4500 calls per month and we have 28,000 accounts. So roughly about a quarter uh essentially of the accounts are phoning home every month. Yeah. I I think it's a staggering number. And I said I've called my utility three times in the 45 years I've been paying my utility bill. Stop it already.

So uh I I don't I say it's staggering because it's staggering. And um part of the part of that is driven by the nature of who we are. And I don't mean in a negative sense, but um we have a tremendous amount of rentals and that turnover. Um so that's multiple calls to turn off and then turn on and then they find out that the they need a signed lease and then they find out that they also need a that the landlord needs a VTR. Maybe they have one, maybe they don't. So there's a lot of inter back and forth and back and forth. Every one of those calls is seven plus dollars. uh or they're just calling because they saw something uh or they're not sure who to talk to or they have a question about their bill or there's a maybe there's a mistake on the bill um or they're not sure where to pay where any number of questions one could possibly think of that they're they're calling about. So we are the number that they call the utility customer service line

and and what are some of the examples of of the you know most you're saying that you know internet is not handling the front line well they're they're they're kind of passing the buck are they doing it for process based calls like you just described where they need to explain they need a lease they need that or are they truly a lot more complex issues that um our people are having to deal with

I think it's all of above we have more complic complicated process. We're the only municipality I'm aware of that has the BTR process because we're a municipal and we also the utility, right? So, we're requiring because of policy set by wherever sat on those five chairs for many many years that we would have BTR processing that the landlord has to have a BTR has to have a code inspection which passes before a tenant can go into the building and a tenant has to produce the lease, produce, you know, cause the the landlord to produce the BTR. That all takes a lot of time. Um the the time to go out and and secure a deposit, determine whether they need a deposit and and then get the deposit and and get that and then finally get turned on. And then if you can imagine numbers of I've heard upwards of something like you know 40 50% of our residential customers or tenants they're just turning over. Um some of it is is uh language issues. Um some of it is things that um that just a billing error. they think it's a billing error and and on occasion it can be and we're not perfect. We do make mistakes. Um just a lot of stuff that just comes in.

Would it help you if you had consensus from us now to explore options? Um it it would, but I I I'd almost have to say that it's a lot of work to put together a good business case. So it's not just as simple as saying, "Oh, we we'll save money by not paying somebody for the phone call." But if but if we were to give you consensus to allow give you that option at your discretion that would help. We'd have to build the business case which include all of the costs that we're going to incur.

Um you know for for example we talk about this a lot. Um there's productive time and non-productive time in a workforce right so we say okay the call center has between 9 to 12 people at any given time that may be answering calls for us. Let's pick an easy number of 10. In order for us to have 10 people available during normal business hours, we have to take into account that they're going to be there's going to be sick time. They're going to have vacation time. They're going to have holiday time. They're going to have employee recognition days. So, you really need more than 10 people to make sure you always have 10 people there. What's that number? I think it's probably closer to 11 or 12, maybe even higher. You've got benefits costs. You things that we do for all of our employees, right? you'd have to you have to take that on the cost of the technology, you know, to to build that capability out and then the cost to to react around storms. So, it doesn't make it impossible, but I it looks like lowhanging fruit, I I suspect, until you really get into the numbers and you say, hm, is that really what we want to do? The other part of it is we have a high rate of turnover. You know, we you know, we've we've talked about this internally quite a bit that the salary levels. it's hard to get competitive salary levels uh for call center operators. So, there tends to be a lot of turnover. You know, people take that as an entry job. They go someplace else in the city, but in some cases, they go someplace else where they can make a few more dollars.

And I guess my my last question is, you know, you mentioned the BTR process. I'm very familiar with that. Does that serve a benefit to our utility or is it solving a code compliance problem or attempting to solve a code compliance problem? It does little or nothing for the utility. It's it's the enforcement tool

to bring that housing stock, if you will, into compliance to ensure it stays compliance. So, utility customer service has become the face of ensuring compliance, code compliance of that home before that tenant moves in, which frankly often has nothing to do with the electric utility service or for that matter, we we want to make sure people understand utility customer service is not just the electric utility. It it it answers all of the issues for water billing and and refues and and other items as well. That's all within that function. So those calls go calls about that go there as well.

Yes. Correct. And so you have all of the utility customers, electric utility customers in city, outside of the city and we also of course have water utility customers in some cases are outside the city as well. So it's a sizable operation. It it takes a lot. It's more we I think um it's safe to say that we often take it for granted and in many cases what you hear about is a customer who's angry at them who who finds you either either your cell phone number or gets your email and gets in touch with you and says, "Oh, you know, I'll tell my commissioner and you'll fix this for me."

Well, I know your your call answer rates, your turnaround times, time to answer, all of those metrics are very strong for a customer service environment. The net does a great job. So, I mean, for those that don't know, I mean, it's 10 minutes to to get a problem solved on average and maybe even less now. Um,

yeah, the time to resolve is running around 10 minutes. We we'd like to see that about 3 to 5 minutes shorter than that. Uh, and the call not transferred, but the uh time the response we that's one thing that the previous provider and in all fairness, Answeret is, I believe, doing a pretty good job at. I hear I get a report on this verbally every day at 4:00 what the response time for that day was. It's a metric that we track very closely and that can often be under two minutes or even under a minute some days.

So I I would ask my colleagues if if they have an appetite to to grant our utility director the perview to explore the business case for what he was asking about um with the the call center technology and that company. Is there any if we to if we took more of it over if we took it over? Madam Mayor, may I? Yeah. Okay. Sure. We had a presentation on this not even 14 months ago. We've already been down this road and I don't know why everyone's not remembering, but Nette stood here and gave the case on why we don't employ people, why we have a call center. I don't we don't need to spend staff time and research. She's already done the numbers, not when we did this contract, not not even a year ago because she wasn't very happy

with this contract and she was verbal about that and said that she would go back and reassess and maybe find a different company because she wasn't happy with the dollars that they were charging us per call minute. But we've already been down this road. We were inhouse and we went outsourced and we've seen the numbers. To be clear, I'm not talking about in-housing it. I was talking about just exploring a different outsource contract. Okay. No, but I'm just saying for that's what conversation that was happening earlier about I I wasn't have but that Ed said he would like permission to explore that. Well, that's what Nette had said last year is that she was going to be doing that anyway at the end. There was only a one-year contract we did with them. Right.

We're I forget the actual term council can comment on term, but we are at the crisis moment is why I put it on your radar because council is involved in that. That's why you're bringing it up and looking at the bailout option right now. that from a technology point of view, one of the things that we can do to limit the number of phone calls is to call people before they call us and say what call them before you call us. The ability to integrate the AMI information that's the automated metering infrastructure in system that tells us a customer has an outage that tell us that any one of you have an outage or any member of the public you have an outage and you say of course I know it. So, I want to call you and let you know before you call me because when you call me, it's a very expensive call and it ties up the phone lines, but I want you to know that I know you have an outage and we're responding. Yeah.

You know, and then here's how you can track it. So, you would get an automated call. This is very very common in utility industry. Um, and and we want to get that technology deployed. So, we're going to, you know, put some time and effort on that.

So, that you're working on doing that. We are but it's it's albeit slowly because ultimately it's back to the customer information system CIS. So what's that? That's the database that has the customer information system. What is your phone number? What is your account? What how to reach you? What's your email address? That's part of the Navaline Central Square system which we have to upgrade. So there there's steps that we need to go through and then we have to see that the two systems will talk to each other. We want to make sure that the um AMI system and we're going to replace our automated metering infrastructure. We're in the process of preparing that RFP. We want to make sure that that system will talk to the outage management system which will talk to the customer information system. So there's some steps to go through to get to that point, but we have to get to the point of being able to call a customer, text them, or email them just like many other utilities do to let them know we know that you have an outage and we're working on it.

That's great. Um, oh, I have one more question. So, will we have to put out an RFP if, you know, if we if we don't renew the contract with this group, will an RFP have to go out or how does that work? I'll defer to council. Here comes our attorney.

Um, in this case, what we're looking at and and the reason Ed is putting you on this issue on your radar is because if we have to move quickly, it will be asking for a waiver through the normal procurement process. Normally this would go out through a competitive solicitation um and and obviously that takes time but if we have to react quickly on this um because we can give short notice of termination without cause even um we need to go through a quick process. So he's putting it on your radar so you're aware um I am working with Nette on it and so we're looking at all of our options. Okay. Yeah. All right. Mr. McCoy.

Yeah. Thank you. Um I I do hear from my colleagues that that we have talked about this in the past. I would just caution a little bit that just with things in general, there are things that are easy to measure and there are things that are difficult to measure. And just because something is easier to measure doesn't mean it's the most important information. In this case, the harder part to measure is what is the relation that the utility is building with the community. And obviously any relation that we build with a call center is very ephemeral. The people turn over, the call center turns over, we get a different company. There's no continuity there. There's no building of that. It's pretty much zero. Whereas if we have staff here and one looks for staff who have an interest in the community and building it now you have much greater potential to have that building of connection and particularly because Lakeworth has suffered from a reputation as either the most expensive electricity or the least reliable. both of which are not true and have not been true for a while. But getting rid of that perception is a long slow thing and requires some effort. So I would keep in mind in the balance of all this stuff, yes, there may be expenses, but I would look very creatively many companies provide their customer service from individuals who are working from home and can work on odd schedules and they just answer the phone. the technology to shift to McCall is there.

We do that and but we could do that with our own employees and but they could be our employees rather than a call center.

The other thing I would like to comment a little bit on the AMI I totally agree with Director Liberty where possible send the call out before the call comes in particularly and this is for outages and technologically it is certainly possible to do. I'm a little concerned that I'm hearing, well, it's technologically a little difficult. You got to have one database talk to the other. APIs have existed for forever. The database is a list of customer numbers and customer names and customer contact and maybe a thing that says this customer likes a text, this customer likes an email, and somebody who goes through and make sure that you have current texts and emails, which is a one-time thing, and then a renewal. you got to keep up your database. Having the two databases talked to each other is technologically nothing. I mean, you know, it's way within our capabilities of doing. And I say it because when we got the first AMI system, we were assured, and this is before Director Liberty got here, I don't know, 10 years ago, I don't remember exactly when it was, but it was a while ago. We were assured that that's one of the reasons why we were paying a lot of money for an AMI system and it never happened. So, I'm a little frustrated that we don't have that part of it. I understand that we're changing systems. I understand that Navaline is a whatever. Um, but this should not be a technological barrier. There are ways to do it.

Well, thank you. I'm I'm sure that there are members of staff right now who may or may not have heard what you said who said, "Oh my gosh, you just gave Ed fuel for this argument that Ed's been making for a number of years. Um, I've been trying to get this done and for reasons that are not directly within the control of anybody in this room, um, it we haven't been able to move it forward. Some of them are technology, some of their priorities, some of them are other things happening in time that beyond the ability of the electric utility to drive it forward. My frustration on this has been immense and maybe not always. Um I understand

I we invested significantly in a system. It has its own problems and we have to replace it. Yeah.

Um but it was not truly capable of reaching out to customers. It it notifies for example the electric system operations center that we have an outage. that's missing is a link to the customer information system that will initiate a phone call or an email or a text to the customer. It's that two or three layers down behind the scenes that the link doesn't exist. Um I tried less than artfully and rather upset that I couldn't get it approved a number of years ago. Um but we're going to try again and so your comments are certainly going to help. Uh but that's not going to be lost on people that this is something that has to happen.

Yeah. Because it it that is a big volume of it and it is a very effective tool and like you say it's pretty industry standard at least in the investor owned ones. Um and technologically it it shouldn't be that big a deal. I want to touch on PCA for a moment. I know you have a long night. Thank you for your comments uh and and input. PCA.

Is this going to go up on the screen? Uh, no. It it can if we want to. We're just going to it's not a full PCA. I just want to update you on how things are going without a deep dive. Uh, but this will certainly be made available to the public. Uh, so they can but we'll just go through it quickly. So on the bottom right hand corner um you can see that uh we've got a negative 1.496 million. So we've slid backwards. Remember we adjusted the PCA by $7 per month effective March one. So, and what happened at the end of January, beginning of February, that tremendous cold snap, gas prices went through the roof.

The good news is that um absent that unexpected spike, that tremendous where where prices went up into the uh the $88 number and the $64 numbers in those days, we were planning on numbers, you know, below $4 and it it spiked. So, that that's the cost of power jumped dramatically. and uh we've been to that. So that cold spell probably cost us $900,000 that we weren't planning on. So it was offset by the electric production that came off of our solar farms which came in on a timely basis and and was very helpful. Uh but at the same time we'd also retired the coal unit. But it appears that our $7 number is is about right. We haven't yet seen the revenues from the March 1 PCA increase. So, I would say we're not going to go into a, you know, ringing our hands yet. We have a healthy utility fund balance. It it could be better, but we can we can carry this for a while. Let's let the $7 increase ride itself out. Let's not rush to to hurry up and and make a change. Let's see the revenues come in over the next few months once the bills get paid because customers didn't see that PCA at the earliest until their March one bill and now the cash is going to start coming in. So, we'll we'll start to see what that does in the months of April and May and June and see if we've bend the curve and moving in the right direction. So, we're not going to ask you to do anything tonight other than to have the report know that we talked about it. We're continuing to watch it and we we'll continue to update you.

Thank you, Mr. Mc. Well, I have Miss May, we let Miss May go first. I just have a question because I I just asked the mayor, did your did your bills fluctuate that much and mine didn't? So I does it mean that the city paid more but we hadn't passed that on to the customer. So now we have the PCA um is greater amount and now because we've increased the PCA last month it will come back and we'll start paying ourselves back from what we had already paid out. So the p the customer won't feel that giant change. They're just going to feel the change in the PCA which is correct. That's why

what was it a dollar? Oh, it went it went from it went up about by by about on a thousand kilowatt hour bill it went up by $7. So the typical $7 up by $7. We added I know I mean I made the motion I should remember we and it was good idea that that we went up by the 744 I think the staff had recommended. Okay. Okay. And I just for customers I just want to say like this is why we have the BCA. Correct. so that you don't get slammed with a $1,000 bill when it's 40° out. So, that's really important to understand.

So, right now, the city, let's say, the electric utility operating fund, if you will, is carrying this imbalance. Um, that imbalance we're hoping will decrease over time. We don't want to hit it with a hammer and go up by 10 or 15 or $20. No,

you know, that that's we're we're doing it gradually. The other side of what's going to happen is everybody experienced this, not just us. And what what spiked was natural gas prices, which which are always going to spike and they're always going to go up, they're always going to go down. The advantage that we have is that roughly 50% of our energy over the course of the year comes from natural gas. That number is as much as 75 to 80% for many, many other people in the state, including people who live not too far from here. So, they haven't seen that in their bills yet. We went up a little bit based on what we had already seen happening. We'll see if we can work our way out of this. Those other folks will see their bills go up dramatically probably around January 1 when they make their next adjustments. So, they're in they're insulated from that a little bit. Let's ride it out. Let's see where it goes. We are in a better position than many others. Now, some of the other municipals u use uh what a tool called hedging, financial hedging. They buy futures contracts. It's it's being done right now in FMPA. Um, which which I support. It does not affect us. I support them doing it in their book. That's something we could consider in the future. The difficulty is that we don't directly burn natural gas. Other people burn natural gas on our behalf. So, we would be using a financial instrument of a hedge, a futures contract to hedge against what the physical product may do. That's tricky stuff. Um, I have experience in doing it. Work with people that have experience in doing it. If you wanted to get into that kind of a philos philosophical way of hedging our fuel prices, it doesn't guarantee you a low price. It doesn't guarantee you a high price. What it does is it it gives you a greater degree of certainty of what your price will be. So, if you agree to buy gas at $4 and it goes to $450, you feel great. However, if you agreed to buy gas at $4 and it went to $ 250, you're saying, "Why did I do that?"

Right? But at least we know what the bill is going to be. So, you have to be well educated on the subject and comfortable. It has to fit your risk profile. We have employed a practice of what I call physical hedges. How did we do that? Well, we bought solar power under long-term contracts at a known price. So that decreases the amount of natural gas-based energy we're going to buy. So that seems to act like a hedge of some sorts without buying futures contracts. Now our solar energy is more expensive than some of the gas natural gas powered energy. Uh but we're driven by other motivating factors such as our carbon footprint and our our city policy resolution to lower carbon footprint. Right? So there it's it's a complex thing, but it's something you can consider in the future. We can talk about it one-on- ones and then see if it's something you want to ask us to have a more formal presentation on or or not.

Thank you, Miss Mlego. Well, I just Okay, you hadn't talked yet, so I wanted to give the opportunity. I'm just going to preach the budget billing again. Um, we are a community of hardworking, mostly hardworking bluecollar.

I've been on budget billing for four years now. It is somebody who self-employed. It's brilliant. Um, I think that it's something that we need to promote and educate and educate and educate our our residents about because it is a great tool that not many know is available and it doesn't affect you when we have these gas price increases, right? Um, and the on the end of it, you could come out ahead at the end of the year or you could come out in the reverse depending on how conservative you are. But I think that if we could really work on the citizen-owned energy and the city promoting the budget billing for everyone to to know about, it's easy to sign much easier to sign up now than it was 5 years ago. It was quite archaic. Um, but I think it's a great tool that we just need to promote from within. And back to what Mr. McBoy was saying about building that relationship and showing that people that, you know, you can protect yourself by, you know, being insulated in this budget billing system. Just just to make sure we don't create a misconception. It it won't save you money or cost you more money. It gives you a more level bill. At the end of the day, I don't want people thinking, "Oh, if you're on budget billing, you'll pay less than somebody else." You might this month, but at the end of the year when we cash out or true up it, you may have to write a check for more. Um, but it can be a very useful tool for fiscal planning in in a family uh to levelize your bills. Some people do it, some people don't. I personally use it. Um, but not everybody, you know, wants to do that. Um, is that something we could get on the website? I think let's again for our website, let's if we could talk to Rebecca or whoever we talk to to get it on the website. That would be helpful.

We can work on getting I I you know, I constantly try to drum that the website needs to be more informative and user friendly for for our folks. It's getting better, but it's it's okay. Mr. boy.

And just for clarity on the budget billing means that you we know that your bills are big in the summer when the AC is cranking along. Um and if you want to pay a even bill all the way through, people look at your pass bill thing and make an estimate. Look, on average, it's going to be X amount. Are you okay with paying that? and then understanding that at the end of the year if it turns out that you use more you know we settle up at the end of the year and hopefully the estimating process is pretty good and your settle is going to be relatively small.

So it helps with that. A couple questions um one is with what is happening internationally we don't nobody that we get power from burns oil but they do burn natural gas. Um, and as you correctly mentioned, we physically hedge by having purchased quite a bit of solar at known prices for the next 20 years or 19 now or whatever it is, but close to it, which is a pretty important hedge. And if I understand correctly from past presentations, some of the time the solar is more expensive than burning natural gas. Some of the times it's noticeably cheaper. Correct?

I don't know where we are sort of industrywide. solar is cheaper than than natural gas, but natural gas varies a lot. So, it it varies, but I think we're coming out and I I do want to make sure I understood something you said at a previous meeting that when we were thinking about, well, what is a reasonable amount of solar for our utility to buy? There was a bit of concern that there might be times of the year where we can't use as much as the field is or our portion of the field is producing. Correct. And you mentioned that you had worked out something or other clever financing that we could sell our surplus at a pretty reasonable price. So now that disadvantage is even either smaller or gone, which is great. So kudos to you for having worked out a customer for for our extra when we have it.

Thank you. I I think I appreciate the the compliment what we what we've done as a team together with FMPA who's our counterparty in the contract and I'm also on their board uh and they care very much about the city of Lakew Worth. What they've essentially agreed to do and they actually brought the suggestion forward is that they would buy the solar that we don't need at that moment from us at the same price that we would have paid them for natural gas-based energy. So it's it's a wash. It's a wash. Some days the toast will fall jelly side up, some days it'll fall jelly side down, but the risk is the same for both. And I think it's a fair settlement each month. So for example, if you have a month when natural gas prices are very high,

we're going to get more than on days or months when the gas prices are relatively low. Yeah. But u we will have this excess solar situation mostly during the winter months. I would expect that probably between November to April, we'll have hours during the day when we may have more power under contract than we have a customer here to sell it to. Right. We we knew that was going to happen, but we knew that during the rest of the year it was going to automatically the other way. Yeah.

So, uh we made that decision and we all talked about it. So we will formalize that arrangement within the context of the contract and bring that back to you as an amendment to approve uh form formally as our policy board. Thank you so much. And I mean in the past since I've been up here the improvements, the relability, the pricing has just it's wonderful. Thank you so much. Our our I should mention our growth has been we're we're up uh and I like my metrics as some of you know, but our growth has been up uh significantly. We've had about 3 and a.5% growth on the amount of energy that we send our customers. That's on a year-to- date basis to the end of February. So, we've grown by about

3.5 3.6. Customer growth is on target at uh N7%. So, call it 1%. We plan on 75%. So, we're ahead of target on on new customer acquisitions. Degree days are up about 5% which is often an indicator of how much energy we sell, although not always, but we we've got some some good metrics. So those are leading indicators of the revenue that's to come. So we're we're on the right track. If if we were not meeting our production targets in terms of energy to send to customers, we would let you know because that would be an indicator of we might have a budget situation that we're not going to realize the revenues. But we seem to be ahead of plan in terms of energy, lots of development, the apartments that are coming in, the condos that are coming in.

Yes. And that adds tremendously. you know, when they come on with a 100, 200 apartments at a time, that's a lot of phone calls to turn those services on. Are we Last most important question for our residents, are we still cheaper than FPNL for the same amount of juice? That's a very good question. It's very hard to tell. We believe that we're plus or minus a dollar from being even with them. um the only way for us to know for sure obviously we use the FMEA survey but that's not the total bill that the customer gets. So we try to approximate by trying to find people's bills right in a redacted form so we don't disclose who they are

um and try to match them up. We believe that we're within a dollar up or down on a thousand kilowatt hour customer. Great. Thank you so much. Okay. Um public participation of non-aggenda items and consent agenda. First is Wade Hitchcock followed by Matthew van on 4,000. 400. Matthew left.

Oh, Matthew left. 156 and your name and address first, please.

Name is Wade Hitchcock, 1506 13th Avenue North. I know I've been in front of you guys way too many times, but why are we letting people use our beach to make money, but they don't want to clean it up? Their mess. You got a restaurant that has garbage flying all over the place. They're leaving their beer bottles under the pier and uh the little plastic shot glasses that you're not supposed to be drinking on the beach. But if you want to pick up your stuff and bring it off the beach, the guys are doing umbrellas, they'll set their chairs and umbrellas right there, beer bottles, dirty diapers, and just keep putting them up. So, if you're not going to help us keep the beach clean, then we need to start charging these people as whatever, you know, for trashing. If you don't want to help the beach, we'll charge you extra for sitting your chairs on our beach in the restaurant. This is crazy that we're allowing people to tear it up, do nothing. The people that are visiting are asking, "Why don't we have regular cleaning?" They're asking me these questions. And I think you guys need to start showing up at the beach and see what's going on because this is ridiculous.

I was just there last Thursday. Picked up a a dirty diaper in the shower. Yeah. With a with a doggy bag. Yeah. Thank you.

I mean, there's just no reason for this. So, I don't know. Start finding people. You got signs that says no littering, no cigarettes smoking on the beach and everything, but nobody's there to enforce it. And then you got the guys on their motorcycles. Sunday they were riding right down when people trying to shower off. They're popping wheelies coming on their three on those bikes. So when somebody gets hurt, you guys are going to be sitting with a big lawsuit. So you guys need to start thinking how to work this out with the sheriff department and get this these kids under control because they're all riding around with no mask with mask on. You got cameras up there watching all this. Need to do something before you guys get a huge lawsuit against you. There's no reason for it.

Thank you. Uh Matthew left. He wrote about the his idea about repurposing one eastbound lane on the bridge um to close it to traffic and he has been I'm sure we all know he has been in touch with DOT and at some point I think we may need to chat about it. Peggy Fischer and then Nancy Udell. and then Richard Muller,

Peggy Fisher, 508 North A Street. Um, on the updates that we just heard, I appreciate the brevity of bonds and I think maybe if there had been a little bit more looking through the backup for Mr. liberties and various things. Maybe we could have shortened that so that we were an hour into the meeting uh and basically spent an hour on those two updates. Um there is no pre-aggenda meeting listed on the items in the back of the agenda. So I assume that means you're not having one on Friday, which is Good Friday, and you might want to let the public know that via this because a lot of people do watch that. Um, as far as beach cleanup, you're going to have soon, um, park rangers, let's have park rangers enforce the laws on the beach because I know as far as no smoking, uh, lifeguards will do nothing about that. Now, I have heard on and something disturbing to me is that on their downtime or when they want to, lifeguards are going out and surfing. And I sure hope that's not true. But if it is, somebody needs to address it. At 10 o'clock in the morning, I don't know why lifeguards would be out on surfboards. Surfing, not rescuing, surfing. Um, so and and lastly, uh, as far as dealing with customers, the water utility does a great job because I had a technician knock on my front door to tell me that they had noticed that my water usage was up and they wanted to check my meter and see if there was a problem. I didn't call them, they showed up to me. That's customer service. And he checked it,

ended up replacing the meter. So, uh, as far as the water utility, their business, their way they approach it is come and knock on your door. So, compliments to them. Thank you. Um, Nancy Udell.

Nancy Udell. Hello everybody. Your address as well? 11:31 North Palmway. You hear me? Yes. Into the mic.

Okay. I'm here to talk about the March 10th election. I watched very carefully and listened very carefully to everything you all said in the meeting immediately following the election and I heard you say that you had been sent a message and that you were listening and that's great. But what I didn't hear was anybody taking responsibility for the misleading tactics, materials, and information that permeated this election. And I think it's important that to move on and work together, as you said, mayor, in your invocation, that there's some kind of acknowledgment that something was very wrong with the way this issue is prosecuted. First, you drafted a ballot language that was likely illegal under float 101161 because it omitted to state the principal purpose of the charter amendments, which was to eliminate the citizen vote. Then you hired a consultant with our tax dollars who stood up there at public meetings educating us about what was happening by gaslighting us and refusing to admit for two and a half public meetings. I know a lot of you were at that meeting at the library that almost became a revolt because the consultant was just refusing to admit that what was actually happening was that these charter amendments were eliminating the public vote. Once we finally got an acknowledgement that what was happening was elimination of the public vote and that the commission already had the ability to enter into 99-year leases with the approval of the electorate. Then you started with the fear-mongering. Okay, we had they're going to eliminate all the property taxes tomorrow. We have a $32 million annual deficit. We're going

to be carrying our own garbage to the dump. roote from a national pack that claimed to be from local firefighters. You wondering why number five failed? That's why number five failed. The lack of trust that you're finding surprising is resulting from your own actions. Mayor, you have said several times since the election that there was a lot of misinformation out there and I am saying to you that most of that information came from this commission and I think that needs some acknowledgement. I understand that these jobs are taxing and that you're all working very hard and I appreciate your service and I hope that we can work together on the difficult issues facing us. But I think that the messages you should take from this election are number one, honesty is the best policy. And number two, the citizens didn't say no. They said hell no. We don't want to become a disified tourist destination. Okay? We love our quirky, livable seaside community. Nature is the amenity. Care for what's there. Celebrate, protect, and preserve. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Richard Muller.

Is this This is different from your Yes. No, I I just submitted that one as public comment online because I didn't know if we would ever get to that point tonight. It's on the agenda. No, I understand. I I just know it's at the end of the agenda, so I I just went ahead and submitted it. I I sent it through the portal. Um

Yeah. Nope. I don't want to put that into the universe. U So Richard Mer, uh 1767 15th Avenue North. Um so hoping my notes are a little bit more productive. Um, so, um, I'm asking as you're going through, um, starting your budget season, um, that I'm asking you create a dedicated small business liaison for the city. I think this position is greatly needed. Um, and so this position would also help adopt concrete changes to make it easier to start and run businesses, small businesses here in the city. Uh, right now, our entrepreneurs face confusing permitting steps, inconsistent information, and long timelines that discourage investment. Um, so a small business liaison position would help serve as a single contact point for prospective businesses, answer their questions, reduce confusion, and hopefully provide a clear checklist. Um, and this could be done internally instead of outsourcing. I know there's been a lot of talk about outsourcing and sending this out to a different company to review our processes. Um, at a minimum whether or not a leaison position is adopted during your budget session, I think the city should publish clear online start a business in Lake Worth Beach checklist with flowcharts for permits, inspections, licenses, and business type. Um, single cityrun webpage should also accompany this checklist and walk perspective owners step by step through this process to mitigate any of that confusion. Uh, we hear it non-stop in other meetings and I know you all have heard it as well and probably in your emails and phone calls. Um, so hopefully kind of production of either this individual or a website to help walk through this would also mitigate a lot of those emails and phone calls and confusion by putting people in the right steps. Um, as with most things, talking about an issue doesn't exactly solve the problem. Uh, we need action and measurable results. Um, I do hope that as you do look forward into budget season, I know there's a lot of things on the horizon, special session with legislation, um, in Tallahassee is at the forefront of that, but I do think a position like this is integral and a

need here for our small businesses as we do look to help grow those in here in the city. So, thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Approval of minutes. Okay. Motion to approve the minutes for March 13th, 17th, and 17th. Uh, do I have a second? Second. All in favor? I I about Oh, oh, the minutes. Oh, okay. Yeah. Um, on item A, it it says

I'm sorry, March March 13th. Um the third action down it says regarding the Fanny May ghost house, the Fanny James ghost house. Um I don't mean that. Well, it was the Fanny May ghost house. It would have to go on our foreclosure registry. Whole different thing.

Yeah. And then on on C um where we had the special meeting, we gave direction. We also had um some consensus items on policy that that are not there. Um specifically where I asked for consensus about policy for um sending things to the other boards besides planning and zoning historic, that the commission have a choice in that. And I believe the result of that discussion was consensus that we would be giving staff direction on which items would be going before let's say the tree board or some other board not just automatically going there.

That would give consensus to bring that back when we have the advisory board conversations. Okay. So but but either way it's missing the consensus item. Okay. Matt can the clerk there because she explained to me that she only does consensus on here for things that have been consented and that just means we have we're going to talk about this at the next meeting. I could be wrong. I only Madame Mayor, here we go. I only include consensus items that have consensus. Oh, okay. So, we did and I listened to the meeting more than once to make sure I capture everything. Okay. Mr. just say we're just saying that we talked about having um another meeting another

conversation conversation um about this. So I guess there was consensus to talk about it when we had the board advisory board meeting coming up. Yes. Yeah. So that could be added on that level. I will listen and if I find it I will add it. Thank you. Appreciate it. Miss uh Miss May I just want to ask the clerk to clarify what she just said. So you're saying that if we make if we get to a consensus, you will add that to the minutes, but if this is in general, not just on this, but if we have a discussion and consensus is requested but denied, you do not put that in the minutes. Correct. Because if there's no consensus for the item, there is no consensus.

I have an issue with that. We're supposed to track if it's discussed and rejected. I think that should be part I I do too because then we have the window and rejected. Do you I I think that I would I would like that added I would that fail an official but I mean I think when somebody asks for consensus it is akin to asking for agreement up here that we all do vote on. So I think we have consensus to have the clerk add things that are not there that there's no consensus for but I agree. I think it should be part of the record. Otherwise, it just disappears into consent. I consent. I agree. All right. All right. So, we madame clerk. That's our madam mayor.

Thank you. Okay. Because I had asked that question previously and that's when she educated me on what goes on there and what doesn't. So, but now we all right. Okay. We did do Yes, we did vote in front of Mr. We just ignored Mr. Se's life. Consent agenda. Do I have a So is is it did we amend the motion to include the amendments to include include what amendments the pages? We we asked her to to do that. Yes, madam clerk. You understand that? Madame Mayor, my my understanding is to add everything that is consensus and indicate if there was no consensus.

Okay, perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Motion to approve consent agendas item A and item B. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? I. Thank you very much. Um unfinished business. A motion to approve the interlocal agreement with the CRA for micro transit services circuit. Do I have a uh all in favor? I thank you very much. Um item B, discussion regarding job description. Anthony has his light on. Oh, sorry. Where is his light? It's low. What would you like? So, um, yes, Mr. Seidge, I I have some some questions about about surrogate.

About circuit. Yeah. And about the presentation that we were given. Um, so it from reading through this, it's my understanding that we're the CRA and our city spending about $350,000 a year on circuit together. Yeah, we're paying less this year, I think. It's I believe about 336. We were roughly uh I think 31 and a half% and they were 68 and a half% between the city and we extend it to the host to the broader area as well. And we do get compensation from circuit. We do they they did pay us some money I'm told

for what they Yeah. So um and obviously the this extends the range from a street to GU and then from 12 north to 12 South. Great. So that was extended. Okay. So how much how much in advertising revenue did they generate? Uh Joan I don't want to lie. Joan told me was it the $59,000 figure that's in here? Um no. Is anybody from circuit here today? I don't see that. No.

It was at the CRA meeting and they voted in favor of it. Um, we also talked about um additional advertising options, including having um possible businesses downtown or other businesses in general who appear on the app to pay a minimum marketing advertising fee once a month or yearly to be on there. You know, the back of it just says the uh the client the 5050 revenue split, but I don't have that exact number of what that was.

Okay. Um because part of the original agreement they were to offset the city's costs by getting advertising and I don't believe they've upheld their end of that agreement to a significant degree that it would make a difference. Wish was here. They said that because I was at the meeting for the CRA

and they did say that they only have so much room to advertise on the vehicles and they're right now they have a couple people who are waiting for an additional vehicle to come. it has been brought forward to their attention to wrap the car in sections like so there's like three or four advertisers but they said that previously that that's not something that has been accepted by other advertisers to share that space um but they do have advertising revenue and they're looking for additional um I can't remember the

so we we we got graphs that talk about um cost per rider but not actually cost per ride um do we have any idea on how many rides versus riders. Hold on a minute. I took pictures of slides. I just take to see if she possibly is available to answer that question. We do have a public comment from Anna Maria. Why don't we do that? Oh, sorry. I don't know if you're done. I'm not done, but Go ahead. I'll wait to your public comment on that.

No, I mean if you're not done Go ahead. Well, I needed to note what the cost per ride is because I don't think it's $15 a ride. Um, and at at the economics of what we're looking at this, it would almost be cheaper to hand out Uber vouchers to people, which is not a good thing from an economic standpoint for our city, especially when we're looking at trimming our budget. Yeah, I do recognize that this service is greatly appreciated and and it benefits many of our residents. Um, other towns have implemented similar services that did not cost the town or city $350,000 a year. What towns?

Delray. Um, so you know, for me it's a challenge to look at this and not have anyone here to from circuit to answer questions or or justify these numbers. The other um piece of this is what kind of investment are we going to have to make to get another vehicle on the road? Because to my understanding from reading the original contracts and so on, it was a pretty significant investment upfront for the city for a single vehicle. Um, and to me the the economics of this are not adding up. I mean, they're getting better, but um, they're they're not adding up. The other aspect that could make this better is increased ridership, right? Um, it would be nice to see a metric of how much idle time we have because if our circuit is fully busy, then these are the best numbers we're going to get and we have to make a decision based on on those numbers. If our our circuit is sitting around for large portions of the day, um, then we could with two cars, two two drivers, increase that. One idea that was brought up by the business owners in downtown when I recently met with them was dedicating um a parking space or two in the downtown to make it a circuit stop and have logo and availability and and have the circuit actually stop there because our visitors to our town have no idea we have circuit, right? And a lot of those could be important riders. they they go from the hotel to the downtown, from where they're staying, you know, to to the beach and back and forth and and so on. So, there's a number of things like that I would like to discuss. I I wish we would had when we're having an item, we actually had representatives who could

have this discussion with us. I do know that the folks uh the condos on South Ocean Boulevard are working on getting their own circuit route to because they they need to come they know they want to come downtown and they can just have circuit drop them off. So I'm in a relationship with them and I'm and they're talking about that actively right now. Mr. Brown. Yeah. Unfortunately, we didn't have the event having any from circuit um

nor the CRA. Um there's some there's extenduating circuits but we unfortunately don't have anything from CRA or circuit this evening. Um they did attend the business advisory board meeting um not the last one the previous one um and went through a lot of the the metrics they have and um the board gave them a lot of suggestions like window cleanings downtown with QR codes and all these other things. I believe those meeting you were at correct. Um where they kind of went through um a lot of the things they're going to be doing to increase their wrership and their numbers and everything else. But again, apologies. No one is available to the Bohemian Madison.

Madison Terrace, I think will be a big one for them. Yeah. I mean, I'm concerned about the price too for I don't know, you know, but then you look at the rides were, you know, 140 um unique users over 400 in February. So, Miss May, I'm sorry. You want to sit down? Go ahead.

I know. I I apologize. I just want to point out and we had this conversation before that in this upcoming year we're going to have a lot of construction downtown and it's going to be a lot less parking spaces available. So circuit ridership I believe will increase and I don't want and I also want to remind us that this is not something that we are looking to make money on. This is a service that we are offering our residents, our visitors, and um and anybody that wants to come visit our city to make getting around the city easier, cheaper, and to allow people that live in one end of the city to be able to go to the other end of the city and vice versa and travel throughout the city. And I think that it's important to remember that sometimes it's not about the bottom line because the bottom line in this case, I don't believe is financial. I believe that this is about community and about resources that the city for in alignment with the CRA can afford to give to our residents.

Okay. Thank you, Miss uh Mlego. I would like to hear Anamaria first, then I'll speak. So, you can sit down and get Good evening.

Uh Anamaria Windish Hunt, 404 South Sea Street. And I came here via the circuit. And how did I know about the meeting was about to start? The lady that's driving it. But the way I did this whole route, and I should share this because I'm a user. I was picked up. There were already two tourists in the back seat, a mother and her child. the tourist got dropped off at uh the bar and uh the lady was going to the doctor's office with the child and I got to sit in the front with the driver. So I had her drop me off. I needed to pick up my laundry, went to the grocery store, and as I approached because I had called this other lady with her child says, "Oh." And I said, "Did you call?" She said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, come on. We'll share." So really I know when it's really busy and what you probably don't realize that around 2:30 to 3:34 when the school lets out the parents are getting their children with

circuit with the circuit. It is a public service and we really need it. I have some ideas here. Uh um the towers should have a a call box. they're elderly and the flip phones don't do it because you can't dial in. And then as to the price, if it's $2, I ride the bus, it's $2. But the convenience of having someone pick me up at my door and drop me off where I want to go, it's worth it.

And I think most people would buy that. And if you can make an exception, I would. Yeah. Otherwise, I have to go walk through the alleys to get to my bus stop because on my end of town there's only one box bus stop whereas over here there's more. Just in case you didn't know. Uh yes, you need Thank you. That's fine. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Ania, email us with your ideas. We will listen. You know that. Well, it's really nice seeing all 12 of you. I can't see but double, right?

So that's why I used the circuit. We and we you are a dedicated writer. Um Miss Valga, Mr. Thank you. Um, so I have taken Circuit from my home which is not far from Miss Maria's. And I will tell you that one time I couldn't take Circuit because I had to get to an appointment here and the wait was too long. So I opted for Lyft. It cost me $8.93

to get from Fourth and E to City Hall. So again, I I hear what you're saying. You would pay $2 because any other alternative transportation, especially in the summer, nobody wants to shut around town. We don't have a walkable community yet. We don't have the trees that we want yet. And we're trying to like you, we've talked about making this a, you know, a userfriendly city. Circuit is part of that. You know, it goes in with people who use bicycles. I don't use a bicycle. Golf carts that we're going to talk about in the future. And I think that again, it this is a public service. If we talk about possibly raising it to a $150 a rider or giving $2 and saying seniors get a discount, something. But they are open to all kinds of ideas and it's you know it's we can basically write the story with circuit and I think that it's an important conversation like commissioner said I wish they were here. Um but I wish that more people would have showed up at the CRA when this was first talked about or at the business advisory board instead of the ninth hour when it comes to us as the last stop because there there was there was what's that?

Nope. Last stop. Um, so I just I think that it is a public service and we just need to help them find creative ways to to pay for it and offset our costs. Thank you, Mr. McCoy. And then Mr. Seg,

and I just want to thank um those of my colleagues who are very supportive of it. Um, and I think thank I forget you had an idea and Miss Windish Hunt had an idea. call boxes recognize that for seniors their phone situation may not be as amendable to contacting them. uh we do not do a whole lot for seniors in this community and that circuit is certainly one of the things and I think well we heard it at the uh League of Cities lunchon that planning for seniors mobility and avoiding isolation is a very big part of that and um I I really appreciate Commissioner May's comments that not everything that a city does is run as a business as you know makes money. It's okay to provide some services. We do a lot of things that um don't make money. We're not supposed to. We're supposed to make the community better. So, I appreciate the comments from the folks supporting it. It really is an important part.

Thank you. With Madison Terrace opening up and starting to rent out on 8th Avenue South and Dixie and that's exactly what that we're going to 12th Avenue now is wonderful. Mr. Sage,

I I agree. This type of service is is is necessary for our city and for a lot of the reasons that you guys have stated in including our aging population, the convenience of it, tourism, all of the above convenience. Um, you know, to Commissioner Mlega's point, her lift cost her $8 and some odds. That circuit ride cost the city $30. So, I'm not looking at this as saying, "Hey, we should cancel this." But when we're sitting here with essentially looking at spending $350,000 of taxpayer money, I understand the CRA bears the brunt of that at 244,000. Um, now during contract negotiations and renewals is the time to talk about these creative things that get done. And I'm concerned that, you know, we talked about they were going to increase advertising. That didn't work really. I mean, maybe it was a marginal increase. Um, and it's not to make money. It's it's to offset the cost, right? To get that cost down to something reasonable. But at this point with this program, we would as a city be better off offering lift vouchers. um logistically probably not, you know, um possible, but I I think either we need to be having strong conversations with circuit about changing and and improving these things or looking at other potential vendors for this kind of service that are willing to do that. Um because you know I'm looking through the presentation and you know a lot of these good ideas they're in this presentation about how they can change but what's not in our contract is any change. So we get a year of the same and we're you know so I'm just uncomfortable right now moving this forward without having that conversation with the principles involved and I understand they went to the CRA board and they went to the business advisory

board and they went through that process but they have not met with the commission and um I am not comfortable moving it forward until that conversation happens specifically so that we can get some agreement from them that they are going to make some of these improvements to help create a better service for our residents and one that we can cost justify. Um because you know programs like this when the auditors look at them from Tallahassee, these are the kinds of programs they love to cut because it's very easy to quantify and label it as financial mis um misappropriation or misspending. Um well not not M not not being frugal with our finances. Whatever whatever the term you want to use.

Well the term they use is bad finances. Um at least I wasn't less eloquent than they are. Um that's the word.

So so that's my that's my concern with with with this program. I I would like to have this back with the principles so that we can have this conversation with them and get some agreement from them to make this a better program for the next year. I believe that there that when I spoke to the gentleman after the CR meeting, I have his card. They will come back and have a conversation with us hash ideas. But again, I mean, I'm going to express my frustration. I apologize for not putting my light on. We've had this this item for 10 days. And for 10 days, people could have emailed, written, had conversations. And this is part of the frustration that I have is I understand and I think that they should have been here. I don't know if it was a conflict of them not being able to be here when it was scheduled. Um, but I'm ready to move this forward. We've called the vote. I don't know if we I believe that we all voted for it. Um, and I will make sure to share the information and maybe we can get them to come back and talk to the business advisor board about going out and helping promote and get them to start people to start paying for that little tiny blurb that comes up on the circuit app with your name. I mean, that's an easy I'm like, I'd pay $15 a month for that for my name to show up on a little app. That's that's minimal for a business owner. Um, but at this point, I think that we've already voted and we need to move forward.

But if Do we have consensus and ask him to come back and talk about Yeah, I have a guy's card. I'll share with everybody, too. I'll just contact him. Okay, everybody. Okay. I consent to that. All right. I believe we did vote. Thank you very 41 voted. Okay. So it's 41. Okay. Imagine that in

it's another I'm not going to say it. Um discussion. Okay. Now we're going to talk about the item B is the discussion regarding a job description brochure and salary range for the city manager position. Um, who has any input just miss? I see your light is on first. First of all, is the Sumpter group here? They were they were asked to be here. Yes, madame mayor. Are they here? Are they here? Yes, mayor. Yeah, they're on Zoom. Okay. Who Who I I see I don't see them on Zoom. Office, I'm guessing. Is that No, that's that's back there.

There he is. William, I mean Warren. Warren. Okay. Can we see you, Warren, please? Can you turn your camera on? There you go. Thank you. I've got everything on. Sorry about that. Okay. So, okay. So, has questions. I'm just going to start from the beginning. Yeah, please.

And I'm going to be as kind as I can about this. So, I was one of the ones who voted for Sumpter um giving a new business an opportunity to put Lakew Worth Beach at the front of um their priority list hoping. And I'm just going to start with the outside picture of this recruitment. I don't know what picture this what year this came from, but we haven't had these lifeguard towers in years. M this picture does not sell our city is how glamorous it is. This looks like something that came off of card stock.

Um the entire presentation to me is less than professional. I'll leave it at that. Um when I went through and read the backstory about our community, um it left a lot to be desired. I didn't see any conversations or um any details about some of the great things that we have coming forward in our city. I'm not very happy with the pictures of the city commission were cut and paste from like Anony's Anthony, is this from like your Facebook page or a commission's page? And me mimi Mimi's is from a badge. This isn't even the pictures that are on the city's website. This is awful presentation. Awful presentation of our city leadership. None of our staff should be have their pictures or their names anywhere in this brochure. In my opinion, our staff is not on display. They are they are not the ones who

I'm very disturbed and I don't know who gave anybody direction to put our staff's pictures in a national search for a city manager. Completely unacceptable. Um, I don't even know how or why you would anyone would think that that's that that's the I mean that's well

I I just really think that in all honesty and I'm not going to go line for line like I want to that this needs to be scrapped and started completely over. The qualifications are very laxidasical um and they're kind of copy and paste. There's nothing in qualifications that talk about living requirements. The compensation and benefits literally says medical, dental, vision, and a salary. Well, God, that's great. Sign me up. I mean, that's just ridiculous. We are one of the, you know, we just received another award for our work environment. That should be in here. We are the We are trying to be the gold star standard for working for the city of Lakewood Beach. And here it just says, "Oh, we'll make sure you have teeth and you can see and we'll pay your medical bills." That's not going to encourage the right people to apply for this position. It says nothing about family leave. It says nothing about continuing education. It says nothing about paid vacation encouragement for there's no I just I'm at a loss of words. I'm just I'm literally

I have hired people for over 25 years. I've been in management for major corporations. I have never seen something so poorly put together for a sixf figureure position of running our city. And the the the city manager salary survey doesn't even have like our neighboring cities on here and and Green Acres is missing. There are some cities on here that I know these numbers are not accurate for the salaries that were presented to us. And when I asked a week ago for updated information because this is not updated, I I didn't get a response and our attorney said they didn't get a response. So, as far as I'm concerned, um this needs to be completely scrapped and a 100% improvement. I'm not happy with any of it. I would not put this out as a representation of our city, our residents, or what we want for this city as the top paying position. And we haven't even scratched the surface on the conversation of of of compensation for that management position. But this presentation is awful.

Now, let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. You're talking about the And I I am with you. Um, I just love when the commissioners talk so I don't have to uh um what about the the front part where we talk about the duties and responsibilities, the regular part of it without not the program but the um

Well, what I didn't like is that and again I have my copy in my office and it had so many red lines to it. I literally was just like I'm not going to do this. Um, I think that it it needs it I think that HR maybe can help critique some of the stuff um that's in here because this says the forward questions. This is like this is like almost starting like we have never had a city manager before. It's not taking the day-to-day roles. What's going on in the city? what's going like I said the projects that we have happening the auditing process this there's no mention of the CRA and working with the CRA in here and the money that the CRA brings to the table um it says the city manager will play a critical role in guiding and planning no the city manager does play not will play like I don't know who wrote this

it really is to me it was cookie cutter it was stuff that you would just find on Google search jobs of what a city management should be it's not to me it does not shine and cast a good light on how special and unique Lake Worth Beach is. Thank you, Mr. Segridge. I think Bob wrote it. Bob, no. Um I I agree with with some of Commissioner Mlega's comments. I did have one one question. Um this is for for our staff. Was was HR in involved at all in in creating this? Did HR provide any information? They didn't ask you.

Thank you. Now, my my follow-up question, well, because when I when I reached out for the contact information of our recruiter, I was told that HR was staying hands off and out of it completely. But I I just want to know were you given direction to not participate in this or how did that come about? Okay. Can you guys hear me? Yes. Okay. This I'm Lauren Slay and I'm the director of human resources for the city of Lake Worth Beach. Little louder. You got a little louder. Okay. Can you hear me now?

Okay. Um you know initially I was there was some data information that was requested from us. Um, I did give them a list of people that I thought that they, you know, they we were a list of people that they I thought that they should talk to. So, I included you and staff. Um, we were not really after after that point, we were kind of hands off because I thought that you went to a recruiter for the point that you wanted us to stay out of it. If you want us to be more involved, I'm glad to. Or me to be more, I'm glad to. I was just trying to figure out how involved you guys want me to be. I don't want to step myself into something, but if you want me to step into it, I'm glad to. Does that make sense?

I I think for the purposes of talking about city benefits and what it means to be an employee here, it's invaluable for our HR department to be involved in every recruiting piece. The impression that I got from from the email that I received was, "This is the commission's thing. They hired a recruiter. We're staying out of it." Um, I'm I'm paraphrasing, but I can pull up the email and it was pretty close to that. It it it was me and it it was because I I I didn't want to step on your toes. And if you had a vision, I didn't want you think that was interfering with it.

Completely understood. Um, but I do think, you know, staying out of it is is kind of we can't have you stay out of it. You know, especially in terms of things like the benefits of all of the great things that we have from an HR standpoint going on in our city that we do for employee retention and and everything else like that. There's a lot of great things that that we have. Um, we get emails weekly and daily, you know, for all the things going on. um they need that and they might not know what to ask if we don't let them. Now, it doesn't excuse them not asking for that information, you know, and and and trying to dive deeper into that. Um but I can see where there was a little bit of miscommunication on on that aspect of it. Um, looking at the brochure, it it's it reads like just like a it reads like another version of the boilerplate job description for me. Um we don't really highlight some of the new exciting projects coming in like I don't know W Moda um Gulfream um our artisal district getting overhauled um any of the new major grant work that's coming in um there's no real section about our golf course um the the beach so you know I I think a brochure or it needs to be more about, you know, why are we an awesome city and why are we kind of the last uncut rough diamond here in South Florida because we want somebody who's going to help polish and shape us into where we want to be in in the future. Um, so I'm I'm in agreement with you, Sarah. You know, in terms of the the the brochure, in terms of the the job description,

whenever there's that many bullets that are that long for me, I I almost can't read it. My I I actually skip words and and and I really have to struggle to read it. there's so much specific items in there that I feel it loses the essence of what we're looking for. Um, I know for myself personally, you know, I'm looking for a city manager who is skilled and adept in management, in strategic planning, who knows how to hold organizations accountable, who knows about process improvement, and knows about finances and and strategy and growth um, and implementation. Um, those things are all kind of in there, but you have to extrapolate them out from a lot of words, an awful lot of words. Um, so, you know, I I am fairly fairly critical of it. Um, I would like to see, you know, another draft of of this come back. However, with that said, I think there's there's importance to us um having discussion on the salary range. Uh I am prepared to talk about that because I've done my own research and I've got my opinion. I've talked to business leaders in our in our city. Um and you know, uh first drafts of things like this, I've seen them really work and I've seen them come back and be total bombs and then come back be something great. I would think the other thing that that we absolutely must have is professional photography, potentially even including some of the artistic photographers that we have here in the city that produce amazing work about some of our most boring buildings, you

know, even and and and things or they capture our murals at the right lighting and everything, the arts and and and it it's it's just missing all of that. But it it needs to have professional graphics design. Um there there's Yeah, that's Bob. He's on the Hill. Um uh so I I'll keep that part of it short and I I think I think we need to have the conversation on the salary though. Yeah. And I I am agreeing with everything that's being said. I don't feel like I need to reiterate it. Um I'm very concerned about the time frame. That's that's one thing that I just want to add. Mr. McCoy, your lights on. And then Miss May.

Yeah. Um, I think I share quite a bit of the concern that that I heard, you know, Commissioner Mlega or Vice Mayor Mlega went into quite a bit of detail of and and I think expressed a level of frustration that is probably shared by a lot of us here. Um I read a sentence uh position requires extensive depth of expertise and knowledge in specialized functions or business areas that can be used to develop policies and procedures as well as determine efficient and innovative ways to accomplish the organization's business strategies and I get to the end and say I don't think I want to work here if I'm you know a creative unusual intelligent person. I'm not that just didn't fire me up too much. Um I do think I'm and I'm going to differ a little bit from from my fellow colleagues and um we had a public comment earlier that discussed the recent election and it mentioned the commission. That might be a little bit in error because many of you who have been following know that I looked at that uh election very differently and I think it is important if we want to recruit the best possible candidate from a national search which I think is what I've heard from my colleagues if we want to recruit the best possible one I think we do need to be honest that certainly We are a city in South Florida. We under intense ongoing probably increasing development pressure, but we are also a city that just voted 8020 and I think I I will quote one of

our residents, hell no. It was a very strong statement that says or at least suggests and I think it behooves us as a commission when we're looking for a city manager to be honest and say look this is a community that has strong opinions

silly but we know that but somebody applying from California might think we're milktoast South Florida and we ain't milktoast South Florida. Sorry, we're not. Um, and that means that there are very strong opinions both ways on development, on a number of things. And the poor person who's applying is going to have to negotiate that. And it's going to have to negotiate that, you know, commissions change flavors over time and sometimes they lean more to one part of the community, sometimes they lean more to another. a good city manager is going to have to is I think wants to be aware a bit more detailed of what we're about and what we are as flavor and why our flavor is different than other places. I think that's only fair and I think it's only fair to us as a commission that if you want to get the best qualified candidate who will help us out the most, they need to know some of that stuff and I ain't getting it out of this. Thank you, Miss B.

Uh, thank you. And I do, uh, sorry to interrupt. I do want to discuss the salary part also.

Thank you. Um, I I agree and I'm just going to reiterate a couple of the things so that Warren can hear. Um, again, it's way too wordy. Way too wordy. We have a beautiful community. We have a photographer. You can email us. We'll give you his name. He has the most beautiful pictures of this city. He is um a city um contracted employee, so we can I believe use his photos. Um we need a lot more pictures and um I also think that it's I know you have to write it in there, but I don't think you need to describe exactly what a city manager does specifically every single duty. The kind of city manager we're looking for, it's not their first rodeo. We're not hiring a newbie. We need somebody and we are going to be willing to pay for somebody with experience, with goals, with historic proof that they are able to take an idea from the beginning to the end that has the ability to be a CEO of a multi-million dollar budget city. I mean, we're not looking for this is my first job. No. So, we don't have to spell out exactly what a city manager does. If they don't know what a city manager does, they're in the wrong place. Um, so we're looking for um and and I've heard this from res I've heard this from the most frugal of residents. Pay them. Make it worth their while. Get the experience. get somebody that knows how to manage people, okay? Because that's going to be the the hardest part. That is the hardest part of this city. And

it's not somebody who ignores people. It's that they have the ability to listen, find what each of us, the five of us, because they do meet with each of us, find the parts that we're all saying and be able to put that together because I do believe that the five of us agree on a lot more than what comes out here. And I think a good city manager can pull that out of us, can put that together and pull that out of us. I believe that. I believe if you're talking about a strong manager that they will have that ability and I've seen it done in other cities where you bring the commission together. To Mr. Mcvoyy's point, yes, we are never going to agree all of us and we never should because that's the point. We need to have constructive disagreement, constructive um conversations, but we do need to move this city forward. And I do believe that a strong city manager will be able to help us do that. Somebody with I I'm thinking somebody who has done it before and they need their their swan song. They're coming in. They're looking at at this city is ripe for a great city manager to come in and to create Yeah. just to kind of create that that perfect utopia that we know it could be. Um, so it needs to be it it's got that this brochure needs to say something like that. It needs to invite somebody with creativity, with experience, with passion, somebody who is ready to take it's not going to be easy. We are not easy to take on a challenge,

but to do it in a way that they realize they're working with people who are coming. Everything we do comes from our heart. It may not come off that way. And we may be told that we don't have hearts, but really we are up here because we love this city. You know, I I I I may have made mistakes, but I've never made a decision based on something I thought was bad for the city. So, I think we need to make sure that we're looking at that. Um, all of these little tiny details, bag it, take it out of there. They know that. If it has to have an, you know, an an addendum at the end with the list of everything so that you can check it off or legal needs to have that, fine. But that's not what we're selling with a brochure. Make me want to buy this house.

Uh, question. I just want to make sure we're all on the same page. the backup for the agenda. There's the job description and the brochure. Job description is the city's right. That's our that's a 2024. We're talking about all these bullets. I think we're all in agreement. The bro of pages of nonsense. Okay. Um can we do the salary? There's Mr. Sish wants to say one more thing. Um two more things. A few things.

Two more things probably. Um, also just adding to that that we're we're striving to transform our city government into something that's business and resident friendly with a customer service environment that is inviting to our residents just as they are inviting to to others where they're our government's part of the community and doesn't get perceived as working against the community. We we need we need that service mentality. Um, I was just going to kind of ask the question of my colleagues because to me I I believe that expedience with this is a very important thing that we're we're trying to accomplish.

How do we how do we workshop this rapidly? You know, I I understand, you know, our our consultant is going to need some time to go back, rehash, and come back with a draft. Um, I'm in favor of 72 hours. I mean, this is No, I said sometime. And I was going to suggest that um we actually do have our Friday pre-aggenda meeting and we use that to have an open discussion on on this with Mr. with Warren. Yeah, like for round round two.

Yeah, I I agree. There's just there's a lot here. Um yeah, the original part is from the you know July 20 24 um thing and that's fine. That's that's the backup. But um but as far as the brochure, Mr. um Mr. Warren, are you hearing us? Yes. Can you all hear me? I can't hear you. Muted.

Are you talking, Warren? I'm trying to I'm not muted, so I don't understand. What? We can only barely hear you. Can y'all just not hear me? Well, is that better? Can y'all hear me at all? I can hear you. No problem. Is Alonso here or somebody?

Sarah, let's make it for the next commission meeting. I was going to say that's Yeah. Well, here comes Alfonso. Yeah. Yeah. Could you speak again, sir? Yeah. Testing. Yes, that's better. It's a little better. Did you have right into the microphone? Yeah. Hopefully y'all can hear me. I'm not sure it's on my end. Is that better?

Yes. But you really need to just speak up. use your big outside voice. Okay. Hopefully y'all can hear me a little better. I'm talking loud. I don't know if it's

Okay. So, yes. So, if y'all can hear me, I followed along with the conversation. I appreciate the feedback and uh we will immediately get y'all a revised draft. Uh we definitely need help with photos. So that contact that y'all have with the city photographer would be extremely helpful. Um we can eliminate the leadership team. We do have that in all of our brochures, but if y'all prefer not to have it on there, we can certainly take that out of there. Um we can uh beef up the benefits information, change the narrative, reduce the uh

how I'm going to ask you, I'm going take the lead a little bit here. How we have an agenda meeting on Friday morning. Can you come back to us with a revision of this by then? Yes. Well, for it to be productive, we'd have to see it before that. Otherwise, we don't want to discuss it on the fly. If we have that, we need to talk about it Friday morning. So, we need it to we need something to talk about on then. So, really Thursday would be the time that it would need to be emailed to us. Now, yeah, I think uh I think I can get it to you by Thursday toward the end of the day.

Okay. We're talking about some major changes now. I mean, if if what you produce to us this week, which is a very short notice, but it's a very critically we've got to get this going. So, so I think that the best thing to do is get us and so we at least have something to talk about on Friday morning. Yes, Mr. McCoy. What can we ask staff so that we're not all sitting around watching our email rust? Um, can we ask somebody from staff to watch when Mr. Hutmarker's comes in and give us a call and say, "Hey, check your email. It's there. I do not check my email. I will

when it comes in, I'll text you and let you know that it's there. Check your email. I got you." Okay. So I, you know, it's been heavily criticized. There's a lot going on and um we really do need to see improvement because I believe that we're going to have to add this to the next agenda even though it's past the deadline. I think this is I would like consensus to do that because otherwise we've got a month. I consent. Yeah. Okay. Miss Mlego, I consent, but I I just I hope to God that Well, by that time we'll have conversations with him. Well, because Friday, if we don't like what we see, we can't turn around and have something added to the agenda for Tuesday. So, I consent if we all agree on Friday to the finished product to put it on Tuesday. If we don't agree,

then we go on the next one. Yes. Because I I don't want to put something out that is beyond subpar just to be quick. No, no, no. I'm thinking when I say the next I'm We have so many meetings. We have like two weeks of meetings. I mean, if it goes to if he gets our input and we can talk about it at the Uh, well, Friday, but then April 7th. Is it? That's too short for us to be able to put it out to the saying it might be the next one. Correct. No, I agree to that. Okay. But I think that it's got to because it's 7 then 14. We don't have one. 21. So, it'll be the 21st. We don't have one.

No, because that's CRA. It was up to Betty. We'd have a meeting every week. I don't think they're a fair critique. I I will say I I will give consensus to play it by ear on Friday, but if I don't see a huge improvement, I'm not putting out anything subpar to represent our city. No, I I ref I refuse. Yeah, it really Yeah, I think we're obviously you get our message. We're very disappointed and we want to see something brilliant in the next three days. Understood. Okay. Thank you very much. Salary. Salary. Salary. We have public comments. Let's have a look. Peggy Fischer and Jackson Stall.

I think Ramsey is just telecommuting. Just waiting for the

Peggy Fisher, 508 North A Street. The most important things I've heard said were an experienced person and a strong manager who is not concerned with saying no to a director, telling a director they need to change, do something different. I am embarrassed that there wasn't more stepping forward from staff to this recruiter just because we chose a recruiter. Well, I haven't been here anytime you've hired a city manager that you didn't have a recruiter. So, that doesn't make any sense to me. The other thing, and I'm just going to say it because the truth is the truth. It has been 2 years and almost 4 months since this city lost its previous city manager. And some of you had involvement in delaying this process several times. So for everyone who knows who they are or participated in that to say, "Oh, we got to do it. We got to do it. We got to do it." It wasn't that after six months. It wasn't that after a year. It wasn't after 18 months. So, let's give this gentleman a little bit more direction and a little bit more time to realize exactly what he needs to provide you. And maybe, this is just my thought, maybe someone from staff could provide him the previous package or two packages if there were one that was put out to find candidates for a city manager.

Thank you, Jackson Stall. Hey there. Your name and your phone and your address? Jackson,

Jackson Stall, 211 North Lakeside. Um, yeah. So, it is imperative. I hear hear you 100%. I had no idea that the presentation was that poor, but let's get that into shape for the love of God. Um, I agree with uh Mimi's comments uh completely. Uh, particularly you mentioned like getting a manager that's like a CEO. I think that's imperative for the city at this at this point. The city spoke loud and clear during the vote. I heard Nancy. I don't don't agree on everything, but I completely understand. Um, but we did vote yes on getting a new city manager. And I think it's insane to have a South Florida city that is as charming as ours and not have a CEO at the helm. That's uh that's crazy. Um, I mean, you can look at the beach. You can look at various prop, you know, entities that we have that are, you know, we struggle with poor management and it's imperative we get somebody in there and we pay them appropriately. I think the average salary is like two and a quarter like uh 225,000 uh through Florida. I think it needs to be I think it needs to get up there. I think it needs to get north of 300. Um, this person has to be able to come in, not be afraid to challenge those that have been inactive or insufficient in their duties. I think we have a lot of miscommunication in various departments, whether that be code or building or whatever it is. I think everybody has to get together clean. We got to work together. They have to help you. I think we all want to move forward. I think some of us had a different idea of how we should do that, but we do have to move forward. It is so important to have a CEO at the helm, city manager, pay them appropriately. If they need to get in and clean house in some areas, let them do so and find someone willing to do so. And then build the people up that can, you know, need

to be built up. I've I've worked in a lot of different scenarios and if you build if you build up and you work on it and you pay someone appropriately, you can normally get a pretty good job done and at this point we need a really really good job done. So, thank you. That's time. Thank you. Let's do it. Thank you. Yeah. And I think I mean yes, definitely the CEO aspect, but also I think you know going back to Mr. McCoy, someone that understands the community and the different waves that we have in our community. So, um, okay. So, we have agreed. Madam Mayor, yes, I have public comment. Oh, I'm sorry. I did not know that. I got asked,

which is why I'm letting you know that I have public comment. First is Sam Goodstein, who will be reading his own comment. Okay, Sam. All right, we can hear you. Members of the commissioner and madame mayor, madame vice mayor, I don't have to tell you guys anything about the problems that you face in working with staff in the things that come before you as business for the city.

Thank you. What I have to tell you is why I go to UNA and never look at the receipt. I have somebody there as they're making wonderful things I've never seen before and I try them and they're wonderful and I'm happy. That's what you need from a city manager. You need someone like I had a trip to Rosner's the other day. All the selections are good. They've done the work. All you got to do is decide, do you want the French door or the double French door? You need people where you never have to think to yourself, I'm going to pay now or pay later. And that's what the salary and the making it a 4 to one firing decision will make a difference for the city. I want you guys to have a problem. I want your group of candidates to come before you to be confusing because you want more than one of them. I don't want the chaos we had last time of this person is good at that and that person is good at that. I want five or six candidates who are like, well, any of them would sue. And then you got to puzzle out little things. I don't want that salary to be something except a salary level that gets a headline that says, "Oh my god, Lakeworth is paying a ridiculous amount for its uh next city manager." And I want that city manager who someone going to be look up on Google and learn about Lakeworth. I want them to know that we had an anarchist cheerleader who confronted the governor in a coffee shop. I want them to know that Omari Hardy and Pam Triola went at it. I want them to know everything. The job description, okay, put out something nice. People will look at it. But your good city manager is going to go in and dig and see what's done and see the offer that came from was it Arnold Palmer? I always forget if

it was Arnold Palmer Group or the other group. I want them to see that. I want them to see what's coming. I want them to see that the money is coming for Lakew Worth and that they need to be able to handle and bring in their team and make the decisions and bring to you the decisions that will benefit Lakew Worth in whatever it looks like in the future. Thank you, Sam. That's time, but you didn't give your address at the beginning. I am Sam Goodstein, 1717 12th Avenue South. Thank you, Sam. Thank you all. Good night. Okay, Madam Mayor, I have two other comments to read. Okay,

the first is from JD Mcccleinto, 5574 Lake Osborne Drive. Good evening, mayor and commissioners. I wanted to speak on unfinished business. Item B regarding the city manager position. This is one of the most important decisions this commission will make because the person you hire is ultimately responsible for how well the city functions dayto-day, not just in theory, but in execution. If we want a city that truly works, we need to approach this as an investment, not an expense. We should be targeting top tier talent. Someone who leads with data, who manages by metrics, who holds departments accountable for performance. Someone who understands how to measure results, track progress, and make adjustments when things are not working. And just as important, we need someone who is not afraid to make tough decisions. That includes reorganizing departments, improving structure, and addressing inefficiencies head-on. Because if the internal structure isn't right, the city will never operate at the level our residents expect. From a personal standpoint, as a realtor, I work with people every day who are deciding where they want to live and sometimes where they want to leave. I see firsthand what attracts people to a city and what pushes them away. And I can tell you how a city functions matters more than people think. When the city is organized properly and operating efficiently, it changes how people experience it. Residents feel it, but so do businesses. We become a city that people want to move to and businesses want to invest in. A city that works with people, not against them. One that operates in concert, not with frustration and roadblocks. That directly impacts economic growth, quality of life, and long-term stability. That level of leadership is not average and it's not inexpensive. If we are serious about getting the right person, then we need to be realistic about compensation. A budget in the range of 300,000 is not excessive for this role. It is what's required to

compete for proven high-erforming leadership that has the experience to step in and deliver results. Settling from less may save money on paper, but will cost the city far more and missed opportunities. Inefficiencies and lack of progress. This is about the long-term future of Lakew Worth Beach. If we get this hire right, everything improves. If we don't, everything becomes harder. I would strongly encourage you to position this role at a level that attracts real talent and to prioritize performance, accountability, and leadership in the process. Thank you. And the second and last comment on this issue, Nicole Stall, 211 North Lakeside Drive. I'm hoping that our commission fully understands the importance of a professional city manager. As a local community member who enjoys our city daily, it has become clear that we are without proper management and oversight. The city manager position needs to be filled promptly with someone who is cut out for the job. Our town deserves someone who can come into the position and execute the tax tasks at hand. which include getting city employees in line with our values, possibly relieving some of the employees who have shown little to no discipline in their position, and then hiring the appropriate people to run departments without bias and hopefully take a business and community first approach. You we must become a city where businesses can thrive while our community continues to grow. Please consider a professional salary of $300,000 or more for a qualified city manager. Let's get this right and move forward with excellent guidance. That's the last comment on this item. Madame Mayor,

thank you very much. Okay. Um, in terms of the salary, I think we what I'm hearing from the commission is that it needs to be higher, that we need to pay for expertise. Um, when I look when we, you know, when I when I go and talk to different groups or Florida League of Cities, you know, we have seven square miles with an electric utility, a water utility, our own sewer, a beach, a golf course, a lot, two cemetery, a lot going on. Um, you know, when you look at some of these other what and a lot a lot of meetings and a lot of lot a lot. It's a lot. Um, so I I think we need to listen to that. I agree with the comments that were made. I think it's, you know, it's important. So, um, what, uh, I'm going to go down as lights go on. Um, Mr. Seg and Mr. McCoy both have their lights on and Mimi has her light on. So, let's go Mimi. I feel like we're about to start an auction. Who I hear? Do I?

I mean, honestly, I'm willing to go somewhere between 300 and 350.

Okay, Mr. Savage. So, I I would agree with Miss May when we think about one of the earlier items. You know, we're investing almost $350,000 a year in transportation. Um, it's it's equally, if not more valuable than than that. This should be a no-brainer. I think it needs to be in that 300 to 350 range. I also think that there are a couple key things that um need to be stated and need to be either part of the brochure or definitely on the record which is that you know this commission is ready to support change.

We are ready to support a candidate who is going to be a strong leader who is going to implement change within our city because we recognize that we do need change, right? Um I think also having it known and be out there that we are willing to provide um greater level of stability to this position. And I I really think that the suggestion of a 4 to one um majority needed for for vote um is something that we maybe should agree on um or discuss tonight. How we could do that? Is that legal? This legal

would that be an ordinance? Um, you can find in other city manager contracts a provision like that. Um, we don't recommend it. Uh, because it

it gives you that it takes away your ability to act as where you would normally have the ability to take action. You can craft a contract with your city manager to build in stability in other ways. Um, and there's a variety of ways to do that. don't want to give up any negotiation tips right now, but uh between Glenn in our office and Laura in our office, we can talk about ways that doesn't take that ultimate power away from you, but gives you the ability to here's some ways that we can build in more stability so that someone who's applying for this job doesn't realize the best I can get is 20 weeks severance if I'm terminated without cause, which is state law, right? Um, there's other ways you can work with that and develop some more stability if that's what you're looking for, but we would not recommend from a legal standpoint. Now, that's legal.

You have the ultimate business policy decision, but you can do a contract that says it takes a 41 vote to terminate the contract, even if it's a termination without cause.

Yeah. And it's it's really hard because you know I was a couple of us were up on the dis uh when the last city manager um was fired and um the sunshine law is so hard because you know it it just I don't know how that was accomplished without some conversation. Um and so I think you know I I understand the four to one but I also think our hands are tied because of the sunshine. We there's we can't talk about it anyway. So if one person brings it up, I want to fire the city manager. All of a sudden, it was like it was like a gold rush. It was it was, you know, a bus that went on. And so I don't know that for I and we're not going to talk about specifics in the contract, but I think again from whatever experience I've had, you build in there are things that you can build in in terms of progress and and valuations and that sort of thing. So yeah, I I just think if if we don't get that specific in there, the the general notion that we are committing to this person for a long period of time and they will have stability because to come back to some of the comments of our from our residents and the lessons learned from from the vote, a lot of our residents didn't trust a 32 commission vote, right,

for important matters. Um, and so, you know, I I wouldn't be that shocked that candidates coming in might be wary of the same um kind of volatility, especially and also watching the meeting that that you just brought up. I mean, she got a raise in the summer and was fired in December. So, I mean, that's one of the problems with city managers, city attorneys. It's part of the built-in thing, but at least a commitment from us that the salary will be generous, you know, applicable. Um, and the built-in things with the contract. I think we can accomplish that and we'll be looking I mean, we are going to want to see that contract as it develops. I'm sure

we want to I think we leave it as a 3-2 for now. What? Leave it as a 3-2 for now. Yeah. And and see what we do. Mr. McCoy, what do you say about the uh I'm sorry to interrupt, Madame Mayor. Just want to let you know there's six minutes and 48 seconds left in the discussion. Okay. So, Mr. McCoy, do you um what about the salary? That's all we're going to talk about. That's what we're talking about. Now,

my concern when I saw what was written was his salary range 280 to 290. And that looked to me exceedingly unprofessional and giving away way too much of our negotiation. we are going to have a range of people applying. I don't think you want it to be that narrow a range. I don't what I saw in other state agencies was never that narrow a range. There was a low, a mid, a high. It it spread a lot further, especially on a salary that high. So, I would not make it that narrow. Um I What's your suggestion? What's that?

What's your suggestion? at at at a minimum make the range 10% of of whatever your number is. So if you're going to do 300 at least make it you know plus or minus 15 plus or minus 20 somewhere in there so that we have room to negotiate with that. Don't don't suggest between 3 and 350 has been suggested with this twice by two people.

I would have liked to see better data from the other places around. I agree that we're different. I I'm a little hesitant to make salary the main thing. I do hear the concerns about stability, but we can't guarantee stability. There's no guarantee that we will all be here in a year. And the community could speak very differently. And that's just the nature of city manager positions. If they're creative enough, they may be able to work across very different commissions. That's possible. It happens. So, so you are not in favor of the 3 to 350 range. Um, I would like more data before I add something, but you have to you have to vote.

Miss, um, I'm a 285 to 345 because from the low end to the high end, there's other negotiations that take place. Not everybody takes a job because of salary. Mhm. It will also be negotiated on severance pay, benefits, moving expenses that we are not calculating in that I'm sure that a lot of the public don't understand if they're coming from out of state. That is a big chunk of money from the from us out of our pocket. Um, so I would like to start in the 275 285 range and go up to 345. Um, based on obviously experience and and other things, but I I I'm I don't love starting at 300. Um, just because 300 in the ocean, you're going to have everybody putting their hat in the race. And I to me I'm I'm a 285 to 345 plus.

Okay. I can support that. Mr. You said you could support that, Mr. I I did say I could support that and I the logic behind it too. 285 to 345. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I we could live with that. I would support that. Um, one other thing to bring up is somewhere in here, I forget which line or wherever, we talked about that within it says within six uh weeks or months they have to move within the city. I know we have we changed our ordinance. We just want to make sure that whatever is being put out there to the world matches what our ordinance is or we have to change our ordinance if we want to. You're aware of that, Warren, that it's not in the city that we've expanded the area. Yes.

Okay. Um, Miss 285 to 345. I mean, I'm not going to argue about that. I do see that there's something about seeing that 300 number that will stand out. Um, but I do I I must admit I've never done any sort of contract negotiation, so I don't know what else goes into it. So if you guys with the expertise say start at 285, go up to 345, we'll come somewhere in the 300s most likely, I'm okay with that. Okay. So, uh, salary range, we have consensus to go from 285 to 345. Madame Mayor, can y'all hear me?

Yep. I just want to uh just make a comment on that and kind of explain the theory that we've used with other cities as well is that when you go into the negotiation once you've selected the candidate that you want um typically what will happen in this area is that the commission will is expecting to get somewhere around 285 and the candidate is looking at that 345 number and then you have got a huge risk factor of expectations um and it makes it more difficult to be able to have certainty that you're going to get a deal put together. And so that's why we recommend a tight range um to be able to uh really communicate what you're intending to do. And so I would if if y'all I would tighten the range from um because you got it at $60,000 difference and I don't I don't think that's going to work well at the end of the process. Well, I I we've you know discussed it and um I think we're in agreement to go with that range.

Okay. I just wanted to make sure I I was heard that because we might have somebody that's on a pension from another city and they're coming in for their Yeah. Yeah. They wouldn't understand hurricanes, but that's okay. Yeah. Um Okay. So, we have uh we've agreed on the range. Okay. And um thank you. We're done. Comfort break time. Well, that's a good We'll be back.

They're helping you philosophy. Yeah. What are you doing? Madame Mayor, it is 8:41 or 8:40 rather and we have reconvened.

Thank you very much. Okay, now we are up to um C discussion regarding executive assistance to the city through machine position. We have been asked to move the nest item up to now to do that fairly quickly. Um, does anybody have a problem with that? Mr. Seg, it should be a pretty quick item. There's other stuff that other other people waiting for too, like the the last one, the uh Well, that's that's consultants in here. I guess would be a larger Well, I just I asked um Oh, and we have I mean Yeah. I should have done that.

I asked um okay discussion got the executive assistant to um the city commission. Yes. Hire one

three years ago. Can I make one general statement about it? Miss May would like to make a general statement. When I read through the onbudsman, when we have a strong profession, no offense Jamie, but when we have a strong professional city manager who's not interim, we hopefully will not need somebody to hold people's hands like this in this way. What we don't have is an administrative assistant. And I think we need to push this more towards administrative assistant than on budsman if we only can hire one person. Well, that's a good question. Can we hire one or can we hire two?

I think we can only hire one. And that's just my overall opinion. We can talk about specific job duties and skills and whatever, but I think that a lot of the embudsman duties are because of frustrations with processes and with um the way things are organized and the way things happen. If we deal with that, we won't need somebody to handhold everybody through all of this. And that's what this unbudsman job is. And it's very funny before I became mayor and after I'm not mayor anymore when I'm not mayor anymore um part of my practice was essentially doing that and it's what it happens to us the the idea when buzzment came up because we do get so many issues which mostly around community sustainability department others as well sometimes but mostly that um and so the idea was floated to do you know to hire separate unbudsman Mr. Brown of your lights on. Let me I always like to go to you first.

Uh yeah, madam mayor. So um when this was just the uh executive uh assistant.

Um we did uh rounds of interviews uh candidate was selected, offer was made, they they actually accepted and we do have the HR director here as well. Um they then decided to uh take it position. I think it was a school district or something like that. Um so we had to put the thing out again. I was not on the second round of interviews when it went back out for a second time. Um I believe those interviews actually started but then there was a shift because there was direction that you guys would prefer to have more of a legislative assistant on budsman that whole job description be put together brought forward it was sent out to multiple people. So then we ended up with two separate we have funding for an executive assistant to do a legislative slash unbudsman position would require a budget amendment but we had that together. We then have two separate job descriptions which was sent out multiple times to all of you and we've just been trying to get to a point to find out which do you want us to post. They're both ready to go right now. We just need direction on what type of position do you want to post. We currently don't have funding. Okay. Well, I'm going to make a statement.

So, we're just looking for direction on what you want us to do.

We've actually not, and I've been very honest with you about this, we have not actually had an ex full-time executive assistance in 2022. Sylvania left in December of 2022, I believe it was, not 2024. So, was Okay. Um, so three years then. Um, four, five, six. Yeah. Um, so a lot of the frustrations in holding office that I have is that we've not had that things that could have been I feel very frustrated because things I'm sure Sarah and you know my fellow uh folks feel the same way. Um things that I could have said, "Hey, I need you to do this or I need you to figure that out." We've not had that and I'm angry about that. And I think that, you know, to say that one person came and then another person came and they didn't get hurt. This is not a job for a rocket scientist. Some of the things that I have the um, you know, for the administrative assistant, advanced knowledge of city policies, practices, and procedures, huh? How do you I mean, if you're hiring for somebody from outside, how do you think that they're going to know that? Advanced knowledge of department policies and procedures. Yes, they learn that. But what we need is someone that can answer the phone, help us with travel, help us with the research that we need done. I cannot, you know, and again, I I apologize. I try not to be negative, but this one, this has been bugging me for a long time that we have had. I don't know what I could have done had we had an assistant that we could a functioning assistant. Um, so I'm I'm very very frustrated about this. I I just think of the years that we have not had that that could things could have been done. That's one of my frustrations in this position at this point. Um so in term I I don't disagree with Miss May about the if we have to choose. I think we have to what we need is somebody you know again when I was um

working as just just as an attorney people would hire me to say this is happening with code and I would call the code enforcement officer and we try to work things out and negotiate things. I can't do that now because we don't get involved in operations. I mean, I I we get a complaint, we pass it on, we hope it works out. We can certainly give, you know, our our ideas and and opinions about things, but we have no we are not operational. When I'm no longer mayor, that might be part of my job again, part of my practice. But in terms of I I'm sorry that we have to think about having an unbudsman. And I think if we have to choose, I think part of what the um I mean the the administrative assistant, it's not busy high pressure all the time. I think that our administrative assistant could feel those calls. Instead of sending them to city manager, send them to the the department that they're getting a a complaint about. Um if you know, if we have to choose one or the other, we we cannot go longer without an administrative assistant. It's so frustrating. Um, Shona has stepped in and she's done a wonderful job, but that's not her job. We are, you know, we're not our complete focus. And I just think that it's a shame that we have been handicapped and and hand, you know, sometimes with our hands tied behind our backs trying to get stuff done. So, I think that perhaps part of the jobs disc, you know, I mean, advanced know how does somebody come in, get hired off the street, advanced knowledge of city policies, practices, and procedures. That's what you learn when you take the job. You talk to people, you say, "How do we do this?" No one I I think that we that's an unreasonable expectation. I think that whoever in if from my position if when when we get an executive and we're offering $70,000 for this position, it's not a kid, you know, at a high school position. It's a I think fairly well- paid position. So I think that given what I think the work and you know

correct me if I'm wrong colleagues but the work of the executive assistant part of that job description could be field complaints from to to follow up. That's in my two cents. Um and you're hearing my frustration.

What? Well that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. I think that this job I don't think that the assistant the executive assistant job cancels out the idea that they can't handle what when I get a complaint when anyone gets a play it goes to the assistant they deal with it um and and get back to us and I don't think given you know we've been here some of us have been here five years now some more to know that the job of the assistant is it's a very valuable very very important job but I think that part of that job could be fielding those those complaints so That's my two cents. Miss Malika, I'll start with you. Everybody else's lights are on first. Oh, okay. Well, Mr. Shred.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, I think tonight's my oneyear anniversary of being here, so I don't know the frustrations of not having an assistance since 2022. Um, but I I would disagree. Um, I look at this as if we have budget and what is best for the city and what is going to have the best impact for our businesses and our residents um as well as our ability to do our jobs. Um, looking at the administrative assistant role and hearing, you know, what you're you're saying it is um I see no reason why we cannot continue as we currently are. I haven't had a phone call missed, a meeting dropped or any task that I've given Shona to to help with um that hasn't come out fantastic. Um so, you know, I think she's doing a commendable job um when I asked about it um directly. I was informed she wasn't overworked um so I think, you know, she's handling the low-level admin assistant aspect. if the commission's dealt without it since 2022. Um, you know, I never had it, so maybe I wasn't used to it, but I'm perfectly fine continuing without it. Where my time gets caught up is in doing unbudsmanlike activities, and it represents a significant significant amount of time. For me, if we're hiring somebody to better the city, it is somebody who is more like the unbudsman description with some administrative assistant um responsibilities. Um I do not really see the need and and by the way, our administrative assistant range goes up to $90,000 a year plus benefits. Um

doesn't help. I don't, you know, I just can't justify paying taxpayer dollars to pay $90,000 to have someone help me with my schedule um or organize my meetings. I I just I can't um more of the unbudsman role um I can see be being very helpful. I spend a lot of time investigating, asking questions, navigating through code complaints or business licensing stuff that that residents or businesses have and helping them through that process. Um, and a lot of that um is something that that role could take on. Um, hearing you say that, you know, your administrative assistant will will handle the complaints and just forward them on the staff. To me, I don't believe that's why I was elected. I think if people are calling me, they want to speak to me. They want me to help them. They don't want me to hand off to their administrative assistant. In almost every industry I worked in, if I even attempted to hand someone off to an assistant, it was taken as an affront. and and I think our residents wouldn't be happy with that. And this is my my personal uh opinion on on how I would like to work as an elected official. Um so I've got the rest of my term, two years, and and and hopefully another term after that. I don't foresee myself personally needing an administrative assistant, but I think for the good of the city, someone who's more of the unbudsman role would free up more of my time to work on larger legis legislative and strategic and policy issues versus um lower level detailed followup on on some of these interdep departmental issues that that people get caught up in. I've in all of my meetings with residents and business owners, I've never heard them

say to me, you know, I really wish I could get in touch with you easier. I have heard them say time and time and time and time and time again, it would be great if we had someone dedicated that could help us navigate the the city. And I understand uh Miss May's comment about when we get a new city manager, maybe that will change. I I don't think it'll ever delete that need for that role. Um it will just change how effective that role can be. It'll it'll be a force multiplier um to the benefit of of that role. So I'm firmly in the camp of I I can see a hybrid position. You know, that's what I'm suggesting.

Um but I would lean way more towards the unbudsman job description. Um, and in terms of the qualifications there, getting specific, I would like to see somebody with at least a bachelor's degree. Um, because if somebody's going to help me with my research, they're going to have to be skilled um in in going through code and and and looking through ordinances and laws and being able to look up other cities and and and their laws. Someone at the lower end of of the spectrum just isn't going to be useful um to me. And you know given the choice of one, the other or neither um you know I would support the unbudsman style role maybe not completely there. You know back it off a little bit and have more of a of an interaction with us as as a as an assistant. Um or I would support not having anything at all and put the money back into the budget for something else. Um if we do go the more unbudsman route um that position should report to the commission um and and and you know I hesitate to say it you know we have another position that's extremely important that's similar um in this vein which is our internal auditor um and that's a role where I am sorely missing that role um at at the moment you know so Th those are my thoughts on it at least initially and would like to hear what my colleagues have to say.

Let me ask you a question. Um you know you talk about not handing I mean the um administrative assistant name unbudsman name and what I mean if if if there's an unbudsman if hi you know mayor there's a problem and I give it to an unbudsman it's essentially the same as giving it to a person who's going to handle it. And I think that I I believe that with the administrative assistant there would be enough time for them to follow up and get back to us. And you know, we have to be careful about how I don't know what you're doing with staff. I mean, I am pretty careful when I get a complaint from staff about from from a resident about something to remember the very you know the the fine line that we have between operational and policy. Now policy is our policy is that we should have excellent community service, excellent customer service and responsiveness. So I understand that but if we're handing it I mean if if we're calling if we whatever we call that person I believe that and again we do have experience with an administrative assistant and um I think that there would be time to to do that. I think that given the independence of this commission um that the embudsman role can be mindmelded into um the administrative assistant as well.

You spoke Mr. Mcoments, don't we? I'm about to call on you to speak. Mr. McCoy back for a minute. Easy, Tiger. Um, Madame Mayor, what what was your specific Well, just I believe that we can it can be a hybrid position. Okay. I I would for for me I I would be okay with with a hybrid position leaning heavily towards the the umbusman the skill sets is is what what I'm I'm talking about. You know,

that is what I would personally find, you know, useful in terms of, you know, getting down to to how we interact with staff and so on. Yes, I do believe firmly that we set policy, but I also believe we have every right to question and get to the bottom of things and help our residents get to the bottom. You're shaking your head, but it's in our charter, madam. Okay. And and and when our when that does not happen, it's directly in our charter. It says these city commissioners can question and ask questions of any member of staff. And that is what I do. So, you know, I I I really believe that this this role can help us with that.

Okay. And I I am fine with a hybrid, but I think that we need we need some help. Um, who was next? Mr. Who's next? Mr. McCoy.

Mayor. Oh, I don't know. I heard Mayor Mc. Okay. Who's next? Mr. McGoy. All right. Um, I think that Commissioner Segridge hit it on the head when he said, "What what does the city need?" Not so much what do we need, but what does the city need? And I think uh it's being described as ombbudsman, but if it was a office at the county level or at the state level, it would be described as somebody who handles constituent services. that when that there's a reason that elected officials are, you know, out there and accessible because who you going to call? If you're a resident somewhere and you got a problem with the county, you got a problem with the city and it isn't working dealing with staff, you naturally you're going to call an elected official and say, "Hey, can you help me out?" And I would agree with Commissioner Segritz. Our choice on this should be how can we make that process work better for residents and businesses in our city. I spend a lot of time as as all of you I think know my city number is directly forwarded to my cell phone.

So is mine and you're not alone. I get a lot of calls and I get a lot of things that people are frustrated dealing with the city and could I please try to help? Well, I get tons of those, but I do give those to my wife.

Um, but uh I think what I'm hearing from Commissioner Segridge is we want to be receiving those calls. We want to be accessible to residents to try to make stuff work better for businesses and residents here. There clearly a lot of things that don't work very well. I think there's quite a bit of agreement here that responsiveness is an issue, accessibility is an issue. Um, and I don't I would not see somebody in this role as hey thanks resident or thanks business owner. you called about this problem X and um go talk to Jake.

He'll take care of it. That isn't what I'm looking for. But what I would look for is get an idea of it and then say, I'm going to put you on to Jake or Jill or whoever. This is our person that helps be kind of the intermediary between the collection of staff and the collection of residents and business owners and tries to fix stuff, tries to make stuff work better and hopefully bring some of that information as they do a month or two or three months of this, they start noticing patterns. Geez, we're getting a lot of call about X. Maybe we need to maybe that person would be both empowered and have the wherewithal that they approach the city manager and say, "Hey, you know, I'm getting all of our constituents or many of them or all of our commissioners are getting calls about X or Y or whatever." Uh, can you bring that to the attention of the commission or attention of because as the mayor points out, the sunshine law does complicate life. We cannot get in the hallway and say, "Hey, you get a lot of calls about X. We're not allowed to do that." And we're pretty careful not to do so. But an as constituent services or you want to call it OBS ombudsman, fine. It doesn't matter. But it has to be I think what Commissioner Seg is getting to that's a little different than the mayor's position is this needs to be somebody with some wherewithal. That means that they can have, you know, at least a bachelor's degree is pretty important. Have some initiative, have some creativity, obviously have some people skills to to talk with residents, deal with all of us. Um, I think something that hasn't come up that much in the discussion so far is that there's another piece in the nonexecutive assistant flavor of the job

applicant, and that's legislative assistant. You can certainly make an argument that our jobs as leaders should not be only to problem fix. That's clearly an important part. But it should also be to provide some leadership. What are the best practices out there in area? Can we adopt some of those here? Are we doing pretty much the best practices in our city compared to other places? What are some leading things that people are doing when they're looking ahead to to take leadership as a city? That requires somebody again with some wherewithal to do that. And I personally feel like that's been I'm much more upset about the lack of that than the lack of somebody to help do administrative things. Shona has been able to do that fine for me other than don't tell me my meeting is in 15 minutes. give me 30 minutes. But um I it's it's fine. I don't need that part. I need legislative assistance and constituent services assistance.

Thank you, Ma. Oh, Miss

No, I'm I'm just listening right now. So, I apologize for this because I'm agreeing with everybody. I think we can just sit together and move it along. Miss Valgo. So, um, sitting back listening to everybody, I did love our executive assistant and I utilize her on a regular basis. And I think the more things you're involved in, the more liaison appointments you have, the more legislative things you do, you do need backup um, and somebody there to to handle those those tasks for you. Shauna has been amazing. I have no complaints about Shona. And at the same time, I have no complaints about staff because when I email staff, I email our city manager with staff. I don't go above our city manager's head.

I don't go to our staff's offices. I go through our city manager or assistant city manager, Troy. And I think that the level of responsiveness that we get from staff is a direct correlation on how you treat staff. And I'm going to take this from being a business owner. I I have been up here for five years defending our staff and I will die on that sword every single day. I am so tired of people talking about how staff doesn't respond or there's a lack of response or you're not getting the information that I really wish that every elected official would have to go through training on how to be an elected official in IMO because city management government is not us getting in the weeds. it is give it to staff, give it to the city manager, and follow protocol. It's not for us to dictate and get in the middle because there are a lot of things the union doesn't even allow us to do that we could be violating. Number one, I had to learn the hard way year one. Um, and I think that it's a fine line between policy maker and prof and professional public business, which I've always been. And it took me a long time to learn that fine line. and HR has helped me graciously. And when I'm like, "Why can't we?" They're like, "Well, because this is what the union says." And and it is a fine balance, right? I do miss having an executive assistant. Um I don't spend as many hours in the office as I used to. Shona was the one who printed those Equality Florida um pamphlets and I passed it out for me today. I think that having somebody who is a blend because I really do think it's it's the service to the residents at the end of the day that if I can't get back to a resident or I have a followup, hey, you know what? I reached out to Vaughn about somebody having a complaint or an issue and it's always flooding every time it rains. I want to

make sure that, you know, that we follow up with that person that they know that they got in contact with somebody that I'm not just putting it on the to-do list, right? I think that's important, but I think it's very important for us to realize that that is not our role. Our role is to have an executive assistant or a legislative assistant and say, "Here, I got this phone call from A, B, or C. Can you please connect with them and help them find the answer they need?" That's not my job, right? That to me, I don't think that's my job. Last week, I had a the business advisory board sent me a business downtown that was having problems getting answers on their sign specs and their permit was denied. They couldn't get in touch with somebody. Well, then I was like, well, that's above my pay grade is literally the words I said, but I know people who can get you the answer. And that's all I did. Please call. Here's the gentleman's phone number. Here's their address. They're having some kind of issues with getting dimensions on what they can have for their sign permit. Hands off. I'm done. I let the business advisory board know I followed up as you requested. Here's who I gave the information to. They will be following up with the business owner and then I'm hands off. I I it's very hard for of that balance, right? Even being a business owner downtown and not getting involved in the day-to-day crap that happens. I will support whatever way the dis wants to go on this as far as I'm budsman. Title is title. um at the end of the day because we're all going to have different needs and different requests.

You know, we're we're all five very different people and what you might want from an executive assistant,

I may not need. So, I think that as long as that person, again, just like the city manager has to navigate our personalities, this person's going to have to navigate our needs. And we each have our own needs. We had a great assistant who left because she was talked down to, she was ridiculed, and she couldn't do it anymore. and she cried when she when she told me she was leaving because it wasn't the entire commission that she didn't want to work for. It was how she was being treated internally. That is what I won't tolerate. I don't believe in talking down to staff, belittling staff, or putting people unnoticed. That's not our job. Our job is to make policy, set policy, give direction. So whatever we do, I just want it to be with integrity, with patience. Whoever comes into this position, a learning curve because they may not be coming into government, they may be coming from a private sector or they have no idea how slow things in government take. You're not going to get an instant response. So I think that the most important thing is that whoever takes this position has the right training through HR, understands our personalities, and maybe has time with us individually on what our individual needs are going to be. Does that make sense to anybody?

That's why I see a hybrid. Uh, Miss May, thank you. Um, yeah. I mean, I I can tell you as a teacher, I've never had an assistant, so I wouldn't even know what to do with one if I had it. Oh, we do everything. So, um, but that's not what Wait, hold on. Now I was lost my train of thought. While you're thinking, Madame Mayor, just to let you know, we have three minutes and 22 seconds left. Thank you. So, I I'm going to make a motion. Okay.

Okay. I'm going to make a motion that we put these these two together and we we call the position a legislative assistant. We're legislators. We have assistant. Then we get take the word on budgeman out because half of the world doesn't know what that means, including me. and the other. So we don't need to call it an executive assistant because that has more of a administrative type role. So let's call it the legislative assistant. Let's combine these and let's put it out where we have when we're interviewing we're offering salary that's higher than mine as a teacher. So I'm sure I could do this job and I'm sure somebody else in my area of intelligence could do it as well. So, I think it's a fine salary. I also think that like they're going to learn as they go along, right? And they're going to learn about the different departments and who to call and and you know, just like we did, you know, and I they don't have to come in knowing all of that, but they do have to have the soft skills.

They absolutely have to have the soft skills of kindness, respect, understanding that the citizens and the residents and the business owners are the boss. when they call in, they get the utmost respect because they're the ones who we work for. Um, and so I think that making sure that we're very clear about that and the and having those soft skills, being able to understand that they're going to have to work with five different personalities. Their job might not look the same for each one of the um commissioners. Um, that's a long way of saying let's move on from this. Let's make a motion that we're going to combine this And if you want to send us a final copy, that's fine. I don't need one, but if you guys do, that's fine. Um, and let's get this job out. Let's call it a legislative assistant, and let's move on.

I have a motion by Commissioner May, second by um, Vice Mayor Mlega. All in favor? I I Oh, we have public comments. Sorry. We had the three minute warning. Yeah, we got nervous. Madam uh, clerk, are there any public comments from your end? I don't have any. Um, but just to clarify, so they're going to combine the Well, it depends on what the public comments say. Well, okay. Okay. Ramsey Mloud, I mean, this could change everything right here. Oh,

I wasn't near the mic. First of first of all, I'm a little confused because No, I have a question. I'm a little confused because on the agenda back there, it doesn't have the onboseman legislative aid position listed. It may be on your agenda, but it's not on ours. It is on the agenda online. So, because it was listed as a separate item on the online agenda,

name address. I'm just telling you I'm going to speak on both positions because they were online, but they're not on the agenda tonight. Ramsey Mloud, 24 South Sea Street, executive assistant. This job description reads like you took some responsibilities from the city manager or maybe the assistant city manager since he's been here two years, but I still don't know what he actually does. the city clerk and other individuals who currently po per perform some same or some of the similar functions on Bowman legislative aid. This job description sounds like it should be for a director's assistant. It too reads like it lists all the things staff in the sustainability department are responsible for in their job descriptions, but they don't want to do them anymore. In addition, it sounds like these are responsibilities that Mr. Waters has taken on because he is so knowledgeable and experienced in all the topics listed. I applaud him for taking them on, but his staff should be well trained and experienced enough to handle customer complaints, resolve issues, and educate the public on our ordinances, building permit requirements, code issues, etc. If not, I would expect such instances to be elevated to the supervisor or assistant director before landing on a director's desk. Both of these job descriptions read as if they were created to be a dumping ground for staff who are not fully performing, particularly since they list so many areas they have to be a quote expert in and have to have the demeanor to deal with a variety of hostile encounters. Our ordinances are constantly being complained about by developers and homeowners for their confusion and how they are applied by city staff. As for the legislative assistant part, this also sounds like information that should be be providing to you from the department directors. In addition, I am under the impression that our legislative representatives should know

our city well enough to advise commission members on the best course of action to take when visiting Tallahassee. And that's why I only picked one topic to talk. Okay, we've hi. Look at her voice. Back to my motion. Okay, we have a motion. We have a second by Vice Mayor Mlega. I see lights on, but we are down to two minutes. Um, I'm going to call the question. So, do it. All in favor? I would I might have gotten to an eye if you'd like a little more comment.

Well, we were down out of time. Um so it's 3 to two um with commissioner seg and commissioner uh mcboy descent name. Okay. Madame mayor may I may I ask for clarification though? So it's to combine the executive assistant, legislative aid, arms budsman into one description. That's call the legislative assistant. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner said, point of order. You call to call the question. That requires a vote. Yes.

Which we did not do. When you call the question, we have to vote on calling the questions which which passed. the question. Who wants to call the question? You just voted on that. So now now we vote on the actual question. Question. So now now we're going to vote on the actual question, right? Yes. I if I might comment. Mr. Before the uh positions to a legislative assistant say I Mr. I didn't hear Mr. Okay, it's 50. And obviously that's going to have to come back to us with the, you know, as soon as possible to

I'm sorry, Commissioner Moy, are you now an I? Reluctantly.

Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Brown. I I was going to mention that um you know with the the salary comment commissioner secret made earlier we have a compensation consultant um who utilize who gave us the class and comp which is where our salaries and everything come from um because if we're going to put stuff out there we want to have comparable rates to neighboring cities so we actually have an opportunity to get people that are qualify for what we're putting out for. I was gonna ask far as combining the positions and Lauren I don't know if you want to speak to this does we really need to get this back to you guys for your final approval because when we did these we did send them out to all of you guys for your notes your comments or anything on the job descriptions is there anything you wanted to add delete to have that conversation we didn't get a lot back so I just want to make sure we're gonna combine these together. I don't know if your recommendation would be based on this now being combined position, making sure from a compensation standpoint that this falls in line with what it should and then bring it back. And I'm and I want to make sure we put like a timeline because we are not we want to get this off our desk. So, I want to make sure we have a timeline here that we can bring this back to. But again, I don't know what Katie's

Yeah, I don't think it will take me that long to to do the combinations. um also and then I'll tweak it but just let you know. So the executive assistant the pay range is 61 to actually 101. I never advertise the high end of the range. So usually if you see the posting it'll be the mid which is 80. Um for the unbudsman it's a little bit higher. It's 67 to 113 and 90 being the mid. So the the pay range will be some they're very similar. So once I tweak it, I'm assuming because we're going to be throwing some of the outbudsman's rel um responsibilities that it will come in at the same pay range, but I will have that confirmed.

Really? I mean, it's more than a teacher salary. Yeah. I mean, we want to get a quality person, which is Yeah. Yes. And do you think two weeks like how long do you think we it it'll take to kind of get this together so I can get this back to them? So, um I think two weeks is very reasonable. I just want to make sure. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Okay. I see lights on. Um I don't know why. Are we going to talk about this or something else? Are we going to move along?

Move along. Okay. Thank you. All right. Moving along. We are now up to new business task order number 10 with Holtz Consulting Engineers for Professional Services. That's a new business A. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. Do I have a second? All in favor? I I I'm sorry. Who made this second? They're not speaking in their mic. Gun. May. Sorry, May. Thank you. And it's unanimous. Uh, next up, construction agreement with Florida Design Drilling LLC for the Rehabilitation of Wells LWB-3, LWB-6, LWB-7, and LWB-14.

Motion to approve by Mr. uh McBoy. Second, Mr. Segridge. All in favor? I. Thank you very much. Item C, task order number two with NFR Consulting LLC to assist Lakeworth Beach Electric Utilities in monitoring power supply costs. Motion to approve by Mlega. Second by second by Mr. Seg. All in f. Mr. Mcoy's lights on. Yes. Can we get a little more clarity of what this would be doing separate from the outfit whose name I can't remember right off the top of my head that's in Orlando. No, not stand. The other one um if I hear it that'll come to mind. Director Liberty will certainly Lidos or

Bingo Lidos.

Okay. Um Madame Mayor uh for the record at Liberty Electric Utility Director uh Lidos who is not on the agenda tonight. Lidos is our rates consultant. So, Lighthouse does our cost of service studies, helps us develop our rates that uh we sell electric to our customers at. This is entirely different. This is looking at our cost of wholesale power on an hourly basis, monthly basis, weekly basis, annual basis, and helping identify trends and opportunities for reducing costs. We also since they let us uh and worked with us on the negotiation of the contract, the RFP and the 7-year contract at FMPA uh will audit those bills for a period of time to make sure that the bills are matching the language of the contract and are being calculated correctly. They will also work with us on understanding the cost of our resources, meaning our power generation resources and what the market signals are in terms of pricing. Because, as we explained, while we have a seven-year contract, we do run the risk, if you look at the lead times to order equipment and get a new plant online, that long before we get to the end of a seven-year contract, we're going to be making decisions about what's going to happen on day one of year eight. So if we wait to go out to bid for example until sometime in year six or sometime in as we near the end of the contract and we don't have biders but we don't get good prices it'll be too late to react and build something. So we need to have a very good understanding of our transmission profile and our capacity and generation energy profile

costs from our various resources. So would this include then Nfront analyzing our current generation on-site generation capacity and thinking about either renovating enhancing building new additional etbs. So we we we're now there's a very good question and direction it's taking us and we're in in the doing a what I call a condition assessment of our units. So we had previously thought that we would keep them for 2 to four more years. It's now entirely likely that we'll keep most of our units which we I call GT1 and GT2 and the M units upwards of 15 years. Uh and we need to be prepared for for another 15 years. We may only go six or seven years or five years with them, but we need to be thinking in terms of having them as many as 15 years to bridge that gap. So, we have a very important decision coming probably in the next 24 to 36 months about what we're going to do at the end of this wholesale power contract that we're under right now. And I think if I remember right, you mentioned during the cold snap that it perhaps altered a little bit how we think about on-site generation that that it turned out that we I believe we made a little bit of money off of it and it supplied some power that we were afraid we might need. We might have made a little bit of money, but ultimately what it did though is it

it was the last bulk word, if you will, uh against the we were in what was called an EA3, right, which is either get units online now or shed load now, right? And we were on that edge for for hours on that Sunday when the temperatures were in 30. Now, I think this accelerated the decision-m of what are we going to do uh when we get these extreme weather events, do we have enough capacity here? But we have a number of other things that are happening. Our pipeline uh contract will be expiring uh before the end of a seven-year period. That's the pipeline that brings natural gas to the plant today uh from west of here in the last few miles, right?

Uh that was negotiated in 2003 and that will be coming to an end shortly in the next few years. What are we going to do to that? Are we going to renegotiate that? Are we going to switch to oil? Are we going to take an ownership position in another FMA project? or will we build something on system or build something off system a lot of decisions to make and in the context of that we'll be doing another integrated resource plan we've done two within the next year or two we should do another one and front I think is the leading candidate to be able to do that type of analysis

and and that last statement relates a lot to what I was going to ask earlier and forgot is we have as you're very aware and I've been working toward we have a resolution that says we're going to get to a goal and I forget whether the number was 60% non-carbon by 35 and 0% by 45 correct and I would ask that as part of this analysis we get some sort of an update of a projection of are we going to meet that 45 and specifically how are we going to meet it

well we do track we that's a good point we do track that every year so we take that resolution seriously there's no decisions that we've made now that would impact our pathway to the 2035 goal, which is the one that's in front of us. I think we're going to be good on that one. However, there could be decisions that we make, you know, three or four and five years from now that will need to reflect the 2035 goal because if we make a decision, it's certainly going to go beyond that period of time,

right? So we need to we need to keep that in mind and recognizing that there'll be new people sitting in in these seats making perhaps new policy decisions or reinforcing ones that have already been made. So we're going to have to make some key decisions. Um we have a very good low carbon footprint today compared to much of the marketplace. But the goals for 2035 are more stringent than we are. So one of the things that we need to understand is what is solar really doing for us? I'm not saying it's not doing good things for us, but what are our true capacity costs? Because solar doesn't give you a lot of capacity. It gives you a lot of low carbon-f free energy, but it doesn't give you a lot of capacity. So, where's capacity going to come from? So, how are we going to fulfill our capacity needs while at the same time reaching our carbon footprint? It could be a very large battery deployment, for example, things like that. So we we can't jump into that without a lot of analysis and somebody that really knows us and knows our portfolio, knows our drives drivers, knows our costs, which in some cases are confidential contract numbers, uh, and does that hourly analysis.

So NFR would be able to include non-fossil fuel sourcing, storage, batteries, all of the above. It'll be an all of the above strategy. and how what strategies do we use to meet the stated policy of the 2035 goal and the 2045 goal. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um we have a motion and a second. All in favor? I thank you very much. D the non-exclusive agreement with Unitech Inc. for fiber optic engineering, design, material, supplies, and installation services as an on on and as needed basis for the city's fiber optic network system. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve.

Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Thank you very much. E. Task order 2. Task order number 23 with WGI, Inc. for design surveying services to support construction design at Main Yard on College Street. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? I. Thank you very much. Uh, next up is uh F task order number nine with WGI, Inc. for Lakeworth Beach Pier Structural Assessment and Rehabilitation Services. Um, do I have a a motion? Motion to approve. Do I have a second comment? Okay, we have what? Second, but have a comment.

Okay, we have public comment. Mr. Fischer, Peggy Fisher, 508 North A Street. Um, I believe it came up during the time of the Benny's lease for the pier, Benny's on the on the beach, that there was an assessment made, I think in 2018 of that location and the needs of things that needed to be revised. Um, I don't know that I heard anything being done with any of those items. And the question I pose is the new assessment also going to take the previous assessment that included the pier underneath conditions beneath Benny's and address those also. So we are addressing the whole pier what we have on the pier which is we are the landlords of Benny's. Uh so that we're looking at the whole entity and not just one portion of it.

Thank you. All in favor? Oh, no. You have a comment. Thank you. Could we get an answer to that question from the city manager either before or after yours? The city manager does. Yes, it will be inclusive of that um study as well. The entire pier above and below the waterline. Okay. Thank you. Um this is just something that is and I I spoke to um city manager Brown about this. This is a perfect appropriation for us to go after. Um, so I'm hoping that we can make sure that we loop Jared in with this conversation. Even though we've already committed to it, we can still go back and ask for an appropriation. Uh, I just don't want us to miss that opportunity. Thank you. All in favor?

I I thank you very much. Unanimous. G change order number one with RMJ Contractors, Inc. for Youth Empowerment Center renovations and Osborne Community Center re-roof project. Motion to approve by Miss Mlega. Do I have a second? Second by Mr. McCoy. All in favor? I I thank you very much. H nest phase three tree planting South Bryant Park Playground. Do Okay. I know that there are public comments that the comm that the uh the Let's listen.

The clerk has some. I' I've read them. Uh so we have to hear them. But let me have Do we have a motion? Okay. I'm going to make a motion to listen to them first. Well, we need a motion to just go forward just to have discussion. Motion to approve by Mr. McCoy. Do I have a second? Second by Miss Mlea. Okay, now we can talk. Um, okay. We want to hear public comment first or from the Well, public comment. Yeah. Oh, from the clerk. Oh, okay. Um, we usually do the inperson first. Um, and we have a presentation. And we have a presentation. Mr. Oh, I didn't see your light. Sorry.

What did you want to hear from um staff? We obvious to our leisure service director, uh, Tiana McKay. Um, to kind of start this off.

Hello, Tiana McKay, director of leisure services. Thank you, Jamie. So, uh, tonight we have our Nest group here to discuss phase three of their funded initiative. And on the screen you will see the map of the phase 3 plan featuring the installation of 28 25gallonwood trees located along the wellness walk and the South Bryant playground. And in addition uh to the proposed 25gallon trees as requested, staff did seek a quote for the 100gallon 16 ft trees and you were provided that. Uh, we do have some members of Nest here. We have Tracy and Gail who can answer any questions you may have about the phase three and their tree selection. So, if you'd like to go take the mic.

Okay. They have a few things to say. Hi. Is it on? Yeah.

Hi, Gail Silverblat. Uh, one of the founding members of Nest. I'm on 414 North Ocean Breeze. Neighbors Encouraging Shade Trees has been on a journey to plan a shade forest in Bryant Park since August of 2023. As mentioned in the staff report, phase three is a high priority location identified in the original shade tree plan to shade the wellness walk, South Bryant Park, and surrounding activity areas that have prolonged sun exposure and limited existing tree canopy. The green buttonwood known as the fourth mangrove was chosen due to his exceptional tolerance of salt spray and direct saltwater flooding. One of the documents submitted in your backup is the IAUS University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Ser Sciences recommendations for maximum tree size at planting. The key points of this uh document, planting trees too large for available irrigation increases more mortality. 25gallon trees require shorter irrigation periods, can reach the same size as larger trees within a few years, become windresistant sooner, have lower costs with more plantings per budget, and are better suited for compacted and poorly drained soils. As previously shown from previous plantings, the 25gallon green buttonwood trees are thriving in our harsh, salty conditions with limited irrigation. As stated in the staff report, the proposed installation of the 28 native green buttonwood trees is consistent with prior approvals, current city planting standards, and sight specific environmental conditions. The Smarty Plants quote for the total cost of the 28 25gallon green buttonwood trees with

delivery, tree installation, tree staking, mulch, ongoing fertilization, and a tree professional on call is $13,167. This seems like a really good investment for the city to make. Please vote to approve phase three. Thank you. I have a few more comments. Tracy Rosa Peterson, 331 South Lakes Side Drive. Um, thank you commissioners and staff for continuing to support our mutual goal of shading and beautifying Bryant Park, one of the gems of our city. I'm grateful that in uh 2012, two years before the electric utility director was talking uh he found information um our founders had the foresight to create the waterfront park for use by the general public. You are all now part of that 100redyear legacy of conservation. That is huge and an important accomplishment. So thank you. In January, our volunteers, Nest volunteers, had multiple on-site collaborative meetings with city staff and Smarty Plants for placement of the 28 25gallon green buttonwood trees. As recommended by staff, Nest produced the phase 3 tree location site map above and supporting backup documents. Phase 3 will add 28 25gallon shade trees to Bryant Park South. 14 trees will be planted along the wellness walk from the existing exercise area to the south pavilion and 14 trees around the playground area as unanimously approved by the tree board and city commission in 2023. Last month, the tree and landscape board unanimously approved phase 3. Also in February and as required by city staff

and Sunshine 811, Nest marked the 28 tree locations in the park with white paint. All tree locations were cleared for digging. Smarty Plants was ready to immediately start the planting process at that time. Smarty Plants has continued to generously and patiently support Nest's efforts through this almost three-year process and is ready to go once the city gives the approval to proceed. I cannot overstate what and how Smarty Plants has supported us on many levels in kind financially, the ongoing guardianship and fertilization, the value that we're getting from this company because he is a resident here for over 20 years and his business and he loves the city also just like we all do. I can't overstate that enough. Today, Nest is requesting your approval on phase three to plant 28 25gallon trees as part of the original shade plan approved and supported by the city commission, city staff, previous both previous city culturists, the tree and landscape board, tree professional, park users, and residents. Please vote yes for more shade now in Bryant Park. Thank you for continuing the legacy of confer conservation in our city.

Thank you. Um Okay, we have a motion a second. As you know, I've been a proponent of this for a very long time and I I obviously have how I would vote. We do a public comment. Um you ladies can take a break. Uh Peggy Fischer, Nancy Udell, and Susan owner. Peggy Fisher, 508 North A Street. Um, I appreciate everything that's been done to increase the number of shade trees in Bryant Park. Uh, I don't know the exact number of trees that they have not planted, but if they've planted 27 each time, we're up over 75 trees. Um, I understand that there's a phase four and I don't know exactly where the phase 4 was designated for, but I would like to make a suggestion that one of our park other parks in the south end of the city that is used a lot and families take their children down there a lot from what I hear. Um, is in need of shade trees. It has over 50 palm trees in it. and maybe five shade trees. So, it may be time to also look at other areas where we could put more shade for additional residents who go to that park to use and enjoy the shade there, too. We've got lots of parks throughout the city. There's one in Tropical Ridge where it's got a playground on one half of the lot and there's nothing but grass and a broken down basketball rim on the other half. So there's absolutely no tra shade there at all. Um so I just think

I'd like to make the suggestion that we look at the possibility of phase 4 becoming a phase one for one of our other city parks. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Dell. Followed by Missa. Indeed,

Nancy Udell, 11:31 North Palmway. It's so nice to be able to come up here and say something unabashedly positive, which is what Tracy and Gail and others have done is so amazing. They're volunteers. This is all volunteer work. All the backup, all the marking, the painting, the planting. They were out there with watering, you know, using the city water truck, making sure these trees survived. And then Smarty Plants, which is such an amazing, wonderful thing in our town. Half the plants in my yard have come from there. If you haven't been there, you should go. It's a beautiful, amazing, wonderful place. And I just I'm really I guess I'm just really amazed by how this was created out of sheer will of volunteers of of residents and people who love this city working so hard and coordinating with all the staff and with you to create something fantastic and not a consultant was in sight. Thank you very much.

Thank you Susan. Good evening. My name is Susan Ona. I live at 826 North Palmway. And as a founding member of Nest, I'm here tonight to speak in support of the next phase three of the project, Nest Project. Gail and Gail Silverblat and Tracy Ross of Peterson have done an outstanding job of planning and giving life to the Nest project in Brian Park. I have been a worker and I have been a helper in watching the watering and the monitoring of the trees as they slowly have been planted throughout the park. It has been an honor to be a part of this extraordinary nest project for under the care and thoughtfulness of the past few years of Gail and Tracy's leadership. The city should be giving special recognition to these two relentless women in their pursuit of making shade in Brian Park with careful understanding, great partners such as Smarty Plants and sensitivity to the city's requirements. It has been a handle a hard I know it has been a handful to juggle, but they have done a super job in making it all come to fruition and with the minimum of cost. now trust their expertise and recommendations to stay with the 25gallon trees. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Madame clerk, do you have uh some comments? I do, madame mayor. Well, let's hear them.

The first is from Jenny Powell, 224 North Palmway. As a tree landscape board member, I fully support Nest Phase 3 Bryant Park shade tree planting with 28 25gallon green button trees to be planted in the south end of the park around the playground. I also support the use of 25gallon green button trees for this planting and agree with the IFAS recommendation that smaller trees often survive better and establish more successfully than larger trees. Please vote in support of the phase three planting. Donna Kerner, 1012 North J Street. I'm writing to express my wholehearted support for nest and the phase three Whoops. And the phase three planting uh of 28 native green buttonwood trees in the South Bryant Park playground and its surrounding activity areas. This location was clearly identified in the original plan as a priority and high need zone for shade. It experiences prolonged sun exposure, has minimal existing canopy and serves a high volume of da high volume of daily users, particularly families and children. As such, the current conditions present not only a comfort issue, but a public health and usability concern that warrants timely action. The proposed planting of 28 native green buttonwood trees represents a thoughtful strategic investment in the park's future. These trees will provide ex uh provide meaningful canopy coverage, reduce heat exposure, and significantly improve the overall experience and safety of those who rely on this space. Just as importantly, the trees will ensure long-term resilience, lower maintenance costs, and environmental sustainability. Advancing this phase is consistent with the intent of the original plan and reflects a responsible commitment to equitable access to shaded usable public

areas. I strongly urge approval and imple implementation of this initiative. And the last comment on this item, Diane Brown, 905 North Lakeside Drive. I am for continuing planting trees in Brian Park. As a tree and landscape board member, I encourage you to approve phase three of nest plan for trees around the playground area and southern part of Bryant Park. 25gallon green button trees will adapt better to this location and will bring much neededed shade in the future to our wonderful park. Please vote yes to add more shade to Bryant Park. That's the last comment on this issue. Thank you very much. Um, it's 9:45. Do we have a motion to go past 10? Motion to extend past 10. Second.

Okay. By Mr. Foy all in favor. I Okay. Uh Mr. Secret was on first.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um first I I would like to to thank Nest. Um you guys truly know how to get things done. Um that is for sure. I I wish that you guys were in charge of the downtown tree plantings because my m my calculations is you're getting this done at one quarter of of the price or even less. Um so I I do have um some questions and my my questions are not out of disparaging any of the work that that you guys do but truly interested in in making sure that our choice for shade in this area accomplishes our goals. So, um, for, um, our leisure services staff, what is the lifespan of our new playgrounds? Like, what do we expect to get out of those? 10 years, 5 years.

I'm going to pass this over to Chris Hannah. Lifespan would be uh anywhere from 12 to 15. 12 to 15 years. Yeah. Standard. Um as you know there was uh some dilamination uh and some rust caused by inter coastal um proximity sun damage too I guess as well. Yes. Yes sir. Um okay. Um in terms of the green buttonwoods where are you expecting their height to be at maturity from 25 gallon?

Oh well I happen to have that answer for you. Um let me see. Yep. Green buttonwoods grow one to three feet, which is actually two to three. They grow a lot faster than other trees. That's annual. They reach maturity within three to five years. The the reach height is 30 to 45 ft and the spread is 20 to 30 foot. If you want to see really nice green buttonwoods, if you go along uh South Ocean Boulevard and turn in at the Ibis Aisle, all along that street, there's really beautiful green buttonwoods. And you know, they have that contorted trunk. They're just really attractive. They're really good specimen trees. They grow faster than oaks. They don't lose their leaves, so they continue to provide shade. Okay. Um, so one of my concerns that I had and and I think you you've alleviated is is the height to provide shade, Brad, because we have some mature specimens. We were all there for a ribbon cutting and some of those specimens are probably 20 years old and they provide maybe a 10-ft circle of shade no more than 15 feet from the the tree itself. Um, and I believe one of the main goals that we had was to shade our playground equipment, at least with with these trees. Um, my personal thoughts is I would be comfortable with larger specimens being planted. I understand the survivability. I understand that they take more care. My concern is by the time these are mature enough to grant the shade, that is our goal, we're going to be on round two of our playground equipment. Um, I did talk to the gentleman from Smarty Plants. He did say, you know, they have specimens that they they could bring in. They're significantly more expensive.

Um, one of my suggestions would be to have um less trees um but larger specimens and species that get even larger spread of of canopy because my understanding with the green buttonwood, the canopy that isn't going to spread like a live oak or or like a black olive or or so on. That's 20 to 30 feet and they're planted 25 feet apart. So, in five years, they're going to be touching.

Okay. I'm just saying that's my concern. Okay. I would I would like I would rather see us choose larger specimens to get greater coverage sooner um for for our goal. Um I do agree with um some of the the public comment where um I think Bryant Park has probably the lion share of our attention and our trees and so on. I think if we do have a phase four, um, I do like the idea of looking at other parks. I also like looking at the goal of improving our neighborhoods. We have vast swaths of our city where there are no shade trees in this front yard. You drive through College Park, it's like you hit a heat island as soon as you cross over. Um, western parts of our city, almost no shade trees. Um, and I've talked about this in with our um, city staff as well as with our landscape um, code consultants. I would like to see us have some sort of incentivized program where someone could get a mature shade tree like a 25 or 50 or 100 gallon in their front yard with some sort of program and care and instruction from experts like yourselves. Um, I I think for phase four that could have a much wider effect on our city and and benefit our our shade canopy a lot more than really adding more into Bryant. Not that we don't want to keep adding to Bryant or or that, but I would just like us all to consider that and would like to propose that to you ladies at at Nest to think about creatively maybe how we could do something like that either as a phase four or even a phase five um kind kind of initiative. Basically, let's get more shade trees

with a carrot, not a stick. Right. Okay. So, phase four, we've already been working with leisure services and it's going to shade the new fitness court and that'll hopefully eliminate the idea of a shade cloth at $62,000. Well, the only problem there is in order for them to shade that that court, we're going to have to wait five years. Okay, at least. Let me continue. Um so that's so that's phase four.

When we presented in 2023 when we presented this plan we also pres city had ARPA funds and we also presented another plan and we had at least 50 locations within the city that needed shade trees including along 6th Avenue South and the medians right across from city hall which has palm trees. Um the swailes in College Park. I could go on and on.

Survey. we could do. Yeah, we did the whole thing. We identified every single spot that needs shade trees and we would gladly work with the city and continue that program. Now, that was through ARPA funds and I don't know what funds are available, but as as volunteers, we are very happy unofficial volunteers. We are very happy to work with the city to continue that. When I was on the tree board, we did hand out gave away 2,000 shade trees and ask people to put them in their front yard so they would shade not just their front yard but their sidewalks as all as well. And we've created maps of showing where every single one of those trees was planted. So it would be great just to continue any of these programs. Um, we do have

you guys have shown yourself to be far more effective than the experts we've hired to to to do some some of this kind of work and and we definitely appreciate that. Um, I do think any kind of, you know, I know that you guys give away trees. I also know that some of those end up people's backyards still in the same pot. They never take care of them. I was thinking a little bit more of an instructive structured incentiviz program. I do have a a question for Mr. Waters. Um, the plan that you see here, would this be considered to be a valid landscape plan that a resident who wanted to do either a new construction home or a two-unit apartment complex would submit to the city and be able to get approved because it's it's not the scale. It's not done by a landscaped architect. William Waters uh community sustainability director as the code is written out which we don't like. Uh this would not be sufficient because there are measurements that have to be quantified by staff such as certain types of trees or 25 ft on center that can't be verified unless we have a twocale drawing. Um the surveys we can get affidavit if they're older than the six month period if they're still accurate and place things on it. But one of our goals is to have a much more simplified application process for a landscape plan or a landscape concept for um single family houses and probably single family two family houses as well.

So my couple concerns with this are um whether or not the planting locations are too close to existing large shade trees where those trees might get stunted. Um, larger than that concern is that it falls into the category of rules for thee and not for me. I don't think as a commission we should move forward on things that do not meet the same specifications that we require of our residents or businesses. I think that's unfair. Um, this was my original point in in requesting to the commission originally that a landscape plan be provided, one that is compliant with what our city asks of our residents. So, um I'm not sure how the vote will go, but um you know, basically if depending on how how the vote goes, if if we're willing to pass this, I would hope that my colleagues would be willing to make this the new standard for residential homes and multifamilies under four units. um because that would be very hypocritical for us to pass this as is um and then require of our residents to meet a higher standard because I mean this is going in our most visible public park besides our beach. Um so um I appreciate your your guys' efforts and and again please don't take my comments as disparaging towards your work. I am a big fan. Um but my two major points with this are I would like to see much larger specimens. Um so fewer of them and larger keep within budget and um I would like to see consistency in what we require from projects um in terms of meeting our our code and and design specifications.

Thank you. Mr. McCoy, may I speak for a minute?

It's okay with me. Okay. I just wanted to address a couple things and not specifically, but um you know I one of the reasons we picked Bryant Park in the beginning was for the need but also because of we knew that this is where most people go. So they were going to be able to watch the growth and that's what's happened over three years. And um people we are hoping that they see the beauty in all of this and how actually easy it is to get a tree in the ground and want to do that for their front yard. Um and you know as far as not being a professional drawing um we again have proven results. So I agree. However, you guys need to make your rules moving forward and in homes and everything and that's all important. And I also just want to mention that we from the very beginning as Gail was saying, we want to put trees everywhere. We want shade everywhere and we like big trees too, but all the professionals along the way for the last three years have kept saying start small because then the trees get established and you have a lot better um proven track record that it's going to last. And we know um a a few neighbors around that have told us that they put in giant trees and of you know half of them did not make it. So that's kind of what we're hearing. It's a 50% you know 50/50 mortality rate even when they're taken care of and they spend a lot of money.

Thank you.

I just I just wanted to say that the trees are 25gallon. They're 3-in caliber and they're anywhere from 9 to 12 to some of them are 65. They were 65gallon. So I thought that the minimum was uh that met the minimum requirements for a shade tree. Have the code right in front of me with the caliber 25gallon tree does meet some of specifications that we have for planting new trees in residential as well as commercial areas. Um and I believe a green button was considered large tree so versus the two other um allowances we had which are small trees and medium trees.

Thank you Mr. McCoy.

Thank you. Um I would on the size of the trees I you know when's the best time to plant a tree? 10 years ago. It's hard to do. Um because you always want a big tree now and that's just not how nature works. Um I think we should definitely listen. I've heard the same thing. I've had similar experience. You don't want to plant too big because you want them to be young to be able to establish in the local conditions. And the comment about poor drainage would apply here because you got a high water table with the inter coastal right there, the lagoon. And um very likely you do have soil compaction also because that was a filled area. So uh all of that to me in addition just the general advice don't go too big. 25 seems to be a pretty good 25 gallons seems to be a pretty good compromise between yeah we want it big now but we also want high survivability. Um so I think I would I'm in favor of of the 25. I did have a bit of a question of shade on the blue green buttonwoods. Can they be any closer to the playground? I'm sure you've thought about this, but or or even one or two in the playground, although we got to check that out with everybody over there.

We would love to have a big shade tree in the middle of the playground. I would love to have that.

Well, they do have really good root system. They're not um an expanding root system like a live oak. So they can be closer to sidewalks and that's why there actually is no issue putting them that close close to the seaw wall. It it looks like a straight line, but that's just because the drawing they are actually staggered. And anybody that has been out there, they have had those white lines as required by Sunshine 811 since uh February 19th. And they keep getting the the white lines repainted by one of our volunteers. And we've placed everything eight feet from the sidewalk as Scott Robbed in the maintenance department so the mowers can get around. And um Chris, I don't know if there's any more that you'd like to add but about where we placed them from from your requirements. Just on the point of putting one in the playground, I would keep it outside of the perimeter of the playground uh along the walking path and sidewalk as proposed.

Then I'm ready to support with everything I've heard. Okay, we have a motion. Oh, Miss May, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Um I do have a question. I see all of the green dots for the new trees. Um, is there a is there a map where you have dots of trees that are there already? You can see you can see the aerial. Yeah. So, and that that shows Yeah, that shows the canopy. They're not underneath the canopy. Um, and you could I mean, look at look along the sea look along the seaw wall. Look at how barren that is.

Um, on what day was that? Right. best Thursday we were there. Sorry, someday. And if and if you look at the aerial, there are quite a few trees there and to add 28 more trees. I'm worried that it's going to be a forest and not a park. And I'm worried that you're not People like to go there and see the water and I just think 28 more trees is a lot more trees in that one small area.

They they do have clear trunk. there, as you've seen from the trees that are planted there, there's no obscuring of the water. Um, they're purposely clear trunk and smarty plants comes back once a year, twice a year, and trims them up so that when they are as they grow, it won't be a large wound on the side of the tree. So, I'm assuming by clear trunk, you don't mean that it's transparent. You mean that there's no branches coming off of it. Clear trunk. Okay. And um the two locations, two of the three locations that have originally were identified was along the wellness walk for shade because there's no I remember that there is no shade up there.

So yeah, there's 14 and then there's 14 halfway around the playground like 2/3 around. So as you can see, we've left some areas open to address if we can put a larger tree and then the uh ghost house. No. Yeah. I mean, I was there and I saw all of the white circles and it just it seemed seemed a little excessive. I'm not gonna lie, ladies. There was a lot. And if they're going to grow and they're going to be 30 feet wide, the goal is to have them all attached to each other.

Well, I'll tell you what. If you go to the park about uh from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. um and especially right at 1 and 2 in the afternoon, depending on the season, it is just blazing hot. And I mean parents aren't I don't you know parents don't play in that playground because it's just too hot. So we're just trying to create and the idea too is to around the playground is to support the parents and the caregivers and we'd like to get more benches under the trees too because that's where and more trash cans. Um, so you know, it's really about supporting the whole community that's watching the kids and um, and all the neighbors are for it that live um, directly west. They love the idea of more trees and they you can talk to those people that live on the first or the second floor there. They look through to see the inter coastal or they go like this and turn their head a little.

She got an old gesture. Miss Valga has not Oh, are you done? Oh, each end. Miss Blega has not spoken yet. So, as somebody who does walk that path from downtown, I will say thank you. Thank you. Um, because I literally when I get heat stroke, I have to try to run to one of the big banyan trees that are in the middle. Um, and I think this is important and I understand from the aerial it looks like there's lot they're all palm trees. pumps are pretty, but when you are in the middle of heat stroke, they zero shade.

Um, 100%. And again, I take my little one to play there. And there is no shade. And I would much rather have a natural shade canopy at this park than put up more wind sails or the little things that just fall apart. Those called wind shade shade sails, those things. Yeah. That don't last.

Um, so I appreciate your hard work. I appreciate you thinking about the people who do use that park and it does from above look like there's a whole bunch of trees, but there are a whole bunch of trees that just point to the sky and they don't offer any shade. Um, while they are beautiful and they're very expensive. Um, I do support this and I I look forward to the next phase of talking about maybe going throughout the whole city and and other parks.

Can I can I just ask one question? Sure. Okay. I'm sorry. So, I I'm fine with this. I'll vote for you. I'll vote for it cuz I'm yay tree. But could we take two of these and replace the two Christmas trees on Lousern that are blocking everything? I'm not going to redo that motion, but I'm saying if we have two trees that you are blocking the view of people, could we use these two of these buttonwood trees and switch them? It's not really our purview to say. Okay. But we are we are we are unofficial volunteers. Would they would they thrive uh in the sidewalk?

It's it's a totally different planting. I you know, we don't want to comment. It's a totally different planting. Okay. Mr. Se, do you have something else to say?

Yeah. Um so just looking at the distances in and understanding um the the canopy spread. Um, many of these trees are 23 foot apart, 26 ft apart, and if we have a 30-ft canopy, that really does mean that they're going to be growing into each other, which can become problematic in storms because then one tree having a limb falling is going to affect another tree. Um, I would ask my colleagues if they would consider a slight modification to this, which would be, um, using 100-gallon trees around the playground area and having a few less of them. Um, but they'd be larger specimens and making sure they're at least 30 to 35 ft apart. And then on the inner coastal side, keeping with the 25gallon and making them a minimum of 30 feet apart. Um, so those would be my two changes to this. And you know, to your point, Miss May, you know, and and I brought it up, we are about to approve something without an actual landscape plan. And we we make our residents and businesses go through hell to produce these plans and pay a lot of money. And um I am very uncomfortable voting on something that does not follow the same process we ask of everybody. Um not that the idea is bad, but I would ask if my com fellow commissioners are comfortable with those two suggested changes.

No, no, no. I I think this is they have vetted this so completely and so thoroughly. I don't believe it's our place to second guess what they have done. I literally can't keep an orchid alive. So I am change equities and I have the biggest trees. And are my fellow commissioners okay with voting on something and moving it forward by different requirements than we require of our residents and businesses?

I I do hear that concern and I don't think it's a ridiculous concern by any means. Uh and probably several of us have a degree of discomfort with that. I think the relevant piece of information was what Mr. Waters said is look that is our current regulations. I'm guessing if I understood what he said, staff considers that a bit ownorous and a bit over the top and we hope to make some adjustments to that to make it a little bit easier while still meeting some of the objectives of right tree, right place and all that sort of stuff. So, yes, I hear you that it seems like two standards, but this is a little bit different. It's in a public park. It is a very coordinated volunteer effort with all sorts of consultation with everybody imaginable.

Well, when when people build houses, I'm sure it's a very coordinated activity. Gentlemen, let's not go back. I will say that staff, it says here, phase three shade plan review with Steuart Sword Leisure Services Center and Chris Hannah Park Supervisor. So, it's not like these ladies just came in on their own. I we've had staff involved with this. So, I feel comfortable with it. But I do agree with you, right? What's good for the goose is not good for the game. Yeah. So, I think that one one I'm going to this might be a little random, but I think one of the things that this sort of points to is we have been talking about some code adjustments and some changes to the code and I think this is one of the things that sort of calls out to to be done and I'll address that in my commissioner comments later. Miss uh May

uh we have a motion and we have a second. All in favor? I nay only because we're having different requirements for I didn't even vote yet. Oh, you didn't vote. No, I just that there what your vote.

I am going to vote yes, but I'm going to do a caveat like Commissioner McCoy does where it's I'm voting yes because I believe in trees, but I absolutely agree with Mr. cigarettes that this is not I I'm not going to vote yes for the section 4 if we don't change our code for what the residents have. If it doesn't align, I'm not voting for it. So, that gives us a little bit of time to align. I'm sorry if that messes with your plans, but it puts fire under some we need to make it aligned. That's not fair. Were you not? If I want to put up the trees in my house and I've got my house being built and I've got my landscape plan and I draw my little circles and they tell me no, but we tell you yes, that's not fair. So, I will vote yes for this. I will not vote for yes for four until that that's aligned.

All right. So, that is then a four to one vote. Okay. I understood and I think I've done that many times myself. Um I think we are going to be looking at the code in general later. Thank you ladies. Um I remember that first Nest meeting at the apartment. Was that when that was Roseanne Soul? Okay. Up next, resolution 11-2026 authorizing the third budget amendment for fiscal year 2026 operating and capital budget. Motion to do I

by Mlega second by second by me Mr. McCoy. All in favor? I I Okay, M I want to wait for we voted. Okay, next one up and here's gonna be another one. Um, sorry I have a lot of comments on this one. Um, ordinance number 2025-28 first reading amendments chapter 2 please read by title.

Thank you madam mayor. Ordinance number 2025-28 in ordinance for the city of Lake Worth Beach Florida amending chapter 2 administration article 7 abatement of nuisances section 2-75.11 foreclosed vacant and unimproved property registration program providing for severability complex codification and an effective date. Thank you. Uh madam clerk do you have any public comments on this? Yes, I have two. Okay. Um, do I have a motion? Motion not to approve and give greater direction back to staff. Okay. Second. Okay. I have a lot of comments on this one as well.

Okay. So, it's a motion to not approve this as is written. I'm sorry. Was there a second to that? Yes. Mr. Mcot. I got it. Mr. McCoy. Mr. McCoy, can you speak into your microphone? Thank you. Thought I was. He doesn't like to do that. he's more subtle. Um, but he was the seconder. So, having that going on right now, I think that we need obviously we need to talk about it. Um, I would I let's do public comments first and then we can have further conversations. I think there's a lot of uh notes on this one. So, Kelly Ray Murphy.

Good evening, Madame Mayor. Madam Speak right into the microphone. Good evening, Madame Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. Um, my name is Kelly Ray Murphy. I'm with the Broward Palm Beaches and St. Lucy realtors. Um, realtors oppose Burden Center. What is your address? My address for for the for work is one Harvard Circle, West Palm.

Thank you. Um, realtors oppose burdensome registry programs such as the foreclosed, vacant, and unimproved property registration. We do, however, remain committed to sustaining property values in our local communities. Regarding the city's program, I have trouble understanding why property owners of foreclosed properties are subject to fines which may impose an undue burden on the individuals already facing financial hardship or navigating complex legal and ownership situations. Additionally, ordinance 2025-28 defines a local property manager as an individual based in Palm Beach County who can respond within 4 hours. In reality, compliance with this standard is difficult. As an experienced realtor, I recommend updating the time frame and removing geographic restrictions as property management companies from neighboring counties to the north and south also service properties within the city. I respectfully urge the commission to reconsider this approach, review and adjust the fee structure to pursue alternatives that may emphasize targeted enforcement, fairness, and practical solutions without imposing unnecessary financial strain on those already dealing with challenging circumstances. Thank you for your time and consideration in this regard.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Madame Mayor, the first comment is from um Richard Mer, 1767 15th Avenue North. Though I support the changes to this ordinance, I do not believe it goes far enough when it comes to vacant commercial storefronts. from its own definition of vacancy. Vacant property does not mean property that is unoccupied while the occupants are temporarily away or is not intended by the owner to be left vacant so long as the period does not exceed 6 months. Yet, we allow our storefronts to sit idle for years at a time. Vacant storefronts reduce foot traffic, hurt surrounding businesses, weaken the appearance of our corridors, and create a sense of disinvestment by the city and community. I would encourage the commission to consider a specific requirement as part of this ordinance for commercial storefronts that remain vacant and not leased for more than 6 months. If a groundf flooror commercial storefront has been vacant for more than 6 months unless in a buildout for a new tenant, the property owner should be required to provide some form of storefront activate activation visible from the street. At a minim min minimum, these property owners should be required participation in the Lula vacant storefront initiative. Community art would look much better than plastic or paper in the windows with gaudy first lease signs. Continuing further at 12 months and less in a buildout for a new tenant. A significant annual fee more than the laughable $200 currently listed in the fee schedule should be levied on commercial properties as part of the vacant property registry to help prevent the long-term blight we currently see downtown. Long-term vacancies are a cancer in our

downtown district and we need to act now before it gets worse. To be clear, this would not regulate rent. It would not punish normal tenant turnover, but it would say that if a storefront sits empty for more than 6 months, the owner has a responsibility to contribute positively to the appearance of the corridor. And the second and last comment is from JD Mcccleintoch, uh 5574 Lake Osborne Drive. Good evening once again, mayor and commissioners. I wanted to speak on ordinance 2025-28 regarding the foreclosed, vacant, and unimproved property registration program. I understand and appreciate the intent behind this ordinance. Maintaining properties, ensuring accountability, and protecting neighborhoods are goals we all support. At the same time, we need to be careful not to create policies that become burdensome for property owners. From a property rights standpoint, ownership comes with responsibility, but also the expectation of reasonable regulation. We want to avoid adding unnecessary cost or complexity, especially for those already dealing with difficult situations like foreclosure or transition. I would also encourage you to closely evaluate the definitions in this ordinance. Not all properties and not all owners are the same. There is a big difference between a bank-owned property or corporate entity and an individual homeowner. Dealing with an institution is not the same as dealing with an elderly resident who may simply need help. That person should be able to work with their city, not feel like they are being fined by it. I also have concern about how quickly fines can add up. When penalties escalate too fast, they can create a situation where someone can't recover. In some cases, they can lead toward foreclosure and it raises the question of whether laying on

layering on additional costs like registration is truly helping. I believe with all the good work being done here, the question should always come back to what is the intent of the ordinance? Why are we enacting it? And how is it positively impacting the residents we serve? As someone in real estate, I see these situations every day. Not every v vacant property is a problem and not every owner is negligent. The approach should be balanced, targeting real issues without casting too wide of a net. If we get that balance right, we can protect neighborhoods while still respecting property owners and encouraging investment. Thank you. That's the final comment.

Okay. For everything. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. Um Okay. Um it sounds like we all have opinions and different notes about this. I will just let everybody speak. I'll go last. See if my things I try to do is if my things haven't been covered, I'll bring it up. But if it has, I'll just let it go. Um, so I don't see any lights on. All right. I get to talk. Mr. Seg, we'll start with Mr. Segridge.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, generally looking at this, there's I have a lot of issues. Um, I I think it's it's overly broad in that it groups um many different classes of properties and situations together in one overarching ordinance that's trying to resolve each of those where I feel they probably need to be specifically addressed. So, vacant land versus downtown storefronts versus abandoned residential versus abandoned commercial um in a warehouse district kind of um thing. Um so, and real estate owned, so bank taking over properties. So, generally speaking, that's where a lot of my my issues come from. But, um I do have some questions for staff. um this foreclosure registry, what is that list used for? What are the actional items that our staff takes with that list? Um, going back to before I was here, um, which is 15 and a half years ago, uh, the city did adopt a registration program for foreclosed and abandoned properties because at the time, uh, there were many properties over 2500 in the city that were in foreclosure and there was almost no interaction with who the rightful and appropriate responsible party was. uh we had numerous um properties that were foreclosed but they had not taken the title. So there is no owner available at the property and the bank in this case had not taken over ownership. So we had sort of a class action almost problem that one of our former former commissioners wanted us to proceed and follow as policies have evolved and the economies have gotten different over that period of time. Uh the commission's policy was we would

like to know who the responsible party is for problem properties such as where a lot of our problems and I think most of you at our last direction policy workshop sort of thing was vacant lots that get dumped on. People breaking into um abandoned house or abandoned buildings that aren't actually kept secure. Who's responsible for it? Uh letting the neighborhood know who the responsible person is. uh providing some kind of measure of security and so we've tried to clear up uh the expectations of different types of properties and I appreciate that you've made a distinction between major thoroughare properties down properties industrial properties single family houses and then others um but we also have in other parts of our code because keep in mind too that what's not underlined is already existing

and there and there are some parts of this code that aren't all there but the goal from the prior two commissions ago when commission um manager Bournestein was here and then when manager uh Carmen was here and then now this commission was that we have a problem with vacant unimproved properties and we have a problem with vacant improved properties where there are existing buildings and based on the direction that you gave us we came up with a laundry list this is the third attempt at this what would meet as many of your expectations of maintenance and contact as possible in terms of who is responsible for making sure that those properties do not become a nuisance to the neighbors. So that's why we have this we have a responsible party which is very similar to our vacant our rental um property ordinance which requires a local property responsible property person. They're available within a certain specified period of time. That's all on our business license um business tax receipt section. uh you all wanted us to follow the same sort of format in in terms of um knowing how to get a hold of that person. The uh neighbors knowing how to get a hold of that person by having these properties listed on our website once they're registered and who the responsible party is so that if staff is not available at 10 o'clock at night, you can look it up on the city website and know who the responsible party is and call them to your heart's content. Uh

and those are currently posted for the ones that we have or not. They're not it's not a requirement for posting yet and we're hopefully going to have that come out with your new website. We haven't quite figured out how it's all going to work is pulling the information out of the system and we are also in the process of designing a new ERP. So, we've got lots of things that are all at the same time. It's in the works. Okay. So, it sounds like the overall concept was born out of the 2008 housing crisis essentially with a lot of the real estate owned foreclosure, huge tapes and tracks of of properties um and has evolved over time to dealing with our our essentially downtown vacancies and empty lots um around around town.

We also have numerous vacant buildings other than on just Dixie Highway, major thorough affairs in downtown. So at a major thoroughess, so one of one of my major problems is that in our definitions, we have now included properties that are going into default. So you have a homeowner, somebody files a Liz pendants on it, whether it's an HOA or, you know, their mortgage company, they miss a couple payments, they're trying to work it out. They are now responsible and they are caught up in this loop. Um, I do not think that is fair. I would I will not vote for anything. What what um so line 9697 foreclosed property but what we're asking them to do is register. Correct.

Well, it's register and there's a fee for it. So here here you have correct which means that we're punishing people for being in trouble. What's the fee? Uh which is the thing. This is uh our foreclosure registry fee. I think the first year is 200. Then it goes to three, four, five, and gets up to 750.

Bucks. Okay. Well, a couple hundred bucks when you're not able to make your mortgage payment is is an awful lot. So, um just to be clear, I will not be in favor of anything that includes having people just be in default. Um I do see the wisdom of bankowned properties, real estate owned. So, the bank forecloses or the city forecloses, that is now an REO. Putting those on a registry, I get and I understand. Real estate owned, it's a a term meaning bankowned properties. Um I so that that's my comment on on the definition of what foreclosed homes um come come into this.

Brian want to say something but on the default that was where we had the most problem back in 2008 is that a default registration has been made. A foreclosure authorization may have been done but no change in deed or title. And maybe that isn't the case as much now, but back then people would, you know, I'm going to lose my house. There's no way I can keep it. I'm moving. So co-compliance was caught to lock in my hard place. The owner of record was still the person who is no longer in Lake Beach, Florida. The bank is not responsible and will not take responsibility because all they done is have a decree that they intend to at some point do foreclosing. And at the time, which wouldn't be the case now necessary, most of the properties were far less than what the owed mortgage was. So, we just got skipped over and eventually people bought bulk pieces of those properties that were foreclosed on. So, I understand where you're you're coming from, but we do need some mechanism to be um have those properties that are in trouble that might need the city to intervene and help out in some way um either through healthy or lakew worth resources from the county whatever it might be knowing where those are right now. Without that part, we wouldn't know where those properties are. So, in in in that that example there, um, basically you're saying the homeowners abandon the property. Um, that should get caught up in our normal code enforcement because I'm sorry, the lawn's going to grow and and we're going to see that and and think people are going to be cited. Um, legally, I don't believe you can cite the mortgage E.

So, you're still going to be citing the original homeowner anyway. Um I you know we in order for even this list to be useful in that case it would mean that we would be targeting the or going around periodically checking the properties on this list to ensure that they're in compliance and and then posting the fact that these people are in default. Um, to me to me that is just I understand the problem, but the chance of having a good resident caught up in a bad situation and then publicly embarrassed and then forced to pay a fee on top of it is completely unacceptable, especially when it is not getting us any closer to compliance. In the case of abandonment where person abandons their their home, they abandon their mortgage, they throw their hands up, it stands in limbo because the bank refuses to foreclose, you don't get a even with this, you don't get an additional party to go after. You still have to go after that homeowner. So, it doesn't change anything. So, I don't see any benefit from that one example, but I do see a lot of harm that's going to be done to residents that may be having trouble paying the bills. And so, that's where I'm coming from there. The second piece to that is something I call the foreclosure loop. You have an elderly person or who couldn't keep up with their lawn. They got their fines. They're now racking up their fines and all of a sudden the city says, "Hey, I'm going to foreclose on you." The moment that that happens, they're required to register for this. So, adding insult to injury.

It's if it's homesteaded, we don't do that. If we file for foreclosure, no, we we don't foreclose on I didn't say anything about homesteaded properties, but you said an old lady living in the house. I'm sorry, but doesn't mean it's homesteading. Our lean foreclosure is not covered by the definition of foreclosure. It's talking about foreclosure that our security is backed by a mortgage loan. our um foreclosure authorizations are not backed by a loan. So

when I asked for a list of this a long time ago and went through it, almost every single one of our foreclosure cases that that we were foreclosing on also cited them for not being on the foreclosure registry. So that could happen now without any changes to this.

Okay. So that is my concern. Okay. the of what's been going on, right? So, I don't want this to become double punishment of people who are having trouble and I see that's the direction of of where this is going. Um, other specifics because I know everyone has a a lot. I would like to say something if I may. Yes, please, Miss Brown.

Okay. One of the reasons for the necessity of the vacant registry um I have several instances because I was once a code officer in the field directly in the field. There was a house on North K Street. I continuously asked the owner who was not local. I continuously asked him to secure the property to um register the property. I'm going by there in my zone every day and I'm so I'm doing the work of the property owner and the house got fire. A squatter went in there. The house was on fire. I called um the fire department and come and it was a gas fire at that. Call the fire department. They subpoena me. The owner subpoena me to go to court with him against. But I'm like, why are you subpoenaing me? Because I told you to take care of this property. So most of these properties we're we're citing do not have local owners. They're somewhere and they just abandoned the properties. Another instance, I don't know if you remember, u Madame Mayor, there was a house on South K Street. It was vacant across from you, white, trimmed in yellow, vacant, vacant, vacant. And it's well, I won't say why, but it was vacant for a while. Posted to the property for all kind of vacant issues. The next day, they found someone dead in a trash can. Yeah.

And I and I I appreciate those examples, but you know, you can take examples like that to the other extreme. There are people that go and drink and drive. We don't take away everyone's right to drive. And property rights are really important. They're protected by our constitution. So, we have to be cautious as legislators how far we infringe on those property rights. And I am not willing to infringe heavily on people's property rights for the outlying cases. Now, you bring up a good point. Maybe these owners are out of state, right?

Um if if a but we have a mechanism for nuisance properties. Everything you were describing is a nuisance property. So follow the nuisance property guidelines. We don't have to create an end route to nuisance property guidelines. What I see here is an basically it's real tough to put something on nuisance property. You and I worked together on on what one I think was 118 calls the PBSO from from the neighborhood before we finally got motion. Right.

So difficult, but I would still be against making it easier to put my neighbor who has one party on that same list, right? Um, so I feel that a lot of this stuff is covered under our nuisance property code and we just have to be more diligent and steadfast in in doing just that. Um, the some of the other quick things I know other other people I mean you get the gist of what I'm feeling towards this, right? Um, registration by mortgage E. How the heck are we going to accomplish that? Uh Christa Simmons, compliance admin manager for the um properties that are in default. All of those that we receive are coming from the mortgage e once they file default. They are the ones that send us the registration application and the fee.

But what if they don't want to? I mean, we can't do anything to them. Correct. I I have not gone and looked up foreclosure records for all the properties. All I can tell you is what we receive.

So, I know I know in um Miami there was a pretty famous case uh it was either the mayor or a commissioner or some elected official down in that area that during the foreclosure crisis had a real problem with all the REOs in her neighborhood. wanted them all registered, did this whole thing similar, eerily similar to this, and it got shot down big time um under challenge. Um I'm curious if we looked into that and if not, I would recommend that we look into some of that case law because they got in a lot of trouble. I will say that um and Commissioner Maxwell was probably the only commissioner that I'm aware of in my whole municipal um career that was really into co- compliance and he had his four levels and all this other stuff and we got looking at some of the requirements that are in mortgage documents and it most of them have statements such that the mortgage holder is responsible to ensure the equity that's being backed for that mortgage is maintained. Yes, the property owner is supposed to maintain it, but also there's a responsibility from the mortgage e to make sure that just from their shareholders and investors. I've given a half a million dollar mortgage, but I'm not watching out for that property to make sure it's still worth a half a million dollars. So he had talked to us and Christy may not have been involved. I forgot which city attorney it was about doing a class action suit against several different banks that weren't ensuring that their properties that um were being held as collateral for mortgages were being maintained. Um this kind of program has been around so long most banks are aware that once they start the process they need to register it. uh the number of companies outside that provide this private service is a lot, but we have found that we've been more successful doing it ourselves for the past two years than the private

company. I mean, I appreciate your um concerns and suggestions and we can work with the city attorney's office to figure out how to carve out um ones that could be treated differently, so to speak. Maybe it's the ones that are homestead exempted versus ones that are leased um or have a part-time resident. I don't know how we can delineate the snowbird people who are not homesteaded and they have the problem. Um, but I think in speaking with Elizabeth, we can come up with something that carves out the homestead exempted section. The snowbirds was another another category.

Well, it's 10:37. We stopped at 11. You've had quite a bit of time. So, I think there's two other lights and I'd like to be I'll come back if we have time. Um, Mr. McBoy's light was on. And I don't mean to be personally insulting to to boy, but it is we have 20 minutes to go home. So why don't we start with Well, you know, you go ahead. Let's let's do five minutes each. Well, I don't think I need five minutes, but um uh that's fine. This is not my area of expertise at all. So, um I didn't want to be mine either, but

I can get lost easily. However, I'm listening to Commissioner Segritz's concerns and I have a different flavor of one and maybe my concern doesn't apply at all. So, I'll ask that in a minute. But the gist of what I'm hearing from Commissioner Segridge of I think I'm hearing two things. One is, hey, we already have nuisance abatement legislation. Wouldn't that not be the more direct way to go after the ones that are in fact nuisances? And that way you don't by mistake pick up some ones that aren't really nuisances but might fall into this category. I think that logic makes sense to me. Um and another point that commissioner segments had that I liked but I can't remember it now. So

what may help you is that we have different types of nuisances. Oh I imagine there's all sorts. We have chronic we have nuisance abatement which deals with drugs. um prostitution and gang related activities which has to be initiated by PBSO and that process is very long right and whoever is living next door has to deal with all that it takes gone on for years on some properties we also have conduct nuisance abatement which is der derived from three calls of service within 30 days or multiple calls of service I think over six months that has not been overly successful in Lake Worth Beach it's been on the books since I I think it was 2012 or 13

and PBS O has had almost maybe a handful of product nuisances declared because either there wasn't a found um issue when they were called or they didn't put the address down with a whole multitude and Yolanda and I have spent too long complaining about why we can't get more declared because we we hear from the residents. Then we have um chronic nuisance services which is a process whereby if a property has been in no co-compliance period of time the special manager can declare a chronic nuisance and then we can move forward possibly doing remedial services of some sort if the property owner is not willing to do that. All those take a lot of time. With a vacant registry, we do by the registration have a responsible party, an email address, a phone number that co-compliance so others can actively approach that person much quicker than creating a whole new um a code case, sending a notice of violation, giving 90-day secure, whatever, whatever. Um, code compliance is remarkably successful in doing door hangers or reaching out to property owners without having to ever set up or initiate a formal code case. A lot of these, and Yolanda will back me up, we do serve as a default property owner for a lot of properties in the city. And without an email address and a phone number to remind them, please come over the brass, we end up doing a case. This does provide a mechanism for to contact people where there are some problem properties and also helps the neighborhoods contact the owners themselves because those contact information will be a public record

and and I think if it's just a matter of registering and providing contact information of various flavors I think there would probably be a fair amount of support for that here when it goes to the next stage of okay now you have to pay a fee in addition And that's going to get to my specific one. I think the the support goes down. I think the information base, sure, that seems reasonable. You got a way to get a hold of them. Okay. My my specific question is I've over the years had a number of homeowners who had I think in most cases it was an adjacent lot that they did not develop and they were quite concerned that they had to pay a fee and they felt like well I don't want to do something with that it's not vacant it's my thing. Um would this apply to them? It does and it has and it will uh we have two mechanisms to help ensure their um their

I know I've heard the unity of title again it's not my area of expertise but it seems like there are legitimate owners who are not a nuisance who there is no problem with the neighbors there's nothing bad going on and they don't don't ask me what the reasons are but they don't want to do the unity of title and I gather they have legitimate reasons not to but it seems seems weird to them that they should be charging a fee.

Well, it's an equal protection um challenge in that if we have property owner a has a vacant property, they live in West Palm and the vacant property owner who lives right next door to their property being treated differently. I don't know how we treat them differently. We do encourage them um when it's appropriate to do unity of title and in our code if it's a lot of record, they can break that off at any point moving forward and develop it on their own. And though I think some of you have really criticized it, the property owner saves money in the long term having a united title because they're paying one storm water fee, they're paying one tax bill, and they're paying one um trash assessment versus three because even if a property is vacant, you're paying assessments. Now, I think some of you have criticized our um guidance in terms of that, but we're giving people options. Um I don't know and the legal eagles will have to help. I do not how we how we do selective enforcement. It applies to some people and it doesn't others. One of the things we spend the most time on is that we have explain to people, yes, we have rules that don't really support what you'd like to do. However, you're a good person and we hate having to use this rule, but we have the rule for all the bad apples that aren't going to follow the rules. And there's some good people that get caught in the quagmire of rules that we have in place to ensure that bad things don't have or aren't the result of bad people who don't really want to follow the rules. And we have adopted a lot of of changes. I think at one point we had done 27 changes to the code in terms of code compliance, foreclosure, all kinds of things nuisance to got try to get at and improve the city. It get it still gets back to some people who are very good people, run great business, are going to be in their mind negatively affected by the rules we have in place to ensure that other people who

don't have the uh cleanest of means um are going to do bad things and and it sounds like we got to stop you right now. We haven't miss Okay, I'm going to keep it short sweet. Perhaps we just have to look at no doing no fees for people who are homesteaded and giving that pass. That's not selective enforcement. That's saying your property is homesteaded but it's vacant. Maybe we can wave the fee. It's vacant.

It costs money to mainten that you know they're homestead it but they go back to New York. do some due diligence that if you're a vacant has to be the utilities are turned off, there's no water. But then some of the things you ask us to do now affect our ability to determine whether something's vacant or not because there was a request to have exterior lighting for a an improved property, which means now there's an electric bill. Um there was landscaping needed to be maintained, which might require having a water meter on. Okay.

Um those are indications that a property is vacant. They don't have electricity and they don't have water sewer. Uh most of the people that leave for a period of time are paying the minimum bill and we don't classify them as being abandoned because the property is actually, you know, nobody's physically there, but um if it's home, they have to be here 6 months in a day. So they're technically not gone more than six months. Um okay. But it cost us money to maintain these empty lots because every couple months we get a list of who we have to go after because we have maintained their lots. That should not be on the backs of good residents. Right.

Okay. I'm a land owner in Delray Beach. I have rules that I have to follow in Delray Beach. I also own a business here. I just had to redo my no trespassing sign or else PBSO wouldn't enforce the trespassing because it has to be redone every single year. There's rules and regulations for everything for reasons. And while I'm not being heavy-handed, when you own land, it is your responsibility to maintain that land and not to be a burden on the neighbors who are next to you. The biggest complaint that I'm or Shannon and Yolanda hear from me are the vacant lands that we own that the city owns and other people that has consistent dumping. Every single week in front of the no dumping sign, there's dumping. So, I think that this has to be workshopped or come back um because we all have different points. One of the things that I saw on here is that, you know, it says that the property has to be secure, but yet we don't enforce that on the vacant lots that we have. They're all free-for-alls. So, how line 324 security requirements property subject to the registration requirements of the section shall be secured in accordance with the following requirements, but yet we don't enforce them to fence it in. So, how is it secure if it's a vacant land? It just seems like there's a lot that needs to be workshopped through here. Um, I do think that, you know, going after the people who are suffering foreclosures or financial burdens, but we have people in the city who land make here.

The downtown businesses, the corridors, the thorough affairs, I want to see us enforcing those heavy-handedly. The CRA has given window clings. We've offered for them to do art projects. There's a million things that we can that we can make commercial property owners do to help add to the value of our city. The people who are land banking, who aren't mowing their lawn, who aren't maintaining it. This those are the bad players that I want to go after. I'm not talking about the people who own a piece of land next to their home and they just they haven't done unity of title and they can't afford to build on it as long as they maintain it.

As long as they're maintaining it. This is because at the end of the day, what you do with your property affects the property values of those around you and the quality of life. And we sit up here and preach quality of life all day long. We want code quality of life, code, quality of life. If code doesn't have the tools to enforce the quality of life and the dumping of the mattresses and the couches, we're not doing our job. So, I believe that this is a good tool because I'm dealing with a with somebody who I sent in a code violation for the person across the street got a code and he called me and he said, "I understand you put a complaint in for my house." I said, "I didn't put the complaint in for your house. I put it in for the neighbor and I'll gladly forward you the email." And he saw the neighbor and he's not he's a land owner, but he doesn't live in this he doesn't live in that part of the city. and he ended up thanking me for calling him and we're working through the process and I asked Jovant today he said the notice is still there 5 days later can you please find out who owns that property what LLC and at least call them and let them know they're in violation because this guy now has told me hey they're not doing anything about it so I think that it's just working together and trying to find the commonality of what it's going to take to move the needle in the city

oh that's it

okay thank you I have not yet spoken And um I I don't find this so ownorous. I really don't. Um if you own property in the city, you need to register. You know, there's a rule you register. My issue and most of my notes are about um how does somebody know they need to do this? Okay. And that's kind of a theme that I've been talking about for a long time. How do we, you know, if I have a piece of property and um it's it's an empty house or an empty storefront, um how how has the city told me that I need to register it? Because I had a case when I was working with private clients where she missed the the notice and she had a $50,000 fine because she didn't register as as a because she didn't renew her uh rental license. But so that's my concern. And you know, we're it's 10:50 now. We're not going to get to the end of this tonight. there's just not no way. Um so what I'd like to do is have you know I'd like to submit my comments and it's really about not um about noticing you know and um Mr. I forget Mr. Mer Mr. We had some Yeah. Mr. Richard Mer, you know, he and I were con corresponding during the day today about this and you know and my question I have I'm not a popist but if you can come back um you know can we could we demand or from like an empty storefront that they allow an art project that they allow something that you do we have

but we're not we're not enforcing it is it I mean it's apparently if we have that rule we have agreed that it's legal to do that. Okay. So I I you know there was you know my vet had to take down his puppy picture but I just saw two Jays their window is completely covered with a new um you know I mean that that's the kind of thing that drives people crazy that inconsistency. So um and that's and we can have a code officer walking the streets every single day. Well, he needs to look at the everything. It's a constant battle because and several of you have brought it to our attention. There are different understandings of what a vignette and activated window might be.

Um there have been people that wanted to have pop-up shops and there's a liability issue. The CRA's tried to do it. Uh we do have requirements that your windows need to be activated or camouflaged in some way either with a cling but only to 25%. No, that's when it's an active business. you could only cover 25% of your administration with like a solid sign or something. But when these are vacant, we do have some rules in two different sections of the code that you have to do something with your windows besides just leave them looking awful when you can see into this vacant build um building. Right. On the opposite end of it, PBSO is not overly happy sometimes that you can't see into a vacant building. Right. Correct. Right.

So, we get caught in the middle and damn it if you dig, damn it if you don't. Yeah. I mean, I also I have no problem with the 4hour requirement for somebody. I mean, if if there's a problem, you know, there's a there's a house on South Sea Street where the poor lady the neighbors, it's an abandoned building. They never they never mow the lawn. We've got to, you know, the city's had to do it a number of times. So, um you know, my concern really is notice to how do and this is just not on this particular issue of code. It's how do we let people know they have to register? you know, if I stop if I stop renting a place, I let my son live there, how do I know that I have to because that late poor lady was a $50,000. Some of that is actually on the business license. Um, okay. But again,

you have to read and I'm sorry, we can't read everything. No, but we can make it I' I've been asking this for years. We can have a little booklet that says if you own a piece of property in Lake Worth, these are the rules. These are the basic rules. We we created a rat card. We have a good neighbor. Um we've enforced yes we have been enforcing those but then when we're tea told be business friendly on one hand and then enforce them on the other it becomes an issue. Well and this is a bigger conversation. I mean there's a couple uh properties downtown that have had to take their sign down and we don't even know why. You know that's a that's a

but we also sent before we started this program we sent a courtesy notice to everyone. We've mailed out courtesy notice to all the property owners to let them know this is coming. We're no longer with the contracted companies, right? And we're bringing it inhouse and we sent all the property owners that were on our list. We sent them notices to let them know what's coming.

What we did, we had the GIS office pull through records all vacant unimproved properties and all properties that did not have active meters and we sent a letter every single one of them. was about a little less than 400 that went out and the same process was taken when we changed this when not long after I got here. We I think it was um the standin asked us to do it. Contact everybody that you feel should be registered back then though that many of the addresses we had were to owners who were no longer there.

That's one of the problems. I mean that that the whole thing about having with all due respect, I want to know the name and the phone number of the guy that's going to show up within four hours when a when a property if a pipe burst and water is going into the thing or the sewer's overflowing or it's on fire, you know, if who do you call? And that's why I've always said I want that name and number on I mean it's public record anyway. We're talking that's well but they're right but um you know if we're working on getting that on the on the website that's wonderful news um because they don't have to call us they can call the neighbor they can call the the property manager it is now 5 minutes to 11 and we're really not going to get any we have a motion to not approve it as

I wanted to amend my motion that way we can give direction to staff okay

um the one of the biggest things is the the vacancy regist It's a voluntary process. The bad actors, they're not joining it and they're continuing to get fined. So, I think we need to have a um positive program like the HUD doorups where voluntary actors receive some benefit in order for joining that program. We will get far more participation from that. Um our vacant storefronts and so on downtown, we know who all those people are. Um it's not like we have a contact problem. So I am make I am amending my motion that one we give direction to staff to divide this up and make it simpler. Have separate sections for vacant land, separate sections for the major thoroughare and downtown commercial vacancies and separate section for the abandoned properties and real estate owned. Um, and then also giving direction to staff to export it from a positive standpoint where since this is a vacancy registry, which is really a voluntary act, a bad actor is not going to join it. Um, that it has some sort of positive benefit like the HUD board up program.

That's how I'd like to amend my motion. HUD um you can pay a fee and they have contractors that will go out and take care of the board up and security for you. So for people that own these properties all over the country and everything else like that, it's a very simple program where they do key ups, boardups, and take care of it. We don't have the money. I'm not saying we pay for it. They pay for it. We we just have contractors here locally on hand that can take care of it. Oh, we have that. Yeah. However, when we instituted our own board of contractors, people have complained how much it's cost because I know that you represented somebody and then if they don't choose to pay it, we have to put it on my tax card. We get paid for it three years later. Um,

they pay in advance. Very simple. Um, but that's that's my amendment to my motion. We've got a couple minutes. Um, does the second does the second agree? The second agrees to those changes. Okay. You were enthusiastic. Yes, I'm I agree. So then do we vote? So now your motion is to not approve it, but not approve it. And the direction given was what I just said. All right. I think there's other things to come back on. I don't think that's the only thing to come back on. Um agreed. But those are the major points. So divide divide it into different sections.

Divide it into the three categories mentioned and have a positive vacancy registry program. an incentive building. Yes. What's that? Yeah. I mean, it's now 1058. What is the incentive? Do you get like a cupcake? No. You get just like the HUD program, they they can they can choose to be part of the program. We have contractors available to take care of some of these key services. They pay in advance for it. We're not on the hook for it. If it's voluntary, they it's not going to be paid. It already is voluntary. Bad actors don't join our program. Mayor.

Yeah. Um just thinking about this historically and how this has all developed. Um one of the things William mentioned was that this started back when there was the foreclosure boom and really impacted the city and that program started here in almost every other city in the nation. Excuse me. Madam clerk, don't shut us off at 11 o'clock. This has to call the question. No, I'm sorry madame mayor. Yes. According to the according to the rules of procedure, you can continue this till its end. That's right. After that, you each have three minutes for your commissioner reports, the city manager has three minutes, city attorney has three minutes, and then the mayor adjourns the meeting.

Okay. Thank you. So the registration program was really primarily to get those properties that you try to do code enforcement on and you may have leans on, but obviously in a foreclosure situation, those leans are going to mean nothing because more than likely they're in foreclosure because they're superior mortgage. So your lean's going to get wiped out. So nobody's paying attention to a code enforcement lean in those situations. You have other processes. you have the other nuisance processes that you can start going through, but it's all about keep poking this property owner to do something. So, part of the registration program is to get a contact information um to find out, you know, where someone is. Now, the whole reason there's a registration fee was obviously because private companies got involved, started charging for it, but there is an administration fee to staff to keep that list, to keep it updated. So they are paying for city, you know, services,

but could it be a minimal charge to be on it and then charge them punish them if they don't?

Well, something to think about and this is sort of what I think Commissioner Seg was talking about was you could set up a way that you know there there is a foreclosure process and the the pre-default sometimes is a situation you want to address because the property owner just gets up and leaves and abandons it. it takes a while to the bank to get involved in something like that. So having a contact person at that time is a good idea and maybe at that time before there's actually a lesbendance, you know, reported is when it's a free process. But once that foreclosure starts, you really got to keep the foreclosing party, which isn't always a bank. There's plenty of private mortgages out there. You got to keep their eye on that property and make sure that they're paying attention. So, at that point, a registration fee, usually with properties in Palm Beach County, a $200 or even a $500 a year registration fee is not a big deal when you're forclosing, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars of property. So, we can work with staff on something like that, but it really is another tool for staff to use in their tool belt on these types of properties to keep poking at the property owner because these usually aren't properties where it's the little old woman who's getting foreclosed and nobody's helping her and she's doing the best she can. These are major investors. these are reoccurring property owners that they know the names of personally that this is more tools that they have they can go after.

Yeah. I mean, one of the one of the comments I often get from the public is when we talk about major land owners who let their properties sit and be empty and they don't seem to care about the good of the city is that the fines are not high enough. That's I mean I heard that more than the other way.

We've heard both sides of the story. Yeah. Now, one thing we may be able to create is that um in reference to um Commissioner Sedger's carrot is that it does cost us more money to get it initially registered on the website, all the information documented, but there but reviewing it on an annual basis, which we do need a renewal notice. If you are a good steward, you might get a discount and you only pay less money would be it would be part of our schedule of charges and fees that if you've been a good steward and we haven't had any problems, no complaints, we haven't had to go out and both grass. We haven't had to do a um courtesy nose. So, whatever it might be, maybe you pay half or 25% of the registration fee. But if you're a bad person and you're not maintaining your property, you keep having to pay that major fee or it goes up. And I think we can work out something where where it would have

it would not have an eco protection challenge because you're being a partner with the city to maintain your property. You're going to get a benefit back and we can look into the HUD program that you're talking about. But um how we have it paid for in advance without an invoice will drive finance completely bananas.

No, there's no way to do that. Um but thank you very much. And keep in mind we did ask I think two meetings ago I did ask we do want to have a co- compliance workshop with you that is you know we have a lot of policies that we're getting mixed messages on the level of support for them and um it would be very helpful we can just go ahead and draw a line in the sand and say this policy is not good for us anymore um or we like it or we want it modified um because your your discussion earlier and I hate to drag it out a little bit is that opening business, regardless of what it is, is far more complicated and difficult in Lake Worth Beach than anywhere else in the county, right? And I can go in later why that is.

Okay. Thank you. Um, and in my commissioner comments, that's my list of things to to bring up. Thank you. Um, okay. So, there's a motion. There's an amended motion. The second agrees with the amended motion. Um, I would like to leave, you know, I I think there's other things we can talk about. So you're not limiting it to just what you're saying. Correct. Things that can be revisited. Okay. All right. So, um, all in favor? I. Okay. Thank you. Um, ask. So, commission comments. Let's start with district one. Madam cler, we have five minutes each. No, three. Three minutes each. Just like a Okay. Um, let's start with one.

Um, one. What did I do? Uh Saturday I attended Career Readyy's graduation ceremony. Um and we had I think it was um 30 kids from Lake Worth High. Um so it was Lakeworth High, Palm Beach Lakes, Palm Beach um Central and Boon Beach. Um I was there. Um Commissioner Amy from Boon was there. County Commissioner um Marissa Marino was there. And Marino was there. And uh oh, Bobby Pal showed up.

Okay. So, there were some dignitaries. Um, it's always a great time. Um, the speech from the kid from Lakeworth High was amazing and I can't wait. I hope to God that he gets to give a speech at his high school graduation. He was amazing. Um, it's always great to to be involved with that. Um, Pride, I I did send a thank you to staff and to BBSO. Pride was wet but fun and um, I'm very thankful for all the work and the hard the hard work from staff that goes into it. Um, again, why I brought up the DEI uh bill that has passed, it's going to be challenged. Uh, equality Florida says do not repeal any of your current orances or your policies, but at the same time, don't make any statements against it. Kind of just wait to see what happens. Um, there was some talk of a um couple communities getting together and launching their own lawsuit, but that was off of the conversation from Equality Florida. I'm not saying that we should do that. I'm going to lean on to legal to guide us. Um part of what I want to understand and maybe I'll get with um with Christie and Glenn is we do have a permit for pride that was three years issued three years ago because of some bad legislation that was getting ready to happen. So we got ahead of it and according to this it looks like we can get another permit issued for three or five years as long as it's before January 1st. We're going have to work through that language and and see what that looks like for Compass and to protect Pride of the Palm Beaches. That's all I have.

Okay. Thank you. District two.

Um, thank you. Couple things. Um, just a moment for recognizing Raphael Tubberon, who's a long time Lakeworth resident, very dedicated to supporting the community and the abuse in the community. He passed away recently. Um, I've attended I attended also the uh Pride. It was wet, but only at the beginning. It was pretty reasonable the rest of the day and uh number of good booths and wonderful book pop-up book thing that I really enjoyed. Um, number of other things. So, and thank you for the comm vice mayor for the work in advance on the permits. That sounds like a good strategy and for the advice that we shouldn't preemptively repeal anything. Sit tight for the moment. Um, I've attended a number of events relating to immigration enforcement. I have to say that there is a lot of concern in the faith communities in other communities. Um that real concern that our commission has done nothing like zero nothing on that. And um we are seeing repeatedly I just read one from Minnesota this afternoon. I see it at national uh level statistics. 75% of the people who've been detained by ICE have no criminal record. And yet the rhetoric is, oh, we're going after the worst and the worst and these are horrible criminals. And it simply is a falsehood. It's not true. And our community is firsthand knowledge of lots of people who are simply going to work work for their to support their families and are doing nothing illegal and and

nothing harmful and are being sitting moved around the country. We we're seeing deaths in uh immigration way higher than they have been in the past. I really wish our commission would look hard, look back at that proposed agenda for a special meeting. I think it was pretty moderate and pick what you want out of it, but have a meeting about it. Um, I do think that the comment that was made uh in public comment of honesty is the best policy. There was a lot of unhappiness in this community that the information put out by the city, both in the language of the amendments themselves and in the information within the city was just blatantly biased and that erodess our credibility in the community and a 8020 vote is a pretty big deal. Um I think the comment that was made that many in this community do not want it to go a Disney direction. Yes, we want to support businesses, but turning it into a tourist trap, no nature, yes, we saw that with the green space.

Thank you. That's time. Thank you. District three. Thank you. Um, one of the things I would like to ask the commission to um, have consensus on is inviting Emily Gregory to come introduce herself to us and and congratulate her on so that we get a chance to get to know her and congratulate her on her her uh, amazing win. Worked hard. Yes, she sure did work hard. Um, okay. The other thing is do we have consensus for that? Do we have a consensus to invite her to? Okay. Yeah, I would definitely next time we do a vid on the agenda,

that would be great. Thank you. Um the second thing is I was thinking about Friday um the having a pre-aggenda meeting on Friday being as though it's Good Friday and um a lot of us kind of didn't know. I I don't know that we can do that. I mean, I I am doing a volunteer job that morning. I know there's staff on vacation. Chris is out. I'm I think we should hold off and talk to let him and and also in Warren's defense that's two days to and we want him to create a miracle in two days. So, let's give him until next Tuesday or whatever our next pre-aggenda meeting is. I I understand that we want this done, but rushed isn't going to work. And I don't think it's fair to ask staff to come to a pre- agenda meeting on Good Friday when they've already been told that we don't have one.

I I would agree. Okay. I agree. Would we be able to invite him to do a presentation and have a discussion during our regular commission meeting on Tuesday or maybe on our one on? I I don't I don't know. Let Let me Let me go down the rest of mine before I lose my time. Y

um my other question is and this is for the um city commissioner or city commissioner city manager um I would like an update on park rangers um as soon as possible so we can find out what's going on with that. I know leisure services is ready to go. So if PBSO is going to flake great let's do it inhouse. Um the other thing is the um um the couple things just little and if you just write it down so it's on the record. Um we did say that there is no smoking in parks. Um there are no signs that say no smoking in parks. I think we have a bigger issue with people smoking than flying drones and there are signs that say don't fly drones. Um we to do. Also, when um city manager, you said that you had a grant, you were going to get new garbage cans and benches and stuff downtown. I just want an update on that. Um I did ask um Leisure Services regarding the money that um Commissioner Stokes had put aside for playground in Spillway Park for them to go back and look at that and see where where we are on that and if that's still a possibility. I know that my neighbors in um district 3 would like that. Um and then last but not least is the trash the trees that cause vision hazards downtown. I do not want to go back and rip out all of those trees. However, if there I would like at least staff to go look and justify whether or not we have a legal obligation to move these trees. stump. I mean, if we are going to get sued because somebody has an accident because we knew about it and didn't do something about it, we've got to deal with it.

Thank you. That's time. Thank you, District 4. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, I'd like to ask consensus of my colleagues to instruct staff to um put together modifications to our landscape plan requirements um to match the drawings that we saw from from Nest for residential properties and commercial properties, four units or less. Okay. Is there consensus for that? Yeah, I think what's good for the goose is good for the gander. That's the standard, but should at least relook at that to make it look so something. Yeah, I mean we should they should be able to draw a picture.

Yeah. And actually sometimes they are able Mr. Mr. Secretary's time. Hang on. Sorry. Uh consensus to modify our landscape plan requirements to match the drawings that we saw tonight by nest and approved on residential properties and commercial properties four units or less. I would say everything but commercial properties. Yeah. Not commercial. Yeah. So we don't have consensus. Not for the entire not commercial. So for residential yes. So consensus for residential only. Yeah. Four units or less. Vacation residential. You're single family and four units or less.

Four units or less. Residential four units or less. Well, it's still resident. Definition of of residential is four units or less. That Yeah, that's fine. Me, too. Okay. Um I would also like consensus for us to have a discussion on memorial benches um or other memorial items in our parks. Uh, I've had several neighborhood associations ask if they can donate to revamp or revitalize a bench and have a small plaque of a memorial. Have a policy, don't we? I was told we didn't have a policy.

That's different than naming policy though. Actually, I think that I I was told by staff we didn't have a policy with us. So, that's why I wanted to have the discussion. Yeah, correct. Previous direction was that we uh were not to uh do any more. We have multiple things around the city. um that are just kind of uh uh people that that don't have any connection to this like not a former mayor, not a former commissioner, something like that. Um so prior direction was to uh utilize the uh bricks like in the cultural plaza that people have the ability to do, but not uh any more benches or something like that. So it's just a matter of if you guys choose to to do that or not. I'm not saying adding new. I'm I'm saying the deteriorating benches and garbage cans.

I understand what you're saying. I just I know that there was a there's been requests previously for naming and putting names on benches and we said we were going to create a naming policy or that we had one to protect from just anybody because anybody could put anyone's name. I mean somebody could want Hitler on a bench and you were in trouble. So I thought we had a policy that public works had created. No, there was no policies. That was just direction back then of the commission that goes back gosh probably over a decade. Um, I remember the last one that was done and that was kind of like uh not um everyone was in agreement with that one and they uh just came to a direction that not to do any more of those anymore. Yeah. I mean I I think in terms of

No, we can look at a policy if that's what I think it's just one way or another have discussion not to do for us to have a discussion. If there's no policy let's us have a discussion. Yeah. I mean I I have my mother's name on a bank she know. Yeah. Yeah. But then you buy the bench, you pay for the bench. We can talk about that during the discussion that he's asking us to have. Yeah.

Um I did have a very productive meeting with a lot of the retailers and restaurants in our downtown. Some of the things that came out of that were they felt that our downtown deputies spent more time in the pizza shop than they did on the beat. Um and they were very upset by that. Um so I think we need PBSO to address that immediately. Uh they stated that many of their customers are scared to come in the nighttime. um and they've gotten that feedback and that's related to not seeing deputies and some of the other activities. Um lots of complaints about code compliance um and you know just absolutely nitpicking the hell out of um the the the people there, signage, um dirt smudges, things of that. Um, and we have several long-term tenants and fixtures within our our city who um are seriously considering not renewing their leases and moving because of how they feel they're being treated. So, um, I'm meeting again with them to to hear more of their concerns. I'm doing some research. Um, but I think we we really do need to to start listening and and take these things into heart. I think we already have plans for some discussions on this, but I wanted to share that to underscore the importance of what's going on. Pe people are are are very upset with some of this stuff.

Can you encourage them to attend the business advisory board meeting or to to to be active with it or come here? Yeah. No, I I I do. They they they wanted to speak with me directly as their their commissioner for their district to express their concerns there. Um they felt that that was a venue that they would be heard better. Um part part of part of this that I see is we is a theme that I am going to be bringing up a lot which is rules for thee and not for me. Um we had several businesses cited for rust on a mailbox and you can go and look in any one of our parks and find rusted out equipment that could potentially kill a child. That was not the only per thing that that person was cited for. So I think we just need to also

Oh yes. He was also cited for a Mountain Dew can in its backyard. He's heavy industrial zoned. They cited him for having a motorcycle in his shop even though he's heavy automotive. Um they cited him for all sorts of fun not pertinent things to his use. They also said he would need a license for storage even though he's heavy automotive. So yes, there were lots of things they were unfair about if we want to talk about those. But um specifically on the rust, all of our garbage cans in Bryant Park could pretty much kill you if you tried to pick them up. Um, and I I would like my colleagues to seriously think about um how we handle resident complaints about the situation of our own equipment and our own buildings.

I think you have the same time limits placed on the city as we do on residents. Thank you. Um I'm sorry, Madame Mayor, before you start your three minutes, was there consensus regarding a discussion for the for memorial benches? Yes. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Um um to keep I kind of picking up of what you're talking about um Anthony. Um I my notes for tonight are we talked about having a meeting for you know code enforcement meeting and I've I have seen code I've I've looked at code enforcement from city attorney viewpoint a private attorney defending people with code in the past and now legislating. I've, you know, sort of a global view of it and um instead of having what I'd like to do, I think the first thing we need to do is identify and have people identify like you're just talking about things that have been cited that just don't seem right. And I would like to open I would like to start our conversation before we have a meeting about and it's I mean it's asking for an avalanche. I understand that but I think it needs to be addressed. I've been talking about this for about 30 years. um that uh let's find out what are what's the pattern of the problem of of a lot of the things with code enforcement it's a it's a lot of interpretation about what what's a code violation what's not a code violation so I would like to start out before we have a workshop before we have a meeting is invite the public to say and again it's going to be an avalanche but what experience have you had that you feel is unjust so that we can start out with some sort of global global concept because I think that there's going to be we're going to see patterns in different things. So to me that would be the first part to um before we because we we have a workshop it's gonna I just like I'd like some information from people and I know that people are anxious to talk about this about what what common threads we've seen with code of it's signage it's this it's that so I would like to just hear from people and I'll put it out there myself they can just email me personally of you know what bad and I I know they're out there what bad experiences have you had so that we can identify so

it just doesn't become a generalized complaint about vote. I would like to see it. Can we ask for good experiences too? I know there's I know there's been a lot of really good experiences too and I don't want to discount that.

I thank you for bringing that up. I completely agree. Um so I would just like you know and I'll like I said I if if we don't get a consensus I will put it out there on my um Facebook or whatever on the website is write to you know write to us about the exper what what experiences have whether they're positive or negative because if we start with a workshop and a meeting you know h we you know we start with a work where does it start where do we begin so that's just my idea so I'm going to put it out there if you've had an experience with code enforcement either positive or negative, please email all of us so that we know what's going on. And then hopefully we'll have a lot of response to that and at the end of perhaps more of April, we can schedule a workshop and have a little more information from the folks that are affected by it. Okay. Does anybody have a problem with that?

I know it's asking for an avalanche, but that's what we have to do. I only think, you know, we could identify patterns like you said and then tackle small chunks in in workshop because I mean if if we try to tackle everything, it's a never- ending workshop. That's

and we don't want that. Um, but I mean there are inconsistencies when my veterinarian who's on 10th Avenue North, nobody sees him unless you're going there, has had to take down what covers his window with puppies and kittens, but yet 2J's has completely blocked off a window. That's inconsistent. And that's the inconsistency is one of the problems that I think people have. So, I'm just throwing that out there. So, and I'll put on my Facebook. Let us know what good or bad experiences you've had. Um, I there is, you know, Mr. I'm sorry, madame mayor. That's your three minutes. Okay. Thank you, Mr. City Manager.

Uh the stuff I can um I did want to get uh so for Friday. I know you said so we're we're not having the meeting. We need to talk to Warren. I just need to know um what let the HR director what is the direction for her as far as dealing with the search firm or when is this? I to give him the information he needs on the benefits of and support him, you know, whatever he needs. No, but I mean as far as coming back to you guys. I just need to know to tell the HR director like when she talks to the the the recruiter, what would you say? What what would you like since you guys aren't the direction earlier was to bring it back and have the discussion on Friday, right?

Is it Tuesday now? So when Lauren contacts him, he needs to be ready for next Tuesday. He needs to email us his final products before Tuesday. Okay. So, you guys are going to discuss it on Tuesday. Yeah. And then have a discussion item maybe at the end of the meeting about. Yeah. Okay. Um on that issue, uh pursuant to your rules of procedure, you have to take a vote to add something to the agenda. So, you can either do it as an emergency item to add at the beginning of the meeting or you could vote now to add it to the agenda. Um, I make a motion to add the commission whatever to the agenda on Tuesday. Second. Second. Okay. All in favor.

Can I totally forgot something? I I will say that uh you guys might want to do an addition deletions reordering on Tuesday. Anyway, move that in because you do have a very packed meeting on Tuesday. So, if it goes on the end, you might not get to um Yeah. I have a question. Mayor, well, you're thinking, can I just add one little thing? I I emailed you guys regarding having a pre-aggenda meeting. I know you're going to hate me, but for the third meeting in general. Yeah.

In general, like I I'm going to make a motion or ask for consensus to have a pre-aggenda meeting before each of the three meetings because it doesn't make sense. Yeah, I would consent. Yeah. And consensus on that one. I do. I think if we're having a meeting, we should have an agenda meeting. Okay. Thank you. So, we're going to do that. Well, we changed. Um, I had a question for the lawyer. Oh my god, right out of my head. Um, I'll think of it and I'll text you or email you. All right. Thank you very much. Do I have a motion?

No, Madame Mayor. Um, first of all, I forgot to have you sign that letter, so I'm running up. That's what I was gonna ask. Yeah, madam clerk. And you ask, you do not ask for a motion. You are going to be adjourning the meeting. Okay. What about the city attorney's report? Oh, city attorney. She doesn't have a report. Okay. I'm adjourning the meeting. And madam clerk, if you could come up with that, I because I got to get going out of here. Yep. I'm coming. Thank you.