City Commission - Regular Meeting

Madam Mayor, it's 6.07, and we are live.

Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Regular City Commission of Tuesday, June 16, 2026. Can I have the roll call, please?

Mayor Betty Resch.

Here.

Vice Mayor Mimi May. Present. Commissioner Sarah Maliga. Present. Commissioner Christopher McVoy had a family emergency. He apologizes for unexpectedly being able to attend the meeting in person or by Zoom. And I have two statements to read during the meeting when the appropriate time comes. And Commissioner Anthony Singridge. I'm sorry, did you not hear that, Madam Mayor?

Well, we did, and we weren't... I'm not sure about readings. I don't know what you're talking about. And I wonder if we should have, we haven't done that. Never.

Well, he emailed the city manager.

I understand that. I understand that.

Okay, that's fine.

Okay, Ms. May is here. Are you going to go down? Okay. Mr. Perry is going to talk to the city attorney. She wants to be put on the spot. Ms. May is here and Mr. Segrich is here. Oh, I didn't hear that. I was so concerned about the other thing. Commissioner Malega will lead us in the moment of silence or invocation and Mr. Segrich will lead us in the pledge.

Thank you all for being in attendance tonight. Today I ask that we just bow our heads. May we consider ourselves an extended family. May we be kind with our words, soft with our actions. May we govern in the best way possible for today and tomorrow and the future of the city of Lake Worth Beach. Amen. Amen. 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. Thank you to all the gentlemen who took off their hats. That was very nice.

Okay. Are there any additions, deletions, or reordering? I have a thing I'm thinking about, but I like to let everybody go first to see what they're thinking about. Ms. May.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would like to make a motion to table the item that is listed as unfinished business B to the end of July. and to direct staff to go back and to negotiate with the representatives from the Beach Club and come back to us with, after doing one-on-ones and after negotiating, come back to us before their lease renewal date of August 1st with a new negotiation of terms. And not do the ITN.

not do the itm even though you know we have just you know the history you know we authorized the itn to go forward i do okay um can i just comment on that of course oh thank you um i totally understand here's and i've been thinking about this a lot that's i was going to talk about this i've been thinking about this a lot if i mean i am a great um We have to make up our decisions when we get the facts before us, when we make any decisions. I think everyone knows that Beach Club is beloved. And it's the place I take my friends when they come to Intertown. It's a fabulous place. And I also realize that we have pretty much a fiduciary duty. If we don't send out, and just here's what I'm saying. If we don't send out an ITN, and I don't, and sending one out doesn't mean you're a fan of any particular thing. I think that we face criticism if we don't do an ITN because we could be criticized then for saying, listen, the city, you know, you've, we talk about money, we talk about, you know, the city has, kind of needs to look around and see if there's any options. I have friends in the audience who work at the Peach Club, and I love it. And I've been really struggling with this because I emotionally just want to do the same thing. So can I hear from anybody? Mr. Segrich.

Thanks, Madam Mayor.

I don't think we can really take action other than additional removal of something from the agenda at this time.

I believe I was told that in the past.

Hold on. Elizabeth, can I make the motion that I put up?

This is a portion of the agenda that's additions, deletions, and reordering. So if you want to just remove it, that's typically what you would do here. If you want to give direction or alternative direction, typically you would bring that up during the item.

But if we table it, there won't be a discussion.

Yeah, so if we table it to, I can give direction if I table it. Well, I think if I didn't know, I don't want to. But wherever you're going with it kind of depends on the motion that I just made. Yeah. So can I do that or not?

It's really up to you all and how you want to run the meeting and how you want to take the motion. If everybody's okay with there being a motion on the table at this point to give direction as part of your taking it off the agenda, then that's okay.

Because if I just make a motion to remove it from the agenda, which I don't have a problem with, then there is no item to discuss. Therefore, there wouldn't be any time to bring that up unless I brought it up in my own commissioner comments, which if that's what you guys want me to do, that's what I'll do. But I just, I don't want to have a whole discussion tonight. I want to send staff back to negotiate. I don't want to go into any terms or conditions this evening publicly before staff has a chance.

Okay, Mr. Segrich.

So, yeah, the only reason why I question that is because I've been I was admonished for trying to do that before. So if we can do that, great. Noted. So in terms of this item, I had spoken to Mitch several times and I brought up the agenda, the desire to table it because he asked because he was away this weekend table discussion. So I am in favor of tabling the discussion at Mitch's request until he gets back so that he can be here to participate in whatever public discussion is being had. In terms of dropping the ITN altogether, I think the ITN is the only thing that brought them back to the table in terms of negotiating. And now that the ITN is a possibility, all of a sudden we're getting progress in negotiation. And sometimes that's business. Right. Sometimes it takes the carrot and the stick to get something done. So I am OK with tabling the discussion of the ITN until Mitch has returned and negotiated in good faith. But I don't want to abandon the ITN altogether. There are a number of items, deficiencies, patterns, and so on that have led us down this road um to to looking to explore that so um i'm in favor of tabling it i proposed that before um and it's tabling it at mitch's request um not because i want to delay or delay the discussion or deny the good people here the ability to speak on it but the owner requested it so i'm i'm in favor of giving him what he wanted okay but i'm not um

So let me make, let's make sure we know that if we're talking about the same thing, because I'm not really sure we are. I'm suggesting that we table, I guess I'm not, I guess I'm suggesting that we remove the item and that we do not continue with the ITN. And then we give Mitch the opportunity to negotiate. If he can't come into terms that are agreeable by both the beach club and the city, because there are issues we need to handle. I'm all aware of them. If we can't come into agreement by the time his one-year extension is due, then we'll sign the one-year extension and we'll put it out for ITN. Between now and then, we should give him the ability because he has been there a long time. have the ability to come in, negotiate, and see what terms we can come to. And then from there, if we can't, we can't. But I think we give it the opportunity. I don't wish to put out an ICN right now.

How much... Just one question. How much time are you thinking about?

Well, only because August 1st is when he needs to have signed the one-year extension. So if it's along those same times, it would have to be by August 1st and July 30th is the meeting before that.

Okay. Ms. Malega. Thank you. So I do go to the Beach Club. I want to keep successful businesses in town. I want to keep people employed. But at the same time, We had a lease conversation with, and this person didn't even come to the lease conversation that was on the agenda. And Mr. Segrich has zoomed all the way from across the world before. And this is not about a certain person's lease. This is about city owned property and us being good stewards. Just like I said before, I have nothing against the beach club. Do I want the beach club to stay there? Yes. Do I want them to succeed? Do I want a better business plan? Yes. Do I want things to be fixed? Of course. I don't believe, the carrot and the stick is what happened I think that unfortunately and I'm going to be honest this city has been ran for decades on handshakes and relationships behind closed doors And unfortunately, when you have those kind of agreements, it says, yes, here's a usage agreement or yes, you can do this and not pay the fair share of the, this is public owned property. This needs to be addressed. So with all due respect, vice mayor, I know that, you know, this is, it's, and let's be honest, we're in the middle of a campaigning season until March. So I want to do the right thing for the city today and tomorrow. I don't want to take the ITN off the table. When we had the lease conversation, nobody was here, not the manager, not the owner, not their lawyer was in this room when we talked about the lease extension. And, you know, unfortunately, you you can't continue to kick the football down the field. So I do not want to pull the ITN. I don't think that this has anything to do with one particular person's lease. We had an interim city manager who sat in that seat for a very long time. And when we went out to hire a city manager, you know what he was told? Apply for the job. And now we're essentially telling a person who's a leasee, if you haven't put the business plan in, we need to do what's best for the city. Right now, we have $1.8 million in needs just in the irrigation system. That golf course is sinking. We need to make sure that we can get out of the red and every year be able to do what we need to do to run the city. We all know the financial challenges that we're meeting. And I don't think that at any, I do want everything to be affordable for all the businesses in town. But now I know that the servers are getting paid $12 an hour at most places. They're not getting paid $3 an hour like 10 years ago. The cost of everything is going up. When eggs go up, the restaurants are hit. When tin goes up, they're hit. There's a bottom line cost. But at the same time, we have to do what's right for the city and be fiduciary responsible. I do not support pulling the ITN. But to play fair. I would give them until the next meeting for the ITN to be in this room for the ITN conversation for the next meeting at the end of July or the first meeting in July. But not negotiate with them? We've already renegotiated. They didn't come. They weren't here. But come here. I want to hear from the public. I don't want to kick this down to the beach club. I want to know what really does this person want? Because I haven't heard from this person. He's never picked up the phone and called me. Nobody's ever called me from the beach club and said, here's what we want to do. And they've heard me loud and clear on this dais and at the pre-agenda meeting. And everybody else who's ever needed anything from me, close my phone up. So it's not that they didn't know how to get ahold of me. So I'm not trying to say no to the beach club. I'm just saying, I do not want to take the ITN off the table. I support commissioner Segrich in that endeavor. Um, I don't know where we're going to go. Cause now we only have two people up and we're missing a person up here. So it's, you know, there's not five of us. Um, I would be in favor of postponing the ITN until Mitch was here, if that's really what he needed. But I would not be in favor of pulling the ITN and letting. And again, I hate the fact that we even ask our staff to negotiate leases. That's not their job. Well, it's real estate.

I agree with you on that, but. We do have an opinion on that.

I understand we do, but to me, I really wish we had somebody who was doing fair market value on all of these leases.

Every time a lease comes up, it's a political football in the city. That's being worked on.

Do we have a second opinion on the market value going out? How do you know that and I don't know that?

Because it was in the email that we got from the lawyers. It's in the email that we got from the lawyers.

But it's not part of the backup.

Okay, but we know that because it's... But it's not part of the backup. Fine. So... Excuse me. Folks, really.

So the bottom line is... Obviously, this is delicate. I am not trying to shut any business. I mean, honestly, people who are in this room, I've tipped them, I go to the restaurants. I want to do what's right for the city. Because in a year from now, the decisions that we make up here are going to greatly affect the city financially. That's the bottom line. So I am in favor of removing the ITN, Mitch's request, until he can be here at the end of the month or in the first meeting of July and hear what he has to say. I may change my mind then, but I will agree to that. I will not agree to getting rid of the ITN right now.

But that you would consider it if you were presented with some substantial competent evidence to withdraw.

Correct. I mean, just, you know, show face to send all your staff here and your legal representation on the ninth hour when you should have been here when we first did the lease conversation. That to me isn't, that's not good faith. And I don't, he could have been here on Zoom, takes 45 minutes to, you know, to whatever we get through the conversation. But I will support in postponing the ITN to the next available meeting, whatever that is.

Ms. May?

Yes. How do you respond to that? Well, I mean, I made my motion, so we can vote on it.

Okay, so your motion is to take this off the agenda.

Yep. And have staff negotiate with Mitch and see if they can come to some terms. It doesn't have to be a 10-year lease. It could be something that is good for us, for the city, and for them. But if it can't be done, then it can't be done. But... And what that's my you could knock it down and make another motion. I don't care. But has there been a second? No.

Mr. Segrich.

I was just gonna say he based on the timeline, they currently have been negotiating with staff.

A little bit. Yeah.

And to my knowledge, no new lease has been proposed.

Just the one extension.

From us.

Right.

But there's been nothing that's come forward from Mitch.

No, that's not true. Read the email from today. He did come forward with terms.

Okay. So he's come forward with his terms. Yes. Okay. So they have until now, until the next meeting to work those out. And then that will be information for us at the next meeting. Okay. And at the next meeting, we can hear discussion on it. Mitch will be here. Hopefully. And we will have information back from staff on how realistic or not realistic that is.

The market. Do we know when that's going to come in, Madam Attorney? Or Troy? Somebody? Anybody?

I do not know about that.

Because we asked for it a few months ago. I have to check with staff and find out because we were looking for a second company to perform it. So I'll check with staff and see how far along we are in securing that second company.

Okay.

We'll get it to you.

The second company? Did the first one?

Initially, we had a survey done about six months to a year ago. So with the market analysis process,

We need to decide as a city whether that beach club is an amenity or if it's something we're looking to profit from. If we want it to be cheap eats, cheap burgers, the kind of comfort food and stuff that it is now, You can't go for maximum market rent. You go for maximum market rent, you get maximum market tenants. And so I'm less worried about what a market analysis says, also because we are looking at hopefully trying to majorly renovate our golf course. And you're not going to get somebody to come in and invest $200,000 in a build-out And not be able to give them a 10-year lease with two, five extensions on it. It's just not going to happen. And so it's either we're making the choice that maybe in the next five years, we're going to be renovating that golf course, which means the operation of that business does need to shut down during those renovations or it gets significantly scaled back depending on the plan, right? But if there's no golfers coming, there's not a lot of guests going as well. So I'm not as worried about the market analysis. I think we've gone around enough. Unfortunately, I'm not going to second permanently taking it off the table. Does anyone want to second Ms. Mays or I'll make a motion?

Point of information for you all to have an agenda on for your July 7th meeting. It would be have to be basically finalized end of next week.

Right.

So it's not. I think that's a little too quick.

If we're just moving the ITN, then whatever staff do behind the scenes is fine. But so you were drawing your motion or you want us to vote on it?

It doesn't matter. There's no second.

OK, so I will make a motion to postpone the ITN for the next available meeting, which would be July 7th, either June 30th or July 7th. Depending on how heavy June 30th is.

Yeah, and also July 7th. I mean, that's a lot of work. I mean, I'm just, whatever happens, happens. But 4th of July, there's, you know, there's Friday off. There's, that's a lot to do. But I'm, if that's what everybody wants. But today's the 16th. So there's three weeks. Today's the 16th. All right.

I make a motion to set it to June 30th.

Well, I bet you I said I'm sorry.

Madam Mayor.

Yeah.

I respectfully request we not add any more items to July 30. June 30. We have like 20 items on there already. July July 7.

Yeah. So your motion is to just postpone this to July 7.

Yes. So the motion is to postpone unfinished Business B invitation to negotiate for the golf club house restaurant lease till July 7th and staff to be working behind the scenes with the current leasee.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Fine. Thank you. Which means, folks, the many of you have come to talk about this agenda item, there's not going to be one. So they can also talk during public. You can talk. If you still want to talk about it, we'll just do it under public participation of non-agenda items. Yeah. You'll get to speak just sooner than you expect it. Okay. New business. Ginny gave me two cards. She gave you one for each one. No, they're both of each one. Oh, Benny's big. This is all Benny. Leave that till later. Are your lights on for a reason, folks? Okay.

I make a motion to accept the agenda as revised.

Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you so much.

Anthony? Did you miss your light, Mr.

In? Somebody turned their light on.

Okay, so now we are at public participation of non-agended items, which you're all going to use as the beach club thing. So, Ginny Powell, followed by Kim Stokes.

Thank you.

Yeah, because they're here and they want to talk, and I think they should be.

Ginny Powell, 224 North Palm Way. Well, this is throwing a little wrench into the fan, but I will try. I felt like the ITN process is premature because there was this online petition. Lots of people value the golf course, restaurant, beach club for a lot of reasons, and they're very passionate. There was the online petition, a lot of comments on Facebook. And I really think, you know, I know that some people want that to be something other than what the rest of the people want it to be. But I think we need to listen to the people. I think this is one reason why amendments two and three failed, because people didn't people weren't listened to and they didn't want other people making those decisions for them. So I hope you will consider, at least in any new ITN, looking at what is your vision? I don't think that's clearly defined. And sit down with the people who we know love that place, which is most of us. Yes, it's not perfect. It needs improvements. And I actually am glad that you're postponing this because I felt like the pre-agenda meeting was a little mean-spirited. And they did not want to allow Mitch to come back from his vacation and discuss it. And I heard varying stories about why he didn't come the first time, that he wasn't aware of it. Maybe he was. But I was at that meeting also. So I say... What is your vision? Define your vision. Work with the people to define a vision that's workable for that restaurant. Okay, that's it. Thank you.

Ms. Stokes. We have a lot of... Let's not do it because we're trying to get through this. I understand the enthusiasm. Stokes, followed by Ms. Fisher.

Kim Stokes, 1321 North L Street. I did agree with one thing that Commissioner Cedric said, and I really think you guys need to decide and be fully honest with the public about what you want for that space. I know what I want for that space. I will always choose a community-based restaurant there over a tourist-based profit-maximizing venue. That's what I want. That's what I believe a lot of the people here want. And if you're going to continue... Please stop interrupting me, Mayor. If you're going to continue with this ITN, I ask that you make it very clear what you want or do more community engagement and find out what the people in the city want. You all throw around fiduciary responsibility when it suits you and then you ignore it many other times. I do feel like because of my experience, I do need to mention one thing. Well, two things, actually. When I was up here for three years, I never heard anybody complain about Mitch or or the beach club from staff code. I never heard any of that. Staff never brought anything to me that he was a bad tenant. And I never heard anything about the beach club other than, oh, maybe the service could be a little faster. Things you hear normally, there was never any red flags or alarms thrown up. So this seems to be coming out of nowhere to me. And then I do wanna remind everybody that we have other tenants who have not shown up to city meetings. when they had items on the agenda. Lee Lipton was one of them when his lease was up and we were negotiating it. And he was not at that meeting until he came at the end and decided that he needed to whip into here. So you're holding Mitch to a higher standard than you are the other tenants. And I don't think that's fair. And it doesn't look like you're operating in good faith. You don't negotiate from the dais. So when you say he didn't come here when the item was on the agenda to negotiate, that looks a little like you're losing some credibility there. The negotiations should happen with somebody from staff or somebody operating on staff's behalf where you can work things out and come to an agreement. But you've got to let you have to let them know what you're looking for. And you have to be good faith actors. So I appreciate you giving everybody who took their time out tonight to speak under non-agenda items and informing them of their right to do so. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Fisher.

Followed by Aaron Bluset, Blusel. Thank you. Orrin from Boynton. Okay, Ms. Fisher.

Thank you, Mayor. Peggy Fisher, 508 North A Street. I was here on April 21st when this item came before you all for direction. And you all had a lot of discussion during that time. And I have notes of what I wrote down in terms of things you brought up, which was paying a portion of the utilities. paying part of CAM, all of the things that haven't been done for the whole term of the lease so that ultimately taxpayers are paying those items. And as a taxpayer and a homeowner, I think that's appropriate. I enjoy going to the beach club. I've taken used to take my mother there all the time and she enjoyed it. um so i don't have any problem with that i have a problem that there are so many things that were disclosed at that april meeting that have not been shared with a lot of people who are sitting here um in terms of the rent uh the market rent that was brought up which i agree if you're going to ask for the top market rent you expect a certain level of service But they weren't even near that. Ms. May, Vice Mayor May brought up, she had talked to Mitch. She had met with Mitch. Staff had met with Mitch. Other people had met with Mitch. And I was sitting in this room before Ms. May ever was on this dais when a former commissioner said, when we were looking at leases like Benny's and the whole thing that came up, well, I want to look at the Beach Club lease. So to say it's never been a concern, it was at that point. All the other, other than Benny's up at the casino, all those leases came up without any comment, discussion, or anything else about extending, doing an extension on their lease. All of them just were, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So I think we need to be good stewards as commissioner, like I said, and look at what's best for the city. And that makes it what's best for the residents who live in the city. I don't, It's not for me to negotiate or say anything, but I do know that there were discussions based on the comments from staff and from you all at the April meeting. There were discussions with Mitch about this, and it was brought forward. And this is a public notice. This is on the website. If you follow what's going on in the city, you know what's going on. And so to say this was in any way hidden is not the truth. And I just think postponing it until you can keep negotiating and see where you come, I wouldn't be in favor of postponing it until two days before the lease is up because you all made a commitment at the April meeting to extend it until April to give a one-year extension to April of next year at a certain rate with certain conditions on that.

And so that needs to be brought forth.

Thank you.

Oren Blusel, I'll call that name again, or he wrote something. Maybe he, Lord Eric Paul Alexander Simons, Jr., Okay, they have the same 8363 Mildred Drive, West Point Beach. This is Lord Eric Paul Alexander Simons Jr. I support keeping the Lakewood Golf Club open. It's a valuable community asset that provides affordable recreation, supports local towns, provides green space, and contributes contributed to the quality of life for residents of all ages. I've been here for years. Let's keep going. And then Oren Blue Cell of A363 Mildred Drive in West in Boynton Beach. It's a local place that I have gone and been welcomed, a part of the family, not to mention the support of local business. Okay. Chris Lemon, followed by Carrie Sobel. You're passing.

Both of them were B, unfinished and new business.

Yes, good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. Since you pulled the item, I'll save my pre-written speech and focus on exclusively. I think the misunderstanding of our lack of attendance is due to a lack of notice. In fact, we had no direct notice of this meeting today. It was only learned through discussion. a member of the media that had contacted Mitch shortly before. And he unfortunately had no time to change his family vacation to be present. Not everybody sits around and watches the agenda. Some people have more free time than others. Some people run businesses and work 80 hours a week. And unfortunately, we were not at that meeting. And I wish we had been because we found out the hard way how important it was. But what I'd really like to focus in on is I am the attorney. Sorry, I didn't introduce myself. It's been a long time since I spoke at Cary Sable, 2875 South Ocean Boulevard, Suite 200. I'm the attorney for Mitch Real and the Beach Club. I apologize for that, city clerk. I have been in regular negotiations with your attorney, Glenn Torsivia. As recently as yesterday, I spoke to him. Apparently, he's also out of town, which is why he's not present. And he tells me he will have a meeting. at least the extension to me sometime next week, we were in regular negotiations on the new, the full lease term. And to be clear, we have a lease that has a renewal option and we're exclusively asking for the renewal option to be given and negotiated. We are in full negotiations. We have been until one day he just went silent and we found out the hard way that there was an ITN on the agenda. So yeah, we're very apologetic that we were not present to defend ourselves or to answer any questions. I think there's certainly some misinformation, you know, and we weren't here to provide our side of the story, so to speak. So going forward, we'll be sure to keep a closer eye on your agendas because we don't follow the agenda, right? Because, you know, not trying to micromanage the city we're just trying mitch is trying to run his business and i'm trying to do my job but we are in negotiations with the city attorney um i don't contact the staff directly as you know i cannot negotiate with you on the dais um but most importantly of anything the beach club is literally woven into the fabric of this community And I think your commissioner raised a very valid point that, yes, you probably can get more money. But what are you going to get in return for that money? I'm not sure the city of Lake Worth and its residents and the people who come from outside the city are going to be happy with what you get if you get the highest dollar value for the location. But thank you for postponing it and allowing us to prepare and to have Mitch present physically because this is his livelihood. And we look forward to continuing to negotiate and hopefully we can close a deal and avoid the need to go to the public. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Ali. Quickly put this. Ali Mendia. Ali Mendia followed by Lori Whitman. Ali. Ali. Allie, Allie, A-L-I, however many ways you can pronounce that.

Thank you.

Name and address, please.

Hi, my name is Allie Mendia, and I live at 1701 North J Street. I have been an employee of Mitch's since the early 90s. starting at Bradley's in Palm Beach, then the downtown Bradley's, West Palm. I also worked and helped manage the West Palm golf course while he and I were there, and I am currently a bartender at the local one. I am one of the employees that have been with him for over 20 years, and I think that level of loyalty says a lot about the environment and the people. I also personally have a child, and I've seen many children of our employees, patrons, and Other people that come to our restaurant get jobs and have their first jobs at the Beach Club because that's where they were little kids and came to have fun and were raised and went on to get a job at the Beach Club. I've watched the Beach Club grow from a small shack to what it is today. Regulars become part of your family. We share weddings, birthdays, and other celebrations in and out of the Beach Club. walls what we have what we have what sorry we have a true sense of community and family in a world that is changing very fast these kinds of relationships are not something you can rebuild somewhere else my concern is that in a new tenant would broaden would not only change the ownership it would build it would also mean that myself and 40 of my other employees or co-employees would be left without jobs, along with the loss of a place that many of us have dedicated years of our lives to caring for. I'm asking you to consider not only the process of new bids, also to the people behind the business and the community that depends on it. Thank you for listening.

Thank you. Ms. Whitkin, followed by Brandon Clark.

Hello, Lori Whitkin, North Lakeside Drive. The Beach Club is kind of a special place, and I know you all like to go there. I go there over on the golf course several times a week. It's a big asset to our neighborhood. Most of my neighbors all go. It's a place you can bring children, which there aren't that many of. It's reasonably priced, which is very important, at least to me and I think to a lot of other people. Um, and I don't understand why you want to change something that works so well. You know, if it was just a restaurant, people said, Hey, I go there every once in a while, no big deal. But even you all say you love going there. And I understand the city needs money, but you can't make money on everything. You also have to have services for your people. And we're not losing money on it. We're still making money. And okay, maybe you can get more rent, but is that restaurant gonna last? I mean, most restaurants do not have a long lifespan. Just look on Lake Avenue, how they come and go. No guarantee somebody else comes in there is gonna make it. At least you have somebody who's established, knows how to run the business that he's running, and is unlikely to go out of business on you and then leave you owing all this rent. So you kind of have to weigh what's important for the community and also what's important for the city. And sometimes making the most money doesn't even work in the long run. You can charge a higher rent, but are you really going to get it in the long run? because some of these rents are a little crazy. And that's why I think a lot of restaurants don't make it. And I just can't imagine not being able to just go out there and you sit there and have something to eat and have a nice drink. And just like the setting is just beautiful. And somebody just coming in and just sort of changing all that and just, and it's friendly, you always feel like comfortable there. And I would really hate to lose something like that. And so I think you really think about what's really best for the city. And somehow, sometimes the finances are not the most important. I mean, I don't mind if you want to raise the rent a little bit, obviously, rents go up. But to look for top dollar, we may not get what we want or something that might even last up there. Thank you. Thank you.

Randy. Brandon Clark. Oh, there you go. Followed by

Brandon Clark, 529.

Followed by Samantha Cole. Followed by Samantha Cole. Go ahead.

Brandon Clark, 529 South L Street. So I've been a resident here for 10 years and I've seen a lot of growth in this city in 10 years. And I've seen a lot of decline in this city in 10 years, especially in the downtown area where families can't go out with their families without having to look over their shoulder at the problems that are on Lake Ave. So this brings us to the Beach Club where families can go and I hear people talk about being good stewards. I hear about, oh, it's where we can get cheap food. It's not about the cheap food. If you go on any given night, yes, there's golfers there, but there's also tons of other people that aren't golfers. I implore you on a Friday night, come down when it's children's night. That is a place where I could bring my child and let my child run around free where I can't even do that at Bryant Park because we can't clean up the drugs in that park. But we want to sit here and try and get more money, which this is what it really seems like is about money. And I get things are about finances. But when you have a place that's been here for almost two decades, they're doing something right. And you want to use the word good stewards that continue to be good stewards. And don't let greed be the sin that it is. Thank you.

You're kind of an irrepressible crowd, I see. Samantha Coles, Cole, Cole, Cole, thank you. Followed by John Bennett.

Hi, good evening. Thank you for letting me speak tonight. I'm one of the managers at the Beach Club currently. I've been a patron there for over 10 years. I've watched my children enjoy it throughout the years as well. Your name and address? Oh, I'm sorry. Samantha Coles, 4746 Canal Drive. So I have seen firsthand that it is more than just a restaurant. The Beach Club has become a place where people can come all throughout the holidays. Whether they have family, don't have family, they're able to be surrounded by familiar faces and enjoy themselves. What makes the Beach Club special is its people. Our regulars support us year after year, especially during the slow summer months when our seasonal residents head north and the golf course is often closed due to rain. That sense of community and loyalty simply cannot be replaced by a new tenant. In just a few short days, we have more than 1,300 signatures for a petition in support of keeping the Beach Club where it is. We also provide a space for local vendors, musicians, small businesses to host events that bring the community together and support the local economy. I ask that you consider not only the bidding process, but also the employees, the customers, the local businesses, and community members who have helped make the Beach Club what it is today, as this is clearly something that the community does not want to change.

Thank you.

Thank you.

John Bennett, followed by Taylor Bennett. What? Oh, okay. John Bennett of 1701 North Lakeside. Beach Club is a staple in the community. It holds a special place in our heart. Let the Beach Club legacy live on. And Taylor Bennett, also of 1701 North Lakeside. Beach Club is a place to go and love and love. It's a family that employs amazing people. Please don't let our family be gone, be something. Elizabeth Riley. Nope, she's gone. She didn't write anything, so that's it. Where? Oh, she's passing. Is she here?

That's you. Okay.

I know. I'm looking at this. Lori Whitkin, you just spoke already. Howdy. Okay. Her address is 933 Bradley Court, West Palm Beach. I've been going to the Beach Club since I was 13. I am now 24. I got the opportunity to work here, and I am now feeling like I am part of the family and community. Thank you very much. That's it. Where's the rest? Yeah, we need... Oh, they're good. We have a bunch more.

Okay, sure. Thank you very much.

We want to hear as many people as we can. Rebecca Bryant. Rebecca Bryant. Okay, 503 Northeast Street. The Beach Club saved our wedding after our original venue closed and kept our money. Mitch did everything to ensure we had a nice night. They are an asset and we need people who help out. That's who Lake Worth Beach is. Thank you. Todd Townsend, followed by Alan Nossworthy.

Hi. Hello. Hi, Todd Townsend, 502 South J Street. I wanted to first speak to Commissioner McVoy. I commend your hitting the brakes on the garage. By the way, we're moving over to the garage for the moment. I commend you for hitting the brakes on the garage. You, like everyone else, know that we need more parking downtown, but recognize the ambush that we're being walked into. So I call that good leadership, and thank you. Secondly, I've designed a pedestrian bridge that goes over Dixie Highway from City Hall to the Zoo Fitness building, which will make the unused Bohemian Garage user-friendly and more downtown. And this bridge will also join the two downtowns. This is an option that should be explored before a $10 million disaster is performed. Next, keep going here for Mr. Sigrich. The garage is actually mostly inapplicable for your full-size truck. And I just felt really bad that Commissioner Malega actually was laughing at you about that. at that meeting what was that last week i was just really threw me off you know um so next you people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars putting up new electrical poles and now you're like let's just bury those let's just go out and bury those you know So back to the garage again, we've got Commissioner May here who's like, oh, once the garage is built, we can just like take away all the other ground parking and behind the shops and build more development. You know, so like, where are those numbers? You know, is that is that real? Yeah. you know uh and then malega not too long ago after uh it's commissioner malega commissioner malay oh i humbly apologize i also think you're supposed to address us all in general not specifically okay border mayor so hold on i'm reclaiming my time i want to hear more about what i'm planning to do right okay i'll get to you in a second okay well i got more no stop stop okay My time starts as of now, right? So Commissioner Malega actually said, after the Wiener High rise, after the wiener high rise uh she wouldn't build any other tall buildings downtown yet the cra is planning on doing just that um so then the cra just posted on facebook that the the uh the pocket park at first in south k is to be sold for a five-story apartment building and that garage will be uh leasing some of this some and those units will be leasing spaces in the new garage So what about the public, you know? And then Mr. Waters just said, we'll have to find a temporary parking place for 30 South J Street during the construction of the garage. That actually meant to mow down the pocket park at 1st and K for a temporary parking situation and then build the CRA high rise right there. So like that was really, I just can't believe people are skirting that issue. So at the end here, before she calls me out, We lament all of this oral flatulence as a sign that this body politic is about to move and that we are all below. Thank you.

Thank you. I don't either. Alan Nosworthy, followed by Jill Carlin. Oh, this is about education.

Alan Nosworthy, 11 2nd Avenue South. The Education Task Force has spent nearly five years meeting at least monthly during the school year. We interviewed representatives from each school as well as people in positions that influence our schools. We attended SAC meetings at each school. We hosted a breakfast. bringing together all the school's attendance officials. We built relationships we were tasked to build, and we have gathered, researched, and discussed the data we collected. We have hundreds of hours in this pursuit. About a year ago, we presented to the commission that the universal issue of all the schools that all of the schools are having is absenteeism. Each school had its own unique and grassroots solution. However, the overarching theme of the solutions was mentorships. Some were school-based mentorships and others were community-based. To this end, the task force wrote an outline or draft of a grant program to help the schools foster and create mentorship programs focused on attendance we agree with the commission ten thousand dollars dropped into each school's multi-million dollar budget would have no real effect however if the money were designated as we recommended and as the schools requested to the very specific issue of attendance and we can use data to show our successes, that would be money well spent for the entire community. The money could help change the tide and put a spotlight on the fact that you cannot do well if you do not show up for school. The task force asked multiple times to be involved in or to review the grant before it was presented to the commission and we were denied that access. The current grant does not reflect our findings, the school's requests or our recommendations, nor does the grant reflect the presentation we made to the commission. We feel that this is a lost opportunity and the commission should reconsider the wording of the grant to narrow its focus to attendance and mentorships for the entire student body. the members of what used to be the task force would welcome being part of the process to write a new grant that reflects the real issues Lake Worth Beach Public Schools are facing. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Jill Carlin followed by Kim Stokes.

Hi, everybody. Jill Carlin, 2381 Sunset Avenue. So I want to speak about a simple principle. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Beach Club ain't broke. It's great. Fabulous place. You don't need to fix it. Our city faces challenges, rising costs, infrastructure needs, public safety concerns, and the need to support local businesses. That's why I question whether Lake Worth Beach should be offering a city manager a salary approaching $350,000 a year. Before committing taxpayers at that level of expense, let's focus on finding qualified candidates and consider a compensation package closer to $200,000. Do you know the mayor of New York does not make $350,000? He doesn't even make $250,000. The remaining funds could be invested in something that directly benefits our community and economy, like a full-time events, community activation manager, grants writer, all of those kinds of jobs could all go into one person. Many of us remember when Cultural Plaza was alive with Friday night activities. Those events brought residents downtown, supported local businesses, and created a sense of community. Imagine that. We should be expanding those kinds of opportunities, not eliminating them. We should also explore relocating or expanding the farmer's market into other parts of the city like L&M Street, helping to revitalize local businesses and bringing positive energy to neighborhoods that deserve additional attention and investment. Not the garage, by the way. Economic development is not just about constructing new business. It's about creating places where people want to gather, shop, dine, and spend time. Vibrant activities create vibrant businesses. I have considerable concerns about the construction of a parking garage in our downtown. Lake Worth Beach is special because of its charm, walkability, character, and human scale. As we consider future parking problems and solutions, I encourage us to prioritize approaches that preserve the qualities that make people love this city, including the Beach Club. Protecting that character should remain a central part of our conversation. Likewise, I continue to have questions about the decision to bring WMOTA to our city. Good leadership includes the willingness to reassess decisions when circumstances change. There is value in asking, is this still the right fit for Lake Worth Beach? Re-evaluating a decision is not a weakness, it's wisdom. Finally, I support in extending Mitch's lease at the Beach Club. If the city's gonna hold one business operator fiscally accountable, the same standard should apply consistently to everyone. Fairness and transparency should guide every decision we make. Let's focus on what makes Lake Worth Beach unique. Let's invest in community, events, local businesses, quality of life. Let's preserve the character that residents cherish. And let's remember that sometimes the smartest thing government can do is recognize what is already working and thoughtfully build upon that success. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Kim Stokes followed by Jason Becker. Oh, okay. Did Jason Becker go? No, here he is.

Hello, I'm Jason Baker. I live at 309 4th Avenue North, Lake Worth. Yeah, I'm a Lake Worth resident, Lake Worth business owner, and Lake Worth property owner. I take the motto of live where you work to heart. My journey started here in 2015 when I discovered Lake Worth as a seasonal rental. And I decided to start a new chapter in my life here. Back then, I feel the same way as I do now, that there's three key aspects of the city that make it unique. The feeling of community, family, and affordability that make this place what it is. The beach club and the golf course for myself and many others embody all these things. I understand that progress is a journey and that all things eventually will change. But at a time when everyone around me is witnessing how things that once seemed impossible as a fundamental part of life that we all took for granted, slip away and become only accessible to the privileged few. The beach club and the golf course embodies this feeling and community that make this city wonderful. Local residents can come and enjoy around a golf, a burger, a beer, and an environment that is becoming a place for the everyday person. If you go to another city around you, you will not be sitting next to other people that were born and raised in the same community where you're at, which makes Lake Worth unique. The feeling of community is why so many people come here to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, events, and holidays. If anyone has come to a Friday night family night, you will see how this is just such a unique community space that everyone is welcome. I've been to many other cities, and it's special like that. Local groups regularly choose the Beach Club as a place to celebrate and gather. The local Parrotheads come to the beach called the Celebrate the Life Music and what Jimmy Buffett represents, which is a vision for the everyday person to have a place to have fun, a drink, and feel like you belong. Unfortunately, in today's environment in South Florida, most cities are starting to not feel like a place for the local people that built them, but for people from outside who want to take and profit from what those people in those communities have built. Family is an important part of the community. And many, that's what the Beach Club represents. The Beach Club has many multi-generational employees. It doesn't happen anywhere anymore. They have grown up there working, seeing their family and friends celebrate birthdays and life milestones here. For me and many others that come to the city because it represents the local residents and patrons of the Beach Club have become family. Celebrating an Easter like holiday at the Beach Club, where's the annual brunch for people who don't have immediate family here. The Beach Club makes you feel like you're part of one. It makes you feel like you can come, eat, drink, watch the games, relax all day, and feel like a sense of family that is so rare to feel in other communities anymore. Finally, affordability. The golf course and the beach club represent an affordable place where everyone can come and enjoy around the golf and grab a bite to eat and drink in a beautiful space. We need to preserve places like this so local people have a place to enjoy such things. If an outside group comes, they will not want to preserve any of this. They will only want to upscale everything and take this unique community gathering place away from us. That's why I asked the city to work with Mitch and the Beach Club to align your visions together with his tenure there and for a place that many others have seen Mitch and the whole Beach Club family build something that is a bedrock of our community.

Thank you. Thank you. Skip? Roselle? Is that my room?

I don't know.

All right, thanks. Followed by Ivan.

Oh, well, hi. She had to throw that in. I'm Clarence Mizzou. Everyone knows me as Skip. I'm a Lake Worth resident since 1956. I've been a property owner since 1972. I'm here because of a problem with our trash problem. the vegetation specifically. My next door neighbor across from the alley that we both share and take care of, the other day called me. He was downtown Lake Worth at the utilities company. And he said that he had been fined because of a large amount of vegetation that was put out on the wrong day in our alley. I've been putting trash out in this particular location since 1991. I've never had a problem with that before. I think I was fine once $50 because, uh, I put it out on the wrong day. Okay. His fee, what his, um, charge was $405. And, uh, he was never asked if he put out the vegetation, even no one came to my house, which is next door across the alley. No one asked me if I had put out the trash. Anyway, I put out the trash. I'm the one who did it. I went down to the city and I told them that, and they looked back at his record and, uh, they because I admitted that I'm the one I'm the guilty one that I would be paying the fine. But because I haven't had a fine in the last three years, I would only have to pay $200. So I'm, you know, I know I'm going to have to pay that $200. But it seems that that's an arbitrary kind of punishment for something that was a mistake. I tried to figure out how long, you know, it takes five minutes for these guys. And by the way, I think the guys that are picking up the vegetation are excellent. They do a great job. They're very clean, I think, at least in our neighborhood, but they can do this. They can pick up almost anything in five minutes. And so if you multiply that, you know, by $400 on an eight hour day, I mean, that's thousands of dollars, you know, that would be coming in. I don't know how the price of this fine came about, but I understand the commission voted on it to do something about this fine. I don't know what that was, but I hope something could be amended possibly so that people get a warning It used to be that you would get a ticket on your door, a little reminder about the situation and that you could fix it. If you didn't fix it by a certain time, you'd get the fine.

Thank you, that's time.

Okay, well. Thank you very much. Last thing, I'm with the Beach Club people too.

Ivan? Ivan? No. Wade Hitchcock, I believe he left. Mr. Hitchcock, are you in the hallway?

Okay.

Heath Randolph.

He left.

Cynthia Walsh wants me to read this. 123 South Gulfview Road. The Beach Club represents our community. It's a place where the locals can gather with friends and family that caters to all of us from family dinners, games with friendly kids, night and more jenna bergen of 1706 north lakeside writes the beach club has become such a staple in the community mitch real has single-handedly made the beach club a home not only to locals but employees una frappier five five una una oh okay i'll read your

Am I saying frappe?

It's a 532 23rd Avenue North. It's a place of beach club is a place of community. It adds to the charm that encourages me to buy my home and other properties. Thank you. I think that's it. Okay, Kim spoke about the parking garage.

All right. That concludes this part of the program.

madam except for madam clerk do you have any um to read as we get public participation thank you the next one to approve the minutes for may 22nd 26th may 26 regular and special and may 29th for agenda second favor thank you um this is i passes uh four to zero consent agenda let's wait till folks let's wait till it calms down a little bit Bye-bye. Thank you. Thanks, everybody, for coming.

It's like a wedding.

It is like a wedding.

The one side left and the other side left. Motion to approve the consent agenda.

Do I have a second? second by Mr safe motion by Miss may second by Mr sandwich on favor. Okay unfinished business a lease term renewal for contract with will Scott temporary flex trailers at 1900 second avenue north. Is there a presentation.

John Potter, And even American listeners William waters thing village vector there's not a formal presentation, but this is a request to extend the quad modules that we're using it 1900 to the planning and preservation division, they were initially. going to be able to move back in the building a little bit earlier than we anticipated. And that's now not going to happen. So we're requesting that we extend the term for that quad so that the planning and preservation staff can stay there until their area in the south end of the building is ready, which shouldn't be by September.

That's my question. Is it long? Is this long enough?

Yes.

Do I have any input? No, I got it.

I just want to clarify on the staff report. The last sentence is work on 19 on a project is scheduled to now be completed by mid February 26. That's supposed to be March 27.

Yes. And that was switched out earlier today and republished.

So that's the only change. Yes.

With that motion to approve by Malega second by Oh, Mr. Segrich has a comment.

I'll second.

And your comment.

It's just a general question. When looking at this, was this a separate agreement or wrapped up into the total construction costs? It's a separate agreement. So when we voted out, we voted twice, once for these temporary and then once for the total?

Well, you voted one for a contract for Will Scott and its own budget, and then you did another vote for the contract with Cooper Management to do the construction project itself.

Okay. All right. And I'm assuming since these are temporary structures, if there arises the need for extension, it would be similar?

Yes. Okay.

Ms. Bitt? um how could the city manager i know that the city manager can approve up to fifty thousand dollars so the forty six thousand nine twenty five um amendment may i mean i can i guess it's how it's allowed but how come this wouldn't be then it's because you've already we're almost at the cap fifty thousand dollars being added to the contract so we need a formal extension from you to go beyond that fifty thousand yes Okay, so you didn't know that it was going to be longer than this previously?

We weren't supposed to have any time at all with them. Because the project was originally designed and intended was that planning and preservation could stay in your spaces. When the interior demolition got started, we uncovered a number of surprises and we needed planning and preservation to move out. So we moved really quickly with the city manager's support to bring in those four quad, that four flex modular system so that planning and preservation staff would have somewhere to be until their space could be preoccupied by them.

Okay, so at that point, did you know that you were going to have to extend it? That was the question.

Well, no, we thought that we would be back in by July. And since that was originally around November, we've run into a variety of issues related to the schedule. There is an agenda item we're trying to put together. I do not know when it's going to get to. It's probably going to be July 7th. that will go into some of the particulars of why the project is moving along a little slower than we expected.

Okay.

Mr. Segrich.

I just want to make one general comment. I did have to go down to the temporary structures for personal business and so on. And I'd have to say I just wanted to give compliments to staff, you know, them working in a temporary environment. They made everyone feel at home when they walked in. You know, they even had like a little ticket. machine. He waited there and we were still able to conduct business. So thank you very much to staff for working outside their normal working environment and still taking care of the business of the city.

Thank you. I'll pass that along. They would really appreciate that because they are working under some challenging circumstances.

And they are quite the good crew to begin with. Under bad circumstances, they shine better. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. So we have a motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye. Moving right along. New business. So, do you have a presentation for us or what?

Well, first, I'm trying to find it.

This is Ordinance 2020-608, an ordinance of the City of Lake Worth Beach, Florida, amending Chapter 14, Business Tax Receipts and Business Regulations. Article 1, Local Business Tax Receipt, VTR, Section 14-15, in compliance with other laws and ordinances per requisite to issuance of receipts. Section 14-18, Exemptions and Article 2, Use and Occupancy Certificate and the General Regulation of Businesses, Professions, or Occupations. Section 14-32, City of Lake Worth Business License and Requirement for Utility Service. Section 14-33, Definitions. Section 14-34, Use and Occupancy Certificate Required Exemption. Section 14-35, use and occupancy certificates and inspections required in enforcement. Section 14-36, application for use of an occupancy certificate for new businesses, inspection and fees, and providing for severability, complex codification, and effective help.

Thank you so much. Well done. Motion for the purpose of discussion?

Second. Okay. Motion by Mr. Segrich, second by Malega. Mr. Segrich.

I have some particular questions. I'll try to. Yep. So I am on page eight of the ordinance, exhibit D. And as I read this, this would mean that we are no longer as a city going to conduct internal use and occupancy inspections? That is correct. Unless requested by the property owner or the tech. So this is even with commercial businesses? Yes. And are you confident that That's going to give us enough information to determine that whether or not the, I'm talking more about commercial businesses coming in than rentals, residential rentals, that they're indeed operating as the use that they're claiming that they're operating as.

Well, therein lies the issue that was brought up by our meeting that we had with you back in early May was that you requested us to be more business friendly. And the Palm Beach County Fire Rescue already does commercial inspections. And one of the things we get the most complaints about is that it'll pass a fire inspection, but it'll fail to use an occupancy or vice versa. So since the Palm Beach County Fire Rescue is already doing inspections, we were going to utilize their reports to document our background or our records and use that instead of our going in and doing our own interior inspections unless the tenant or the property owner asked us to do it for both residential as well as commercial properties.

And are you still going to be conducting external inspections? Yes.

We will be doing an external inspection of every single property that has a business license every single year.

Okay.

From the right of way. From the right of way. Like a standard code enforcement inspection.

And so what exactly are you inspecting at that point?

Well, it would be like if you were riding around and you notice trash and debris, buildings not being maintained. There are some signage issues. There's evidence of possibly that by the vehicles that are parked outside or the activities you can see from the right of way that the business may be conducting itself beyond what its approved business license would be. the typical use and occupant, I mean, co-compliance inspections that we do, but we do them on a very regular basis. And the concept would be to send an informal courtesy notice if we find something wrong to the property owner and the business and say, you've got these issues, please address them. If you don't address them by a certain date, we will then have to follow it up with a formal notice of violation.

So is this something that the business owner is going to have to schedule yearly or is it unscheduled? It's unscheduled.

And so there's no fee for this? Well, there will be a fee for the inspection because we're adding the extra step of the informal notice if there are things that are not in compliance. How is this any different than just a regular code looking at the building? because we will be scheduling internally visiting every property at least once a year. Whereas right now, and I think Ms. May has experienced this in writing with our co-staff, they're riding down the street and they may not get to everything in that particular location, but we will have a documented record for every business license property in the city at least once a year this way. Okay. And then... Now, commensurately, the inspection fees are going to come down. So as part of this, we're going to be bringing a change to the schedule of fees and charges. We're going to have to adjust down because we have a lot of fees that we can cover. As an example, a hotel, there's a charge for every single room. We're not going to see those anymore. So you're going to see a commensurate reduction in the use and occupancy inspection charges. Okay.

And then on Exhibit E, the new paragraph that got added? Yes. I didn't compare it word by word, but it seems to be the exact same language that's on the BTR exhibit. Shouldn't this be about the use and occupancy as an exception versus the BTR?

You're talking about… Item C. That close friend or relative may have a business license for conducting the business in question, but there may be no rent being exchanged between the tenant and the owner. We have a similar thing in item B, dwelling not occupied by the owner. And we've had, so our records, when it's a commercial property, you either have to have a business license as a commercial lessor, or you have a vacant registry, or it's under some other, what is the other option? It's a third one.

William, I think the question is that Exhibit E has the same language for the business tax receipt, that this language, instead of referencing the business tax receipt, should reference the use and occupancy certificate.

Yes.

We can double check that.

Because this is the use and occupancy certificate exemption. So the exemption should be about use and occupancy, not business tax receipt. Yes.

Okay, we can look at that. We were trying to, we right now have a program where you have an affidavit of non-rental for residential properties. We were trying to extend that to include it for commercial properties.

I think it was just a cut and paste error.

Yeah, that seems to be an exhibit B.

Just change the wording.

It's exhibit B, item C, allocates for that for the VTR. But exhibit E is about use in occupancy certificates. And you're correct. OK. And so then. I don't think we need exhibit E. If we still need it, we'll just delete it.

OK.

So then just as a matter of discussion for my colleagues, I do think certain kinds of businesses need inspection. Residential rentals, I understand there are challenges there. because of what we have in our use and occupancy checklist is not all about life safety. But we had talked about changing that checklist so that it would be about life safety and that we could get access to there. I understand if a tenant refuses to give access, we can't force them, but we can have our business license dependent on that access. When we had discussed this last time, we had talked about having one initial use and occupancy and then doing away with the three-year one that had to be scheduled. I still think the upfront use and occupancy can be business friendly if we don't nitpick through, you know, there's a smudge on the paint on the outside of the building, that kind of things, but focus it on basically, you know, the life, health, safety portions of it, as well as verifying that the, you know, business going in there is the business that they say is going in there, right? I am for not having to have the business owners randomly schedule it every three years. I'm not sure how I feel about forcing our business owners to basically pay for a yearly code inspection. We should be handling code issues regularly. You know, it'd be like telling homeowners that you have to pay once a year for the code man to come around and check you out. To me, that doesn't make sense. But so those were kind of my thoughts and concerns on that. And just interested to hear from the public and my colleagues.

Thank you. Can we, there is my understanding of prohibition against us doing internal inspections in residential.

So there is a preemption for residential rentals. You can do inspections for fire building code and life safety code. We do not have a life safety code. If a owner or occupant does not allow you inside the property to do the inspection, you have to provide, you have to approve the, the, bcr or business license anyway unless you have an or you can if you know or have reasonable suspicion that there is a life health safety issue inside that you need to inspect then you can go in and get seek an administrative warrant right to go inside the property otherwise but you cannot hold the business license up if they refuse to allow you in the property right um and the same goes for toronto I have not done specific recent commercial.

Most of the research was just because I have the same concerns about the interiors. I don't think you share those concerns.

I haven't seen any differentiation necessarily between residential and commercial. If a property owner says you can't come in my property, you know, there is some merit to that. But the protections for residential are stronger because they're not generally open to the public. Right.

So when they first get their business license, we can do an interior inspection. I know we've talked about the fire department doing that. And really the things I'm concerned about are health safety sprinklers and exits.

Well, that is exactly what the fire department is supposed to be inspecting for. And they're supposed to be, I believe, as I understand it, inspecting the commercial properties every year.

That's right. Thank you. So I don't feel comfortable in this conversation of giving people their business license without knowing what business they're really conducting. And, you know, great state of Florida and all of their taking a home rule and basically taking all the control away from the city of Lakewood Beach. So if I say that I'm going to open a bakery and I just didn't tell you I was baking pot cookies, we don't know. Or if I say that I'm opening a bar, but we really don't know that it's a strip club, we don't know. So there's my frustration. And I've explained this many times. I am in favor if we can, on a commercial property, compile it what we would think is a life safety issue, life safety list, running water, electricity, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just, a new business coming in here. And here in carte blanche that you can just get your LBTR and there's no inspection. When I built my business in 2010, I had to put a utility closet, a utility sink and utility closet for a gym.

And that was probably required by the building code, not the use and occupancy inspection.

Still to get my license, I had to get that utility sink. So I understand frustration on the business owner side. But I also think that we have to protect the city of Lakewood Beach. And we have a lot of crappy makeshift businesses that aren't upstanding like the Beach Club or Benny's and employing real people, they're doing things unscrupulous. So a couple of things that I'm a little frustrated with, and I did reach out to Director Waters in regards to my questions.

Could we address the question you brought up initially? Technically and legally, business should not be conducted until you have your business license issued.

Technically.

And as it is now, the inspections take place before the business license is issued to confirm, yes, the building is in such and such a shape. So... If we don't always see what business you will be conducting as part of the inspection to actually issue the business license, what's covered by that is a zoning confirmation. Is the business as being described allowed under the zoning code? And that's a zoning confirmation as part of the business license application process.

So, I mean, it is a checks and balance to some degree, but not to the degree that I personally would like to see on the property that are Residents that are being rented, I understand that. But if it's a business that's, if we're letting people go in and the public go in, I think it's our job to protect the public. That's all I have on that. And I do think that we should have in here somewhere that we will be relying on the fire inspection report to update the LBTR status. So if something slips between the cracks that we get a fire report and this business B was in violation of A, B, and C, We need to know that and we need to be able to have it in black and white that we're going to use that to make sure that things are safe for our residents and our businesses in town. And there's nothing in here that says we're going to rely on the fire report.

And I was going to talk to the city attorney about that. When a business fails their fire inspection, and it's gotten much better in the past few years, fire does bring forward co-compliance cases. And they are heard as separate legal items before the special magistrate if they're not resolved. And the Palm Beach County Fire Rescue has gotten much more proactive and effective. quote unquote aggressive in terms of ensuring the fire code and life safety code that they follow is being abided by by the tenants and property owners in the city.

So if they pass a fire inspection or they fail a fire inspection. How long do they get to come in compliance? Does it turn into a code violation immediately or do they get a warning?

It depends on what the severity of the issue might be. If it's a severe life safety issue, there was one that involved fire extinguishers were missing. They were given almost no time to cure that. You can go out and get your fire extinguishers. And if they were not put in place by the following inspection, a formal notice of violation would come out.

from us from the fire department well it would be on we would process it from their their evidence but it comes from us all of them do and we carry them before our special magistrate okay so it does come before our code so then it does come code work yes um my next question is part of the conversation that we just had previously with the tenant lease is that I don't like the fact that we have a, not policy, but just with code that we don't violate people who are our tenants that violate codes. There's no paper trail. So if you're a tenant for the city of Lakewood Beach, you can break codes and you don't get fined because we can't supposedly write a fine on our own building. That does not make sense to me. That is a policy that I will advocate for and hopefully get support. We should be able to Code violate our tenants just like everybody else. To me, that's almost favoritism by saying, no, we'll just give you a warning and we'll keep it off the book. So we're going to send the building department by. Yes, ma'am.

The attorney would like to speak. Code violations are written against the property owner. not against tenants.

So what do we have is, I mean, people are laughing, but there are literally certain things that have happened with a current person who we're negotiating with where, well, there's never been proof. I've never heard that talked about in front of the dais. And to me, that doesn't make sense.

Well, I mean, a code violation wouldn't necessarily be talked about on the dais either, but staff has worked with that tenant over at least two years regarding issues that have But needed to be resolved. And we have talked between our office and the city manager's office about putting policies in place for how to work with tenants through issues with.

But couldn't we cite them? Couldn't it be a citation? If it's out of code?

It could be a citation. We don't utilize the citation process.

Which I think we had the whole conversation about creating citations so PBSO could be enforcing them.

So does enforce citations and we're working with them through to put them into their electronic tracking system so that they're easier for them.

I mean, that's why we have no smoking bans and no drone bans and all this other stuff. To me, I think that that should be a citation. If you do something on city owned property and you don't pull permits and you don't do the right the right thing. Our tenants shouldn't be treated with more grace than anybody else in town. I see Commissioner Segrich is lifting his finger up.

One of the reasons that code enforcement is against the property owner is because the result of a code enforcement action is a lien on the property. Right. And one of the pushes with that is that the property owner, as the landlord would be enforcing their lease provisions against their tenants. So it's really that the city is not great at enforcing its lease provisions, and that's something we need to work on. That's the discussion that we're having with this. Okay.

I would like this discussion not to get tabled and not to get kicked down the road. We're in the middle of doing some major leasing contracts right now. And I think that we do need to come forward with some kind of citation policy because this shouldn't be if, you know, as the landlords, we shouldn't be knocking on the door of making sure that people are doing things that they're not supposed to be doing without pulling permits or there's not violations. And this goes across every tenant that we have. This again is public owned property that we need to be better stewards of and better landlords of. and hold our leases accountable. I mean, that's to me, that's the only thing that makes sense. And ourselves.

I have a question for the attorney.

Let me just tell you two other changes. The very last page, Exhibit G, page 11, number two, address the application shall list the current local and legal blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I would like to see phone number and email on there as well. And under number five. Yeah. Number two. And then on number five, subcategory four. Instead of a copy of any license registration, I think it should be a copy of all licenses, registrations, and certifications required for the profession.

And we stuck that. I thought that was fine. I just want to make sure that my- What you just mentioned before, where? You said it was on page 11 in what paragraph?

Number two. No, no. These are on my address. Number two on page 11 under G. C2, it says address.

I guess my page 11 is not the same as yours. Under G. I got it. You got it?

Okay, thanks. Thank you. Those are my other changes. I did speak with Director Waters in regards to the all, but I just wanted...

Okay, I have a question. For number C2, where it says addresses, what are you...

It says the applicant shall list. I think that we should add phone number and email address. Oh, okay. Okay, thank you. And then the... Five sub four. I will take a copy of all licenses instead of any.

Because the whole the whole chapter is not here. I'll check and make sure that the email and phone number is not mentioned somewhere else because we maybe just had certain components of it. And if it's not, we'll add it there. And you may not see it here. You may find out the next day or so.

The other thing that we spoke about, I wanted to make sure the rest of the commission.

And then based on your discussion earlier, I can get with Elizabeth and look at what may or may not need to be done to chapter two. which is where co-compliance falls. This is Chapter 14. And see if there's anything that needs to be beefed up there in terms of civil citations or such to address some of the concerns you raised in furtherance of the co-compliance process against ourselves or our own tenants.

That's also where the list of what's included in the use and occupancy inspection is in Chapter 2. So that wouldn't be part of this regardless, that will have to be something.

I just have a couple of comments. I've been pushing for more use of citations for a very long time. I find them workable and efficient and I'll go down. Well, they get it. No, they have to go to court. I mean, I used to go to Delray once a month. Okay, I have on 5-2 where it says the premise is released, the name, phone number, email address of the individual authority. Patient, yeah, just 5-2. You talked about 1-2. I would like to have... We have talked about this, and I don't know what the answer is yet about, you know, if a neighbor... Where that information about, I think it should be a 24-hour, we talked about this, a 24-hour sentence.

It's in a different section of the chapter.

Okay, but it's not reflected here.

We don't have all of chapter 14 here for you to see. It's just the areas that are changing.

Okay. Yeah, I just, so it's 24 hours and how do people, if someone is a terrible neighbor, and they want to call the representative of that place. How do they get that information?

We've talked about, and we have not completed this, a way to have it listed as part of the website and trying to get it there, but we haven't been able to get that. You've got us working on so many priorities, I can't tackle them all at once.

Okay, so it's a software sort of thing of getting it programmed in? Well, it may be oversimplifying.

You're not oversimplifying. It's something we definitely want to include in a new ERP system. Getting that information out of the field where it is under the current click to gov asking a question about a property is a little bit of a challenge. What I had hoped to have eventually is under the GIS system, when you click on a property under a map, that the various information fields that we have would be able to populate. That is going to take quite a bit of effort. It's not impossible, but we are not quite there yet.

Okay, if I want to find out Can I call your department and say, who's the representative for the neighbor next door?

As long as we have it. And I cannot guarantee everybody has abided by that requirement. We do require and request that information as part of the renewal process. And missing information is one of our largest number of issues when it comes to code compliance. Lack of information or specificity or updating your business license as appropriate. Business license issues is probably the number one code compliance issue in the city.

And that's including rental licenses for residential, correct? Yes. Okay. So if I bought a property and I wanted to rent it out, could I get a business license without giving you that information?

No. It's required as part of the new application. But keep in mind that we have some business licenses that have been in existence for 30 years. And getting them to update records is sometimes a bit challenging.

But when the renewal goes out, can't you say, add this or we won't renew your license? No.

And that's what ends up eventually becoming a code case because people don't always read. They just send us a check or whatever. And then we have to call them back and say, hey, we're missing some information. Please provide it. Yeah.

I have one more question. When we talk about us being the landlords, is it policy or is it prohibition about us citing ourselves? I mean, you say the proper, we'd be citing ourselves, but I, well, maybe we need to do that. Is there any prohibition against it or has it just been a policy? A lot of us have said we should keep our own stuff up.

You can certainly cite yourself. It ends up being or not because you can't lien government property. So there's kind of a double no purpose to it.

The same thing with homestead, really. Well, also the notice of violation goes to the property owner. So if it's an issue with the tenant and we notify ourselves that we have a problem with our tenant, we should already know we have a problem with our tenant. But we don't all the time. Well, I won't even go there.

Okay. So I'm just saying, I mean, I'm just thinking maybe pull our leash in a little bit as far as the quality of...

I think there are more efficient and effective ways to handle it. We just need to work.

We need to do them. Okay.

Miss me.

Thank you. Um, I just have a question on page seven. And I know we discussed this, um, and I know we discussed the fact that you can't have your, um, we said we don't want to have to wait to get the VTR to get the, um, utilities. Right. But, oh no, that wasn't it. It was the one where the landlord had to do all of the code things before we gave them the BTR and it turned on the utilities, right?

Well, there's two different questions you're bringing up. One is that we've established, I don't remember how many years ago, no business license, no lights. Effectively, you can't get utilities. The other thing that was brought up and we appreciated this was that we now prevent tenants from getting their business license if the property owner has existing code violations or a problem. And you all requested us from consensus that we should allow a tenant to go ahead and get the business license. And the case against the property owner should resolve the other issues that are outstanding. So there's two different things. But in this, we have proposed to remove the requirement that you have a business license in place before your utilities can be turned on.

Okay, so what, Keith, then do we still have with the property owner?

Well, if things don't go well, we cite the property owner, say like what Ms. Malega was mentioning, businesses conducting themselves outside their approved business license. The business itself and the people that own it could be given civil citations. It goes to the standard code compliance process. It is not necessarily a life safety issue in most cases. So most of it, as per the direction that we're following right now, is a courtesy notice that might be changing once we finalize what all we're doing in terms of business-friendly activities. But that's how it works right now.

Okay. Okay. Okay. So can we just go back to the city one? Do we have it in the lease that the tenant must be compliant with all code? I'd have to look at all the leases, but my guess is yes. So why wouldn't it be a violation of the lease?

It is.

So why wouldn't we go for them that way?

That's what I'm suggesting.

Oh, well, that's great minds.

And we make, you know, a thousand people upset because,

Well, I mean, I think this is a situation where we would have asked them, we would have said, this is the problem. You need to come in compliance. I'm talking about ones that know they are doing it wrong and they don't come into compliance. Like they've been asked 47 times to do something and they're not doing it. Then it becomes a violation of the lease. I'm not saying you forgot to take in your garbage cans and we're going to violate your lease. I'm talking about ones where it's basically... like kind of a screw you to the city. I'm not doing it. Cause you can't do it. You know who, and I'm not saying that it's like that because we have lots of tenants in the city, you know, and I'm sure that there's some situations with all of them, but so I think there needs to be a way to do that, that, um, That doesn't, you know, I don't want to kick people out, but I want people to be able to, we need to have some teeth in this in order to say, you can't just do whatever you want and sit a city property without permits. And it'll be okay. Cause you're in a city building and we can't set you because then it's a free for all.

So in a code enforcement process, you would give the property owner or under citation, even the tenant, a notice, give them an opportunity to cure. The same thing works under a lease.

Okay. And there have been instances in the past since I've been here forever where we have sent letters to tenants saying, per your lease, you're in violation of X, Y, and Z. Please address your earliest convenience. It usually comes from the city attorney. I'm not aware of one of those coming out recently, but they have been issued in the 16 years that I've been here.

Okay. And in your experience, has the entity complied? No.

We lost, I think, two tenants, which may be the worst thing in the world, or they have come into compliance or worked out a process or a timeframe in which to become compliant.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Segrich.

Thank you. So on that topic, Florida law allows us to cite the business. They allow us to cite the tenant for code compliance. We can't lean the business, we can lean the property owner, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be issuing a code compliance citation to the business. We structure everything around this concept that the lean is the only way we can get compliance with code, and it's not. A lot of our major landlords, right? You've got 15, 20, 30, 100 buildings in the city, and you've got some great tenants, and you've got some really troublesome tenants. What ends up happening is that landlord now becomes a repeat offender because they're the only one that gets cited. That business never gets cited. And it could just be because they have one bad tenant. And now they're on that repeat offender list. Now, all of a sudden, they start incurring fines from the day that they've got the citation. So it's a simple solution. We can cite the businesses. And I'm talking about commercial leases, not necessarily residential leases. They might need different treatment. But the business has the business license. We have the contact for that individual. We can issue the code citation against that business. Yes, we don't have the lien, but do that for the first 30 days. And then after it, escalate it and also cite the landlord at that point. Then it becomes their problem and it's their fault. You notice them both on the initial 30 days. You give that landlord... Time to work it out with the client or tenant, so to speak. And, you know, that's going to really create an environment where, you know, a lot of these business owners, they don't actually find out. Let's say their landlord is in Europe. and they don't get their mail. And now all of a sudden, you know, I had this happen. There was a new business that came in. They got set. They didn't even know until it was time to go to the magistrate. Their landlord's pissed at them. And they're like, well, the landlord did, but the landlord didn't notify the tenant. So you have a tenant who wanted to be compliant, but the landlord, for whatever reason, I firmly believe that, If you're the one causing the issue, you should be the first point of contact. So, you know, Florida statute allows us to do it. I know we can't lean them, but it's great. You're not in compliance. Then it's going to come to your landlord. Then the landlord is going to get the lien. And then there can't be any complaint as to the process being unfair to that particular landlord. The communication happens. We notice both parties on it. And yes, I know it's going to extend out the pre-magistrate timeline.

There'll be it. The question and what you're following is not the civil citation where it's issued to the person or the business at the location that it's a separate notice of violation that we already do, but it would just be to the business.

You can issue a code violation to a business.

Okay.

And if they don't comply, you can issue a civil violation.

So I'll get with Elizabeth and Yolanda, Brian, and we'll look at how that works within our current management system and have an answer for you at the second reading, if you approve it on first reading today.

It's a separate chapter anyway. So it's just a side note.

Right. But I just wanted to make sure that we have a defensible process in order to track those things against the business, because everything in the ERP now is property driven, PCN driven. And so I want to make sure we have a place to put it. And we'll cross our fingers and hope. And then when we get to the new ERP, we can hopefully set up another component for the co-compliance process where this could all rest and it'd be easier to track.

And then before we, I do want to go to public comment, but I had one last question on the very last page, item F. We're doing, essentially doing a re-operation process.

This is for the certificate, the registration, not the BTR itself. There's two different things.

So I would like to hear from the public. And then after that, I do think we, as a body, need to discuss what exactly, if we are going to do use and occupancy, What are we going to inspect? I hear William loud and clear, and I've said it myself many times, we don't want to be duplicating the work of the fire department, duplicating the work of the DBPR. However, there are certain things when a business is starting up that I think as a city we do need to check on. I don't think we need to do it every three years and so on. So I guess let's hear from the public and then if we could discuss that a little bit after.

Elizabeth also said that the inspection list is someplace else and we don't have that in front of us. I'm not prepared for that either.

Right, but we're in this saying that we're doing away with it. I'm not prepared to do away with it.

I think that inspecting all those things in that list, as this is proposed, you would be inspecting whatever list is in existence, you would just be inspecting it from the right-of-way annually.

as a point of um clarification when this use not committee inspection was originally conceived it was every year for every property both residential commercial and because it was incumbent upon the property of the schedule and we had some staffing challenges um it was reduced eventually down to uh every three years for residential every year for commercial and then it went to every three years for both This way we can manage it, I think, much more expeditiously and efficiently by taking it on our own. And it's amazing what you can see from the right of way if you're riding around because I think Commissioner Bacon and Commissioner Malega can attest to that. and I would implore, because we are running up against the time to do the renewals for these business licenses very soon. I'd like us to spend a little more time, but not affect this current renewal and look at other options for inspections that we might implement before we do the renewals for FY28. Okay.

I have a comment. I like citations, and I think if we cite the tenants, Because they're immediate and there's a finder. No, no, no, that's okay. Plenty of other things. Because it doesn't delay the process. It's immediately, you know, you've got 30, here's your citation, and then the policy can be, and again, I'm just harking back to when I used to do it. You know, if they complied with the problem by the time the... Once a month, they would have municipal ordinance violations down in Delray. And if they complied, we would just drop the citation. It was a very quick, very easy way to do it, and it would not lengthen the process to the landlord. It was very direct, and it got people's attention pretty well. So I'd like to look at that as well as an option. So we do have some public comment. John Sergi, followed by Chris Fleming, followed by Jason Barker. Madam Clerk, are there any public comments on your end?

No, Madam Mayor.

Thank you.

We're going to take a company. Mr. Zerdy. Good evening, Mayor.

Former Commissioner.

John Zerdy, 217 South Palm Way. um do we know how many uh business licenses do we really have questions here we make comments we do yeah well i always call staff and get the answer okay well no well there are many thousands of business licenses in in the city to get it done every year i agree with from the public right away would expedite that i think that's a good that's a good move um but any new business that comes in for a use has to fill out the application. It's not hard for them to even scratch a little bit on piece of paper or ask somebody to help them draw. Here's where I'm going to be. Here's how I'm using it. Write it down, make it part of the record that that's what they're doing. And then you will know what's going on. It should be part of part of the application. I would suggest that, um, I'd also like to say that we had our own business license come up on one of our buildings and it went very smooth. I'd like to commend Mrs. Dale on that one. I also think that Karina also helped us quite a bit on another project down on South H street. It was tough because a new property owner came in and, um, was told, and I think I have an email that says, no, there's no code violations occurred on the property. He purchased the property, now found out. Yes, there is. He can't get a business license. It's kind of tangled up. We're trying to untangle it, but there should be some way that we can ask during the process of purchasing our new building that I can come in, I can get a letter that says there's no code violations here existing on record.

We have that.

Well, he had it and somehow there is and he's trying to work. We're trying to help him work through it. So, so is staff. Also, like if you're an existing owner and you've got a license coming up and then you have a violation, do you get your business license revoked? I don't think you do because the same thing with a new business owner coming in. I can't get my business license because there's some violations existing there. So it just seems like it incurs... It's not as business friendly, but I do say that what was happening for us and for some of our experiences in the city now, they are more business friendly. They're really trying. I think there's a group of us that have gotten together recently that we've met with a number of you all. It's helped.

Thank you. That's time.

Okay. Just wanted to know what level of weeds and paint chips and all. All right. Thank you.

Chris Fleming.

Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. Chris Fleming, 231 East Lantana Road. Thank you for taking this on, William and your staff. It's been an ongoing problem and a bit of a mess over the last few years and just being an unpredictable process for business owners. I think most small businesses, they go through the leasing process. It's hard enough to get a business started. You negotiate a lease, and then the BTR comes up, and there's problems a lot of times with the landlord's property, which the landlord doesn't know. And I think John touched on that, and it sounds like you're headed down the right road to try and fix some of these things. But there was a bit of a domino effect that was happening here where the landlord doesn't know that he has a violation or it's just picked up. The tenant goes in to get his license or her license, and all of a sudden, everything's shut down. So the domino effect happens, and all of a sudden, the landlord's scratching to try and be in compliance. The tenant stopped, and maybe he negotiated a few months free rent, but now we're exceeding that, which is the unpredictable part of opening a business and dealing with a PTR process. So I'm looking, hearing these comments, it looks like you're streamlining things, making it a little more predictable. But the notice part of it, I think, is the biggest thing where in the past, and again, it sounds like it's going in the right direction, that property owners, especially commercial property owners, are not aware or they don't have enough time to fix it up before their property shut down for leasing the new tenants. So if we can address that or make that a little more streamlined, I think that'll help the business community. So thank you.

Thank you. Jason Baker?

Baker? Jason Baker, 309 4th Avenue North. Well, I just want to comment because I've heard talking about being more business friendly and I guess my whole hiccup must have happened before that. started transpiring because uh you know i had a business for many years and pretty much the building was as was when i bought it and went through many many inspections everything's fine and then you know more or less all of a sudden like whole myriad lists of things just come up out of nowhere numbers on the building being wrong size and this and that and everything and like my trailer's not parked in a parking spot on my own fenced in parking area which it's 20 feet long it doesn't fit in the parking spot like i don't know why it needs to be in one because it's on the pavement you know uh so i would appreciate some of the streamlined stuff because part of the problems i had was you said like my business wasn't operating as i had been approved so i did research and got my original application and then turns out that like they're like oh well everything that you've said your business is doing now is actually on your application and i was like Exactly. So I don't, it's not my fault that I was misclassified and then didn't know after six some odd years, you know? So I'd appreciate it. It'd be nice to see like some more of the business friendly stuff, because when you're just kind of operating a business and everything seems fine, you do your inspections and everything. And then all of a sudden one year, just tons of things out of nowhere, just come up little tiny things, dents and drywall, all this kind of stuff. You're just like overwhelmed, you know? And so yeah, so I appreciate seeing that more of that moving forward with some of that, because, you know, especially like when sometimes you're there and you're like, why is this other guy have piles of trash on his property all the time? And nobody ever says anything to me. And like, I have a number that's five and a half inches instead of six inches in front of my building. And I get a sticker on it, you know? And it's like, so it's, so I appreciate seeing more of that business friendly because, and I agree safety concerns, violations should be definitely important in there, but little, little things, you know, especially people who live here and don't necessarily, we try our best to do the best we can with some of the stuff we have, you know? And so just.

Thank you. That's time.

And thank you very much. OK, I just have one more comment. You know, we're talking about landlords being out of town and they don't get the notice. If you own a property, I believe it's your obligation to make sure that your mail gets opened. And I don't I don't yeah, I don't I don't I don't buy that. I was out of town or whatever, you know.

just to remind the public that the address that we have to use for co-compliance is the papa record which is the official record and it has two addresses usually the address of the property and the mailing address i will not name names but i have found out recently and i've helped work through several of these uh management companies are unknowingly the actual recipient of the notices of violation, and the notices of violation have not been passed on to the managers of those businesses or to the property owner. We do work out something, and it appears whoever's opened the mail, like, oh, it's Lake Worth Beach, and that never got to the manager of that company who's managing the property or to the property manager. The other thing is that we will as part of the business from the entity, one of the biggest challenges we have since so much of the city is non-conforming. When you look at the strict dictates of the code, things appear to be in violation, though they may be in compliance with how it was approved originally. And we are trying our best to get more notes in the system written down versus having to go to the property file, which is now almost by the end of this year, it will be all electronic and should be able to be attached to each parcel in the city, which then the public can have access to it as well as staff. And so we will be bringing forward to you, hopefully probably in the next six months or so, some adjustments to the non-conforming use, building and parcel section of the LDRs. I haven't worked at all. I haven't had time to really focus on it, but it is on our list to try to address some of those issues to help make it easier to be in compliance with whatever rules you had when you came into the city versus the rules that are here today.

As far as not a case came out last year about nonconforming. that if, because when you say if it's not in six months, then sort of the use evaporates. But the case came out last year that said, actually, that's not true. If the property was never used for a separate use, if it was empty for two years, but the same non-conforming business wanted to come in, that would be okay. It was an interesting case that came out last year.

And we have utilized the updated case law where it's not just that the property's been vacant. If the property's been vacant in accordance with the code, that you would lose your nonconformity. But the landlord or property owner has been holding the property out for that same use, trying to get a tenant for that same use. They just hadn't been successful in getting a tenant. We do honor that as a continuation of the nonconformity.

Yeah, we've had that case.

There's plenty of cases.

Ms. May and Mr. Segg.

No, is it our, is it our, is it a policy that we use the PAPA address?

That's required under Florida statute.

Okay. That's what I was wondering if that's the one we have to use.

We have to use it.

Okay. We could add the address though. SAP does also post the property in city hall. Oh yeah.

So the owner is in Europe and they're going to walk into city hall.

And it's also statute. By statute, we have to do that. So the property owner has the opportunity to receive, usually, the certified mail. We hear a lot of property owners saying, my tenant didn't give it to me. Well, then change your address so you get it.

Right.

But then there was also concern about the tenant not knowing, but the property gets posted, so the tenant should see that posting.

Does mail go to the... Property two or just the mailing address?

Just the mailing address and a pop-up.

Would it behoove us to send it to both? I'll look into that. Then you're double letting people know.

That may be something we have to tackle with the new ERP because one of the things the mayor had mentioned, if somebody has a separate address for notification besides Papa, could we include that in this? We have nowhere to put that right now. And most of the notices are automatically generated.

Pardon?

Please don't do that to me. When I got here, post-its were everywhere and it was a nightmare. And post-its get lost or put in the wrong file quite often. So we are looking at trying to, if someone wants to provide a secondary address in addition to the popular address, that we would have it on record.

Okay, but do please look into how, would it be efficient to send it to the tenant too?

Okay. Okay.

Thank you. Maybe not registered.

Because some properties have multiple tenants.

Well, I mean, send the registered one the legal way and then let the property tenant know, somebody at the actual address.

What I'm getting at is we have numerous properties that have multiple tenants. So as an example, if you were going to send a violation notice to Arbor Square, there are like 17 tenants at Arbor Square who would also get a letter.

Right, but is it all 17 violating? But you don't know.

Well, no, but okay. Whatever. Let's talk offline. Yeah, let's talk offline. Mr. Segrich.

Thank you. I actually think the case law that before the more recent one was actually set by Lake Worth Beach on 8th Street.

About what I'm talking about.

I'm saying the one before that was set by Lake Worth Beach. I think to Ms. May's point, I don't want to let technology drive our policy decisions and drive how we treat our businesses. I want to set the policy and then let's figure it out from a technology standpoint. So similar to how parking, we've spent years setting policy based on our meters that take quarters and everything else like that. Let's not do that again here. So i do think that we need to have at least an initial interior inspection when it's a new business applying to validate that they are in fact doing the business that they are saying they're doing um to to mr zerti's comment when they submit for their business license for the first time if they have a narrative or they had a little diagram or they had something to say, you know, this is what I'm doing. I'm setting up a gumball machine shop with 18 gumball machines, and that's what I'm going to do. That gets preserved with the application and gets approved. I've seen applications for businesses that are currently operating downtown, and they are doing nothing near what they said they were doing. And so I would like to, I guess I'll make a motion and try to include all of these, unless you guys wanted to. My motion was just for discussion.

Motion to approve for discussion.

I just made a motion for discussion. You can make a motion for discussion. But I will amend my motion to a motion to approve with updating Exhibit E, Item C, so that paragraph references use and occupancy versus BTRs. to modify exhibit G, item C, number two, to add.

Go back to EC. That was the one that was copy and paste. Got it. Exhibit G, item C2.

adding phone and email as part of the requirement. And I understand, Mr. Waters, you said it might be referenced elsewhere. For the purpose of clarity, put it here as well. Can't hurt. And then in item five, number four, change the word any to all. I think then... Exhibit D, to change it so that the initial use and occupancy inspection would include verification of business use, which might include internal inspection based on their application. And then... So that would be the motion for this then after I had a directional item for staff. So that would be my amended motion.

Do you have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye.

Aye. Aye. And I have no problem what you recommended. I will have to get with Elizabeth because Exhibit D, the definition, might need some clarification with what's on page nine, section 1435B, a use and occupancy inspection shall be required of persons or persons in the various requirements that are there. We might need to make a couple of little adjustments to the B section or maybe even add a number seven so that it corresponds appropriately with what you've changed in section 1433 on page seven. Okay. Okay.

Yes. Okay. So then, as far as direction goes, I would like to see if my colleagues would be okay with this to direct staff to basically Add to the list of changes that we have for what we're doing in this so that we can cite the tenant, whether that be a code violation to the tenant or a civil citation. But basically, if it's a commercial property and there's a commercial business operating in there, let's take my gumball factory or machine example. And they had pinball machines in there and they shouldn't have or they had bad signage. They would get the initial citation for, let's say, 30 days. Then it would proceed to the landlord or they both get cited at the same time. But basically giving that landlord time to work it out with their tenant. And I would also say that citation should not count against the landlord unless it has to go all the way through the magistrate.

Well, it would go to the citation would go. It's a separate thing. It would go to court with the tenant.

I just mean in terms of like the repeat offender and so forth.

How we process code violations, including for lack of having a business license or failure to renew your business license or any of the business license issues under chapter 14, all go through chapter two. Chapter 2 includes the list of requirements for your use and occupancy inspection. It includes the regular code process. And it includes the civil citation process. And we can bring each of those forward to you at a different time. But they would not impact what you're doing in this for me. Can you do this separate? We can if you want to wait for us to come together.

I think the citation is the most immediate.

Sorry, I'm trying to follow up. Commissioner Mulligan, were you referring to Chapter 14 changes which are being heard tonight?

No, what she just said, what Elizabeth just said about Chapter 2.

Oh, that makes the better sense to do it all at once. You know, whatever we're going to do to chapter two.

That's what I'm saying. Yes. Can you bring it all together? Not with this, but can you bring chapter two all together so we can dissect that, if you will?

And that likely will include some things that come out of your workshop that we had in May, as well as we're going to follow up in, I think, the third week in July. Yeah.

Now, if I'm wrong, I believe that the citation process, whether it's for tenants or landlords, is already approved. Do we have to change it to make it applicable to tenants?

It does exist, and it should not have to be amended. Right.

I think it's a policy to do it, right? We haven't been doing it for some reason.

We'll just need to make sure. So in the civil citation code, you list which code sections or which chapters and what the level of violation is. So what fine attaches. So we'll double check that and make sure that chapter 14 is listed in there. There is a catch all if it's not so that that could be implemented.

Yeah, I mean, we don't we don't have to change anything that's already there. There have just been some.

policy not to do it which i've been arguing well i think what we're going to have to change something is add the component we have a civil citation book which could be against a person and then we determined several years ago maybe before this was with us that you could actually cite the business and it has three times and there's a daily you know a fine that goes with it but actually citing the business that turns into a code case that follows that route versus going to i think it's administrative judge for civil citation no it goes to uh court you

It goes to court, but I think we also have a process where it goes before a magistrate.

Yeah. That's what I want to make clear.

I like them going to court.

And I'm not advocating for civil citations in a court process. I'm saying cite them with the code violation.

Right. And then it goes to the traditional 162 process that eventually goes to the magistrate. Yes.

I am not a fan of issuing a notice to another puritan or business owner.

Talk about that later.

And then the other thing just on this topic is as we look at these, a lot of times when we're discussing this, we end up separating out a commercial business versus a residential rental. And I think how we address some of this stuff, it becomes overly difficult to address the needs of residential rentals as a business versus our commercial businesses. And I think staff needs to look at potentially separating that out. So specifically around like the use and occupancy stuff and things like that. There's certain things we can do here and not there. To me, it just seems like they're very different entities, very different beasts in terms of a lot of the things on how they get treated. So I think we need to explore potentially separating out some of that or making it more specific to this applies to a commercial lease situation for a business versus a lease situation for a resident. Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay. Comfort breaks.

I'm sorry, Madam Mayor. Was there a vote?

Yes, we passed it.

It was four to zero.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll take a quick comfort break. We're ready when you are Mrs. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mayor, I am here.

You're all there. Are we reconvening? I'm so glad you're here. Thank you. It is 831. Commissioner Maliga, could you please shut the door behind you? Thank you so much.

In other words, all much more comfortable.

Let it be known this is the only door I sit with my back to because I know it's locked on the inside. It drives me nuts.

It doesn't drive me nuts. I just think it's, you know, it's what makes you, you. For better or for worse, please. Okay.

All right. All right.

Okay, we are up to new business B, request for lease extension from RTT doing Benny's on the Beach, Inc. Who's going to start this? Who's going to start this? There is a, this is for, I can't. they're looking for direction for must-release extension. And I know that does anybody want to make a motion or start talking? We have to make a motion to get started.

I was just going to tell you a little bit about what the staff report. Give us a little staff report. This is regarding Benny's on the Beach, which is the restaurant that is on the pier, not in the casino building.

Oh, it's just Benny's on the Beach.

Just Benny's on the Beach. Okay. they currently have a lease that extends through January of 2033. And they have submitted a request for a lease extension to extend their lease through their full term for the 30 years that's allowed at that facility, which would take them to February of 2043. So we are looking for, you can give us, permission to negotiate that lease extension and see if there are other terms in the lease that need to be updated and bring back a full lease extension, you know, negotiated document to you, or you can grant the extension and kind of postpone that discussion with the change in rent and all those things to be discussed at a later date closer to, so you know kind of what the market is at that time or decide not to, negotiate the extension at this time.

Okay. I have a question or a comment. It's 30 years, but they're taking off the first 12 years. It's like time served.

So 30 years from 2013.

Correct. Okay. Thank you. Somebody? I'm sure. Do we have a motion?

Motion for discussion.

Okay. All in favor? Aye. Talk about it? Yeah. We don't have to do that, but okay. No, we don't have to do that, but we need a motion. No, we need a motion to speak. And a motion can be anything. It can fail. It can pass.

Could we hear from public comment first?

Sure.

How do you all feel about that?

I'm good. Okay. Lori Whitkin, who I think left. Ginny Powell, who is here, and Kim Stokes, and Dylan Lipson. Madam Clerk, do you have any public comments on this?

Yeah, I have about eight, Madam Mayor.

About eight, okay.

Nine meters, more sweater.

Jenny Powell, 224 North Palmway. Good evening again. I really think sometimes it would be helpful to hear you all talk first, so it helps us understand how this came to be. I did read most of the backup. But, Mayor, I wanted to give you credit for making the comment during the pre-agenda meeting. I thought it was relevant that... Well, you had people you said other tenants ask you about extending their lease. And that was a question that came to my mind. I thought that was a pretty, pretty significant or a good question to ask. And I thought the comment that was made about that being an asinine request was disturbing and uncalled for. And I didn't talk to you about this, but I thought exactly the same thing. Isn't every tenant going to ask for the same thing? But honestly, I can't think of any benefit to residents for extending this lease like this. I know there was some mention in Mr. Lipton's letter about Benny's Law, which I had never heard of. I Googled it and got a couple different answers. But I... He's got a 20-year lease, essentially, that expires in 2033. And I think another 10 years beyond that is there's potentially some changes. I just don't see how this benefits the residents. And at the time, in 2033, seven years from now, he's asking to negotiate seven years early. This just makes no sense to me. There will be new people in office, likely. And they may have different priorities. I think that what happens then should should there is will be a vision, I hope, and a strategic plan. And I think the commissioners who are in office at that time should be the ones that are helping to make those decisions. I just think this is premature. We're looking at adding 17 years to his lease. But if this was to pass and we just renegotiated three years ago.

Thank you. That's time.

Thank you. Thank you.

Kim Stokes. Ms. Stokes.

All right, Kim Stokes, 1321 North L Street. I'm just a little confused about why Benny's isn't getting the same carrot and stick treatment you guys just discussed about giving the Beach Club. They still have like seven years left on this lease. And you talked about the importance of being able to hold your tenant accountable and go out and your fiduciary responsibility and go out for the market rate. And I don't know how you do that when you prematurely, seven years before the end of a lease, just grant a 10-year extension because somebody wants it and it would be nice for them. I didn't see anything in the backup justifying this extension. The letter from the tenant does not read like a serious request from a tenant to a neutral body representing the public's interests. It talked about this weird Benny's Law thing. It seems like an AI hallucination. I don't know where that came from. There are generic references to continued capital investment, but not even a single example of what that capital investment has been. No receipts. People are watching the way that you're treating the beach club, and they're watching the way that you're rolling out the red carpet for Benny's, and always do. And they just don't see why one tenant gets this special treatment. And there are a lot of people, and I know you're not going to want to hear this, but they are wondering and calling foul play. And when they see that Mr. Lipton, the owner, was one of the largest contributors to Peggy Fisher's PAC, whose sole purpose was getting Mimi Mae elected and keeping Commissioner Malega in office, they have serious concerns, and they should. It doesn't look right when the contrast between the way the Beach Club and Benny's is being treated is miles apart. I also believe staff does not need to waste their time trying to predict the future right now to figure out what the reasonable terms would be in seven years for this extension. We're constantly hearing that they have too many priorities. We can't move things fast enough. But when Benny's asked for something, they get it. And I really think that there's more important issues facing the city right now than to have staff spending time negotiating something that isn't even relevant for seven more years. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Lipton.

Hill and Lipton, 1802 North Lakeside and 10 South Ocean Boulevard, Benny's on the Beach. Good evening, mayor and commissioners. For four decades, Benny's has been far more than a restaurant. We have become a part of the identity of Lake Worth Beach. Generations of residents have celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, graduations, and countless family milestones with us. Visitors from around the world associate Lake Worth Beach with the iconic image of Benny's on the Beach. Benny's employs over 100 local residents, serves as a major tourism driver, and generates economic activity that extends well beyond our four walls. We are a year-round anchor, helping support surrounding businesses and maintaining activity at arguably the city's most important public asset, the beach. Beyond rent, Benny's invests roughly $1 million annually in maintenance, repairs, utilities, capital improvements, taxes, insurance, employee parking, and ongoing stewardship of this public facility. I highlight the repairs to demonstrate that there are unique challenges associated with operating a restaurant and pier open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on stilts over the Atlantic Ocean 365 days a year. There are investments that directly benefit the property, the beach, and the public experience. As Benny's approaches his 40th anniversary serving Lake Worth Beach, we respectfully request consideration of a 10 year extension to our current lease, utilizing a structure that includes a 5% rent increase every two years, together with tenant renewal options at the commencement and the extension, and again, five years after. This request is not based on what we have done in the past alone. It is based on what we continue to contribute today. Our proposal would further increase the city's revenue. A 5% biannual escalation over this extension period would result in the rent growing from approximately $500,000 annually to more than $630,000 annually by the conclusion of the extension. This provides meaningful long-term revenue growth for the city while giving Bennys the certainty necessary to continue making substantial investments in the property. Importantly, this request aligns with the intent expressed by the voters of Lake Worth Beach in 2020 when they approved the city's ability to enter into 30-year beachfront leases.

Those voters- Thank you, that's time.

That's time, thank you.

Madam Clerk, do you have any? You said you do.

Yes, I have eight, Madam Mayor.

Why don't you do them?

Donna Kerner, 1012 North J Street. Why is the city negotiating a lease extension with Lee Lipton seven years before his current lease expires? What benefit does this provide to the city and its residents? On whose behalf is the city negotiating? Mr. Lipton still has seven years remaining on his lease. A 10-year extension would carry the agreement through 2043 and would effectively prevent future commissions from considering proposals from other prospective operators for decades. Before moving forward, the commission should clearly explain why such an extension is in the public interest and why this opportunity should not be subject to a competitive process. Residents deserve transparency, consistency, and confidence. that all tenants are being treated fairly under the same standards. Lawrence Cassenti of the Gulfstream Hotel, One Lake Avenue. Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. I understand there are differing opinions regarding the proposed lease extension. While not everyone may agree, I encourage the Commission and the community to view this as an opportunity to build upon a proven success story. Benny's on the Beach has been a part of the fabric of Lake Worth Beach for decades, and remains one of the city's strongest tourism demand generators, attracting visitors from throughout South Florida and beyond. As downtown continues to grow and the Gulfstream Hotel prepares to reopen, those visitors will increasingly cross the bridge, dine in our restaurants, shop in our stores, and support local businesses. Many cities would be fortunate to have a tenant with Benny's track record, longevity, and commitment to the community. I respectfully encourage the commission and our community to support the lease extension and continue a partnership that benefits residents, visitors, and local businesses alike. Thank you. Jovana Dominguez Timor, 301 8th Avenue North, no extension. Nancy Udell, 1131 North Palmway. Dear Mayor and Commissioners, I've racked my brain and cannot think of any benefit to the city or the people you represent to approving this request. Benny's has seven years left on its current lease. What possible benefit can flow to the people from approving this extension seven years before the expiration of the existing lease? It is not good business and not in the best interest of the people. No one knows at this time what conditions will be like at the time this lease expires. It is not in the best interest of the people for this commission to reach out into the future and tie the hands of future commissions. The Lake Worth Pier is one of only three such locations in all of Palm Beach County and is a valuable asset owned by the people, not by Benny's. Prior to the expiration of the current lease, Benny's will have the opportunity to request an extension or compete with other interested parties to utilize this magnificent public asset. This is exactly how things are being handled at the Beach Club. Their lease is ending and they are invited to compete with other interested parties to remain in the space. Please reject this proposal. Also, commissioners who accepted donations from the PAC to which Benny's contributed during the last municipal election should disclose that information. Sarah Forbes Martin, 1121 North Lakeside Drive. Good evening, I'm here to express my support for extending the lease for Benny's on the beach at both the pier and main building locations. Benny's on the beach has become much more than a restaurant. It is a destination, a community gathering place, and one of the most recognizable waterfront experiences in Lake Worth Beach. For decades, Benny's has welcomed residents and visitors alike, creating a vibrant atmosphere that showcases the very best of our city. As someone who works in hospitality and events, I understand the importance of businesses that consistently deliver positive guest experiences while contributing to the local economy. Bendy's attracts visitors from throughout South Florida and beyond, generating tourism, supporting local jobs, and introducing countless people to Lake Worth Beach. Many guests who visit Benny's also patronize other local businesses, helping strengthen our entire community. The pier is one of our city's most treasured assets. Maintaining a successful, well-operated business in such a unique environment requires significant investment, commitment, and operational expertise. Benny's has demonstrated that commitment year after year, serving as a reliable steward of this important public space. Beyond the economic impact, Benny's has become woven into the fabric of our community. It is where families celebrate milestones, friends gather, visitors experience our waterfront, and residents proudly bring guests from out of town. It has become part of the identity of Lake Worth Beach itself. While every lease decision should be carefully evaluated, I believe Benny's has earned the opportunity to continue serving our community. Their proven track record investment in the property CONTRIBUTION TO TOURISM, CREATION OF LOCAL JOBS, AND COMMITMENT TO LAKEWORTH BEACH COMMUNITY MAKE THEM A VALUABLE PARTNER FOR THE CITY. DEBRA KNOLL, 1 11th AVENUE NORTH. I WOULD LIKE TO UNDERSTAND WHY BENE'S NEEDS TO EXTEND THEIR LEASE FOR MORE THAN TEN YEARS. IT'S ALREADY BEEN GIVEN. SORRY, MORE THAN THE TEN YEARS IT'S ALREADY BEEN GIVEN. THEY ALREADY HAVE A MONOPOLY AT THE BEACH. I ALSO FEEL THE LEASE AT THE BEACH CLUB SHOULD BE EXTENDED. Well, Benny's may appeal to tourists, the beach club appeals to golfers, but more importantly, the residents of our community. Shouldn't that matter? Diane Brown, 905 North Lakeside Drive. I appreciate all the nice things about Benny's on the beach, but I feel it is not in the city's best interest to extend this lease at this time. What value does this have for our city? Will you negotiate a better deal for our city? Will you require more maintenance provided by Benny's? Will you increase the rent? You give Benny's preferential treatment. Some point out this is an extension of an existing lease versus a new lease like the Beach Club. There is no need to give this extension for the residents of Lake Worth Beach. And the last comment I have is from Jordan Wissel 129 North Federal Highway. Hello, I am writing in strong support of keeping Benny's on the beach as part of our Lake Worth Beach community. As a local business owner, I have seen firsthand the positive impact Benny's has on our area. Benny's is more than just a restaurant. It is a landmark, a gathering place, an important part of what makes Lake Worth Beach such a special place to live, work, and visit. For many residents and visitors, Benny's is one of the first places that comes to mind when they think of our beach, our pier, and the character of our city. Benny's brings people to Lake Worth Beach. It supports countless jobs, attracts visitors, and creates valuable foot traffic that benefits many surrounding local businesses. When people come to Benny's, they often stay in the area, walk around, visit nearby shops, and contribute to the local economy. That kind of impact is not easy to replace. We also cannot speak highly enough of the management team at Benny's. Their commitment to the community, their customers, and the overall character of Lake Worth Beach is clear. They have helped create a welcoming place that reflects the spirit of our city and adds to the experience of everyone who comes here. Businesses like Benny's helped define the identity of Lake Worth Beach. They are part of the history, culture, and everyday life of our community. Losing Benny's would not only affect the restaurant itself, but also the employees, neighboring businesses, residents, and visitors who benefit from its presence. Please let my comments reflect that we are strongly in favor of keeping Benny's on the beach as a valued and lasting part of our community. We hope to see Benny's continue serving Lake Worth Beach for many years to come. That's my last comment for this evening, Madam Mayor.

Thank you very much. We do have one more in-person comment. Laura Levitas? Levitas? Levitas.

It's okay. Hi. 1030 North Lakeside Drive. Laura Levitas. It's hard for me to talk about Benny's and not talk about the Beach Club at the same time because it seems like we're on two different sides. Granted, Benny's is beautiful. The pier is beautiful. But I hear tourist, tourist, tourist, tourist. And with the Beach Club, I hear community, community, community, community. Now, I think one of the biggest problems in Lake Worth Beach is our price points at restaurants. We don't have like we have a low, a low income population mostly or medium income. And that makes it hard to go to Benny's on the beach. But I can go to the beach club and get something. I'm not I would like I do have an ask for Benny's. I don't know if I could do it here. OK, now I'll ask him in the back. OK. I just, I wonder what it would be like to open it up and see what our other options are. That's what I'd like to see. That doesn't mean we do anything. We just open it up. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. So we've had our public comment. Who wants to go first?

Who wants to make a motion? Mr. Segrich?

Yeah. Yeah.

I'll go first. Okay. to follow the rules um so looking at at some of the comments that we already had a motion to discuss well to discover um so looking at the two the beach club versus benny's and i think it's important to draw some distinctions there for people listening um The Beach Club is very similar in position to where Benny's was when they had to do their last negotiations, facing lease expiration, being thought to be under market in their rents, and the city wanting to renegotiate most of the terms in the lease. Now, they're in the middle of their lease, a successful business, by all accounts, a highly productive and good member of the city fabric. We don't hear about code violations and issues at Penny's. So the two are in completely different positions. spaces. But it's interesting to me that when Benny's needed to renegotiate and was in the same position as the Beach Club, they got dragged through the ringer for about eight months, maybe 12, going back and forth. And some of the people who commented on it tonight were involved in that. And the same people say, hey, wait a minute. Don't negotiate with the beach club. We love them. We want them to stay and we don't want any changes to them. They're great for our community. And I think we do need to look at these things as what's good for our community, what's good for the city. A couple of things to point out. Benny's on the Beach is our highest paying tenant. by price per square foot, as well as total rents by a mile. There is no one else that pays more. Now, they are in the premier spot of our city. They're kind of the crown jewel at the beach. Well, no, but you laugh, but that's a very real consideration. A million dollars a year in maintenance and so on and insurance for such an eventuality, having worked in hurricane disaster, knowingly running a business that every August could be absolutely wiped off the map, that takes an awful lot of risk, right? It takes an awful lot of guts to do that. So I understand the want and the need for security, right? If I'm going to invest in a business, I want to make sure that my business can be there in that location for as long as I want it to be and be successful. Traditional leases for restaurants usually start off either seven to 10 years with five and five and five renewals, getting them up to 20 to 30 years. So it's not unheard of to look at this. The question was asked, why would somebody request it now when there's still several years left on their lease? I wouldn't blame them after what they went through on their last renewal. I would get that negotiated as quickly as possible. And you laugh. It's not funny what you did to that business, but you laugh. OK. Also, we hear a lot about referendums and how the people speak. Well, the people did speak on this one, and it went to referendum, and it allowed us to do up to 30-year leases, primarily with the businesses at the casino complex in Mott. Now, I did make a comment in the pre-agenda meeting where it was brought up. Mary, you brought up, hey, we should be renegotiating all these at the same time. And I'll stand by what I said. Every single one of those businesses can go and request this of us. And if they want to, they should. But for us to reverse it and force just because one asked to bring everyone else to the table, that's not how business works. So with addressing some of that, I look at this and I say, okay, When the last lease negotiation was going on, the groundswell of individuals in support of this business was tremendous. They've been a good member of the Lake Worth Beach community for over 40 years. They are a success story in our city. They are the highest producing piece of real estate we have. And where people are saying, oh, we want to have affordability and so on. The only reason to bring something like this out to market would be to get A lot more money. Well, you go and the only person that's going to come in is going to have higher prices. So if you instead of want Benny's on the beach, you want Nobu on the pier, great. It's just going to be $300 a plate. The other thing, and it dawned on me later after thinking about the pre-agenda, Commissioner Boyd brought up, well, we should put this out to bid and we should break their lease. He actually asked what it would take to break their lease. And it just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to have a lease agreement. We cannot break the lease. We cannot at this point put it out to bid. So our choices are, do we want to grant an extension option or do we not? It's not our choice whether or not we put it out to bid. That would come at the end of whatever lease. I'm looking at this and I think that extending the lease would allow them to reinvest in the infrastructure at the pier. They've already started to do it with the HVAC overhaul and so on that they did invest half a million dollars in that. Our pier isn't in the greatest of shape and that building is not in the greatest of shape. And this business has shown a commitment to maintaining that building above and beyond what is required in their lease. So I would be inclined to basically say, let's offer them an extension option. of the 10 years and give them an escalator. I think given to where the rents are going to be comparatively in the rest of our city, 5% every two years escalator on that, I'd be comfortable with that. They're already coming up to nearly an additional $600,000 in income. And just to highlight the disparity in what we're getting for rents, we have some buildings in this city that are being rented out for a dollar a square foot from the city. No one complains about it because they serve a community need. not everything has to be maximized. And I'm very big on having the city make revenue and so on. But when you're looking at your overall portfolio of stuff, You don't take your top performing asset and say, let's try to squeeze every last bit out of that. You try to bring everyone up to par. And that's where kind of the beach club conversation comes into play. The beach club is roughly paying around $10 a square foot. Although I don't necessarily agree with the market analysis, $22 a square foot is what it came back, plus 6% of revenue. We hammered out, that's coming out to around $35 a square foot for the beach club. So there you have an asset that's completely underwater.

Yeah.

This is an opportunity, I think, for us to solidify a relationship with with Benny's and give them the ability to invest in the future because they are going to need to do that. And if they don't have a longer lease, why would they do that? You know, I can't think, you know, myself as a business owner. If in five years I'm going to have to be looking for a new place to hang my hat, why am I going to invest another $700,000 into the infrastructure of our pier? Why not just ride it out and let it become the city's problem, right? And at that point, it's going to be, hey, city, what are you going to do for us to keep us? So in terms of the benefit, I think this gives us a good solid position. I would be in support. I don't want to go through the process of renegotiating every single one of the terms. We just did that. This is basically just saying, let's grant an option and let's set an escalator. And, you know, it's simple. It's easy. And I think it benefits the city and it benefits them. And it's a win-win all around.

Thank you, Ms. Malega.

So thank you. As being one of the people who was up here during the lease negotiations with Benny and we lived in the entity and fought to keep one of our largest employers in the city. There were some times where I thought you should have just walked away. Because at one point, you know, you can only get so much gray hair and be slapped in the face so much. So a couple of things that I like is that this not only allows a potential business owner to look and invest in the future and his employees and the longevity of the city, it's going to help the city maintain the budget for the beach. If we know we're getting X amount of dollars for the next 20, 30 years, we are not flushing cash. We have big changes coming forward. If I have a business that's willing to sign a longer lease, make a longer commitment to this city right now, and continue to invest in the property that they're in. And again, people can sit up here and talk about Beach Club and Benny's. They're two different worlds. The money that's put into the building is one thing. That's the cost of doing business. And I've said this to them before. I have cost of doing business. My AC goes out. I'm calling the AC people and writing a check. That's the cost of being a business owner. It's part of my lease. On the flip side, nobody talks about what they pay to the parking fund at the beach. how much revenue they bring in after five o'clock in parking revenue at the beach. Not many people are swimming with the sharks after five o'clock at night. The good media that is brought to this city because of Benny's being on the front page of not just travel magazines, but hospitality magazines, magazines that are global, are putting Lake Worth Beach on the map and having people consider coming here to work, to live, and to invest. It's not the city government that's drawing attention on the front page of these great newspapers. But Benny's, in my world, is part of what makes the fabric of the city work. 40 years is a long time, you guys, to have a business, in a restaurant business, to survive COVID, to survive hurricanes. And it rains. Guess who's not busy? Benny's at the beach. But guess what? They still have employees to take care of. They still have overhead. So I don't look at this as... however people want to say it, a handout or whatever we're doing, this is somebody saying, okay, we waited, we watched how people voted in March, and it's apparent that people want to keep the character of the beach the way it is. The character of the beach is Benny's and Kilwin's and Mamma Mia's. That's what's the character of the beach. Now, I'm not rich and I'm not poor. I'm kind of right in the And I went to Benny's and I said, okay, I'm a local. I just want to go to breakfast by myself. I want to hide. So I went upstairs. Nobody knew upstairs, little enclosed area. And I was there at 10 41 in the morning. So apparently there's a breakfast special that I missed. Um, and I ordered the sunrise, which is two eggs, one piece of toast, bacon and potatoes, nothing to drink water without a credit card fee. Before my tip, it was $16. So I asked myself, as the person up here making this decision, how much more can I increase their rent to where even I could go have breakfast on off-season? I spent $20 on breakfast for one person, not that I'm complaining because the food was great, but $20 with tip. And so we have to be careful when we make this decision, because I hear what people are saying. We want to be able to support local. So that is a balancing act for us. Right. We have to guess what the market's going to bear. But in three years and five years from now, we don't know what the state's going to look like, much less this county when it comes to who can afford what. So I want us to be cautious. I am in favor of staff moving forward with a lease conversation and maximizing this to the 30 years. I think it's good for the business owners. I think it's good for the city, for our finances, to know where we sit. But I want us to be cautious that if I can't go buy myself breakfast for less than $25, that's a problem. because then now I can't support this business. And now I got to look at supporting, I hate to say it, but corporate America, who's selling stuff that's half the quality without the view and not supporting my local businesses. So it is a balancing act. I, again, and anybody who wants to see my bill, there it is. I just, I really think that we need to be cautious in that escalator because when I hear what you're saying, and again, I'm not comparing one restaurant or one tenant to another, cause it's two different animals. I do want us to be cautious on how much we escalate this because I want to be able to, and I don't go out to eat that much. If I go out to eat once or twice a month, that's huge in our house. And I want to be able to support local. But I don't think that supporting locals should put the locals out of the ability to show up. There are some restaurants that I can't afford to go to, and I choose not to try to break the bank to go to in town. Because to me, I would rather support the locals who I know support this community. And let's just put that aside. Benny's, every time they're called upon, from back-to-school drives, to toy drives, to the bikes, to the sponsors for the firework thing that we're doing the Fourth of July, the drones, they always step up. I can't think of many other businesses in this city, we should probably pay our light bill, that have stepped up the way that this entity does when it comes to being a community partner. And that is one of the reasons that I fought for them years ago and I will continue to fight. This is not a business that opens its doors, makes a ton of money, rolls down the doors and then drives to Wellington. These people live in our city, they employ people in our city and they support Lake Worth Beach. And we're not even talking about the utilities and the licensing that they pay for. And I mean, they fill many buckets financially, but it's a bigger impact. It's the dollar for dollar that goes back into our city that they make, that we see a return on our investment. And for that reason, I'll be supporting this. Thank you, Ms. May.

Thank you. Everything needs to be said, but not everybody needs to say it. So I'm not going to repeat what I've already heard. But I do want to talk about basically the public comment was the same. It was this is an institution. This is where we have weddings and celebrations. This is where our family meets. This is our community meeting. our community gathering spot. So very, I mean, and that's why I wanted to keep beach club because i do agree that the beach club has the same idea i mean it's a different price point and we should have different price points in the city and you know i i think that um i'm going to support this i am just like i want to support um mitch and the beach club and i think that One of the differences I do see is the giving, not the giving back to the community as much, Mitch tries to, and Benny's does a lot more than that, but Mitch will allow community groups to use the facility for community gatherings. But it's the investment back into the property. That's the problem. That's the difference I see between the Beach Club and Benny's. I mean, Benny's does the, they have to buy TVs every six months because they're on the water because the TVs die. The air conditioning's out every day. I mean, it's difficult. I don't know how they do it. I don't want to know because I'm not in the restaurant business. I just want to be able to show up and have dinner. But very similarly, the amount of money that is put back into that is one of the reasons why I will be voting yes on this. The other reason is the stability. We're looking for financial stability for the city. And if we have a partner, because I don't know if, as was said, if we put this out to bid, we're not going to find somebody who's going to pay more than they're paying. So- It doesn't make sense to do so with the beach club. We realize that this is a different animal. We will negotiate and to make keep the price point low and keep it a neighborhood spot. But there are 2 different entities, but they both. Have the ability to give the city financial stability in 1 way or another. So. uh let's see i just want to make sure and i also think that the return on investment and the the dollar for dollar isn't comparable because people don't come from miami up to go to the beach club but they do come from miami and they come from all over to go to betty's on the beach um so that's that's what i think i can add to what's already been said okay i um

One of the things that was a new time, the hands of a new commission. I think that's one of the things that is actually an argument in favor of doing this because with all the investments that they make with the history that they have, right, it's one less thing to worry about. And uncertainty. I mean, they do have they are on a pier. And again, thank you for saying, it needs to be said, but everybody does need to say it. But I think that one of the things that is important is for Benny's to have the kind of certainty that, like we were talking about, we have seen very drastic changes in things in the city with the change in commission. And I think that Benny's deserves from the track record they have, that they're involved in the community, the fact that it's a very uncertain place that they're doing business. If it's just talking about Benny's right now, and not the ocean walk and the other places, I think they deserve the stability of continuing there. Mr. Segrich.

Thank you very much, Mayor. So, Sarah, I thought your receipt was going to go in a different direction. I think a $20 breakfast is actually quite reasonable.

I don't mean to interrupt, but I was just looking up prices of breakfasts in other places in town, and it's not out of line at all. And you're on the beach.

So, you know, I mean, the example I use is their turkey club. It's like $20 there. But the turkey sandwich at two days is almost the same price and one third the size. But anyway, touching on what you said, Mayor, having a longer-term lease also is a defense to development at the beach. If our tenants there have longer-term leases, and again, I disagree in kind of who needs to bring it forward, but I would encourage all of our tenants who want to extend their leases, come forward and request it. That is a good defense to development coming in because it is secure and it must remain the same. And people really voted, we want the beach to remain the same. And I hear you, Sarah, about trying not to over-escalate and turn it into... And forcing it into higher price points and so on. So maybe dial a little bit back on the escalator. Maybe that'll be better. But I think we have to give staff clear direction as to, okay, this is what we want you to do. So I would make a motion to direct staff to offer a 10-year lease option Lease extension option. I believe that's the date, to 2043. And that option have a 4% biannual escalator and keep all other lease terms the same.

I think we should go with five.

Okay.

Because right now they have it at three and a half every year. So it makes sense because I think that was too high. I have another idea.

So I can't second that, but I can second five. And if you don't mind, my idea would be to, you know, they're really asking at this point for the extension of the lease in terms of future commissioners. We don't know what this market, you know, how things are going to be going in seven or 10 years. I would almost suggest that maybe a possibility would be to grant the extension of the lease and let the future commission.

You do four and a half.

Well, I just think that, you know, I can't hear you.

I was trying to adjust service.

No, but it was brought up by the owner that they want a 5% escalator. Why would it be the lower?

So I'll change it to 5%. 5% by annual.

Give her two seconds. We're going to say 5%.

He said it vocally when he came up. Oh, okay.

5%. keeping all these everything else the same yes with the caveat what no more lease extensions amendments this is going to be solidified they would not have any other extensions available to them because it hits the 30-year mark okay it would have to be a whole yeah because we're redoing the 30 years 43 would have to be the whole new yeah yeah they can go through that that's really not i'm going to be here i mean god but um In the lease extension, what is the time where they have to come forward if they want to renegotiate at the end? Which will probably be Dylan's kids, I'm sure, will be here to do those lease negotiations.

Karina Miong. Well, if we're doing 5% biannually at the end, won't that just continue until the end of the lease?

Right. Correct. I was just asking at the end of, is it a two-year, like 24 months that they have to let the city out? Correct. That's what I'm asking.

Well, they would have to negotiate an entirely new lease at the end of this.

Right.

So I don't, I don't think there's, I didn't read anything in the lease that had any particular timeline of when they would need to do that.

So 5% by annually.

I mean, we could add a one-year notice or a six-month notice if they want to renegotiate, because it takes a long time for them to negotiate this.

I was asking for my own, because I didn't see anything in the writing about when they need to let us know. That's what I was asking. I will second your motion for approval and give staff direction on a 5% increase by annually keeping all other portions of the lease the same.

Do I have a second? Oh, that was a second.

Okay, I'm reading here.

So we have a motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you.

Okay, moving on.

I'll buy you breakfast. It's fine.

You don't need pregnant. He said he'll buy her back.

That's nice. Okay. Next up is second. All in favor. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

The construction contract with a one property services motion to approve. Do I have a second? Motion by May. Second by Malega. Malega. Mr. Sigrich.

So I know, we have to do this. And we've already approved it. But I do think it needs to be stated because I in my my adventure and permitting, I was spending some time down there. And I was talking to a gentleman out outside of the building. And I was looking at the bill outside of 1900. And I was looking at the building and, and really kind of thinking about things. And I noticed the roof is growing trees. it is a little bad.

And that's my, that's our tree canopy.

So, you know, it's, it, it is a, it's, it's a one and three quarter standing steam roof, steam, steam roof. It, A roof like that properly maintained has a lot of longevity. But to look up and see trees growing out of it tells me that we haven't been properly caring for it. And I can't help but think that perhaps this is an expense that could have been a heck of a lot less if we took care of our buildings. I think about looking at the annex roof before I even became a commissioner. seeing the tiles missing and saying for years, the mold problem they're going to have in that building, I would love to get that remediation job because it's going to be a total gut. Lo and behold, now it's a total gut. we really have to take better care of our assets. And in this budget season, focusing on infrastructure and asset maintenance before we move into other things has to be a top priority. And then the only last thing with this is Emphasizing the importance of that facilities management where, you know, we have people scattered all across the city and so on. And we're repairing this building and, you know, we're now we're having to do the roof and having to extend, you know, we're paying over $200,000 to house people for 16 months. We could have leased an entire building for five years for that amount. So, you know, moving forward, I hope, and I think we're getting there. You know, I see that we are changing the way, the way that we're doing things and digging ourselves out of some of the asset maintenance debt, essentially that, that we have. I think we just need to make sure we focus on that and, and really take it to heart because it, I'm not going to lie, it pissed me off to see stuff growing out of that roof when we're paying for a new one. Because regardless of whether or not it's in bad shape, it should not have stuff growing out of it.

There's no excuse for that.

Ms. May? Thank you. That just reminded me that we do need to look, and this has nothing to do with, well, it has something to do with the roof in the fact that we do need to look at an overall facilities plan because we're whackable and all this stuff. So can we give consensus to kind of do that? I know you're working on it.

I think the public works director said during one of our previous meetings that that should be, it's going to be fought for in the budget this year.

And that's going to include all of the departments, not just public works, like all of our assets.

That's correct.

Okay. That sounds good. But I mean, every time i see 1900 i know it's dollar signs and so i agree that it hasn't been maintained and it hasn't there's not good planning on any of these projects over there so it's very frustrating um i feel like you know that there's been holes digging that we have to get people out of now what no there's people in the holes we got to get them out and this I know. I mean, I'm going to vote yes because we have to put a roof, but I agree that we need to be better stewards of our properties.

And one of the things we do have to bear in mind, though, is we are the current sitting commission board. Well, yeah, I mean, yeah. These things didn't start three years ago or four years ago. This is, I mean, the annex building has been abused and not maintained for 100 years. So I don't want to lay it on any particular person, but I do agree that we should be more careful about our stuff. So we have- All in favor? Aye. Aye.

You said it, though. You answered. It's getting late.

Don't answer if I don't say it.

Say it.

I. I, Mayor Rush. All right. Boy, that's deep. Okay. Letter E, motion to approve.

Okay. I got it. Who's next? Jesus. Everybody wants to do the main. Who cares? okay now now we are at e first amendment to the agreement for bayo cohen agriano for services related to the disaster of the sewage force me ocean to approve i already made the motion you did yep uh second second well second by well i think it was illegal all in favor thank you very much

F motion to approve.

Do I have a second? Second. Motion by Malega, second by Segwitch. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you very much.

What was it? Malega 1, Seg 2, 4-0.

Yeah, but who knows what I did.

Hopefully the clerk is as well. Commissioner comments. Where do you want to start? Who wants to go first? I'll go first. All right. Miss May wants to go first.

So just a couple things. I spent yesterday with Davidson from Refuse. And I didn't get to ride on the trucks, so I have to go back because I really want to ride on the trucks. But I did... Because who doesn't want to ride a garbage truck? Anyway, I didn't get to do that. So I have to go back. But well, you know me. But anyway, one of I am very glad that I did it because a couple of things I got to do a couple of things. The first thing was Christine in the office. She took me into her office and showed me the computer program that they got when they put all the cameras on the trucks. So you can see all the little do do do do do do do do do. and where all the little trucks are and how long they've been idle and it gives it gives the real time of where every single truck is and she showed me the video of the incident um with and so that incident you know they have that for evidence for court cases so i and for the safety of the um employees. And also little things that I didn't think about it, the trucks idling too long at the transfer station, then they call and say, you know, Oh, what's going on over there? Oh, the line's really long today, or, you know, something like that. So It was, I thought that was cool. And then, so then we got in the regular white truck, but we followed around the picker guy for bulk, because it was bulk in Sarah's district and it was recycling as well. So we got to see the recycling truck and the bulk guy, that thing's cool, drives backwards with the little things. But I thought it was really, that was really good. But one of the things that I talked to him about was our proposal to change the bulk day. Not change it, to add a second bulk day. And here's what I learned. Our city is very small, but the two sides of it, I hate to say that, have different needs. And the... The west side needs a second bulk day. The east side needs to keep its veg day for two reasons. One, there's more veg there. But two, we make a lot of money on the vegetation because when we deliver it, they do something with it, but they pay us for it. So especially in zone three. So I don't want to make a change that's going to take away from a non-advalerable source of funding. And then I said, well, can't we do it half and half? They weren't happy about that. And then the manager kind of reminded me, if that's the direction, they'll figure it out. But we need to kind of figure out what we want to do with that with the needs of the city in mind. Because having a second bulk day In my neighborhood, it doesn't make any sense.

Can I just say, in my neighborhood, if bulk was the first week of the month, it would greatly change things. So I hear you. It's a rental district.

I hear you. I absolutely hear you. They don't have the data to support that. And they really, really, really don't want to switch the day. The adding of the second one makes more sense for that district than the switching of the week. So I don't know what we're going to do about it, but I think that it might be who you guys to talk directly to the department and Christine and find out what we can do. But it was, you know, I don't like to make decisions unless I like go and look and ask because I'm not picking up the garbage. So I want to know what they think. And I just... They said originally it was two and two and it was requested by zone three with a lot of pressure from zone three to make it three veggies in one bulk. So if we want to add another bulk week, we can do whatever we want. We just have to make sure that we're willing to fund it or figure out how to do it. But I want you guys to think about what I learned. and put it into some sort of plan.

Madam Mayor, I did want to make sure we clarify because the original consensus from the board was to look at starting something in August and moving those pickups to the first week of each month. But I believe once the director took a look at it, he was recommending that we alter that and come up with a second week, a second date. So we just need to talk about it and make sure we're on the same page.

What if we just added a second bulk day to the west side? Don't mess with the east side. Well, I don't know. You're good. I don't know.

And I can get with the director and maybe come up with three or four different options and maybe bring it back to the board.

I don't know that just switching the bulk day is going to matter.

In my district, vegetation is not the issue.

No, it is not.

I mean, it is the bulk.

And I know I was there. I was watching it.

And again, it's a high rent district. Right. I think that, you know, when you look at most of the people and landlords move out the last week and but yet my bulk is the third week of the month. You know what happens? All that bulk sits in the yard or sits on porches and then it looks horrible or they put it out and then they get fined.

Right. No, I completely agree with you. But in my neighborhood, if I took out a veg day when they have the lawn guys putting it out the day before, I'm going to hear about it.

So we have to figure out it. My landscapers take it away with them. They don't. I mean, that's part of what I pay for when they do trees and when they do. I mean, that might be solved part of the problem. I was just going to comment on that. Let me just really real quick.

You say the west side and the east side. Now, you live in a different section of the east side than I do, Ms. Maynard.

And my section of the east side has a bit of a need for bulk as well.

Well, I've gotten emails from South Palm Park saying, please don't take away our budget. So I guess there are different...

I'm not saying take away, but I'm just saying.

A second bulk day wouldn't kill everybody, but we can't take away the veg day to do it. Right. And South Palm Park has a different demographic than where I live. I know. That's my point. My point is, is that our city has different needs in different areas. And so to make one general... I know. And then we generally do that. We make one policy... But that's not helping everybody. And the goal is to give people each what they need. Not everybody gets the same thing.

So you're saying add a bulk day to the... Well, it's equity.

I'm saying let staff figure it out, but we can't just take away that. What's the staff figure now?

I was the one that actually made that consensus item, and it was to add a bulk day. And then...

If we can afford it.

Yeah. it comes out of it's not out of the general fund but um right but I know but I was just saying it wasn't to swap the days it was to add a add a second collection okay and then and and it wasn't to start in August it was to come up with a plan

Okay.

That wasn't. No. I mean, it's a different item, but the consensus would, and I think it was made by Commissioner Malega to start in August.