City Commission - workshop

fun.

Madam Mayor, it is 9.01 and we are live.

Good morning. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the June 26th meeting, pre-agenda meeting of the City of Lake Worth Beach, Florida. May I have the roll call, please?

Mayor Betty Resch?

Here.

Vice Mayor Mimi May is actually, I'm just promoting her to panelists. She is here. Commissioner Sarah Maliga, I don't see yet. Commissioner Christopher McVoy?

Here.

And Commissioner Anthony Segrich?

Present.

Okay. Good morning, everyone. Let's start with the agenda. Does anybody have anything they'd like to talk about with regards to the agenda?

I have a couple items.

Are they about this agenda?

One, yes. Others, sort of.

Oh, Chris, you're always a mystery. Let me just get my note for you. We never know what to expect from you. Thank you. Okay, good morning, Ms. May.

Good morning.

Good morning, can you hear me now?

Yeah, we can hear you now.

That's the question of the day. Okay. Well, we've welcomed everybody. Mimi, do you have anything about the agenda that you'd like to talk about? Yeah, but I'll wait. My turn. Okay. What about you, Mr. Sagrich?

Nothing in particular.

Okay. All right. So I'm going to be bold and brave and ask Mr. McVoy what he's going to talk about.

Just three things. All of us know about the earthquake in Venezuela. If you would like to make any sort, probably the best at this point that we're finding is financial donations. There are groups that are gathering medicines and medical supplies, because that's in short supply in Venezuela, and are bringing finding ways to get it flown into the country. If you'd like to make donations, you can do it either to the Rojas Law Group, which is at 309 Lake, or to the Guatemala Maya Center, but earmark it for Venezuela, 1776 Lake Worth Road. Keep your thoughts and prayers in that direction. It was pretty bad. The second one is, I'm looking, this does relate to the agenda, upcoming agenda, I'm looking for consensus from my colleagues to consider putting, all of us know, I think, that the Supreme Court had a decision yesterday, I guess, to essentially end temporary protected status, TPS, for Haitians and Syrians. And that directly, as we all know, we have a big Haitian community here in Lake Worth. I don't know people's individuals, whether they're, you know, a lot were on TPS or were on other things. That I don't know. But it wouldn't be surprising that at least some of the people were on or are currently on TPS. The House has passed an extension of TPS for Haitians. The Senate has not. So what I'm looking for consensus from my colleagues is that we put an emergency resolution, because the Supreme Court case has a date of June 30th to start taking effect, an emergency resolution to ask our Florida senators to support the House resolution on this, our House bill, I guess it is. So I'm looking for consensus from my colleagues that we put a resolution that we urge them to do that and send it to them post-haste once we pass it.

Could you have anything about the agenda?

That is about the agenda, an emergency.

No, no, I mean anything that's on the agenda.

No, I don't believe so. Okay. And I have one more item that is agenda-related, but not necessarily specifically that one. But first, I'd like to get consensus on what I've asked for.

Well, Chris, you know, we've been through this about foreign things that we really – you know, we did the one thing about – ukraine years ago and i sort of regret having done that because i didn't i didn't want to set a precedent but um you know i wouldn't let me hear from my colleagues is there any consensus to do that oh i'm sorry mr savage i'm sorry i looked down thank you

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just take it as a matter of personal policy. I don't comment on national level politics. I don't think it's my role. We represent a very diverse group of people here in the city of Lake Worth Beach. So I don't think No matter what we say, we would be speaking for everybody. And I think something like that, we need to be speaking for everybody. So I just think the purpose of the city commission is to focus on city issues. And I understand that we may have some residents that are impacted by this. and I would urge everyone to contact our senators and express their opinions one way or the other. I certainly will do so as a private citizen, but I do not consent to doing a resolution from the dais.

Thank you. Mimi, do you have any thoughts?

I do. as much as I understand where Chris is going with this, because I personally have a huge issue with that. I don't, I still don't think it's appropriate for us to do it because as we at Lake Anthony said, we're speaking by speaking together as a group, we're speaking for the city of Lake Worth beach. And I'm, Don't know that we have the ability to know what the entire city of Lake Worth beaches is thinking about that. And I also think the impact would be stronger coming from 45,000 individuals versus five of us as a city. And I know that that may sound backwards, but I really believe that it needs to come from the hearts and souls of the individual citizens of the United States. And I certainly, I actually was shocked because I mean, we literally just talked about that. We talked about them extending it and then all of a sudden they were ending it. So I have no problem doing it individually. And I think that it would behoove maybe Chris to put the information about which senators and this, that, and the other, maybe on your Facebook page or something. But as a dais, I'm not comfortable with that. And I don't, I just, I can't do it.

Okay. Yes, Chris. Yes, Chris. Anthony, your hand's still up. Chris. No, I was looking for the mayor's... Oh, you know, whatever my personal feelings may be about what happened, about so many things that are happening these days, I think we've made the position as a commission fairly clear, and we've been criticized by a group of people for this, that we should, in terms of statements, that we should really stick to our local, our more local government policies. I understand I have Haitian neighbors. It's a nightmare what's happening. But again, I think if we do it personally, and if you would give us that information, Chris, about who to write to, if there's a specific person, I would absolutely do it as a private citizen. But I think we're out of our, whatever that word is, to do a resolution. I think we did it once, and I think it was a mistake. So...

Okay, I... would just point out that, I mean, I hear that there is not inclination to have leadership at the elected level. I would point out that the argument that is made that, you know, we might not be speaking for everybody. We make decisions all the time that we have very clearly had members of our community come and tell us that you're making the wrong decision and we have no problem going forward. So, I don't know that that argument is very weighty. Would there be consensus to put together a letter, as we did to the school board recently, and commissioners can sign on to it on city letterhead? And as far as who it goes to, it goes to our federal senators, Ashley Moody and Rick Scott. I assume we know how to reach them. uh would there if if i put together a letter to that effect would there be any interest in signing on by anybody i'd have to think about it i mean i i would almost do it myself as a because then again it becomes an official action as we did for the school board um which is the school well i forget what the issue was with the school board but um raises for the teachers

Right, which, yeah. All right. Well, I think you've heard. Okay. All right.

Then I'll go to my last item. I appreciate everybody weighing in where they are. It's unfortunate that we are not standing behind our Haitian residents, but well. Yeah, well, we...

Well, absolutely. No, Chris, you know, you have a way of twisting things and it's you do it to your advantage.

And it's really all stated clearly your position. So that's fine. It is not a support. That's pretty clear. Anyhow, I recall that two weeks ago we asked for what I believe was referred to as a one pager of the cost. of the garage, full cost, soft, hard, sideways, whatever, and the benefits of the garage in terms of parking spaces, put it all clearly in one place. And I believe we gave consensus for SAF to do that. What I'm a little puzzled by is I've heard quite a bit, sometimes from the DEA, sometimes from the community, This information is all readily available, and I don't know why people haven't just dug around and gotten it themselves. If that is the case, I'm a little puzzled that it's taken staff, and no disrespect for staff, but if this is all readily available, I'm very surprised that it's taken staff two weeks to pull together information and put it on in clear black and white on one or two pages. For our biggest project in a long time, upwards of $10 million of public money, and we don't have universally agreed upon piece of paper that says, this is what it costs, this is what you get. It seems like, I don't know, I'm puzzled that that information that supposedly is readily available is taking two weeks to put together clearly. And we still, I still haven't seen it. And the community hasn't seen it.

Mr. Zagrej.

Thank you Madam Mayor. I think we have something in our inbox right now that is a pretty clear one page outline of all the costs associated with the project. So I would hope Mr. McLeod can check his email on that. And in terms of staff taking two weeks, thank you to staff pulling it together. I am often a critic of timelines and so on. With all that we have going on, if we could get things like this in two weeks, I'd be more than happy because a lot of times we have to wait a long time for certain things to come in. I am shocked and I continue to be shocked that Mr. McVoy, you voted for a garage without knowing these things and now all of a sudden they're having buyer's remorse. It would have been nice if when you voted to move this version of the garage forward, you agreed with the concerns that were raised by other commissioners at that time. You know, the document's pretty clear. I think the one outstanding item about the garage that I would like to see clarity on is for us as a body to finally decide what are we doing with the 17 South M Street building that gets moved. Because it's unfair, I think, to ask staff to put a cost to something that we, the decision makers, have no plan for or agreed upon plan for. And the costs for that particular item vary wildly from 600,000 all the way over 2.5 million or 2.4 million. So I think as a body, we owe it to our constituents to make a decision what are we going to do with that building and what is that building going to cost? So I'm kind of half agreeing with you, Mr. McFoy, on this, but I think blame lies with us as a body not making the decision so that staff can come back with actuals.

Mr. Perry. Mr. Perry.

Chris, I'm calling on Mr. Perry.

I would like- Thank you.

So let him speak. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. As Commissioner Secret says, we provided the commission with a document on last evening. We apologize because it took two weeks. But one of the things we try to do is do our research. And as we talked about trying to get an estimate of what we believe will be the cost It might not be in the format that commissioner might feel acceptable. However, we are committed to going back and changing any modifications that we need to make the document so we can truly understand the cost. Going back to what commissioner Segrist says, if the commissioner, like I can always put on maybe We have that annex meeting in a few weeks. If you'd like, we can also add that 17 South M to that agenda. We just want to talk about some of the ideas the staff may have and the commission can also comment on what they think that they might want to see. But as of now, we gave you two different options. Option one would be moving the building, making some minimal modifications to the building, like update the AC, whatever, little things like that. And then option B would be a full renovation of the building that will maybe accommodate staff, all of staff in the future. So we have two options. And if needed, we could put it on our agenda, just do a good discussion on it. And we don't have to come up with anything, but at least come up with some ideas on what you'd like staff to go back and take a look at and bring back to the commission.

Thank you, Mr. Perry. Yeah. And Anthony, you know, With all due respect, I mean, years ago, a number of years ago, when this whole thing started like five years ago, six years ago, one of the concerns was the demolition or the destruction of all those buildings. And I was part of that criticism. And what we decide to do with that building, we've used it now for offices. We've talked about using it for a visitor center. In my way of thinking, the fact that the building will survive and be moved.

Yes, thank you.

Whoops, the audio cut out.

She just lost her audio. Mayor, we can't hear you.

Really? Now we can. Now we can.

Now we can.

Now we can.

No, I started to say, you know, Anthony, you weren't here, you know, years ago when we were all doing this, soul-searching you know a large chunk of the downtown was destroyed was was demolished and one of the points of moving the building is to was to save the last remaining structure of the downtown cottage feel so my feeling is it's and part of its optics in terms of also the um Having, you know, it's my neighborhood. Having a house on First Avenue South rather than the ass end of a parking garage, I think, is a much more desirable way to present the parking garage to the neighborhood. You know, you don't live here. We go past it every day. And I'd rather see a house there than the end of a parking garage. I'm sorry. We can be resourceful. and figure something out. And I know that you've been very, Anthony, very, Mr. Segrich, very against moving it. I mean, it's clear. And you'll say, well, we should have a reason for it. Yeah, we should have a reason for it. I think we will come up for a reason for it, whether it's a visitor center or a meeting place for people. But I think the overarching concept was to keep and survive at least one of those buildings from the downtown. That's my two cents. So I, I have no, I have no hesitation. I will. And I understand it's money, but I think if we move it, you know, you can go to, you can always spend a lot of money where you can spend less money, but the building is in great shape. It can be used for something. So my feeling is, you know, I keep hearing you talk, you bring it up quite often. And I think we've settled it. I think we voted to move it. So that's my two cents, Mr. McCoy. And then Mr. Yeah, I, I,

I don't want to get into the discussion of the building and the moving, although I do very much agree with the mayor's concern about loss of historic buildings as part of this overall WMOTA project. We've lost a lot in the downtown. And we know that it is an important part of our competitive advantage of the city. So I'm concerned about that. And so are a lot of other people. I just want to set the record straight. Commissioner Segrich, repeatedly has said, well, Commissioner McVoy has voted for this. The record is very clear. I have voted against the W Motor Project and against the garage repeatedly. The one time that I voted in favor of it was when the option was we have to pick something and the only option was Solomon's choice of do we save that building, the 17 South M, or not? That is the only time that I have voted for anything in favor of the garage. Actually, I think there might, I don't know if there was a vote. Yes, I think that we were heavily, this was before Commissioner Segrich was on, I think, when an attorney for WMOTA came and said, we need you to do a non-binding vote in favor of the garage. I might have voted for it at that point early on because they seem to say that they couldn't move forward without it, blah, blah, blah. But any number of other votes, I very clearly opposed it because I don't think it's a wise use of public funds. I don't think it is going to bring the benefits. And we haven't seen the data to support it. We've seen assertions. So I would appreciate it if Commissioner Segwidge would refrain from saying that Commissioner McVoy has consistently voted for it or has voted for it. Yes, I voted for protecting that historic building. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Mr. Segwidge? Thank you, Madam Mayor. You know, Chris, to quote one of your most favorite lines, good governance, right? You know, good governance could have been to vote, don't do the garage at all. It wasn't an option at that point. I'm speaking, sir. I was willing to let it die because the financials don't work. You weren't. That's okay. In terms of 17 South M, Madam Mayor, I'm not arguing for not moving it. I know very clearly that I've been on the record about that and that I lost that vote. What disturbs me is that it seems like You're willing to spend a million dollars of taxpayer money to improve your view without a plan for how to use that building. So I believe we owe it to our residents to make a decision, and we owe it to the team that's actually trying to estimate this stuff. What are we going to use this building for? I'm not saying don't move it. I'm saying let's actually make the choice. Why are we kicking this can down the road? If you guys are so... Emphatic that this building is so important needs to be saved. What are we saving it for if we're saving it purely for your view? That's fine. Let's say that we're going to keep the building empty. It's going to be a nice facade. It's going to cost the citizen $600,000 for that facade. And we can go from there. But if it's going to be a community center, let's tell them what the cost is going to be. If it's going to be offices, let's tell them what the cost is going to be. You know, I don't understand why we keep kicking it down the road and not actually making a decision of what are we going to utilize this building for? So I'm not trying to kill it. As you're suggesting, I just want us to tell the residents and tell staff who has to actually do this project what they're doing. You know, but, you know, it seems like you're perfectly content to move out of office, never having to make that decision and leaving it in the lap of another commission that didn't vote to move it. So we as a commission voted to move it. We as a commission should also take a vote to dictate what it is to be used for. Otherwise, you know, in April of next year, if it comes up and it's going to cost $2.4 million to make it useful, that commission is going to get called out and being said, you're wasting the taxpayer's money. Oh, my God, I don't believe you could spend that much money on that particular building. so thank you mr secretary i would like i would like us to have consensus to to allow mr perry to put this on the agenda and have thank you staff has ideas okay so do we have consensus to put it on the agenda thank you mimi miss may um

Just point of clarification, according to the estimate that we have, the one pager, it is $750,000 to relocate it. Just so we've been saying 650, it's 750. Not that that really is a huge difference, but I just want the numbers to be accurate. The... I think we should decide what we are going to do with it. I don't mind putting it on an agenda. I think it's more appropriate to figure out what we're going to do with that than the annex. Because the annex, at least with this one, we're in the middle of moving it and making a decision. The annex building, we don't have the funding to do anything with it anyway. So I don't know why we would be even having that on the agenda because we don't have the means to do it. Um, so I think it makes more sense to have the discussion regarding 17 South M because we're already moving it. And it is a relatively sort of functioning office building at this point. I don't know if we, I don't know ADA, um, cause I know the narrow, the hallways are pretty narrow and they wouldn't fit, um, wheelchairs if we had to do that. And I also know that there's no elevator and there's only one set of staircase. There's only the one staircase in there. So I don't know if, excuse me, no matter what we do, we have to make it ADA compliant. I also think to the point, it really will matter what we do with it, what we need to do with it. I don't think it's a bad idea to have a visitor center because you really don't have to do much from it. I don't think it's a bad idea to have it be the parking office, which makes most sense. You're literally at the parking garage. It could be multiple uses. You could do parking and the You could do parking on the ground floor. You could do the museum on the second floor. I think that we should discuss what to do with that. I think staff should come back with some options like they did with the parking garage. You can do ABCD and we can vote on that. We could do, staff could come back with ABCD. We could put a poll on the website and the citizens could vote what they think we should do with it. But I think that it isn't fair to say, oh, it's somewhere between 750 and 2.5 million, depending on what we do with it. Because we don't know. I think that it is an important conversation to talk about the O&M. which we do have an estimate for now. According to this one pager, it's $221,000 a year. So it would be, I mean, I think the general fund could handle that. You know, it's not the end of the world, but it's not that much money. But I think it is important that we make that decision. Where is that coming from? How is that part being funded, at least for now? So I think there are still some discussions that we can have. I don't think they need to be done before Tuesday because the second reading of the ordinance is not dependent on these decisions. But I do think that we are elected to make decisions and we should do so.

Which I have no problem with, but it's just, I mean, I have no problem with talking about it. And I think the idea of putting it out there, if we can inform the public about what the different uses would entail, as long as we can educate them as to the different choices, I think that's great.

I have no problem with- What would it be? What would it cost? What would it- Right, right. What would be the benefits? What would be the drawbacks? I mean, I think that those are very important conversations to have. But I think options have to be out there. I know Anthony just said staff has options. I'm not aware of them. So that would be nice to know. And I know that Sarah had an idea, you know, and if the public has an idea of what they'd like to see, have them call us, have them email us. But that decision should be made. It doesn't need to be made today. But I am for putting it on an agenda to discuss. Absolutely. That is our responsibility as electives.

No problem with that at all. I just want to, you know, don't want to see it held up. So we can, um, and so staff, if we can, uh, impose upon you or whatever to, um, at some point in the next, you know, we were in budget, we've got a lot, we have a lot going on, but, um, I, if we want to do a, uh, either discuss it at a workshop or bring it up in a meeting. I have absolutely no problem with that. I think it's a good idea.

What day is the annex discussion?

What?

What day is the annex discussion? What date?

Oh, I don't know. Madam Mayor? Yeah?

That is July 27th, Madam Mayor.

So what if we added it to that discussion?

That could be good.

Madam Mayor, Commissioner McVoy has his hand up. I see his hand up. I was just waiting for you.

Mr. McVoy. Thank you. I am interested to hear the comments of what we owe to our constituents or our residents. I have asked for and I adamantly believe we owe it to our residents to be very clear about full costs, full alternatives, and whether we've considered them, and full, clear, on-paper commitment of what the public is getting. Because what I am starting to hear from residents is, whoa, we are losing X number of surface parking, unrestricted spots. Anybody can park. They are not leased out to anybody. There's no, you can just go and use them. And now I'm starting to hear, well, there's some new developments coming. We may be leasing spaces in the new garage to those new developments. It'll help pay for it. And sort of an implication to developers that don't worry about parking quite so much because you'll be able to formally or informally use the parking garage. I believe we owe it to our residents of the city and the taxpayers to not do bait and switches. Hey, we're taking away these many parking spaces. And we said we were going to solve our apparent parking problem downtown by creating a parking garage. And then we turn around and give a chunk of it to WMOTA, another chunk of it to other developers. If we want to be clear, let's make some clear black and white commitments. How many unrestricted, fully unrestricted spaces will there be in this thing that you're getting? And I still think we need to be very clear about how it's going to be funded. Is this going to lead us to paid parking on the street, paid parking in the garage, whatever? In terms of what we owe constituents, there are much bigger things than what we do with 17 South M and much bigger expenditures.

Thank you. I was also a little surprised to hear about the concept of leasing spaces. I think if we're going to lease spaces out, it should be at the Bohemian, not at the downtown parking garage. And I was I don't know where that I just heard that recently. Maybe I don't know where it came from, but I share your concerns, Mr. McVoy, about that. I think that if we're going to have people from new developments, we have a big empty parking garage four blocks away. So I shared with you with that. Mr. Segrich.

Well, Solomon, it's your baby. I was concerned about the number of parking spaces on this one from the beginning. I'm glad you're here.

I'm just saying, it was not discussed at first about leasing out parking spaces. So that has somehow come up, and I don't know where that came from, and I don't agree with it.

And depending on usage, that may or may not be a good idea, right? You can't make that decision until you know how the actual usage goes. I think we start off with unrestricted spaces. I don't think you start off with now leasing them out.

I agree. I agree.

I'm not a fan of that, but I think we need to not eliminate it as an option. We need to study the usage and then figure it out after that. But in terms of the number of actual spaces, Mr. McVoy, I can't agree with you more. You know, this parking lot design does not have an adequate number of spaces. The price per space could have been so much better had we done a different design. And, you know, it is a little annoying to hear you continually complain about something that you yourself voted for and you liken yourself to Solomon. Well, you didn't make a very good decision and it's your baby. So live with it.

I don't know who you're talking to. Ms. May?

Sorry, Anthony just threw me off on my brain. Hold on. Wow. Oh, the leasing of the spots. I agree with you guys. I don't think that it would behoove us to make any commitments to any developers, but that kind of goes back to the decision, which was pre-me, pre-Anthony, and I don't know how much pre-you guys, but where we have the policy that you can buy in lieu of spaces. and that you only have one space per unit, even if the units are two bedrooms. That's the policy that's gonna be the problem. And I know that, for example, there's a suggested building up on 45th Street where it's 400 units. Most of them, the plan is to make them one bedroom, but each of them gets 1.6 spots. So, I mean, granted, it's a different location, but I'm just saying in general, I don't know that it's great policy to have one spot for two bedroom units. So my suggestion is to look at that policy as opposed to trying to bandaid it by leasing other spots. Now, I'm not saying that it should be a one to one ratio of unit units. unit bedrooms to spots, because I understand that some people will have, some people won't have. And when you lease, like for example, when people lease or purchase the building behind the Gulf Street, that didn't come with parking. There is no parking. That's not the city's problem. And so when you purchase something, knowing the restrictions on it, you have to abide by those restrictions and you can't say, well, I want two cars. Well, you didn't buy parking for two cars. Now, are there things that we can do to make it easier for some of the residents parking? Yes. We have policies where you can't make driveways or you can't make parking spaces on people's properties. Those are things we should look at because then people can park on their property.

You can have a driveway. I just want to ask.

Sometimes you can't, though. Sometimes you can't have a driveway. If you have one of the 25-foot lots and your house is set back, you're not allowed to put a driveway because you're concrete to whatever. Allow it. But then you're also... taking up street spots when there is room for you to have parking on your property. So there are different ways for us to optimize parking spaces downtown with both residential and commercial spaces. And I think we need to go back and look at those policies. Now, I understand that they were to incentivize development, but incentivizing development and hamstringing the people that actually live here and have to function we have to find a better way to do that. So I suggest that we instruct staff to go back and look at that policy, look at industry standards. What is the industry standard? Because I am sure it can't be one-to-one and probably for two bedroom apartments. So I think it's a bigger conversation than just we're swapping this for that. I think we have opportunities to increase parking downtown by looking at personal property parking spots. I think we need to look at our own policy. And I also think that the conversation of paid parking, I think that it's, at least in my opinion, it's not on the table right now. So to continue to bring it up over and over again, it's very premature. We nobody has said that they want to do that after hearing the residents. So I think that, you know, I've been quoted with something that I have said in the past and the residents have said, you know, that's not what we want. OK, this is not Mimi City. It's the resident city. And so we we figure out a different way to go. So I just think that there's a lot more conversation and it's not as black and white. I think there's going to have to be compromise in all of these decisions. And I don't think blaming each other is helpful. I think nobody's going to get everything they want. So let's look and see where we can compromise. That's where I am.

Thank you. I have two comments. In lieu of parking fee, it's been in place for months. as long as I can remember from the nineties or the early two hundreds. And I have always thought it's a bad idea because it's never enough to actually create new parking. It just becomes this fund, which is at this point, if we said staff, how many parking spaces, what can we do with this money? And I, so I have, And it doesn't solve the parking problem, for example, the mid or the, you know, the different things. So I think I agree with that looking at that policy. I think it's a bad policy in practice. Maybe in theory, it's a good one, but it hasn't worked out. The other thing I want to say about driveways, and we have alleys, I mean, downtown, pretty much in the city, I mean, the parking could, if you have a parking space to come off the alley, because what happens is, and I just experienced, I went to a dinner, a friend's house the other night and because everyone has a driveway in the front of their house, there's no parking spaces on that street. It's pretty interesting. The effect that it does have on parking when there are a lot of driveways. So I would always encourage people, right. So I would also, you know, encourage if we're going to have parking spaces, have them off the alley, come in from the, that's, that's what they do pretty much in my street. Um, so, um, So those, I just want to bring up those two things. I think the, in lieu of parking, uh, it's, it's almost like with, you know, the sustainable credits, I, you know, I find them a little sometimes questionable. Mr. Segridge. Mr. Segridge.

No. Thank you. My internet looked there for a second. I appreciate Commissioner Mays, Vice Mayor Mays' creative ideas on some of this. I would consent to a discussion about resident parking, dealing with the front yard, the permeable space. I do know, at least in my district, that has been an issue for people, people looking to do circular drives and so on. I do recognize the mayor's comment that sometimes driveways everywhere eliminate parking everywhere and you don't actually get a gain. And that you know needs to be weighed too but i think it's worthy of a discussion to see if there's a way that we can um work on that um to to achieve more off-street parking um for for the residents because i know as some of these um developments are going up on federal on the side streets right there we're getting inundated um with with parking from from those developments um in terms of um This is another item that I think as a commission, we should be looking at and make an actual policy decision. There's been a number of developments as well as businesses coming in and they don't have any parking. They don't have enough parking for their use. And we've been inkling or leaning towards making an exception and allowing them to lease spaces from somewhere else. There's a huge issue with that. What happens if that lease goes defunct? What happens if somebody breaks that lease? Are you then gonna go pull the certificate of occupancy for that building or those residents? So I think as a body, that should be an item we discuss and make a definitive choice on. Can you build a building and lease the parking spaces for your requirement? My thought is no. I think those parking spaces should have to exist. In terms of the pay in lieu, you need something for your downtown and your highly congested areas like Dixie Highway where there just is no parking. So without some sort of something in lieu, you will have no businesses. And so the reason this has been around forever is because that's essentially one of the only ways you can get businesses into these congested areas. They simply don't have the parking. You look at any one of our businesses in the downtown, none of them, with a few exceptions, almost none of them have parking to support their use, right? So you need some sort of in lieu program. It is an interesting question there that you kind of brought up. Where did all this pay in lieu parking money go?

I would be very- I'm sure we can find out.

Well, I'm saying I would be very interested in understanding how much have we collected and what do we use it on? Did we actually use it on parking development? So because it would strike me I haven't seen the city build any parking garages. I know we put money into the Bohemian, but I haven't seen the city at least in nine years build any new parking. Where is that money going to? If there is a lot of this program being taken advantage of, because that would suggest it's a creating parking problems if many people are doing the paid in lieu. Well, if many people are doing the paid in lieu, why don't we have a large chunk just sitting there to help pay for this garage or for that purpose? I know you've been critical about me asking for large data sets from staff, but maybe we have agreement on this one that I think this is a worthy thing to get some information on. But in terms of I would ask consensus of my colleagues or agreement of my colleagues that in the future, not saying immediately, but in the future, have staff have an examination of that ability to lease parking spaces in lieu. Because I feel very strongly that you shouldn't be able to do that.

You're kind of- Excuse me, I didn't hear, should be able to lease?

Should not, should not. Should not.

I have a comment about that when you're done.

Yeah, one quick example is we just had a bar approved that did not have any spaces, and they're, quote, going to lease spaces across Dixie Highway. And so now you have people going to a bar who are supposed to park across Dixie Highway, having alcohol, and then we're sending them across Dixie Highway? Well, people cross streets.

My thought about the lease, if I may, I think, and we have our lawyer here, we have William here, I think that there would be sort of an alternative to a lease, which would be an easement that runs with the land. If the property owner... Um, you know, they have a parking lot and they're willing to lease out 10 spaces. Okay. Not a lease, but an actual easement, which is a recorded runs of the land. So if they sell it, it's, it's, it exists. So I think there's a way if you want to do that, there's, I think there's a way to do that.

That's a very good idea.

Yeah. And, um, uh, you know, I'm in the Gulf stream, uh, condos were built with no parking. So I think, Oh, Mr. Yeah. Right.

Mr. Mayor, I've had my, I see your hand.

I see your hand. I'll be right with you. I have a question for Mr. Waters. If you have, if you know, often, what are we charging for per space for in lieu of parking? Do you remember?

We just upped it to $25,000 last fiscal year. Staff had recommended 30, which would more come close to what the actual cost would be. But the commission voted 25. Part of that had been 15. About 16 years ago, I guess, the in lieu of fee was reduced from 15,000 to 7,500. We've only collected, since I've been here and it's almost 16 years, money from only a couple of entities, maybe three or four spaces. And then the largest one, was a contribution from a motive $1,000,000. The city did decide in 2014 or 15 to refund to a business downtown Rotelli's the money they had spent on the in lieu of parking spaces. So we gave them a check for a little over $100,000. The money has been used to buy a parking meter or two for the space the city used to lease next to Cafe Paradiso. That parking lot, the city did own it one time. I'm not quite sure how we got rid of it. Then we leased it while Susan Stanton was here, and we used the money to put there. We've also used some of the money from the downtown fund, I believe, to help pay for the parking study for how we would handle parking in downtown. The fund has not collected very much money. People are not overly excited about paying $25,000 for a virtual space. It doesn't exist.

Thank you. Mr. McVoy. Thank you.

A couple things. I agree with Vice Mayor May with the comment that we should be using industry standard numbers at least. Some will recall that when we were considering the apartment building associated with WMOTA, I pointed out that, and residents also pointed out that what we were approving included no guest parking, zero, and one parking space per apartment with a number of them with two bedrooms, and that just, didn't seem realistic. And we were told there was nothing we could do about it. Well, we could have not approved it, would have been one thing. Madam Mayor?

Yeah, go ahead. I mean, we can visit the past as much as you'd like to.

Madam Mayor, you're interrupting my time, thank you. Yes, I am. Okay, thank you. Please don't. We've also repeatedly been told and apparently never researched or challenged WMOTA's assertion that their museum would draw 50,000 visitors a year. And that was part of our basis for giving them public funds and public land and a bunch of other things. And yet we allow that to be built with, I think it's maybe eight parking spaces or something. And I think we need to be clear that There is a problem here. And what's really happening is taxpayers are paying for a garage that is funding developers and subsidizing them instead of us saying, no, you have to account for it on your development, on your museum, whatever. You got to take care of that yourself. That million dollars that Mr. Waters just mentioned, much of that is being pissed away on design costs. And now we're being told that maybe some of those parking spaces in this garage that are supposedly needed to fix our problem downtown are gonna get leased out to other things. It's the bait and switch aspect part, I find very irresponsible use of taxpayer money.

Thank you, Ms. May.

I would like to bring up just one other issue, because we've kind of been on this for a while.

Thank you, yeah.

And this is actually for staff. I was at Compass the other night and it was quite hot. And I just wanted to know what is the status of the air conditioning from the CDBG money? Have we heard from HUD? Where are we on that? You don't have to tell me now. Maybe in the city manager's report on Tuesday. But it was quite warm. And... And the other thing I just want to understand, and this might be a Yannick question. I just want to understand and have the public understand because on the consent agenda for Tuesday, we are establishing the proposed millage rate and the preliminary refuse assessment. And it was explained to me that what we're doing here is putting the highest level that it could be I'm just confused because I don't want to approve on consent the numbers that are in here. So I want it to be very clear that these are not the numbers that are going to go to the tax collector. And then we are going to have the opportunity during budget to set these, because if we're setting these, A, it shouldn't be on consent, because that's a huge decision. And B, I want to have a discussion about it. So can that, I know that Mr. Perry kind of explained it to me in my 101, but I kind of want everybody to have the same explanation.

Good idea.

Did you want that now or you want to just put it as part of our report?

No, I think that if you have it now, just because if it is going to be the final end all, I would pull it from consent. So I would appreciate just kind of go over it again.

No problem, Yannick. I think Yannick is on line. Yannick, can you give an explanation about that, please?

Yes, Yannick, with finance. So what we have on consent is the millage rate that has not changed from last year for both the Avalorum and also the debt millage rate that has not changed from last year that should be on consent.

And the refuse.

I'm sorry?

And refuse.

Yes, and refuse that's preliminary, that's required by the county, that's the deadline. We have to get it done by this meeting. by mid-July, but we didn't want to push it to the deadline.

So if we vote on Tuesday for the refuse amount, that's the amount?

Correct, because that's the increase that we voted on, that we had consensus on during the budget workshop, which I believe was 7%.

Okay. Yana, can that number change once we file out the budget?

No, that's the preliminary that we have to send to the tax collector. Because we have to send notices, I believe, 20 days prior to the hearing.

What about the millage rate?

The millage rate, that's also set by the county. We could always change that. Thank you.

So the garbage rate, if we wanted it to be something different, we would have to pull it from consent and talk about it?

Correct. We would need to vote on it.

We still have an opportunity when we're going through the budget to increase or decrease the millage rate based on what the commission approves in terms of the budget. Correct.

Mr. Brown, would you hand it for a second?

Yeah, Yannick covered it. I was just going to mention for the solid waste at least, for the non-Avalor, just what we do to the county. Thank you.

Mr. Perry, your hand is up.

Yes, Madam Mayor. I was going to just make some comments at the end. That's all. I was just putting it up right before we, you know, if I wanted to make a couple of comments.

Okay. Are we pulling it from consent then?

I think we need to consider, I mean, Well, we can all think about that and decide if we want to pull it on the day of. We don't need to do it now.

No, no. Perfect. I see your hand up, Anthony. Ms. Coyne, though, the clerk is...

Yes, I'm sorry, Madam Mayor, very quickly. We are tasked with keeping track of all the consensus items. And so I have three that I need to know what the consensus is. So the The first one was regarding the 17th South M Street. That will be added to the July 27th special meeting. And I know that Commissioner Segridge, you and the Vice Mayor were in favor of that. I don't know where Mr. McVoy stands on that. If you're in yes for consensus or no, Commissioner?

Only if it's a full discussion of the parking garage.

Okay, thank you. Um, and then, uh, there was a, uh, I believe the vice mayor asked for consensus regarding a discussion about resident parking. And I did not have any, um, votes on that.

No, I didn't ask for that. I just wanted staff. Okay.

I just want to make sure I capture everything. And then the last one I heard from commissioner Sagridge was. having staff examine the in lieu of parking policy. And I didn't hear anything from anybody else on that.

I think it was an overall look at our parking policy. So yes, I would give consensus for that. And that would include the residential parking.

Right. That's fine. Okay.

So I would then with Mr. With commissioner of severages permission, change the consensus for staff to examine the parking policy, which would include all of these issues.

If I might interrupt, we can have, I think, a productive discussion about the parking decals, but any changes to the LDR that make development or bringing businesses more onerous or more difficult, we can't adopt until after October of 2027. So we can have a discussion. We may arrive at things we want to do, but we would not be able to implement them until more than a year from now. Interesting. Okay.

Mr. Segrich is going to get the last word because we're about to sign off.

Is there consensus for that? I'm sorry. It just says in the future, so there's no specific.

In the future. Yeah, sure.

Yes. And Madam Clerk, with all due respect, I asked for consensus for a letter to our U.S. senators, and I believe there was no consensus.

Correct.

I think the record should reflect that. Other than me, of course.

Yes. And then before we end the meeting, I was asked for two presentations for August 4th. So whenever you want me to ask you about that, let me know.

Oh, God, it's now 10 o'clock. I wish we would have done that. Let's do that business stuff at the beginning of the meeting. Mr. Segrich, my apologies, but let's take care of this.

Thank you. So a little while back, we asked for an explanation about poll signs. And Mr. Waters gave us a little bit of the background as to where we arrived at that choice. I'm seeing more and more businesses getting affected by this right now. I don't know if we're just focusing on it or not. But some of these signs are the lifeblood of that business in terms of their advertising. And they're being forced to take them down. And, you know, to put a new sign up to our spec of equal size can cost $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, $60,000. I would like for us to discuss and make a decision of what can we do about the existing.

We could do a zoning in progress. Mr. Waters, couldn't we do a... we've done this before where we don't, you know, because we're thinking about changing it, we don't enforce it.

You know, I'm going to defer a little bit to Elizabeth. We can do a zoning in progress, but we must have a goal of which we're trying to attain by putting the zoning in progress and it can't last forever. Right. I'm looking at, after taking a series of classes on sustainable business preservation, how we might expand our non-conforming use section, which includes poll signs such as this, that we might be able to somehow amateurize and let the ones that stay now be modified, but we couldn't allow any new ones. And if you lose one such as a storm or it blows over or something, you couldn't put it back. I'm trying to have some of that ready for you to review later this summer, because I'm supposed to speak on it about this type of subject at the Florida APA Conference in October in Miami. Okay, I mean, but, but it's only progress, Elizabeth, I'm going to discuss how that affects the people that want to change their sign faces now, because we have pending applications. And I don't know how that technically would work. But we can give you like a little white paper or memo back in sometime next week on that, if you'd like.

I think that would be helpful because I also think it's, I mean, you know, if you change the face of the sign, you've got to take the poll sign down. I mean, I think that's onerous. I think sometimes we go a little too far with our requirements or regulations, but it is now, you know, it's so.

I agree with the mayor and commissioner on this.

Thank you. Okay. But we really, it's 10 o'clock. So I'm sorry.

Troy had asked to speak. Oh, I didn't see your hand. I'm sorry, Troy. He said he wanted to cover something.

Okay, sure.

Madam Clerk addressed my concerns. I'm just going to try to go over those various issues we discussed to determine if the consensus was reached. So the only thing she left out, we'll be bringing back the Vice Mayor mentioned the update on the Compass AC. So that was the last thing I was going to mention. But we'll have that during your next mission report. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So Madam Clerk, you have the requests.

Very quickly. One, I did email to everybody, but another one came in after that. So there's a request from an organization called Breakthrough T1D to do a type one diabetes presentation on August 4th. So I've not heard of the organization, but there are many I'm sure I haven't heard of.

That's the only request you've got?

No, the second one is from Healthier Lake Worth Beach to do a community impact report similar to one they did not, I think last year regarding the grant that was awarded and the project, the neighborhood health expansion project. So they want to do a presentation on that. That's in collaboration with the code compliance. Okay.

Mr. Perry?

That last one is part of the agreement that when we signed with them last year, that was part of the agreement to bring back the results and provide the commission with an overview of how successful the program was last year. So that same organization will be asked for additional dollars to help out the community again this year. So we want to make sure that the commission was able to hear the presentation. So I think that definitely should take a look.

What say you all about those two items?

Yes, to certainly the Carmel and Healthier Lake Worth. I don't know anything about the organization on the diabetes either, but the idea of a presentation on diabetes sounds fine. Ms. May?

I mean, I kind of find it unnecessary, to be honest.

Although somebody with diabetes might disagree.

Absolutely, but why is it the city's issue? I'm not saying, I'm not...

I mean, a lot of things.

I just don't think it's, we have a lot of things to do. Mr. Segrist?

I'm a no to the diabetes, a yes to the Carmel.

I agree. I agree. Okay, so.

It's like the Haiti thing. You can't say that I don't care about diabetes. That's not what I said. I'm saying it's not appropriate for the city to give a whole speech.

To look out for the health, safety, and welfare of our residents. Okay.

Okay. All right. So we have a yes to Healthier Lake Worth and a no to the other one. And with that, I wish you all a great weekend. Take care. Beach Club tonight. Beach Club tonight. Last night was great at the Bamboo Room, 60s. I felt right at home. Tonight's what? 80s. Today's the 80s. Okay. I'll have to come up with something. We're at the beach club. At our beloved beach club. Okay. Because I want to talk about that beach club a little bit more at another time. Thank you very much. Have a great weekend.