City Commission - Regular Meeting

Madam Mayor, it is 6.05 and we are live.

Great, thank you. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the regular City Commission meeting of Tuesday, June 30, 2026. May I have the roll call, please?

Mayor Betty Rush?

Here.

Vice Mayor Mimi May? Present. Commissioner Sarah Maliga? Present. Commissioner Christopher McVoy?

Here.

Commissioner Anthony Segrich?

Present. Thank you very much. Mr. McVoy is going to lead us in the moment of silence, and Ms. Malega is going to lead us in the pledge. All right.

I have a bit of a two-part piece. Oh, hard to hear. May I first ask for a moment of silence for all the victims, both living and dead of the terrible earthquakes last week in Venezuela? Thank you. And a heartfelt thank you to all the search and rescue professionals from the U.S. and a number of other countries, including from our own Palm Beach County, who have been helping in Venezuela. Focusing now on our own country, I recall a quote typed out by my mother, one that she always kept in plain sight above the dishpan. quote, the condition upon which God has given liberty to man is eternal vigilance, which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt. That's John Philpott Curran, Mayor of Dublin, 1790. I firmly believe that as our community's elected leaders, we five are an integral part of that eternal vigilance. So I pray that the higher powers guiding each of us will divinely grant us stronger ears to hear the residents beseeching us for leadership, enhanced wisdom to more clearly see that our leadership can extend above and beyond potholes and seven square miles, reinvigorated magnetism for our moral compasses, and an unlimited supply of courage to speak truth to power on behalf of all in our community. Amen.

Do I have any additions, deletions, or reordering?

I have none, Madam Mayor.

Okay. Anybody up on deck? I know.

You know where I live. No? Okay. I just want to... Just confirm that the millage rate will be discussed during the budget and that this is not the final millage rate being proposed to Palm Beach County. Right.

When we had the pre-agenda meeting the other day, I have is maybe going to pull this.

Yeah, I'm only pulling it if we need to discuss it now. But if we're going to discuss it next Thursday at the budget meeting, then that's fine. Okay.

We do happen to have the finance director on YouTube. I meant on Zoom.

He's a star. All right. After your dance, Yannick.

Yes, Commissioner. For the record, Yannick with finance. Yes, we can certainly discuss that in the next week in the budget workshop.

Excellent. So then I'll leave it here for now.

This is just a preliminary just to meet with the counties and state deadlines.

Okay. And the refuse one is also preliminary or can be modified?

That one is final because that one, we have a tight deadline of mid-July. If we do not have that end by then, we can miss basically the whole revenue, the whole assessment.

We don't want that. Well, we don't want that.

And that's why we do the presentation and we had a consensus above the refuse and the stormwater to make sure that we do not, you know, we don't miss that deadline.

And this is directing the preparation of the, you know, it's directing, us directing you to prepare that thing, the refuse assessment role.

Right, but it's setting the rate. Right. And it cannot be changed. So everyone here, we're okay with that rate? So we don't need to pull it? Okay. Thank you. All right. I just wanted to double check those two things. Other than that, I'm fine. Okay. Thank you. So we have no additions, deletions, or reordering.

Actually, sorry. Will the addition of the extra bulk day impact this?

Extra what?

Bulk pickup day? Okay.

If I understand from Jamie, this is for the residential assessment.

Yeah, but that's a residential. We've been talking about making some arrangements for bulk. If it's going to hinder, if it's a deadline, we have to meet the deadline.

I believe for the bulk pickup, I believe that's in the schedule of fees. That's in the schedule fees, which will be discussed next week.

No, it's not. Let's pull it then. Let's pull that one. Let's pull that one and we can talk about it. Okay. So we can, I'll make a motion to pull consent item B. and put it as new business, what comes after M? N. That's new business N, if that's okay with you guys?

Do I have a second?

Second.

By Mr. McVoy, whoever. Mr. McVoy, all in favor? Aye. Okay, so we will pull B. And for discussion. And other than that, do I have a motion to adopt the amended agenda?

Motion to adopt.

Thank you. By Mr. McCoy.

Second.

By Ms. Malaga. By everybody. It's a race tonight. I hope the spirit of community keeps going throughout the meeting. And she's gone. Okay. That was enough for Mimi. Okay. So... We have our utility updates. The first coming from Vaughn Baker.

Sorry, Mary, did we have a vote on the amended agenda? I heard the first and the second.

I believe we did. Yes, we did. I think we did, but that's fine. We can vote twice. Water utility update by Ms. Baker, our water utilities director.

Hello. Hello. Fawn Baker Water Utilities. To start, we hosted another group of Palm Beach State College water treatment students for a tour of our plant. That's a program that we, you know, we do every semester. It's also a great way for us to meet potential candidates for operator trainees. So that's been completed this month. We also had our NPDES audit, which is the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System. It's a DEP program. We are a part of Palm Beach County's MS4 permit, which is municipal separate storm sewer system. Give myself notes. In addition to submitting an annual report for that program, which is extremely comprehensive, it includes inspections of all the construction sites to make sure that erosion and sediment control is being done properly. It includes all of our operation and maintenance records. It includes street sweeping. We pull records from site plan reviews, building department, public works. It's a very intense effort. But they also audit us every couple of years. So we completed that audit. And in addition to documentation review, they also conducted a site visit. So with me was our stormwater foreman, Russell, who did a great job of leading the site visit. and our utility engineer, Rakeeb, who conducted a site visit to inspect stormwater erosion and control at the Gulfstream Hotel construction site while the DEP watched him inspect. So they both did a really great job. I think it went well. So we have that behind us, hopefully for a while. We also are looking forward to having Stantec present their results and recommendations from our cost of service study at the next budget workshop next Thursday. We were able to talk with them a bit today and it sounds like we are more on par with what we need than we expect it to be. So that's very good. But like I said, looking forward to having them share the full results of that study with you next week. Yeah. Earlier today, Commissioner McBoy called me and asked about the PFAS class action lawsuits. So I figured I would give an update on that tonight. We are part of two class action lawsuits. The first is for 3M and DuPont. The second is for Tyco and BASF. Um, so we are in both of those classes. I think that some municipalities have started receiving payouts from the first settlement. Um, as I discussed with Commissioner McVoy earlier, he's hearing that other municipalities are getting tens of millions of dollars. I don't think that we will receive... quite that much because we are actually fortunate to have half of our system be in the florida and aquifer which is very very very minimally um affected by pfas but for the other half of our raw water supply it's it's not as contaminated as some other neighboring municipalities which is it's good news but we will not get as high of a dollar amount out of those class action lawsuits um We also had our sub-regional board meeting this month, and it was discussed with all of the partners how the Lantana force main project that we're pursuing will fit into our CIP. Also broke the news that we did not receive legislative funding for that, but everyone is accepting that we are moving forward with it and that it's part of Yes, yes, yes, yes.

So questions, I'm glad you addressed them.

All of the partners are aware that we were not granted the legislative funding, but that we are moving forward with this project. The flow monitors have been installed for the study phase of that project, and we're continuing to move forward. A side note to that project is that I have heard from a resident recently that they thought the master pump station had a bad odor, and I went and sniffed for myself and the master pump station does not smell, but we do have as kind of temporary mitigation for the residences that are affected on that whole stretch that is part of this project when they have the issues with sewer backups and odors. We have been bypassing a stretch of pipe to kind of give some extra power to getting the sewer out of that pipe and getting it to the master pump station. Unfortunately, that results in cracked manhole lids to insert the bypass pump and it smells. So I will definitely make sure that that is at least taken down for the 4th of July celebrations. It's kind of a trade-off between backups and some odors right now. It really can't win, but I promise that we are in progress, full pursuit of the permanent solution to that.

So that money that we didn't get from the legislature, thank you very much, all of you up in Tallahassee, we are going to have to come up with it ourselves.

Not necessarily. We will come up with our share of it. The sub-regional partners all have cost sharing in that fund. So it will be part of the sub-regional sewer CIP in which we pay a percentage.

So everyone's going to have to Contribute a little bit, but it's going to be spread over the different groups. Yes.

Thank you. The last thing that I wanted to share is kind of sad news. Our administrative assistant in the water distribution department, Joanne, is retiring. Well, I should say sad for us, happy for her. So I just want to, you know, publicly thank her for her many, many years of service. And we are sad to see her go. Congratulations on your retirement. I believe her last day is July 17th. Thank you for what you've done for our city.

How long has she been with the city?

Over 20 years. Before she was with us, she was in the finance department.

Okay, so I think that HR can do something here at one of our meetings.

Okay. She did tell me that she did not want to be brought up for the show, but I did think it was worth mentioning.

If she doesn't want to do that, then we can do something else.

Or give her something.

Thank you. Thank you very much. That's it. Any questions?

Mr. McVoy?

Quick one. National Pollution Discharge Elimination System, that's for non-point source pollutions. An old program probably goes back pretty close to the Clean Water Act, or not far after it, that said, OK, we saw factories that have a distinct pipe and dump things out, but that's not the only way that our waterways get dirty. Stuff coming from distributed from city streets or agricultural fields is also a thing and it it's much harder to identify and control which is why we have all these audits and things and I think we're doing pretty well and our stuff goes into the Lagoon so we have sort of a vested interest in it working so that's cool um and uh the other one is I have a big supply of JB Weld if you want to glue those manhole covers together so let me know whatever works whatever works we hold the boat together yeah yeah yeah

Flex seal.

That's it. We got some flex in.

We'll get you set up. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay. Have you concluded that? Thank you.

Mr. Liberty will give us the electric update.

Good evening. For the record, Ed Liberty, Electric Utility Director. A few things to go over tonight. First thing I'll start with is news or an update that we do have a lineman that was injured at work last week. It was a work-related injury. I won't go into the details of the actual injuries due to our protection of personal and medical information. I can share that... He was attended to by first responders and his crew, and he was moved to a hospital, and he remains hospitalized today. The injuries are not considered to be life-threatening, and I really shouldn't go into more detail on that. We appreciate that. He has been visited daily by members of our team in the electric utility, and we will continue to do that until he returns to work.

Thank you very much.

I can share privately more details, but in the public like this, we should refrain. Other things that took place during the month, we did have Fitch Ratings, a financial rating agency here with us on June 5th, hosted by myself and Yannick. We toured them through a number of our facilities, showed them the work that we were doing. talked a lot about the progress we're making. They had a lot of interest in kicking the tires, getting to know what the companies that they rate are doing with the bond money, for example, and how we're doing from a financial perspective, because their primary role with us is actually in rating the St. Lucie bonds, which are actually FMPA bonds. But since we are the largest member of that group that is involved with the St. Lucie project, they pay a lot of attention to what happens here financially. So a portion of the meeting was dedicated to that. But a lot of it went involved touring our facilities, including new substations and actually visiting two of our crews that were at work out on streets down around 8th Avenue South, I think that day, doing some work. So it appeared that they were favorably impressed. We'll see what their comments are down the road, although it's not an official meeting. visit. It's more to have them get acclimated to what we're doing and how we're doing. But we're optimistic that it was a good session. And it did appear that they were impressed. Well, we do have a peer review underway. with FMPA supporting us. There's a number of other cities that have come here to take a look at our electric system operations center and give us their thoughts on how we're doing, what we could consider doing to improve. Not that we have a problem, but Things that from a peer point of view would be good to have. So that report will take weeks to put together and finalize, but it was a good session. We kicked it off with a dinner with all of our operators together with all of the peer review people and the FMPA staff involved in the process. We had that dinner here in town. And then they began that evening and into the next two days on their interviews and their assessment of the operation. They haven't shared the results with me yet, but we'll get that report in due time. P3 proposals, public private partnership. It's popular month for those. I'll start with the one that we did not get. but it affects us. What is that? Palm Beach State College received a P3 to build a soccer stadium, a six to 8,000 seat soccer stadium. Why do we care about that? Well, Palm Beach State College is our college, our hometown college, I'd like to think of them as, and we serve them on the electric side. I'm pretty sure we serve them on the water side as well. So we look forward to seeing how that develops and we'll work with them to supply the power to that new facility. Do you know where they're thinking about putting it? From the document they issued, they referenced the southeast corner of the campus.

Okay, on their campus.

On their campus, on their campus.

Great.

So we'll work with their facility staff to provide the proper electric connections to support that. Not knowing much about it other than it's a 6,000 to 8,000 square foot stadium, 10 to 12 acres. We don't have the exact date when they would break ground and what it would mean. But just guessing because it's a soccer stadium, my guess is that the hours of operation would not be during the business day. I'm guessing there could be weekends involved. And there'll be NCAA games there as well for the college team. It's part of the P3 aspect is the college would be able to use the stadium. So it would move our load more towards the evening hours or maybe the weekend hours. So from an electric point of view, that's a better time than during peak business hours. But we'll see where that goes. We'll keep in touch with that process.

Miss May has a question. Actually, I just want to, I can't remember. Do we... I know that we support power at the college. Do we give water to there?

I believe we do too. Is Director Vaughn here? She can confirm it.

Yes, water. Yes to water too? We do both, yeah. Okay, so that would help with both of the utilities. Yes. Okay, thank you.

And soccer's getting, these are very interesting soccer days these days.

Yes, it is. Next P3 that we received is one that does affect us. We did receive a P3 or public-private partnership unsolicited proposal that involves the use of our power plant. We've gone through an initial review. There are actually multiple stages to these reviews. We're not going to get into a lot of detail on that tonight. I'll even to remind you that the first stage is what we call a preliminary review. Then there's an initial stage that we don't go to unless you agree to that. And then there's a detailed stage. However, in looking at the proposal, which I believe you all have copies of, in looking to that, it appears to us that this is a very interesting technical concept. And I'll emphasize technical concept. We think that this proposal needs more work before it can become a really viable business or community concept for you to look at more seriously. It involves the use of the interior space in what we would call the old steam plant building in the initial phase and then at some later phase expanding to include space outside the steam plant building. That's not provided in great detail. So there's a lot of concepts here. It has the, if you will, the tabs or the chapters that are required to be in there, but there's sufficient detail that's not in there for us to really say, this is a proposal that should come to you for review at this point. So we're gonna suggest that the proponents go back and flesh it out more. You, of course, have the opportunity, if you wish, just by consensus to say, you'd like to have it come forward on an agenda anyway. We have it just penciled in thinking, of a staff report for an August review. But at this point, it's not, I couldn't say that it really meets the criteria of the qualifications that go past where we are right now.

And we have a 3P3 procedure now. Yes, we do. You're following the city acknowledgement of receipt and all that stuff. Okay.

That's correct.

Thank you.

So I keep thinking it's technically intriguing. From the Geek Squad point of view, you'd say, wow, this is a cool concept. But it's hard to say that what we've received so far is really a viable business concept, community concept with a true P3 aspect to it. What's the benefit to the public? What is participation in the public to have that go further? So if there's a consensus that you want to see more presentations on it, that's entirely up to you, or we'll just take this back to the developer, which is a staff decision at this level. to take that back and suggest that they do some more work on it and they can decide what they want to do from that point.

I don't think there's my vote would be just like let them do some more work, right? It doesn't need to come to us right now. Yep.

Okay, so moving on, another news, generation numbers for an energy send-out numbers for June through 28 days. We're close enough to the end of the month. We can probably get a pretty good feel. Year-to-date, we're up about 3% on energy delivered to our customers versus last year, so 3% more this year than last year. June was a... a big month. We set up a new peak before the month of June, not for the year, but new peak for June by about 5% higher than it had been in the prior June. So the peak is higher and send out for the year is 3% over the prior year. Send out for June was for about 0.4%, 0.4% higher than the prior year. We watch these numbers closely because it's a leading indicator of where revenues are going. Revenues are in the right direction. We look at revenues minus expenses. This is not a budget review. We are definitely in the positive. We're running slightly ahead of where we predicted we would be. And we're headed into what we would call the big season, right? The months of June, July, August, September for the fiscal year. And we're going in with a positive net income, if you will, or operating income. And we expect that to remain. PCA, we actually lost some ground on the PCA, not totally unexpected. It was due to St. Lucie being on an outage. That's the nuclear plant. When that unit goes on outage, instead of us getting our 22 megawatts of power for the month from that unit, we get half of that. So where does the other half come from? It comes under the supplemental contract. So had it not been for having to buy that additional power under the supplemental contract, we actually would have had a gain in the PCA instead of a net loss. So the PCA would have decreased by about $330,000 for the month, but we expect to make that up. If we look at the statistics and how we did in energy send-outs in May, we can see that that was significant. That revenue is showing up in June and into July as those bills get paid by the customers. So We still recommend staying the course on the PCA. We will bring you at the July meeting or the August meeting. We didn't want to put too many things in the agenda. The recommendation that we move the half a million dollars from the Storm Fund, that was the seed money in the Storm Fund, back to the PCA where it came from. We'll want to do that before the end of the fiscal year, but it's such a full agenda that we didn't put it on for tonight.

Thank you.

So those are my high-level comments. I'll let you get to the regular business and listeners questions.

I have one question. There was an outage the other day in the northeast section of, think of the city, and people were talking about it. I was just curious if you have any information on that.

There were actually two outages in the northeast part of the city. One was the one that resulted in an injury to our employee. And the second was, it appears to be a combination of very heavy, this was on Saturday, I believe, lightning activity and a palm frond from a troublesome tree. That's been a problem before. I don't want to out the owner. Yeah, really. The tree is a private tree, which they have a right to have. But the palm fronds from that tree are particularly troublesome with that circuit. And we're going to have to approach the owner about possibly having a different tree placed there, one that's not quite so high and quite so troubled. Perhaps a shade tree would be better than a palm tree. But that's back to be debated. But that's what caused that.

Okay, thank you. Mr. McVoy?

I'm just curious, you mentioned that, and you mentioned two numbers, one was about 5% up and one was about 0.4, 0.5% up. I was a little confused which was which, but I was curious with either of those numbers, how did they compare to degree days being up or not up from the previous year?

A good question. I actually did not get the degree day statistics yet. So they gave me an advanced peak after only 28 days or two more days to run where we're headed. So the 5% was an increase year over year on the peak, which is the highest number we hit in any one hour. So that went up by 5% over the prior year. The 0.4% is how much more energy, think of it as the meter, how much more stuff, how many more megawatt hours were delivered to our customers. That went up by 0.4% over the prior year in that month. Year to date, we're up by about 3% on total deliveries to our customers, which, as I mentioned, gives you an indication of what revenues are doing. And expenses, of course, for power purchases. Thank you.

Did you have a question? No.

Thank you, Ed. Your reports are always very thorough. Just a question. Next time there's an outage in one of our districts, will you call us?

Or email.

Or email us? An email. Just let us know because everybody else is calling us and we don't have answers. And I didn't want... It's all and it's it's Saturday night, 930. I'm not going to call you, but I'm sitting in there in the dark and the hot, too. So it would be just because everyone's all over social media and we're getting the call. So just if you know, could you just do you know, do they reach out to you when it happens?

They tried to reach out to me. I was at a cell phone range that evening. I was out on the water. And I looked at the phone when we got back within range. I said, oh, no. Oh, no.

They could do that rather than give it to you.

Yes.

Someone reach out to the commissioner of the district. That way we can say we know.

Yep. That one was significant. It was over 1,000 customers.

Let the city manager know, then he can contact us. Why bother the city manager on a Saturday night if they can email us directly?

Well, that's true, too.

Include the city manager on that email list.

Thank you. And I don't want to get into it too much publicly, but the tree. I mean, does this person realize that they knocked out power for 1,500 people?

I suspect not.

Can we make that a little more clear?

We can approach the customer and have a conversation about that and see if they would be willing to allow that tree to be removed and have that conversation.

Because I don't think they don't want pitchforks trimmed.

Do they have to get a permit to have it removed?

I'm not an expert in that area.

And then would they have to pay for the permit? And then how does that all work? I'll pay for it. Thank you, Ms. Mulligan. Okay.

Thank you.

We want to be very careful because we wouldn't want to take this extreme. So now we want to take a lot of trees down. No, no, no. But this particular tree, the way it drops the palm fronds right across the circuits, all three phases at one time.

Oh, my God.

That's a problem.

Maybe they could trim it more.

Possibly we could take a look at that. We want to work. We want to work with the residents. We do.

We do. But we also don't want to have to spend money to put power lines underneath just because of one person. I just think that's selfish as a person in a community. Yeah. Thank you.

You tell them. Thank you. Anything else? That's it. All right. Thank you very much. At least my trees are away from the electric lines. Okay. So thank you very much, both of you. Now we're public participation of non-agenda items and consent agenda. I see a blue card over there. Or a couple.

have a name on it.

That's always helpful. That's a public hearing. That's not Mr. Hitchcock. That's for an agenda item.

Right, but it still doesn't have a name on it.

No, I know, but I'm just saying I'm not going to Wait here, it's got 1506 13th Avenue North. I'm going to give you this folder. You can pass it around. I kind of fixed in the alley already, you'll see, because you can't drive through there with everybody's stuff growing into the alley. But the other thing is, on the beach coming up this weekend, are we going to be able to get a half dumpster up there for the guys? Because we're going to have all sorts of garbage like last time, the last holiday. We ran out of room to put garbage. We need something, just this little 20-yard one would help a lot on the top so the guys can make shorter distance getting there. But you'll see in this folder, people throwing their stuff out on the wrong bulk days. And people drive by, and then they start throwing their stuff on it.

It's a continuing problem.

So that's why I did all the pictures. So you can see, that's cheese freak by the train track.

Anthony just helped me get that call the city and let them know about it.

I saw one of your code guides. I'm looking at him and he just went right past me. I've already emptied three of our big garbage cans for the city. Two of them I had to take to the transfer on Lantana. So I'm spending a lot of money and trying to help to clean up people. And they're just throwing stuff right back out after we just had a bulk pickup. Because we have ours on the third week of Thursday of each month. And if I was getting hit and fined, I'd make sure what day it was supposed to go out.

Well, a lot of times, too, it's just random people coming from out of town.

Well, and that roadway by the train tracks on North G, the guys are eating, and then they take their CV dinners, and they throw them out the window. So that whole area's got trays of food and everything that I picked up.

Yeah, it's gross. Yeah.

And you have signs that says no parking, and they're still parking there.

Parking where?

On G Street. You have one by the daycare, and there's another one that should come. No trucks. They can park behind their warehouses and leave that open. So when we come down through there with two cars... You can't get through there.

Nope. I've mentioned that several times to parking. So thank you for bringing it up again.

I mean, just start putting them citations on their window and say, it's the way it is.

You're not wrong. And we've said this over.

All right. So next question will be, where do I send my invoice to you guys?

That would be, we'll get file 13.

Yeah. We'll get back to you on that. I'd like to have those back.

Thank you. Rebecca Gilmartin.

All right. Good evening, mayor and commissioners. Thank you for sending me speak. Okay. Um, and also if I get close to running over in time, please let me know. Okay. I'm going to use my notes so I don't get off on something. So my name is Rebecca Gilmartin. I am an elementary school art teacher. Oh, seven 14 North L street. Okay. Um, I am also a participant of the Street Art Festival with my students for the last five years.

Where did you teach them?

At Pleasant City Elementary. Yeah. I am also a homeowner of a historic home in our city. And I first visited this town in 2018 and immediately saw the potential of this place. It's so beautiful. Beaches, parks, and you know, everything. And that's why I chose to make my home here. And I have children. I have grandchildren. As I experienced living here the last eight years, I have been seeing a lot of beautiful development around, especially this up here, this bohemian. I love that. However, unfortunately, I see the community as being neglected, especially some areas. And in my neighborhood near an elementary school, there's an apartment building that's fallen into despair. And I'm a little nervous. Excuse me. There are, and for example, there are broken windows, boarded windows, rusted window air conditioner units, trash around the premises, and deferred maintenance on the building. So as a responsible homeowner that most of the people around there are, It's expensive. I have a historic home. I try to go by code and everything, replacing windows, doors, everything. But our property values are lower because, I mean, when you have something like that, it depreciates. And also, it doesn't help with our community pride. The condition of the property is near, and it's near a school. And children see this every day. And so I'm concerned about the safety and the care of the general area. Since I moved here, I've also seen downtown change. Businesses that encourage families and visitors spending time here seem to change to vape shops, tattoo parlors, and bars. And while every... Legal business has the right to operate down here. A thriving downtown should offer a balanced mix of businesses that serve families, residents, and visitors throughout the day. We have tremendous assets here. We have a nearby beach, golf course, and water access. We have an opportunity to build a downtown community that residents are proud of and visitors want to return to. Okay. Can I just do the last paragraph? If it's short. Um... I just wish we had planning for and become more responsible for care in our local small little neighborhoods and such.

Do you know the address of the building that you're talking about? Yes.

Can you read it down?

Yes. Okay. Thank you very much.

And I would also like to give help with anything that I can.

Put your phone number on that as well. Put your association. Put your phone number and the address of that. Yes. And there's a group of us called the women from L Street. The women from L. Yep, I'm one of them. Oh, women from L. L Street. Actually, you know what? That's Mango. L Street's Mango. Well, she's going to get us, whatever. Okay, thank you very much. That's it. Only two comments. Thank you very much. Approval of the minutes. Do I have a motion?

Motion to approve.

Do I have a second?

Wait, wait. There was an issue. with the June 2nd minutes that I sent to Sheila and Melissa. And I was told that it was corrected. So I just want to make sure that the motion to approve is with the correction.

It was corrected and republished.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Motion to approve by Ms. May. Second. By Ms. Malega. All in favor?

Aye.

Consent agenda with the amendment to it taking a B. A, C, D, and E. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. By Ms. Manning. Do I have a second?

Second.

By Mr. Segrich. All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much. Public hearings. Ordinance number 2065-05. Second reading. Please read by title.

you madam mayor ordinance number 2026 of five informants of the city commission of the city of lake worth beach florida amending the official zoning map by approving the creation of a mixed-use urban plane development district located at 13 south k street 19 south k street 25 south k street 704 first avenue south and 710 first avenue south as more particularly described in exhibit a located within the downtown zoning district with the future land use designation of downtown mixed use subject to specific development standards set forth in exhibit B and conditions of approval set forth in exhibit C. approving a major site plan, approving a development of significant impact, approving a conditional use permit, approving height incentives through the city's sustainable bonus incentive program, including a right-of-way abandonment, and providing for severability, conflicts, and an effective date.

Thank you very much. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. By Ms. Malega. Do I have a second? Second. By Ms. May. I have a question. I see Mr. Waters. Yeah, Ms. May has a question.

When we discussed this last month, there was a resident who was concerned about getting access to parking on 30 South J. And I just want to confirm that the alleyway When we abandon the alleyway, that doesn't mean that. The alleyway is closed, correct? They will still have access to their deeded property spots through that alleyway. Is that correct?

If for the record, William waters can use the same blade record. Yes. There will be an access ease of recording on the portion of the alley that is being vacated, which is only half of the out. Right. And our goal is to keep it as much as absolutely possible during the construction of the parking garage.

And also emergency vehicles and all that.

Emergency vehicles will not go down a 10-foot alley. They want 18 to 20 feet clear. That's why they won't go into all that.

That's how they're going to be accessing it from 1st and K. I just want to make sure that we have on the record that we have made the commitment to this community that they can get onto their property because that's the only way to get there.

Well, I think we all saw that letter from the resident.

There's also a parking lot behind commercial buildings just to the north that has access from that alley as well. So that business, a series of businesses will also be assured access to their parking. Excellent.

Thank you. Mr. Zedridge.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. When we had this meeting last time, we added those as conditions of approval. I don't see them updated here. We had in there that there were going to do a beautification and a bunch of other stuff.

On the alley, you mean?

Yeah. I don't remember every single one offhand. I can come back and check my notes, but I don't think this has changed at all.

I thought that Elizabeth said that we had to wait until... The next step after the 2nd reading.

That was that was conditional approval.

No, she said something. What did she say? We were going to do it and then she said, don't do it here. We're going to do it at the next step.

Well, there's conditions that you should place on the creation for the project, which actually approves it moving forward versus the entitlement of it. And some of the actions that were discussed as conditional conditions of disapproval are not associated with the planning and zoning, but associated with the actual contract and construction procedure for the construction processes and permitting for the building itself.

So when we actually design, when the things are designed. Okay, Mr. Segrist has said.

There will be at least one or two more items coming back to you about the parking garage.

Okay. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, I'm just concerned because I believe we had one or two that were to be conditions of approval.

And I agree because one of them was mine, but Elizabeth did say that that came at the next step because this was more the thing. That comes with the design and the layout. I don't have my notes in front of me. I can't remember the exact language she used.

There are things that need to be included in the construction contract and the agreement. Once A, then that needs to be approved. The next steps will be moving toward the construction documents guaranteed maximum price. A number of things are coming before you and the actual construction and the implications of that to be covered in that contract.

Because Commissioner Sagert, you had also said that you had wanted a construction something something plan. I can't remember the language it used, and they said that's going to go with it.

Well, that's my recollection that an MOT, which is a method of management of transportation, was requested. A plan for parking downtown was requested as parking is coming offline due to the parking garage being built. There were assurances that were to keep the roadways K and 1st open as much as possible. We had access to the residents on J Street.

Well, so, you know, I'm reading in here, you know, if the developer will install an EV charger, they must provide what kind of EV charger. There are conditions of approval in here that are very much similar to the ones we suggested and proposed. I thought they were going to be put in as conditions of approval. I specifically raised the concern that other projects have moved forward where it's come before the boards. We've had... whether the commissions have had this discussion or the Planning and Zoning Board had a discussion where they said, well, hey, as part of that project, you should save these palm trees. And everyone said, yep, that's a great idea. We should do that. And it never made it into the conditions of approval, and then it never happened. We're dealing with one of those on South Palm Way, where if you go back and you watch the meeting, yep, the board said, We need to make sure that there's ample room for these royal palms so they don't get destroyed. And the house needs to be a foot extra back. And everyone said, yep, we agree to that. Never made it in. Fast forward three years. All of that's forgotten. It's not in the conditions of approval. Never happened. So I want to make sure these things are as conditioned to approval. So I'm not prepared to vote yes.

Are these things, what Mr. Sigrich mentioned, things that will come back to us in terms of more specific detail?

I don't recall the specificity of what he's referring to. I mean, there's a number of things. You all wanted the palms along the alley preserved as best they could, or maybe relocated and brought back in. You wanted more native plants in the landscape plan. Both Brent and Lance are here. Maybe they can recall what other items you were referring to, because I can't remember. I'm sorry.

When was that first meeting? When was that first reading? Two weeks ago. So the 16th.

Oh, yeah, we have the minutes.

But I thought he was going to say go watch the movie. Go watch the movie.

The first reading was on June 8th.

June 8th?

That wasn't the time.

For the record, Lance Lee, which had more and also was that I was called up. Yeah, just to echo what William mentioned, there were things that was discussed. Some of the things were brought up by the effective party. um and also there were some things that were brought up by this commission um one of the things for example was um related to the alley and doing like a beautification post construction um but from my recollection some of those things were not going to be a part of the condition of approval but those would be things okay which day it's on the eighth it says motion made by vice mayor and seconded by commissioner to approve ordinance 2026-05 commonly referred to as the k street garage plane development

on the first reading and scheduled a second reading in public hearing for June 30th, adding the conditions of temporary resident parking plan for current tenants and a construction impact mitigation plan for immediately adjacent condos, waiving the sustainable bonus fee inclusive of all conditions placed by the HRPB and listed in the staff report. This conclusion was arrived at by substantial common evidence presented during the hearing.

Correct.

So it's in here.

Yes. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. But he's saying that these things are not in tonight.

Everyone's engaged.

I mean, how do you fix this? so we could add to the ordinance the conditions that the first approval received um add those to the ordinance as conditions of approval um i don't since i i'm not i wasn't here for the june 8th meeting and i'm not sure exactly all of those conditions of approval i think what william waters is speaking of is from a contractual standpoint um the development of the parking garage is going to come back to you if they receive the entitlements for the Guaranteed Maximum Price Amendment. And with the Guaranteed Maximum Price Amendment, that is where you flush out guaranteed maximum price, obviously, but there's things that the developer will say are included in things that are excluded. So there will be another opportunity for the commission to provide additional conditions of what they want to see developed there. So either way you could do it, we can add it into the exhibit that sets forth the conditions for this, or we could also do it with the GM.

Since we did discuss it and it was approved at the June 8th meeting, could that language, if we approved it tonight, could that language be added or would that be too much of a change to the first reading?

No, no, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be.

What I will say is that because some of the conditions, and I don't have a problem with them being added as additional conditions to what we're approving, they will come back to you for more specificity because some of those conditions are a little nebulous as to what they would actually be. Going back to what Christy was saying, the guaranteed maximum price, the access and the management of transportation and all that, is going to need to be worked out and approved by somebody, which would not be approved here. The applicant, which is we, and the contractor should not think that, oh, I'm done. I provided all the conditions are there. The conditions do require you to follow up and do something in addition to what was just put out there as an idea or a concept.

Okay, group, what are you more comfortable with adding it to the... We just go ahead and add it with today. Add it today and we can deal with it. Because it's part of the minutes. It's part of what's going to be voted. Yeah, it's already... Yeah, so that's fine. Thank you.

I'm just concerned that it actually happens.

Well, our attorney has last last meeting.

We voted. We added at it. We had a lengthy discussion on it and it didn't happen. I'm not comfortable voting until I see it. Right.

Calm down. It's in minutes. Where would it get added to in here? On what section, what page?

Well, I think Mr. Segrich is concerned it's not where it goes in the ordinance with the fact that the action didn't happen. Correct. Which, understood, but we will certainly be checking it now to make sure that it happens.

I have this earmarked. I don't know why it earmarked this one page.

There's a whole attachment to the back of the ordinance. It's not that the ordinance is only a few pages long that show the conditions of approval.

Yeah, exhibit B.

And I believe all of them would be falling under the planning and zoning conditions of approval. Or it could be added as our own section, say, city commission requested condition approval. And those three items could be listed there individually.

I think I understood. I understand that we have options. My primary concern is we discussed these options. We asked for these to be included as part of the first reading. Now we're at the second reading. They're still not included. We go and approve it and they don't put it in there, then we have to choose.

Did you discuss it and bring it to the attention of the staff? I just did. Before the meeting?

No, I just did it today.

You might have been more courteous to tell them so that they can address it before.

I just actually noticed it.

Please don't interrupt me. I do have my light on.

This does need to be signed by the mayor. the city clerk and others. And so there are going to be another step to ensure that those conditions are attached to the back of it before. I'll make sure you get it.

I 100% understand that. My problem is that this keeps happening. We keep having these little nudges on reading two and reading one, and I'm not going to move forward until I see it in writing. We owe this to the residents and to the people who we put these in there for to protect that it be in here as the official record of what we vote on.

Thank you. You're, you're heard. I don't know how frequently it happens, but that's not the discussion for tonight. Okay. So with that, having instruction to include that stuff in that, I will check it. I'll share with Mr. Segwitch before it happens. And if we need to be more careful, obviously about that.

Your honor, we can certainly share it with the entire commission so everybody can see.

Perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McCoy.

I do want to object, Madam Mayor, a little bit to your response to Commissioner Segrich. I think his concern is perfectly valid that, hey, a first reading, a second reading, we're putting things in front of you.

No question about that.

May I not be interrupted, Madam Mayor? Please, please. Thank you. it is not reasonable to put things in the backup in front of us and ask commissioners to vote on things And with the assurance that verbal assurance that, yes, we'll put that in there later. That's not how government is supposed to work. You put in front of people what you want them to vote on, not sort of what you want them to vote on. And I don't think it's very appropriate to question a commissioner who draws our attention to it. We shouldn't have to draw attention to it. That should be just good practice. Don't put stuff in front of us if it doesn't have. And in this case, it's even in the minutes that it's supposed to be in there. So it's a little unclear why staff didn't put it in. And the burden is not on the commission, but on the staff to make sure it's right. Separately, I will be voting against this. partly for that reason, but I will be voting against it because of a whole string of concerns that I've raised repeatedly, that we have not pursued alternatives. We have presented to this commission that We actually, when we worked at it for July 4th, were able to find a bunch of extra parking spaces. We have not taken into account the national trends on reduction expected on need for parking. We have not been clear about whether this is going to lead to paid parking or not. We have not been clear on... How many fully unrestricted spaces does the public actually get for the fully unrestricted spaces that they're giving up? We have talked about how we are going to lease some spaces to help pay the bills on it. And then there was objection from commissioners that said, oh, no, we don't want to do leasing, except we already have an agreement with W Motor that we are going to do leasing. So there's To me, this is an enormous public expenditure with very fuzzy, what will we get out of it? And I've asked repeatedly for a very clear one page, what I think would be just the most normal thing for any project that involves any substantial public money is, what does it cost? What do you get for it? and that those numbers be numbers that everybody agrees, yes, those numbers are accurate. Not that, well, we think the numbers are this, but yeah, other people aren't buying them. It should be that we're all come to agreement, this is the cost and this is the number of spaces or whatever the benefits are of the project that you're gonna get. And we are not there yet. There is not a one page, two page document that everybody can point to and say, yes, this is a pretty good deal. Cost this, this is what you get. That's not out there available for people. And proceeding forward without that, without all the various other aspects that i've raised repeatedly and that many members of the public have raised repeatedly i don't think it's responsible to move forward so i will be voting no

Just in response, I have no problem with Mr. Segrich bringing that up. I just think whenever we find something, and I don't know when he found it, but I always think it's much, much more fair to our staff if we find a discrepancy or a problem or a question that we bring it up personally to them ahead of time so that I don't think it's a good practice to bring problems in public when they could be solved and answered effectively. So that's no problem with the question, just the mode. All right.

I have to say that I didn't bring it up because when I read it again, when you go through the agenda a week before the meeting, Like I, today I read that next week's meet next week's agenda. So it wasn't in my head, but when I went read through this on page two on lines 54, 55 and 56, I read through that said, whereas on June 8th, the city commission voted to approve on the first reading the subject application. for a mixed-use urban plan development, major site plan conditional use permit, sustainable bonus incentive program, and the right-of-way abandonment subject to specific district development standards and certain enumerated conditions. I assumed, maybe that was wrong on me, that those certain enumerated conditions on June 8th were everything that we just spoke of, and that's why it wasn't lined for lined in here. It's in here. But that's why I didn't bring it forward, because when I saw that, it referenced back to the meeting, which to me covered it. So where do you see it? I see it.

Sorry. Exhibit C, conditions of approval. It's page eight, line 186. It talks about the sustainable bonus incentive, and then it says the temporary residential parking and construction mitigation plan shall be established. So the things that we've discussed are in here. It's just not in a separate place. It's within the planning and zoning historic landscape. Because it also says what William said about things being native. 75% of all trees in 70 must be native.

So all the things... On my 221, it says something... 218.

So it's all in here. Yeah. So we don't have to worry about that.

Okay.

So... We have a, oh, I'm going to public, right, we have, I have a public comment card who doesn't have a name on it, on this issue. Did someone fill out a comment? The penmanship looks familiar. The penmanship looks familiar. That's all I'm going to say. Madam Clerk, do you have any public comments on this one?

I have three, Madam Mayor.

Okay. Go ahead and read them while Ms. Fisher puts her name on it. And she'll go next.

The first comment I have is from Amy Ferreter, 30 South J Street. Thank you again for the opportunity to participate as an effective party in the quasi-judicial hearing regarding the K Street garage and alley abandonment. I appreciated the thoughtful consideration given to the concerns raised by neighboring property owners, and I was encouraged by the positive feedback received during the hearing. One important question remains unresolved. While there has been discussion about maintaining alley access during construction, what assurances will neighboring property owners have that safe and reliable ingress and egress will continue after construction is complete? Our condominium owns its parking spaces and our only vehicular access is through the alley proposed for abandonment. I note that accommodations were made for the condominium adjacent to the Gulfstream, even though that condominium did not own its parking. Given that precedent, I respectfully request similar consideration and legally enforceable protections to ensure our permanent uninterrupted access. Before the alley is abandoned, I ask that the city clearly establish how our ingress and egress rights will be protected, not only throughout construction, but for the life of the project. Thank you for your consideration. The next comment I have is from Andrew Cavanaugh at 1321 North L Street. The City Commission keeps moving the garage forward without telling residents the true cost. Stop playing politics with our tax dollars. Come clean about what this project will cost the city, not just today, but for years to come. The backtracking on claims that paid parking will cover the cost and the financial burden you're about to place around the neck of this city deserves a full public discussion, especially with an election around the corner. And the final public comment I have is from Kim Stokes at 1321 North L Street. I understand tonight's vote isn't about the financing of the garage, but it does move this project another significant step closer to construction. And that's exactly why I find the lack of a comprehensive public discussion about the finances so concerning. It has now been two years since WMOTA first asked the commission to support a public parking garage. At the time, the garage was presented as part of a parking system that would generate revenue for the city. You even have a contract with WGI to help implement paid parking downtown. But now we're hearing conflicting stories and it appears some of you are comfortable with a garage that may never recover any meaningful portion of its $13 to $14 million public investment while also costing taxpayers another $200,000 each year to operate. Despite numerous requests, you seem reluctant to have a public conversation about whether the garage is expected to generate millions in revenue, operate at a loss, or fall somewhere in between. Many residents have spent the last two years attending meetings, asking questions, and raising concerns only to feel ignored or dismissed. They deserve clear answers. Before this project moves any closer to construction, I ask you to hold one comprehensive public discussion about the garage's finances, operations, and long-term impacts. The people of Lake Worth Beach deserve one clear explanation from one commission, not different explanations depending on who they ask. That is the final comment I have on any item tonight, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. Ms. Fisher.

Peggy Fisher, 508 North A Street. I support the garage moving forward. The comment about finding parking spaces for last July 4th, a lot of those parking spaces were on private property, not property owned by the city. It was also said that WMOTA has a written agreement to lease certain spaces in the parking garage. That is incorrect. Based on information provided directly to me by WMOTA, paying parking and move fee does not specify a particular parking space. And I'm sure if I'm incorrect, Mr. Waters can correct me, but you pay for a virtual parking space that could be anywhere. I don't like the... repeated statement of things that are not accurate that are coming from the dais it is as bad as what went on with the gulf stream when pages of numbers were created by someone on the commission and passed out and said this was gospel truth um But it's the way things seem to happen in this city. I agree with Mr. Segrich that what is voted on in the first reading should appear in what comes forth before you. And I know it does. It would help if on page two, when it references items that are then included on an attachment or appendix, It takes nothing but to put into parentheses C, pay, attachment A, B, whatever it may be. That's just doing a little clarification and going forward. And that would help a lot, I think. And this does happen more frequently than it probably should. But again, I support the garage. And Ms. Faraday, one of her comments was that the city should try and put more than 75% of natives around the garage.

Thank you. Okay, so we have a motion and second.

I don't have it.

When? Madam Clerk?

Yes.

Do you have another comment on this item?

There was another comment. It was regarding the WGI parking study. It was not specific to the garage, so it is published.

Did it reference the Did it reference an agenda?

It referenced the WGI parking study. So I did publish it, but it did not reference the garage at all.

It didn't reference the garage at all?

It was listed in the garage. Yes, it was listed as the garage, but it did not reference the garage. So it was published under public participation. This is a private department.

Go ahead. If you want your three minutes, Mr. No, she wants to read and she didn't. Let her read it. Madam Clerk, you're welcome to read it. He's leaving, but we're going to read it anyway.

Thank you. Give me just a second. to pull it up.

Well, she's looking for that in reference to Mr. Ferrier's concern about the alley. Part of this is a permanent perpetual ease access easement and utilities will run down the alley. I do not. And it will be false of me to promise that the alley is always and forever going to be open during construction. There are some significant construction issues that are very large items, so that from time to time during the construction, it's highly likely that the portions of that alley might be closed, but not to the extent that you couldn't get down it one way or the other. And fortunately, their condo was on the right way. out on the corner but uh as part of an mot they will be notified like the you know what the time frame would be if the alley would have to be closed for a little while to do some construction or improvements to it like i'm sure it's going to have to be repaid well you can't really leave the alley open if it's being repaid may i suggest something

Number one, giving them plenty of notice. And number two, because we still have the surface parking lot right to the other side of the alley, reserve some spots for them so that they know that they have a place to park right by there. I don't have any control of that. I've asked the city manager. It doesn't matter. As a suggestion, could we reserve them spots? I think it's 8 or 10, however many there are.

12 or 14.

Yeah, in the public parking while the alley is blocked so they do have a place to park. Thank you very much. Okay, Madam Clerk?

Yes. The comment is, it starts with two statutes, 837.06, false official statements, and statute 837.02, perjury in official proceedings. the 2024 wgi parking study is a fraud on the public it contains many false statements i sent emails to the city containing photos showing many vacant parking spots during peak hours if residents want to see the vacant parking spot photos they can submit a public records request to the city clerk requesting copies of my emails of parking vacancy reports of march 1st 2nd 9th and 9th 2025 The city representatives at the historic board meeting said there was a traffic study when there was no traffic study. The historical board approval was defective. The parties making false statements should publicly correct them immediately. The city denies the homeowner due process equal protection of the law and commits ADA violations against them. That is the comment.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

okay so now uh we have uh we have more lights on mr segrich thank you madam mayor uh thank you commissioner may for pointing out those two lines i had missed them so i'm i'm comfortable with that i do have a question from the clerk that public comment that you just read was it selected to be for this item yes and you read the contents of it and decided on your own not to read it we usually do

We reviewed it.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. When someone submits a public comment under a particular subject, it doesn't matter if it's two minutes of gibberish. They could quote the Bible. They could quote anything. They could talk about balloons. we don't have the right i i i'm not comfortable with that at all all right thank you um so i i can't believe you you want to say we're comfortable or not comfortable i mean his community really had nothing to do with it it doesn't matter fine fine we're not going to argue the city clerk just admitted to censoring a public comment all right thank you did the comment have the correct line item on it yes

No, but I'm saying, did it say public hearings A, ordinance 2026?

Yes, that's what I just confirmed with the city clerk. She read the content of it and decided not. Madam Mayor, please don't cut me off.

Well, you said what you want to say, right? Apparently not. Well, keep going then. I agree with your point. We're not disagreeing.

I would like the city manager to look into this because this is the second incident of disturbing behavior out of that department. Thank you. Mr. McVoy.

I just want to reiterate that, yes, I, too, formally request that the city manager make it very clear to the clerk's office that the clerk does not have discretion to make choices about what comments she reads or doesn't or he reads or doesn't. if they are properly connected to the appropriate item as commissioner segret says it could be anything reading the phone book our policy is to make our public comment make our citizens welcome to add input to it and i've seen no instances of people putting in pieces of the phone book we may or may not agree with the opinions that are in them that's not an issue but And it is certainly not appropriate for staff to make a decision on their own. I'm not reading that because I don't think it relates. That's a very unfortunate precedent to set. So I want to be clear. I do not support that happening. And I expect the city manager to make sure that that doesn't happen in the future.

Thank you. Here we have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Nay. Mr. Rippoy is in nay. Thank you. We are in public hearings. B. Do I have a motion? Item B, resolution 20.

Motion to approve. You don't have to read it. Yes, she does.

Ordinance. It's a resolution.

I just answered.

It's an order. Mayor Mrakas, Oh, here we go yeah sorry I had to be from new business Okay, please read my title.

City Council Chambers, Thank you, Madam Mayor ordinance 2026 so eight in order, so the city worth beach Florida amending Chapter 14 business tax receipt and business regulations. City Council Chambers, Article one local business tax receipts section 14 dash 15 compliance with other laws and ordinance to requisite to issuance of receipt section 14 dash 18 exemptions. 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 and enforcement, section 14-36, application for use and occupancy certificate for new businesses, inspections, and fees, and providing for severability, conflicts, codification, and effective date.

Okay, do I have a motion?

Motion to approve with adding Lakewood Beach to the before business. Lakewood Beach. In the ordinance reading, I think it was line item 11.

Okay, thank you, we have a motion by Ms. Mulligan and a second by Mr. Steggeridge.

That's the actual title within the code of ordinances, so it has to, so how do we change, add beach to that?

I think it would be now known as Lake Worth Beach, NKA. Because it has to be exactly what it was, but now it's not. Okay, so we have a motion, we have a second. All in favor? Hi. Thank you very much.

New Business A. I might note, because I hope you noticed, all the things were highlighted in yellow. You actually included all the changes that you wanted. we will be coming back to you on the 21st, I believe, an amendment to the schedule of fees and charges to reflect some of the additional fees that you've now approved as part of this, as well as some other items related to House Bill 803 and some planning and zoning issues that are going to be coming out of the building permit section over to and a section outside of that. So there's more to this you'll see in a couple of weeks. And we will be delaying sending out renewal notes as though they become effective tomorrow. You can actually apply for them, but I think our annual renewal mailing is going to be delayed because we need to incorporate some new stuff once you all approve it on the 21st. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

And now, Madam Mayor, just for clarification, Section 14-32, we are adding the word beach. It just doesn't appear in the title because we're actually amending what it used to be.

That's right. Yeah. Thank you.

So it's good to go.

Okay. New business A. Resolution 23-26, which is where it was a few minutes ago, will establish proposed tentative voter approval debt millage rate of 0.40 for the fiscal year 26-27 general obligation bond fund levy. And I see Mr. uh yannick our finance director uh yes motion to approve science jim mccoy is second by ms malega

Yes, for the record, Yannick, with finance, this establishes the debt millage rate, which has not changed from last year. If you recall, last year, we reduced it from 0.92 because we had an excess fund balance. And this particular fund is just to pay out the debt, the principal and interest. And the 0.40, we're digging into our fund balance on a yearly basis. Thank you.

we still have about two to three years without changing this rate and so it will remain the same thank you yes joy um all in favor hi hi hi thank you very much thank you uh mr yannick mr yannick piggyback agreement with shanmore associates for planning and zoning and related consulting services approval of an agreement with chenmore and associates inc to provide professional planning zoning and related consulting services on an as needed basis utilizing a competitively awarded contract with the city of coral gables the agreement provides for annual expenditures not to exceed seventy five thousand dollars annually and my question is is this in addition to because they do a lot of work for the city and my question is is this in for a specific is this just to have them on call to appropriate the funds to have them on call i have a question too for director waters yeah mr waters went away he might be talking to somebody he's doing his rounds he's doing he's around he's he's still around he said he was doing rounds like a doctor signing the fan club right the paparazzi

What was my first and second spring?

Ms. McGoy-Malega. Okay. Well, Mr. Waters, could you come back to the chambers?

Maybe in the little boy's room.

Well.

He's got to come back.

That's what I was going to suggest. We can do that. C. Okay. Yeah.

Why don't we go to C? Yeah.

Okay. Item C, task order number 12 with Kimley Horn and Associates, Inc., for professional services, civil engineering, for the design, permitting, and bid phase services, stormwater improvements along 10th Avenue South and Dixie Highway. I have by Malega, second by?

Second.

By Mr. McVoy. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you very much. Come on. Come on.

I don't have the rest.

No comfort for you. Okay. We're talking about New Business B, which is the piggyback Chenmore Associates contract. They do a lot of work for us. And I think we're just curious about, is this just like, if you need help, the money's there?

Or is it specifically? It's a variety of things. They are a standby person, provide additional services related to planning services, landscape, historic preservation, comp plans, that sort of thing. They took on a special project for the rezoning of the Whispering Palms area. the future land use change. They will be providing arborist services for us. We've spent 20 months trying to fill our landscape planning position, and our code does require an arborist to review things. None of them that applied were arborists. And we just could not afford to have one out of our seven planning positions vacant for this long. So we have downgraded that position to an associate planner, are making a offer presently. And so the Arbor services to deal with our landscape code, which is also being rewritten by Chinmore, will be handled by them. And that's why there's money for FY27 coming from both public services and from the general fund. So they do, we have... I believe this is the only year we've totally exhausted the funding with them because we've had a lot of outside issues that we've had to deal with because of staffing shortages, new projects coming up. So we do anticipate the $75,000 for FY27 to be sufficient and the $30,000 for the rest of this fiscal year dealing with our arborist services and also helping supplement the Historic Preservation Office, which is down one of its positions, which is to be filled in August.

Okay, so they have their own, they have an arborist. That's my first question. They have a series of them, yes. Okay, my second question, and this is, you mentioned that they're working on the landscape code. Okay, I have a request. Sure. Often what happens to- They're still here. They're still here. Yeah. He's way behind them. He's- A lot of times, and this is like a frustration just in general with being up here and having things come to us. By the time things come to us, it's either we discuss specific things or we just approve it or not approve it. It would be helpful for something as consequential as a landscape code.

for those to be brought to us before it's going to be on the agenda so that we can have i can say wait what about part of what you requested and that we agreed to as part of the negotiation the contract is periodic updates and you're going to be getting an update very soon because the online survey is about ready to be launched to solicit public comment on what issues they have related to landscape and how is that going to be shared It's going to be shared everywhere you possibly can. It will be a press release. It'll be sent out. Maybe Lance can cover it more than I. We have a meeting, I think, tomorrow about it. Three languages. It'll be posted on the website. It'll be broadcast in a press release. It'll be a note on the website itself that, you know, hey, please participate. We're going to get the word out as best we can to neighborhood associations, the CRA, other entities that we're involved with, about as broad as we possibly can do.

And how long will the poll be open, though, the two weeks, a month? It's longer than that.

I have no idea.

I'm asking. Thanks.

For the record, again, Lance Lee with Chenmore. The plan was to keep it open for about six weeks.

Okay. Thank you. Okay, because yeah, that's a lot. And that's really one of the frustrations I think we all have is like, oh, here's this ordinance and it's presented to us. And I'm not, it's hard to get feedback.

As you recall, some of you, we did a survey when Chidmore helped us on the Open Space Recreation Master Plan, because the response was a little lower than we wanted. We extended that and did a really big push to other entities where it did not seem like they were responding at an adequate or acceptable level. And so if that were to happen with this one, we would do the same thing.

Okay, yeah. Okay, I think Mr. Sigwich was first.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Mr. Waters, you said the arborist hasn't been filled in about 20 months?

As I recall, the person that was in our landscape, that person wasn't an arborist either. The horticulturist left the city in October of 24.

Okay. And so by our code, we need to have an arborist. Can the job be done by a horticulturalist or it has to be an arborist?

Well, our code specifies that an arborist report is due, especially in terms of like condition of tree, the condition assessment of the tree, whatever. And trying to find even a horticulturist has been a challenge. And so the cost differential, because our previous horticulturists didn't do work beyond landscape stuff in terms of reviewing permits and planning and zoning issues since they were in our division. We feel that it's more expeditious and efficient to hire an associate planner and refer most of the landscape arborist responsibilities to Chinmore. However, most of the planners on staff are now picking up the landscape review for site plans and the initial review and inspections for trees out in the world. So we are picking up some of the responsibilities of the horticulturist position within our existing staff and positions, but the arborist responsibilities are being turned over to Chinmore as we need them.

Okay. And which of the rates are we getting charged for an arborist? Because the rate chart in the back just talks about planners.

I think it will be the same thing as the senior planner or professional one. I think it's... So 190 an hour?

Yes. So these rates are three times salary, which for a consultant is normal. But I'm more concerned that we have a position that hasn't been filled. And having a recruiter costs you 15% to 25% of the position, 30% if you're really paying them a lot. Here we're paying 200% on the position. I really think it seems like we have a problem in these departments and in the city of finding the talent. I think that we need to explore a policy that if a position is open for 60 days or 90 days, we pass that along to a recruiter because if the alternative is paying three times the salary I'd rather pay 15% or 20% to a recruiter all day long. Now, there's $75,000. This is purely for the arborist?

No, that's for all the services. We don't need a full-time arborist. We use one a couple hours a week, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little bit less. It will not be $195 times 2,080 hours. As you can imagine, that's more than $75,000. We're basing it on how much we're using it now. And the other extra planning, preservation, land use services that we need from Chinmore on an as-needed basis. Now, some of the costs can be recouped under a fee schedule change that we did last year and we're bringing forward again, is that there is a cost recoupment. component to the code so that if we do have to hire outside talent that we do not have, we can pass that cost on to an applicant. We did not choose to do that for the tree people because they're already being kind of dinged in a way, but we did recoup a significant amount of money in terms of Tim Moore's assistance in writing the ordinance and stuff for the concrete mixing plant that was on 7th Avenue North.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. That was actually my question. I wrote down, are we still hiring? And is this coming out of that pot? So if we've had an open application for 20 months and that position was funded, then to me, the question is, why aren't we funding this? This need from and I don't know if Yana can answer this. It's not really different.

Their salary, salary, salary and benefits are in one component of the budget and consulting services are in another one. And we did use some salary savings from this position to fund some other hirings that we've had to do. We do have some salary savings still for the year, but that couldn't be moved without a budget amendment to move from salaries and benefits to contractual services.

Well, that's what I'm asking. If there is still funds available and we're spending this money and that money is just sitting there and we're already going into July 1st, I would like to have that conversation with I don't know how the rest of the commission feels about moving those funds from there to this consulting to help cover this cost. If that's something that finances in.

I don't know if there's that as much money as you might think.

No, no, I'm saying whatever's there. I don't care if it's $5,000, whatever the cost is, you know, and that would obviously look for finance to come back with a budget amendment because I'm not asking them a pop quiz. Not right now. Because he's already like, thank you very much. He's on it. But I would like to know if we could move that money if that position hasn't been filled to help facilitate this cost. So I'm in favor of doing a budget amendment if we can. Thank you. That's my only concern.

Part of your budget, your item here is we already have the funds available from general fund accounts within the department under two different divisions, three different accounts to cover the $30,000 for the rest of the fiscal year.

Thank you. Mr. McVoy.

I appreciate my colleagues' concern over the financial aspects. I think they're reasonable and some of the points made seem reasonable to me too. My concern is very different. It's people who pay attention to trees in this city have been very alarmed for a long time that we are not doing a good job either as a city or city staff or as how we work with residents in terms of increasing our tree canopy. We cut stuff down or we don't do anything that prevents people from cutting stuff down. We are going backwards, not forwards. And we had an earlier discussion with Mr. Liberty about degree days. It is, I think, common knowledge that it is not getting cooler as we go forward in time. Shade is a big deal. And my concern is. It's fine to hire a consulting firm to do the arborist stuff. I don't think that that is going to reverse the trend that goes by many people, like I say, who pay attention to trees particularly. We're going in the wrong direction, and I don't see this as being very likely to go in the right direction. I think the arborist issue is you need somebody who has a connection to the city, a loyalty to the city, a commitment to increasing our tree canopy and advocating for them and making sure that maybe we need better policies or we need better enforcement or whatever it is that we need. to move the needle. The bottom line is, are we gaining trees or are we losing trees? That's really the bottom line on that. And my best information is we're losing. So I hear the suggestion made by Commissioner Segrich that, well, maybe we need to do a different way of trying to find people. As a real-life on-deck arborist, it may be that that is pretty difficult because of housing costs and so on in South Florida, which that's probably not something we can fix. I don't know how to fix it, but I'm very concerned that this has been a longstanding issue for a number of years with trees. And I don't see this as being likely to push us in the right direction.

comment having the arborist or not is not the issue is the policies and direction that are adopted as part of the ldrs and the uh tree and landscape canopy maintenance program of the city the arborist can only enforce and do what our ordinances stipulate And that's one of the goals that we'll be bringing forward to you with the new landscape code is how to encourage more landscape installation and maintenance. Because I think maybe it was Commissioner Sedgwick that mentioned a fund of a sort to try to encourage planting of trees in areas that are bereft of trees. And that will be part of what they're looking at. And when the new landscape code comes before you, hopefully later this year, hopefully before January, it's going to be cutting it kind of close, We can have that policy discussion on how we can better encourage tree planting, appropriate tree maintenance and cultivation, and then how we can also increase the tree canopy on city-owned properties because they're not the greatest either, sadly.

If I could follow up to that, I agree with Mr. Waters that policies is a big part of the issue of why we're losing rather than gaining on trees. I certainly don't have a crystal ball, I don't have full knowledge, but if I had to bet, I think you need a combination of better policies and somebody who that's what they do. That's what they pay attention to, whether they're a tree advocate, that they help spread the word in the community that, yeah, you will get into a lot of trouble if you just cut down trees without being checked out properly. I think it needs both. That's an opinion. It doesn't make it a fact.

Thank you. Mr. Severidge.

Thank you. I'll try to be quick because we're getting off a little bit of the topic on this, but it did spark a discussion. I think we need to, without getting into micromanaging it, request that the city manager come up with a revamp to our recruiting policies and procedures and how we do things. Because the job ad for Arborist, it's not on our website when you go and search for it. I just did it now. No. No, not at all.

It won't be on the website because we downgraded the landscape planning position, which was not requiring of an arborist to an associate planner. And we, in the 20 years, 20 months that we had, nobody who applied for the landscape planning position had an arborist certification. But two of them that we did offer a position to, and one of them did get hired and was with us maybe three or four weeks, had the ability to become an arborist.

I just think it's an obvious problem that we have. We have positions that are open for almost two years. That means something's broken. Not trying to blame people, not trying to say they're doing a bad job, but I would like us, I would ask consensus for us to give direction to the city manager to review how we do recruitment and give serious consideration to bring in an outside recruiting firm if position X is open for 60 days or 90 days, because the opportunity cost is far greater than paying the 30% of a salary. And that would be having recruiting companies jump hand over fist to try to get that contract. And they will go and find that person. They will poach that person. Our staff does not have the time to call around to other arborists in the area and say, are you guys interested? Are you interested? Are you interested? Also with something like the arborist position, why aren't we looking for a part-time firm? If it's only a couple of these here and there, why are we paying 3X salary to a consulting firm versus getting a firm who will charge us normal, right? And it's not dinging Chen Moore. They're stepping in and getting it done. That's why you pay consultants what you pay them, because they're there at the drop of a hat. And I'm thankful for that. And my experience with you guys in this exact position has been wonderful so far. The work that they've done has been really good. I was really impressed with some of the items that they came out and did. But I would ask consensus that we give the city manager direction to review this and pursue a plan that gets more aggressive on the recruiting side, setting a timeframe where we turn these things over to recruiter because we got to get these things staffed.

I support that.

Do you have consensus to do that, to have the city manager look at it? Sure. Please put that on the list, Mr. City Manager.

Madam Mayor, one of the things I did want to say, as you recall, next week, next Tuesday, we do have a meeting with our HR consultant before the regular city commission meeting to talk about labor issues as part of that labor meeting. a meeting, you will hear from our HR consultant who might also be able to provide some light on some of the issues we face in terms of recruitment and salary within the city. So just keeping in mind.

We'll have that meeting.

That's correct.

I mean, obviously, we're all concerned about that. There's a few. And I think a position like that, you know, it is a specialized position. Yeah.

Okay. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Segrich.

So we have a motion. We did. We have a second. All in favor? What?

No.

I'm sorry? I can't hear you. I thought you already did. No.

Who was the first and the second? It's been so long.

I don't think we actually did.

No, we didn't.

We can start talking.

Hello? Madam Clerk?

Madam Clerk? Do we have a motion and a second? I did not hear one. All right. Motion by May. Motion by May. Second by Segrich. All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much.

Was that begrudgingly?

That was a purge. Okay. Item C. We did C. Sorry, we skipped it. Okay. Resolution 24-2026, establish stormwater rate for fiscal year 26-27. I think it's good to read the summary so people know at least what we're talking about. This resolution establishes the annual assessment for stormwater services for fiscal year 26-27 in the amount of $128.73 per equivalent residential unit. The new proposed rate of $128.73 is a 7% increase from fiscal year 25-26. Do I have a motion?

Motion to approve.

By McVoy. Second by May. May. All in favor? Aye.

Aye.

5-0. Aye. 5-0. We love that.

I mean, yes. Currently, I can't write and speak at the same time.

Sorry. Sometimes we have trouble. Okay. E. Why is... Oh, we moved that. Okay. Yeah, I think we're on task order number five, which is E. And in my book, it is empty. I have no, I have nothing. Would you help me?

Could you want me to just read it? Motion for task order number five was Stantec Consulting Services for Hydrogeological Consulting Services. Task order number five authorizes Stantec Consulting Services to provide hydrogeological services for the replacement dual zone monitoring well. professional service during construction and testing.

Thank you.

Motion to approve.

By McVoy, second by Malaga. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. F, which is in my book. Agreement with All Web Enterprises. Request for approval of the agreement with All Web Enterprises Inc. for the Dual Zone Monitoring Well R1 project at a cost not to exceed $4,441,000. Do I have a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second by Mr. Mifoy. All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much. Moving on to G. Amendment number one to task order number one authorizes CPC Architects, Inc. to provide professional services for the water plant office renovations. Do I have a motion?

Motion to approve.

By Malega. Second by? May. I have a question. Okay. Ms. May, we have a motion and a second. What's your question?

I just, because I. Go ahead. Water plant. So this is a planning for the renovation, $2,000 to plan. Vaughn Baker, Water Utilities.

So our original contract with CPZ for the design of the renovations came to... under $50,000. This amount of $2,000 puts it over $50,000, which is why we are bringing it forward to you. But essentially what we needed from them was just to follow procurement policy. We needed them to generate some sort of cost estimate for us, even though things are going to vary heavily based on the choices that we make for we're renovating kitchens, bathrooms, you know, just choices of paint cabinetry.

I would think that in the future, and I don't, I could be wrong, but if we're dealing with something that's going from a, city manager approval of less than $50,000 to something that needs to come to us, let's bring the whole amount, not just the overage.

Just to show the difference.

Just to show the difference. Otherwise, it looks like we're approving a $2,000 amount, which doesn't really make, I mean, we are, but because it's an overage.

Right. So it's an amendment to the original task or work order.

Yeah, because it doesn't have the original price in it. So just in the future, if we could do that, that would be great. We can do that. I mean, I have no problem with you guys getting a new kitchen. I just want to make sure that we don't – and I don't think anybody's taking advantage of the $50,000 or less. It's really not that much money. But if we're going to come to us for a little bit more, at least tell us – tell the story. Tell the story. Yeah, we want to be very transparent. Mr. Secretary.

I just want to make sure. So this is extra money is to cover the cost of them purely meeting a procurement line item that's probably not going to be that valuable because it's going to change wildly once you make your decisions on paint and color and all the other things.

It's going to provide the cost estimate that we can base the funding from ourselves on. So when we put projects out to bid, we have to have the funds already in our accounts. So this cost estimate will essentially provide caps on that so that we can make sure that we're within our own budget.

Okay. That sounds a lot better than your original... I understand.

Yes. Sorry. I didn't.

Originally how you said it was like, well, you know, they just have to give us an estimate and then we're going to change that completely, but we have to pay for it anyway.

It's a cost estimate that we did not originally scope in their task order, but need to proceed with the procurement process.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Moving along to H.

Request for approval of the agreement with LCCI Construction, LLC, for the South End Street Drainage Improvement Project at a cost not to exceed $102,085. Motion to approve. By Malega, second by? May. May. All in favor?

Aye.

Item I, task order number 24 authorizes WGI Inc. to support the electric utilities engineering work to request a topographic and subservice utility survey to support underground construction design at a not to exceed cost of $129,530. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. Do I have a second? Second. By Ms. May. All in favor? Aye.

Aye.

Item number J. Agreements with WIC Dell LLC, DBA, Treasure Coast Infrastructure, and Belmore Enterprises, Inc. for underground boring trenching and cable pulling for electrical conduit installation construction on an as-needed basis for the electric utilities distribution system. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. Second by Mr. McPoy. All in favor? Aye. I'm sorry.

How much in insurance are we requiring of them?

$15 million.

Well, no, that's a serious question.

Even if they're boring because they're so good at boring?

I'll have to admit that I don't know. I'd lean on procurement to give me that answer. If I don't know, Valentina is on.

It's in here on page five.

I don't know that number off the top of my head, but I believe we raised it not too long ago.

I didn't see a limit demand on there.

Yeah, but it talks later than about the IFB, which is a little hard to understand what that is. Okay. There we go. Thank you.

Million, two million. So it's there.

Yeah. So I've asked numerous times whenever we were dealing with contracts for things like this that could end up costing the city tens of millions of dollars, a million dollars worth of insurance as our requirement is ridiculous.

I think it's... The aggregate is 2 million. Well, I guess we would ask about what are the, you know, what's the standard with municipal? Probably 15 to 20 million. I think we should find out what the standard is. Madam Attorney, can we do that?

The standard is usually what's here for, and this is what I don't recall with this particular contract, sometimes and often what we'll do, since we have been few and associates as consultant for insurance, for specific contracts, we will send the standard to them and say, do you recommend for this specific contract that something be changed, given the type of work, the risk to the city and those types of things. I can't recall specifically if this contract was sent to Ben Few, but the standard insurance for construction is typically this, unless we recommend something different. And I believe part of this is, and Mr. Liberty can correct me if I'm wrong, is that these are, I believe, project-based work authorizations or task force that will be issued to this contractor. So the scope is not necessarily determined, predetermined at this time for each little project that's issued to them.

Correct. This is basically suggesting that we add two contractors to our list who we would then go to for proposals on a project by project basis. And we need this because we've added so much more underground style work that we don't have enough sufficient.

Not arguing that we don't need these people. When you say standard, is that your office's standard template or you're saying that's industry standard?

Uh, it's, it's what the city, this city and other cities typically use for general construction also for, uh, other general products. This is the standard that most cities use. Now it's not ours. Uh, it goes through risk analysis, um, and it's a standard it's based on sovereign immunity and those types of things to make sure the city's covered.

Yeah, I have a hard time believing this is industry standard. And I've looked at and researched other municipal contracts for similar things. And $1 million is not what these people have. So I think we need to be considering what we're going through, maybe have a lesson learned. And we have to be requiring more insurance out of these people.

And just so you know, it does vary, like I said earlier, contract by contract depending on what the exact scope is. Since we don't know the exact scope.

Understood. I just haven't seen it above $2 million ever. On any contract, on anything, even on specific contracts, I've asked multiple times. And each time I get the same answer, which is, I don't know. We think this is kind of what we just do. And each time, Mary, you brought it up. Oh, they should do research on what's industry standard. Industry standard in the construction industry is not a million dollars.

Can I interrupt? If you go to article six, there's more details in regards. It's at the very, very, it's kind of in the... I'm going to go with 6.1. I don't know what, there's no page number. It's in the backup. Article 6, bonds and insurance. It goes through details. Commercial liability, general liability. No, it's Article 6, 6.1. It's in the very, they're not numbered.

I'm sorry.

There's provisions in here for every type of insurance and what the job requirements are.

Right. For this contract, you're going to have general conditions and you have supplemental conditions. What we were just looking at is supplemental conditions that supplement the general conditions and provide the actual dollar amounts. As you can see, for like the excess umbrella insurance, it's applicable. And typically for our construction jobs, we will usually require the umbrella insurance. But you can't really put a number in this because it's going to be specific to the scope of work. And this is the first time I'm hearing a question about our insurance and contracts. I am happy to go through and provide an outline or whatever you need to better understand why we put certain things in contracts and the different types of insurance that we have required. From my understanding, and we can go back and look at parking garage, there is different insurance for different contracts and different scopes. So I'm happy to go through that and lay that out for you. This is the first time I'm hearing that that's an issue.

And Mr. Segrich, you said you just mentioned that you found other municipal contracts. If you could give us those examples, that would be helpful. Sure.

I did the research months ago the last time I asked it.

I mean, why? It would be helpful at this time. So we're going to have staff, a little industry, look at that. Mr. McBoy?

I would just say that... I support the concept of doing a little research. For instance, I'd like to know, suppose we more generally upped it from a million to 15 million, what does our cost look like? Is it not very significant? And I appreciate that different things have different levels of risk. And so we might well want different insurance for them. But I think the concept of simply let's look at it. We had a big problem. It was quite expensive.

That wasn't.

I understand that. But it gives you an idea of what the cost of things going south can be. Yeah. So I think the idea of, you know, doing a little extra look at it and both the costs and, you know, various industry practices seems like a pretty sensible time investment.

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

Aye.

Up to Kaye. The Professional Services Agreement with Simple Mind LLC provides for the development and publication of the Electric Utility Annual Report, continuing development and maintenance of the citizen-owned energy website, and communications program support in the amount of $40,500 annually. Do I have a motion?

Motion for conversation.

Ms. Malego, second by? Second. May. Okay. Yes, discussion.

I had sent an email to Director Liberty, and he might have been out in the middle of whatever bay of water he was in. God bless him. And staff requesting that I do frequently go to the Citizen Owned Energy website, and there is not a translate button for English and Creole. And I think that that's important on both of the city's website and the citizensownedenergy.com website. that there's a translation button for English and English Spanish to Creole. And that's not active now. And I would like to make sure that that is happening on everything that we're communicating to our residents and business owners.

Yeah. Thank you.

I didn't get a response. I just want to make sure that my voice is being heard. I've said it for the record. There's a little thing, a little icon that's got a flag and you just click the flag and you can change language. I don't think there's any objection to that. No, no. I'm just letting my comrades know. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. McVoy.

I support that concept. Hopefully somebody will check it, how good the translation is. Sometimes those are a little bit amusing, but hopefully it's all right. Yeah. My question more generally is, is it, or maybe differently, what is the benefit to the city that we have these two websites, a electric utility website and a citizen's owned utility website? I understand that there's, you know, a sort of kind of a PR aspect, but it's a little confusing to have two. And so I would ask Could we combine it all into the normal city's electric utility website and not have a second one? Are there any downsides to that? And if so, what are they? And are there upsides, possibly cost, but I think more just confusion, right? You know, most people know it as the Lake Worth Electric Utility, like we have the Lake Worth Water Utility. We don't have a citizens-owned water utility, but you could argue, Maybe we should. I don't know. So I'd look for a little clarification on that and curious if my colleagues have any views on it one way or the other.

Who produces that website, that separate website?

So, Madam Mayor, to the point, at Liberty, for the record, Electric Utility Director, the history of this is that this website was created at the request of the City Commission a number of years ago, particularly led by Commissioner Robinson at the time, who felt very strongly. It's got to be five or six, maybe more, seven years ago. Yeah, I think it's a while back. And there was a concern that The city's website did not promote the electric utility enough. The city's website was more informational and transactional. You would go there to transact business, to get information on bids, to report an outage, to to do various things nuts and bolts right and and we needed a it was suggested that we have a separate website to um because let me back up for a second we then engaged the communications consultant what came out of it was create a separate website which commissioner robinson was very strongly in favor of and i believe the commission approved that we create this thing It was purely to be informational. What we did want to do was create something that had any link from a cybersecurity point of view into cities' operating systems, and that it just be for the purpose of getting information out to people about what we were doing with respect to system hardening, reliability improvement, average rates, employee e-news. More recently, it became Part of our pitch, if you will, on the grant to promote grant related activities. So it's a place you go to to find out what's happening. It's not social media in the sense that it's not interactive. We're not taking requests. We're not engaging. We're just putting information out there to keep people informed.

But maybe we can get a link, because it's pretty obscure. Maybe we can get a link on our city website that's a button to go, if you're interested in electrical stuff.

I think there is a link there. There is? That'll take you back and forth between the two. And at the time, and I could say even today, I'm sure if Nellie is watching, she's saying, oh, no, please don't put this onto the city's website. We're quite content using Simple Mind. The gentleman's name is Michael Taylor. And we now have an internal staff member who's focused on loading content on there and just keeping it going.

But there is a link on our website to that, to the... That name? Okay. All right. Thank you.

So it's really informational, and it was intended to get information out there. I think we even have some links to some national statistics. I think there's links in there to... I have to go back and check for energy audit type stuff and EIA maybe or... Energy Star. I'm not sure if Energy Star is still active anymore, but Energy Star.

That's why I said for it to be most effective, it should be in multiple languages.

We were never asked to do it in multiple languages before, but if it's the wish of the commission to try to convert this to multiple languages, we could.

As much as we can.

Yeah. And those languages would be?

Haitian, Creole, and Spanish.

Forget the Finns.

And English. So.

Haitian, Creole is one. Spanish and English.

Yep.

Thank you. Mr. McVoy, you're next. Ms. May is next.

I was next. I just wanted to know, and I'm sure you don't know this off the top of your head, but you might. Annually, monthly, how many hits do we have at this website? Clicks, whatever they're called.

We just started tracking that, and I got some preliminary information. I don't have it off the top of my head, but they literally just emailed to me about a week ago. Okay. I can take a look at that.

Yeah, I mean, if it's four, why are we spending $40,000 on this?

The irony of it is when we first launched this thing, I asked the same question. How was it looking? We were getting, if I recall correctly, thousands of hits coming from China and India.

That's frightening. Do not link it with our website.

Exactly. So we were concerned about that. But it's getting more traction. More and more people are aware of it. The catch name Citizen Don't Energy is coming.

When you look at the clicks, can you see where they're coming from? I mean, are we meeting the goal of educating our citizens or are we satisfying curiosity in foreign countries?

i mean you don't have to answer it now but if you could come back with that information that would be great thanks thank you uh mr mcboy i think was next and mr savage um i i'm certainly sensitive to the concerns of security i years ago tried to hook some of my field instrumentation into the water management districts system in a They informed me that we are getting hit, and I saw it with a router sitting in the middle of the Everglades, that we had a lot of hits, but the router was perfectly fine at keeping them out. And we did not connect to the districts. They didn't want people in China opening our gates. Similarly, we don't want things happening here. But I would assume that it is still quite possible, technically, to provide all that information that I think we all agree is pretty useful information, especially if it's in three languages or translatable into three. but put it as part of the Lake Worth Electric Utility and avoid the confusion. It seems like we should at least look into, is it possible technically to have an absolute firewall between that, that it's just an outflowing information thing, there's no way to get in? Because we have that concern with the city website. In any case, so presumably I know that we've done penetration tests and various other things to make sure that we're reasonably okay. But I think there would be something to be said for combining it into the Lake Worth Electric Utility. Keep the content, maybe even enhance the content, and keep an informational corner. That would be my thought.

So to make sure I understand it correctly, you're suggesting then that we would give up that domain name and move all of this stuff over. Well, I wouldn't give it up right away. But move it up. Hang on to it a little bit. But you're suggesting essentially another section of the city's website.

Right. And put the information, because it's, you know, everybody asks about, like, where's the electric utility? And that's where you would logically go, no, it's not going to occur to some of citizens' own utility. Right.

could be in ohio but if you if you go to the city's website to the electric page i think there's a link there that takes you to what we call coe that takes you over there coe yeah we've nicknamed citizen known energy and that's just that's just our own word citizen don't sure great thank you citizen known energy yes we have so many um dot com mr segret thank you mr segret

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think the COE website is an opportunity for customer service call reduction because it provides a lot of information and can answer a lot of questions. Our city website is jam packed with every department. It's very difficult, I think, to navigate through it and absorb all of that information. So I do like the concept of it being separated. I do know that from our city website, it links you over to this. I would err on the side of putting more information on this and less on the city website to drive people here. Another thought on that is, and I don't know it may do this already, but paying your electric bill online If that is a secure link that's in the city's website's architecture or it's in a third-party website's architecture, In our materials, we should drive them to a landing page on COE and then to their pay options. That will greatly increase the viewership and the opportunity for answering questions. It doesn't have any security risk because all you're basically doing is saying, hey, go to COE slash pay. And on there, like I'll say it, FPL does. They have a button. Click here to make a one-time payment. Click here for your account. And they shoot you right back off that website. you're on that informational platform first. And they can present to whatever. So I do think that website has a lot of merit and I think it could help reduce our customer service call volume. And if we use a good strategy like that with something like the pay link, drive... essentially drive more there that we can, that will work out. In terms of the multiple languages, I would encourage us to look into a Google Translate tool or a third-party translate tool. A lot of English as a second language utilize those things. I don't think we should be natively translating that. That's very expensive. So just a tool. I did have a question on the financials of it. There's a line item for annual report design each year. And that leads me to believe that the annual report that goes up there is kind of a one-off. Is that your understanding of it? Or is it more of a template that they fill in?

No, it's more of a one-off. We change the design slightly each year to try to hit some of the hot buttons for that particular year. What we did, we saved money. Originally, the annual reports were done in print and on the website as well. Recently, the last two or three years, we don't even print it anymore. We just put it on the website. So that saves some money there.

So my only other comment is I don't think you asked for enough money. When you add them together, you're only asking for the maintenance fee. You're not asking for the one-time design and construction fees. So in reading it, it looks like 26, you need 62,000, 51,000, and 51,000 the following years, because you've got a fixed development cost of 22,500 in 2026, and then a 40,500 maintenance, not to exceed in hourlies.

I can go back and take a look at it again at the same time as we price for some of these other changes that need to be made. But I think we can come back and get started with this. And then update the price.

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't a mistake.

Yeah, I'll take another look at that.

Okay. Because he's got two pricing columns. One is the fixed cost. Then he's got a bucket of $40,000 for incidental or just normal working. Yeah. You might not use that 40,000, so 40,000 in total might be okay.

It is somewhat variable because as more activities happen, we load more, we load more, we load more, more brand. Some of the stuff, by the way, is we also curate things that we get from FMEA podcasts and things like that. They're linked there. If there's a particularly interesting government document that we would like people to have access to, we'll throw that on there. It's just general utility information. We... Try not to make it partisan at all. Just information that anybody with electric service would like to have.

I think the more that we have here, we'll reduce our customer service costs. We'll gain from investing in this asset.

I do have a quick question on the bills because I don't get a bill. Does it say the website on the bill, the paper bills? Because I don't get a paper bill.

I believe it does.

Okay.

That's it.

Okay, we have a motion. Yes.

It was a motion for discussion.

Motion to approve. Motion to approve. Second. Moved by Malega, seconded by May. All in favor? Aye. For the record, Mr. McFoy is not in the room right now, so it's 4-0. And next up is, as part of the electric utility fleet replacement program, the transmission and distribution department is requesting approval to purchase two 55-foot bucket trucks and two 41-foot bucket trucks.

Motion to approve. Motion to approve by May. Seconded by Mr. Segwitch. Ms. Malega, do you have a question? I do have a question, being that this is my profession and my wheelhouse. 13,500 vehicles. $13,546 to deliver four trucks from Alabama. I don't know, have we thought about just sending four of our crew there and paying for airfare and having them drive these trucks back? That is exuberant when we're paying $1.2 million. And any negotiation that I could do, I would be having them absorb that transportation cost. But $13,000, I think, no, that's total for four trucks.

To drive them from, yeah.

They're not going to drive them. They're probably going to put them on multiple flat, a long hauler. But I think that it may behoove us to think about sending four of our drivers on a plane to go pick them up and drive them back. I just think that we can't spend $13,000 on airfare and a hotel and fuel to get them back from Alabama. Or just call them and tell them that you can't get it approved without giving them $13,000 for delivery fee because that's exuberant. Second. Yeah.

And you know about this show.

I just had a question about the old trucks. Do we put them out? I want one. My second question about the old trucks. Are we sending those to auction? Are we recouping anything? Any value out of them?

That remains to be seen. They may keep one or two of them as spares, as backups, but there are other city departments that may want them for other functions, for example, for tree inspection or putting a city electrician or something like that. They may want them. So we'd look internally to see if there's another use for them before we put them out. And then we'd follow the city's policy for disposal of vehicles or whatever that is. I don't know off the top of my head. We haven't been able to dispose of a vehicle in so many years. not been an issue yeah but overall it's exciting by the way this is yeah this is a good problem so thank you for that question but uh this is a part of our effort to make sure we don't have any vehicles that are older than 15 years so you can see here i think one is at 19 the others are coming up on on 20 plus or yet three of them are at 19 and uh and one of them is at uh 20 26 years So the goal is going to be to come in for these approvals at about year 13 or 14, so we can get the approval and have the new truck delivered at the 15th year and then dispose of or keep a couple spares.

Okay, well, I'm being serious. My motion is to approve without the delivery fee. I'm not joking.

Okay. I think we already had a motion in a second. You're amending it?

Yeah. I can't because I was the one who made it. Oh, I didn't make it. Who made it?

Vice Mayor May made the motion.

I would like to back that out. I think it's exuberant and I think it's just them being greedy.

Madam Mayor.

I'm fine with amending. Mr. Perry.

I understand the commissioner's concerns, but I would like to make sure that we have other options. I don't know if the director of public works or it want to speak on this because we have to get those trucks here. We don't want to be stuck.

So trust me, if you're giving somebody $1.2 million and the trucks are already built to our specs, they're not going to hem and haw.

I just want to make sure that we don't have it later. So It's not a matter of calling. I just want to make sure the staff have any comments about that.

Madam Mayor, if I may, this is a source well contract purchase. So we are doing this through a cooperative purchasing agreement. So the prices are usually set. by that cooperative agreement. So one of the things staff will have to review is whether or not the other pricing we're getting is because it's cooperative. So the delivery price may be set by that cooperative purchase contract we're using. So that could be a deal killer.

And I think to that point, too, what you do is you buy the chassis and then it gets.

But I know how it works. I've got that part. I'm not changing my motion. So do you want to tell everybody else? I know how the I know how the whole concept works.

I'm not changing about 180 million dollars of these one year.

Yeah. So it's fine. Vote this one down and make another motion. But let's move on. OK, so all the question on this. You are so sassy. She's very sensy.

I got to pee. Mr. Perry, we didn't have a comfort break. We didn't. Okay. All right. So motion in a second. All in favor? Aye. What was the motion? To approve it.

To approve it.

They made the motion.

We made the motion. We didn't change it based on Sarah.

You were in the bathroom. You were in the bathroom.

You can vote now. Who made the motion? You did.

I did. Yes.

And it's three to... Aye.

But we do encourage you to push a little.

Grudgingly. All right.

So, grudgingly. All in favor. Aye.