City Commission - Regular Meeting

Oh, no. During the crime snap during the PBS.

Oh, yeah.

Anthony, during the TV. So that's really difficult. Oh, no. You're not TV. So it's on the agenda. Captain Prime's going to give you a presentation and then at that point. Okay, thank you.

Madam Mayor, it is 621 and we are live.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the City of Lake Worth Beach regular City Commission meeting of Tuesday, July 7th, 2026. May I have the roll call, please?

Mayor Betty Resch.

Here.

Vice Mayor Mimi May. Present. Commissioner Sarah Maliga. Alive and well. Commissioner Christopher McVoy.

Also alive and well.

Commissioner Anthony Fegrich.

Present. Thank you. We're here. I'll do the invocation and Commissioner McVoy will do the Pledge of Allegiance. As we begin this meeting, let us pause for a moment of reflection. May we approach today's work with integrity, wisdom, and a genuine commitment to the people we serve. May we listen carefully, speak respectfully, and consider each issue with fairness and an open mind. Let us recognize that thoughtful government depends on civil dialogue, informed judgment, and a willingness to work together despite differing perspectives. May we seek solutions that strengthen our community, protect the public trust, promote opportunity, safety, and well-being for all. I'm not done yet. Amen. As we deliberate, may we remember that every decision carries consequences for our neighbors, businesses, families, and future generations. Let us be guided by compassion, accountability, and a shared dedication to serving the common good. With these principles in mind, let us begin the business of this meeting.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, by name and under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Are there any additions, deletions, or any delicious or reordering?

I don't have anything, Madam Mayor.

Okay, Mr. McVoy has his light on.

Yeah, I would just like to again request of my colleagues that we consider the Haitian population in our city, which is quite substantial, and in South Florida also, and ask that we... either pass a resolution asking our state delegation to pass extension of the temporary protected status, TPS. It is up, I think it was Senate Bill 1418, but I might have the number wrong from memory. that we encourage our state delegation to unanimously support TPS extension given the Supreme Court decision recently. So I'd just like to give my colleagues another opportunity to see whether they could see their way to that as a way of supporting all of our residents.

Thank you.

I think we do have a- So that would be an addition to the agenda. It's an emergency resolution because it's very timely relative to the Supreme Court thing and the, I'm told, impending vote in the Senate.

Thank you. Any response to that? I think that has been brought up, and I believe that the rule says, and I don't want to be wrong about the rule, that if it's denied, you have to wait like six months to bring it back up. But I could be wrong about that.

That will certainly help the Haitian community.

No doubt. Is there any? Can I make a recommendation? I have to support this. I think I'll be writing a letter on my own record, standing with my sisters and brothers in the Haitian community. I don't think, like I've said before, that this is something that we should take on as a body. That's my personal feeling. But just like the school board, three of us supported writing a letter. Some of us didn't. So I will indeed write a letter personally, but not from as the body of the commission.

Thank you. I have no other comments, so thank you, Mr. McVoy, for your suggestion. Anything else? Any additions, deletions, or reordering? Having none, thank you very much. Okay, legislative updates. Impact of property tax bills upon essential public services, voter approved priorities, and critical local services by our own Representative Emily Gregory, District 87 State Representative.

Thank you and welcome.

Representative, you've got to push the button on the mic. There's a little button.

Super close to the mic and super. No, just press the red light.

It's on? Now you're on. Just talk a little closer. Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, commissioners, for having me. For those of you I haven't had the chance to meet as of March, I am your new state representative in the Florida Statehouse. I'm Emily Gregory. We love Lake Worth Beach. And apropos of just information, I also love the Lake Worth Beach Club and Golf Course. What? Everyone does. Everyone does. So today we're going to talk about an explanation of how the property tax system in Florida works, what the proposed amendment that the Florida legislature last month passed. It'll be on the ballot in November. So it's very important that we talk about it and what the implications will be. And what are the potential impacts for homeowners, renters, local government and essential public services? So next slide. So Florida has three main funding mechanisms. Sales tax is one of our main funding mechanisms, sales and rental. We have miscellaneous such as you might hear it called a bed tax, tourism, corporate income and property taxes. So we famously don't have state income tax. So if you think of most states, funding for the state is a three-pronged stool, sales tax, income tax, and property tax. So we don't have income tax. We have relatively low sales tax. So our stool is already very imbalanced on one revenue source, which is property tax. Next slide, please. You might also hear it called as ad valorem. The state at the level of government that I serve does not collect the taxes. Property taxes are levied by your local municipality, and those are the services that it funds. So let's talk about what property taxes fund. So fire and rescue, police. We have the amazing healthcare district in Palm Beach County, which is our public safety net. It does our hospitals, our safety net has hospitals, trauma hawk, emergency disaster relief, which is incredibly important during hurricane season, public schools, public health, the Children's Services Council, which is incredibly important to the community and our social safety net. And then infrastructure. So if you want your pothole fixed, that is coming directly from property taxes, bridges, roads, and quality of life, community services like parks and rec and libraries. So those are just some of the things that property taxes fund, which is, as you can see, pretty exhaustive and incredibly important to our public safety, to our quality of life. And that is how we fund those services. So next slide, I'll quickly go over the current homestead exemption. We have a $50,000 homestead exemption. We have all the details here and we're happy to share the slides if anyone's interested. The first 25,000 and then a second 25,000, which excludes public schools. So public schools are carved out and there are some additional carve outs for seniors, veterans, active duty military, surviving spouses, first responders who died in the line of service. So $50,000 is where we've been historically over 30 years. Next slide, please. That legislation was called Save Our Homes. So in addition to the $50,000 limit, another essential piece is that it caps the amount the assessed value can increase by 3%. So that keeps, for most people that were already homeowners prior to property tax's property values climbing so much in the last few years. It kept most homeowners rates pretty stable. And that was a huge piece of this legislation. So Save Our Homes has been very popular the last 30 years. And that has been a revenue level that municipalities have been able to operate under. So now we'll talk about what the proposal is in November. Next slide, please. So property taxes were established in our constitution and no legislation can change them. And that must be done by constitutional amendment. Next slide. The only way to amend the Constitution is either by a citizen-led initiative, a joint resolution by the legislature, which is what is going on the ballot in November, or two types of commission, a constitutional revision commission or a taxation and budget commission. I'll make a note on this issue. There is a taxation and budget commission that meets every 20 years to review our tax code in its entirety, and that commission meets next year. So that is the perfect time to review in a comprehensive and do our due diligence to review how we will fund our essential services. Next slide, please. So in June, what was passed by the legislature and will be on your ballot in November is a very large increase of the homestead extension. So we'll talk about what that does to our funding and how that will impact the funding of those essential services. So phase one of the House Joint Resolution is $150,000 based on the assessed value. That's the 2027. Next year, 2028 would be $250,000 exemption, which as you can see is five times what the current exemption currently is. And without a lot of details, phase three moves towards full elimination of all property taxes, but there's no mechanism defined as to how we would serve any community service, how we would backfill any of that revenue. As I said, it's our main funding source as a state. So those are the phases. The next slide describes another element of the joint resolution. It describes that for those that are not residents at the end of this year, they would only benefit from this after five years of residency. So they would have the normal homestead and after five years, then they would receive the full exemption. Next slide, please. So the challenge with that is there is questions about the constitutionality of having different tax rates for residents. There is also legislation pending on the wording in what's going on the ballot. It is more words than is legally historically approved. So we have lots to litigation ongoing. It is subject to 60% voter approval like other ballot initiatives. So this is the... Where we are currently, we are waiting that legislation to see what ends up on the ballot in November. Next slide. And this is where we need to talk about the ramifications. So if we move from 50,000 to 150,000.

I'm sorry, can you go back one?

Back one slide.

What is the hearing slated for July 29th?

That's on the wording, Jared? Yeah, on the language.

On the language. So that's the pending lawsuit? Yeah. So could it be shot down at that time?

I expect it will be on the ballot in November.

Okay. Thank you. Because we had talked about that being a possibility and you're thinking probably not.

That's my opinion, is that something will be on the ballot in November. Okay. Thank you. Abby, if you haven't seen the exact wording, I have it in my binder so you can see what some of the questions are around it. That is the question, is will the wording of the ballot initiative need to be changed before November? Okay. I think that's the question. Got it. Thank you. So the ramifications would be catastrophic for our local municipalities. All of the things we just discussed, your fire and rescue. Voters will have to ask themselves if they are fine if it's a 25, 30 minute time for an emergency response vehicle to come to your home. You will need to decide if it's worth it. reducing your coffers for emergency relief services. You know, I want someone to come and I want a place to go. If I experienced catastrophic hurricane loss, I want services from my community to reach out to. I want that social safety net, um, parks and libraries, uh, public safety, fire, EMS, these are all things that are funded by property taxes. So in order to cope with this catastrophic decrease in funding, the options are decreased services or fees for privatization. So there will either have to be private vendors offering the same services For example, would you rather have your trash only picked up once a week rather than twice a week? Would you rather take it to the dump? These are all the hard choices that would have to be made if we reduced our entire funding mechanisms for local services. So special assessments, fees, increased sales tax, privatizing services, all of these would have to be considered and likely end up spending more for lower quality services. So the ramifications of this constitutional amendment would be huge and catastrophic for the state. So next slide.

I was just curious, since you were there as part of the discussions when this was presented, did the folks that were encouraging this approach present anything in the way of how they were going to backfill this?

No.

I can be very responsible of them, I would say.

Very in brief. No, there was no discussion of alternate revenue or where the gaps would be made up. They said local municipalities would tighten their belt.

Could you go back when you mentioned the overall hit? But I think your second point is very important, that it also shifts who in society winds up. In addition to we should all have our credit card handy when we call PBSO or the fire rescue, it shifts to renters.

And business. Small business, large business. Someone will have to pay the bill, which is why many different stakeholders have come together to... There's been some strange politics make strange bedfellows. So there's been some interesting partnerships that are coming together because this is a really draconian gutting of public services.

I just wanted to clarify, trash service isn't going to be impacted by this at all.

It depends on the municipality.

I don't want our residents here in Lake Worth Beach thinking this goes through, your trash isn't getting picked up.

So some places it's ad valorem, some it's not ad valorem. Right.

So that's an important distinction, and I understand the impact of this is huge, but it's not a nuclear bomb, as you understand.

Pretty much it is.

To say that our trash service is going to go from four days a week down to one is disingenuous for our residents.

Like I said, some trash service specifically, there's different water management services, some are ad valorem, some are non-ad valorem, but this would be a, I do believe, catastrophic cut to funding and many would have to make those exact kind of choices that we just talked about. So the current standing is we are waiting that ballot language. It is longer than the 75-word limitation. In addition, there is no implementing bill that decides, that indicates how the legislature implements this in Phase 1, 2, and certainly not Phase 3, in which it just says a glide path to total abolishment of property taxes. And if it is approved, it would take effect January 1st. So I... Also on the next slide showed, these are all of the current homestead extension is about 1.5 million for Lake Worth Beach. In the very first year, 3.5, 1.5 million, apologies, is what, Lake Worth Beach currently operates under with the $50,000 exception. In year one, that $1.5 million revenue that is lost due to the homestead exemption would climb to $3.5 million in year one, and is that $4.75 in year two, and obviously on a glide path towards total abolishment of property taxes. So you can see what the overall budget of Lake Worth Beach is compared to an increase of two million and then three and a half. What that would look like and hard choices would have to be made. So that is the Lake Worth Beach implication. Our office, we have a district office in West Palm Beach. My district and legislative aides are here. Abby and Tom, wave guys. um we would love to have you we want to hear from you so thank you so much for having me and anyone that has any questions i'd be happy to field some thank you very much really thank you for the uh the update um a little scary yeah and we're all thank you for fighting the fight yeah really mr make boy um

Could you clarify for us, I know that certain kinds of legislation, like when we propose ballot amendments or charter amendments as a municipality, there are restrictions on how city staff can talk about that. Do we have any restrictions? My understanding is as elected officials, even if it was a City of Lake Worth thing, we do not have a restriction. We can take positions. We can speak out. Staff, can they speak out on this one way or another?

So, Commissioner, that is definitely a question for your lawyer. Each municipality is handling this differently, as well as the county. So I would look to the guidance that you have on as a legal retainer, because I do think that some are interpreting it differently. So I'm going to speak in my capacity, both personally and as a state rep, about the dangers.

Thank you very, very much. And thank you for driving back and forth all the time. Have a great evening, and thank you very much. Next up, we have a legislative update from our own lobbyist, Jared Rosenstein of Capital City Consulting, here to bring us the good news.

Oh, yeah, great news. Tallahassee's great. Let me take my notes out here real quick. Okay. So, I do this for a living and like I like when there's a big crowd that's like my.

Here, are we good we're good we're on.

Yep, you're on. Hi everybody, Jared Rosenstein with capital city consulting here to do my own I guess biannual, you know, great news from Tallahassee report. Well, it's funny you say that. I'm going to take a moment here to thank the representative. She did a fantastic job explaining the property tax issue. And I'm going to take my... I'm from South Florida. I went to law school here. I'm a lobbyist. I represent a lot of cities and counties. But I'm going to take my lobbyist hat off here for a second and put my hat on as somebody who pays property taxes in Florida. And there's a lot of voters here. I can... confidently say that I don't pull punches and you guys know me not to pull punches. I can confidently say that this will lead to a reduction in services, period, full stop. Now, Commissioner Zegers, you're correct. It is going to be different in what cities, right? Some cities don't fund their waste one way. I mean, Dade County has airport and seaport funds that are very specific, right? It's But this will reduce services. Don't let anybody tell you that it won't. It seems like such a great concept because guess what? As someone also who pays property taxes here in South Florida, we're getting crushed. The property taxes are out of control. But What bothers me is the legislature this year came up with multiple proposals. There was a proposal to allow people that were 65 and up to pay a reduced property tax rate. There were proposals that said, you know what, if you're on fixed income, you should pay a lower property tax rate. I almost philosophically agree with those. That makes sense to me. But this legislation... was so broad and draconians a great word was written so poorly by my friends and colleagues in the house the senate and the governor's office that um even i as someone who represents a lot of cities and counties had to i spent a lot of hours in the governor's office nose to nose with them explaining to them that this is a bad Bad proposal. There are better proposals out there. And the representative is correct. In January, the Tax and Budget Commission is meeting. That is the perfect time to do a study on this, to do a fiscal analysis. By the way, the legislature, and by no fault of the representatives at all, they voted on this with no fiscal impact. There was no study. There was no LBR. I mean, there was OPGA, which is a division of the state government, which is very arcane for people listening. If you're a nerd, you're going to understand this. OK, OPGA is the arm of state government that studies proposals. OPGA will routinely do fiscal impact studies on constitutional amendments, big pieces of legislation. There was nothing done on this. This was passed in like 12 hours and it was it was extremely rushed. Now, I will give credit where credit is due. The incoming Speaker of the House is from Clay County, just south of Jacksonville. It's a sweet guy named Sam Garrison. He's a Republican. He's a municipal lawyer, which is very unique for being a Speaker of the House because he gets your issues, right? So he's going to be a great ally. The Speaker ran the amendment that I would say made this slightly more palatable, okay? There is a piece, there is a provision in the constitutional amendment That applies spending restrictions on county and municipal ad valorem revenue. And there were six things that these are the only things you could spend money on. The seventh item, which was added via an amendment, is kind of a broad catch-all that is a pressure relief valve for cities and counties. And it reads that... You can fund the operations and administration of county offices, commissioners established under the Constitution and municipalities and the expenditures approved by such county officers or county or municipal governing bodies, except those expenditures prohibited by general law. So what does that mean? Honestly, that means the entire rest of the provision is useless and you can spend the money on whatever you want to vote on that isn't prohibited by law. Now, here's where it gets dicey. There's going to be an implementing bill. Every time there's a constitutional amendment, it actually has to be implemented in Florida statute. So when the voters vote on something and it passes, then the next year, the legislature actually has to take what you guys voted on and put it into Florida law. That allows a lot of gray area and wiggle room. And I think by having someone like Sam Garrison, who's a municipal attorney who understands our issues at the helm of the Florida House of Representatives, it'll be very beneficial for us to advocate in Tallahassee and say, this is a problem for us. This is a problem for us because Lord knows every municipality and every county is going to be going up to Tallahassee with a list of issues. All right. So that's my soapbox on property taxes. So yes, this session, I thought last session was a mess. This session was way worse. This is what happens when we reach the end of a governor's term. Governor DeSantis is termed out. The Speaker of the House is leaving. The Senate president is leaving. So you're going to get a whole new swath of elected officials in Tallahassee starting January. All brand new fresh faces, right? From the governor all the way down. That pressure cooker created a real problem on the budget. And it created a real problem with lots of legislation. Now for cities and counties, it was good for us because when everyone is fighting in Tallahassee and they're getting nothing done, they're not passing anything that impacts us back home. Okay. So let them stay messy and we can, you know, keep doing what we're doing. There were a couple items that have a big negative fiscal impact on the city that I flagged, and some of them broke our way. Some of them didn't end up happening, thank God, and some of them got vetoed, right? So I'm going to talk about the biggest one other than property taxes, which is sovereign immunity. Sovereign immunity, for the folks in the audience, prohibits citizens from suing above a certain dollar amount of a local government or a county government or a government thereof. There is a process in Florida law called a claims bill where once you hit a certain cap, you have to go to Tallahassee actually to sue a city or a county. you have to get a bill passed in Tallahassee in order to collect what was remitted by the court. It's a very arcane and bizarre process. It also is very politically charged. So every year, folks try to pass a sovereign immunity bill, which increases the caps on cities and counties, so folks that are injured by cities and counties don't have to go to Tallahassee to fight for a claims bill. This year, that bill would have had a net negative fiscal impact on the city, and it was vetoed by the governor. So sovereign immunity is going to stay unchanged for now, which is interesting because it's good for cities and counties. It's interesting because it's such a narrow issue that there's The litmus behind the veto, the governor didn't want to create a cottage industry. And this has happened in Northeast states of where you increase sovereign immunity limits. And then, you know, got to listen. I got, you know, my fellow lawyers out there. Right. You'll have a bunch of instead of ambulance chasers will have folks that all they do all day is do cities and counties. Right. He didn't want to create that issue, which happens in the Northeast. Does not happen in Florida. So that was his philosophy on vetoing. sovereign immunity i know we were very concerned last year about the cra issues and thanks to you guys you came up into tallahassee and you worked with me and we advocated and that bill thankfully died uh this year did not come back um and it will probably not come back next year either um last thing i want to mention is uh the budget so last year we got one uh 1.5 million dollars this year because the cities and the counties were in such a bizarre place with a budget that both chambers passed you know like schoolhouse rock like one side has to do it the other side is doing they have to meet right so one chamber passed a budget Well, schoolhouse rock. I'm young. I like schoolhouse rock. So the House passed a budget. The Senate passed a budget and they couldn't meet and session, which under the Florida Constitution is 60 days, had to go into overtime. This is the third time it's happened. It's absolutely bizarre. Yeah. In the overtime, many municipal projects, including our two water projects, were struck in out of the budget. OK, now I got to give a shout out to Senator McBernard. OK, the senator fought with me really, really hard in the Senate on getting budget amendments filed for our issues. What we're going to do is we're taking these same exact projects and we're running the same exact playbook next year, okay, when it's cooler heads will prevail and we'll have a slightly, hopefully, more normal Tallahassee experience. And with that, I'm happy to take any questions you have.

Thank you so much. And we know how hard you and your staff, your teamwork up there for us in Tallahassee.

Hi, how are you? I think it's a smiley face.

Yes, it was.

Thank you for all your hard work. Thank you for this guy in Tallahassee. Literally, when I'm miserable for 48 hours, he always has a smile and he thrives and he loves us as well. So thank you for your hard work. I'm sad that we didn't get our appropriations. You and I spoke a couple weeks ago about it. I'm happy that we're going to put those back in, but I want to do a lot more. And I think that's something we need to work with the city manager to put appropriations in for A lot of things that we have in the city, especially knowing if this passes, you know, the November ballot, because if we put in for 10 and we get three, great. We put in for 10, we get zero, at least we tried. That's right. I think that it's, you know, we really need to advocate as a committee and a commission on getting dollars to our city and the representation that we need in Palm Beach County. So thank you for your hard work. It's a joy to work with you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Rigoy.

Yeah, thank you. Just a thought on the put in percent and you get three. I'm told that the wisdom generally is don't do the shotgun approach. You're likely to get none rather than that. But anyhow, the thing I was going to ask was, not devil's advocate but to think of the other side if if i'm a resident and this municipality does something bad and you know i have huge health effects or whatnot you can understand where a resident or would want to sue for correct you know their health damages and whatnot That doesn't seem totally unreasonable depending on the case. The difficulty, and maybe you can add to this, is if 10 residents also, you can bankrupt the city pretty easily. And that is, so, you know, this is one of those ones, there's probably no right answer on what the right number is that balances everything. residents. Obviously, there needs to be incentive that municipalities are careful and don't do things that lead to people having serious expenses. But if you could just comment a little bit on that. And although there is no right number, 200,000 or 250 is- 350, 500. Exactly. Do you have any thoughts based on what you've seen? I remember- It has that funny name, the bills that go to Tallahassee. There have been some from Palm Beach County the last decade or so.

So I'll add a little color. You make some good points. You talked about balance, right? We got to a point this session and last session between the League of Cities, Association of Counties, we got to a point where A CPI-tied increase to the dollar amount logically makes sense. It's very rare when you have the Republican-controlled Florida House of Representatives, Republican-controlled Florida Senate, Republican-controlled Governor's Office, trial attorneys, cities, and counties all agreeing, and one side blinks, gets off the rails. It's poker. And then they're like, ah, CPI, no, $315,500. And then we're off to the races. We came very close to that. And I think logically, if I was a city attorney or a city manager, that makes sense. Or a CFO, right? Or even a resident. Right. Residents can sue cities and counties. They just have to go through this bizarre process of going to Tallahassee, right? Right. This makes sense by tying it to the CPI. So maybe it comes back next year. I would imagine that the speaker, not going to speak for him, but being an attorney and being from someone who represents cities, probably interested in this issue. This is a perennial issue. This comes back. This is like my probably 15th time seeing this bill.

Yeah.

And it always either doesn't pass or gets vetoed. Yeah. So we'll see. I think CPI is the way to do it. That would make sense.

And I just want to point out, those of us that are active in the Florida League cities, Ms. Millig and Ms. May and I, we're on different committees. I'm on the one which every year we deal with... property stuff and this has come up and just so people know how it works, we have a giant committee meeting of people from all over the state and we go through and we submit different articles or different ideas that we think should be important to our cities and we come to a consensus and then we focus and this has been one of our focuses for a couple of years now because it could bankrupt a city in a year. So I want to thank you again. Of course. Let me ask you a question. The money that we requested, was that the money that we did not get? Was that the money that we were trying to help with our sewer system?

Correct. They were both water projects relating to runoff and sewer.

Right. That's correct.

to our citizens we tried yes and we'll make it up somehow yes i i don't live in lake worth beach but i had to explain the the bad sewer smell to the governor's office that was a fun conversation so yes i was like you guys could come down and smell it yourself right right right right i expect you guys to provide me a scratch and stuff okay that's great awesome thank you so much thank you so much of course we appreciate your help thank you guys appreciate it and one of them jared was young

Gary's extremely responsive to us. If we have a call or something or a question, he responds right away. And good night, Ms. Gregory.

Have a good night. Thank you both.

Yeah.

Yeah, thank you.

Next up, we have a presentation to Under Lake Worth Beach Ocean Rescue Team, George Cornish and Dominic Mastrodiacomo. And Commissioner Malega brought this, and I would like to call on her to do the presentation.

Thank you. Are the lifeguards here?

Okay. Come on up. I'm going to wait until they get in the room. There they are.

Hello, gentlemen. Miss Tiana. Come on up. Our heroes. Thank you all for your patience tonight. When we have first responders go above and beyond, we make sure that we bring them in and honor them in a true fashion and And before us tonight, we have two of our lifeguards, George Cornish and Dominic. And I'm not going to chop up your last name. Hang on. I'm going to say it right. Master Giacoma. OK, there we go. Nailed it. Nailed it. And I got a man on it. I love it. Before you tonight, these two gentlemen went above and beyond on May 14th, 2026. And this is I'm going to read this directly from the retired chief of police from the Los Angeles School Police Department, Larry Mannion. On May 14, 2026, at approximately 1425, my wife's 90-year-old cousin Maggie began choking on food while having lunch at Ocean Walk by Benny's on the restaurant located in Lake Worth Beach, Florida. The food was lodged deeply within her esophagus, and Maggie was rapidly becoming to succumb to her loss of oxygen. Restaurant personnel requested the immediate response of lifeguards located at the nearby lifeguard station number two on Lake Worth Beach. Within several minutes, lifeguards George Cornish and Dominic Mastrogiancoma arrived and quickly began their life-saving medical evaluation procedures. Maggie had dislodged the majority of the food but was still experiencing limited breathing difficulty. Thanks to the impressive efforts of both George and Dominic, my wife's cousin was able to regain normal breathing and return to her home. I commend the Lakewood Beach Lifeguards, George and Dominic, for their impressive life-saving proficiency, courtesy, and unparalleled efficiency. These two professionals demonstrated the true meaning of emergency assistance excellence. I applaud these two gentlemen for their commitment to providing outstanding public service. This was sent to us on May 21st, and I asked our colleagues... to please bring the gentlemen in and honor them in the proper way. Because when the unexpected happens, we rely on their training, but we also rely on character. And today we're recognizing these lifeguards for their ultimate act of dedication. And when we talk about things like services being cut, we try to pay above and beyond to our life-saving lifeguards. Could you imagine going to the beach and not having a lifeguard? And when we talk about pay raises and giving our staff what they're due, there's no amount of money that you can put on a life. So tonight we just want to say thank you. And if the rest of the commission wants to come down and take a picture. So we have the most outstanding lifeguard crew in general.

This is a special moment. Thank you.

He's going to do it. Next up. What? Oh. Yeah, yeah. We got you. We got you.

We got in.

Okay.

Next up, we have the PBSO CrimeStats update by our own Captain Terrence Horn.

Excuse me.

What?

No, I want to know if you wanted to give Lieutenant Cohen, because he's here.

Are you going to do it at the end? Okay.

You want to do it now? Yeah. I think it's better to do it now.

Come on up. Lieutenant Cohen, you also... And Mr. Segrich is going to inform us of what we're doing here.

We asked Lieutenant Cohen here today because we wanted to give you our heartfelt gratitude on behalf of the Commission and all of the city for your service and dedication to the forest as well as to our community. You've had a huge impact and you will be well remembered and your impact will be remembered amongst the community. So we wanted to present you with this hometown heroes coin as well as the plaque. And it says Clinton R. Cohen, PBSO Lieutenant. your unwavering commitment courage and leadership have made a lasting impact on our community the city of lake worth beach honors your service and wish you a fulfilling and well-deserved retirement mrs pohn is like i married you for better for worse but not for lunch

Yeah, we have to reprint this for you. I don't care about the data. It's also grammatically incorrect. So we will reprint it. We can still get the picture.

But the subject and the verb.

Thank you. Thank you everybody.

Well done. Great job. Great job by the lieutenant. Yes, he did. Yes, he did outstanding work for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and here in the city of Lakewood. He did outstanding work here in the city of Lakewood Beach and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. 34 years of dedicated service to law enforcement.

Thank you for that.

He really did. When he came on a couple years ago, he really did make an impact.

Yes, he did.

And you're following that proud tradition, and we appreciate it.

Okay, so good evening, Mayor Resch, Vice Mayor May, Commissioner McGroy, Commissioner McLega, Commissioner Cedric, and the City Manager, Mr. Perry. We're gonna do our quarterly presentation on crime statistics here in the city of Lake Worth Beach. The first topic or first page, you can switch it. We're gonna deal with index crimes since the merger in 2008 to the present date. Index crimes include murder, forcible sex offenses, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and vehicle theft. So if we roll back, Time to 2008, we started off with 2,773 of these crimes. If you fast forward to today's date with last year's end of year stats, 1,285. Index crimes have decreased by 53% since the merge in 2008. Next slide. Calls for service. Calls for service over the last three years increased by 5,833 or 10% from 2022 to 2025. Year to date, in this year, 2026, we're currently at 30,669 calls for services. Yes. So crime is going down, but the calls are going up.

Well, I was going to say, is that because we're encouraging people to make the call? If you see something, say something. Do you think there's an alliance with that?

I would say some of that, yes. But I would say because of the mental health issues and other things that are going on, there's an increase.

And maybe because of an increased trust in the PBS.

Yes, yes, yes. And now for our crime trends year to date, I'm going to go down the categories. I'm going to try to move fast as I can because this is long. First of all, for homicides, for the first six months, we've had zero, which is a blessing. Robberies, we're up by four, which is 9%. Sexual assaults, we're up by seven, which is 37%. Let me just explain a little bit of the sexual assaults because I know when people see that. We had 26 total cases. In 86% or 22 cases, the suspects were known. They were either family or either acquaintances, people that they knew. In 14% or four cases, the suspects were unknown. And five of the cases were delayed, reported from three to 11 years. All right. So next category is going to be.

No. No.

No. Well, not on... Oh, there it is. Well, I thought on serious sex crimes, like sexual assaults. I thought it... No, I thought it... Okay. Okay. But you can report it. Okay. Yes. Got it. Shootings were up by three. 33%. Three of those shootings, as I tell people, that's why you should not fire weapons on New Year's Eve because what goes up comes down. And then, so we had, we actually had property damage. So three of those shootings was because of that New Year's Eve. Stabbings were down by 45%. Burgeries were down by 60%. Burgers to construction sites were up by one. Everything else were down. Residential burglaries, vehicle burglaries, larceny, stolen vehicles, stolen vehicle recoveries, vandalisms were all down. So patrol operations year to date. Total events is 29,822. Total events with case numbers is 4,534. Total cases cleared by arrest, 980. Total directed patrol, 7,453. Total traffic stops, 3,044. Total citations written, 2,902. Total written warnings is 1,721. Total noise ordinance violations is 20. Total red tag notices issued is 202. And total city property trespass warnings for this year is 44, but since we implemented this. With the city commission, we have 177 that was since July 2025 when we actually started doing the trespass 1, it's going down.

It's actually good meaning.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And fill interview report. So, we had total gang 12 and total regular normal is 766. So homicides and sexual assaults. Last year, 2025, we had a double homicide down in the 9th and G area before we did our operation. And then we had another homicide close to that area. And then we had three others. So we had six homicides last year. But currently right now we have zero. So hopefully we can keep that trend of staying low. Sexual assaults, we increased by 68%. Currently, we have 27. Robbery incidents, robberies decreased by 9.2%. We're now at 79. Now, if you go back to year 2007, the year before the merger, there was 300 robberies in the city. So now we're down with 79 and the goal is to even keep them down. So we're trying to stay on a downward trend. Robbery locations, most of them are in the street. We had one residential and one vehicle. Shootings, we're currently at 19. So shootings increased by 26.7 since last year. So we went up by four, but over the four years, Where? Year to date? Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yes, year to date, we're 12. But I was comparing 2024 to 2025. We went up by 26.7. But year to date, we have 12.

Let me ask you a question. Will you just give the example of shooting into the air, just shooting to be an idiot, not necessarily shooting at somebody? Yes. That includes those as well, just dischargeable weapons.

Yes, yes. But most of the individuals who have actually shot someone, when someone was struck, I would say 90% of them have been arrested. I think we have one open case. The rest of them, they have been arrested. They have been... Speak a little bit to the... Oh, at least 90% of the suspects who were involved in a shooting where they actually shot somebody and they were struck, they have been arrested. Stabbing trends. Year to date, we're a six. There was an increase last year of 7.1%. Burglary trends, burgers decreased by 9.6% from 2024 to 2025. Year to date, we're 162.

I have a dumb question.

Sure.

What's the difference between a robbery and a burglary?

Well, a burglary, for example, someone comes to your home and they go through your window or your door and they break in. So that would be a residential burglary. a robbery is when someone comes up to you with a gun or a knife and they take something from it. Give me your wallet.

Give me this.

It could be property, a car, yes.

Thank you for clarifying.

Next category is going to be larceny shopliftings. We decreased by 18.7%. Year-to-date, we're 118. Shoplifting, we decreased by 6.5%. Year-to-date, we're 69%. Stolen vehicles, we decreased by 28.21%. Year to date, we're 29. Stolen vehicle recoveries, we decreased by 26.8, 83%. And year to date, we're 16. Crash data. Our vehicle crashes from 2024 to 2025 are down. Year to date, we're 776. Top crash locations, you see them here, 10th Avenue and Batwell, 10th Avenue and Barnett, 6th Avenue South and South Dixie, 10th Avenue North and North 8th Street, 6th Avenue South and South 8th Street, Barnett Drive and 10th Avenue, Batwell Road and 10th Avenue North, 10th Avenue North and North Dixie, 6th Avenue South and Wright Drive, 6th Avenue South and southbound I-95 from 6th Avenue East and North Dixie Highway and Lucerne this year. That's pretty consistent. Yes. DUI arrests were down. Well, no. 2024 to 2025, we went down from 128 to 80. Year to date, we have 16. Next category is going to be homeless intervention team. We instituted this in March 2025. There are now two deputies on the HIT team. Assistance rendered, as you see in 2026, contacts, made 605 contacts. FIRs, 208. Trespasses, 61. Sheltered persons, 24. Travel aid, four. Donated bikes, five. Bus passes, 37. Drug and alcohol treatment, six. Homeless declaration documents, 93. Identification cards, 64. Other documents, 15. Encampments cleared, 37. Arrests, 36. Our monthly homeless intervention operations strategically target areas in the city of Lake Worth Beach, and they tailor assistance to each individual and rely on collaboration between the local and county-wide teams. Our local team is our homeless intervention team unit here, which is two deputies and the homeless outreach team, which consists of five to 20 something people at a time when we do these operations. But we stay consistent with these monthly operations because consistency works. So we have to stay on it. And that's what we believe in. And we've done six so far. We do a monthly. Here's some pictures from the homeless intervention team. Move to the next slide. different areas we go to. If you ever want to take a tour and want to go out with the team to an operation, you can. Some of our additional district accomplishments are agency-wide transition to a new Exxon RMS report writing system. We had the same POM system since I started here at the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, which was already pre-existing before I came here. We've done multiple holiday action plans We did a school traffic safety action plan. We did the normal holiday action plan, which covers Thanksgiving and Christmas and beyond. We did the business burger action plan. We did the Snook Island Bryant Park action plan. We did the boat docking enforcement and Bryant Park boat camps. We did violent crime suppression operations. We did Operation Unplugged. We did hotspot traffic enforcement areas. We did the No Kings Ice slash No Tesla protests. We had our own district initiative, pamphlets passed out, reference vehicle burglaries and asking people to secure your vehicles. Make sure you lock them up at night and during the daytime. We did Crimestopper door hangers initiatives. We did the public shoplifting action plan. They had an increase in their shoplifting and we were able to assist them to reduce that drastically. And then we did the Citizens Law Enforcement Academy. They graduated on June 17th, 2026. So our district goals continue to focus on burglaries, violent crimes, and quality of life issues. We're gonna continue to use our real-time crime center, intelligence-led policing. We're gonna continue to work closely with internal PBSO units and external agencies. Special operations, we're gonna continue doing saturation patrols. We're gonna do prostitution stings, traffic operations. We're going to address illegal vendors and do those vendor operations. We're going to do homeless intervention operations. We're going to continue doing those. Our goal is to add 100 surveillance cameras over the next four years here in the city. That would be helpful. And add one additional sergeant to cover our community policing unit and our homeless intervention team. yeah kathleen can you also then you're going to touch on the park rangers too that's coming yes and we're also working on we're in the process of implementing five park rangers to help out with the duties in the park um from parking issues smoking cigarettes in the park dogs not on leashes and other different responsibilities that they will have

Mr. Boyd, you have a question?

So any questions or we can move to the next slide?

Yeah, I have a number of issues. So please be patient. As we all know, this is our largest contract with any vendor that the city has this is our largest expense to the community of taxpayer funds so i think it's appropriate to you know make sure that we understand as much as possible about these things um i have a couple little ones at the beginning um I know that there's a lot of concern about bikes, electric bikes, and there's a lot of activity nationally, statewide, various levels. of how do we try to make things safer with electric bikes. Do we currently, if there are accidents involving a two-wheeled or three-wheeled vehicle, do we report, do you record under this new system, whether it was an electric bicycle and ideally, was it one of X wattage or X max speed? Are you recording any of that stuff? That's been suggested widely that we start doing that.

When it comes to our traffic crash report, that's the same report that we've had in place for years now. When it comes to our traffic crash report, we've had that in place for several years now. So those things are documented in that report. I don't know about the speed and all those different things. I don't know if that's documented, but it's documented whether or not if it was a...

electric vehicle or not or if it was a scooter highly encourage you to that we just start doing that let me scribble it in the notes down below or whatever so that we are collecting that it's been indicated that's a real shortfall in understanding how do we best get a handle on okay some of this because there's we've had a number of presentations uh to the commission And part of our job is to balance safety for pedestrians, for the people on the electric bike, for other cars, but also to balance with the benefits that electric vehicles offer financially and otherwise for mobility people. So having better data would be helpful. A question, and I guess a request for you to bring it back to us, You mentioned going up to an additional 100 surveillance cameras.

Yes, surveillance cameras, yes.

And obviously, I think it's not hard to understand benefits to safety and so on. And I don't know whether those include license plate readers, but it sounds like they do. Again, balance is an issue. We want to reduce crime, but there also is a lot of concern in communities about where does that data go and who is it made available to?

And so I would like you to report back at one of your next ones or just send an email.

What are the safeguards on privacy and data protection of that? If it's used locally for law enforcement here, it doesn't go anywhere else, fine.

But let us know. Yes. So that would be helpful.

Now, I've got some questions on law enforcement. Sure. You certainly are aware that I have raised multiple times a national level concern when local law enforcement is adjacent to or otherwise perceived as part of federal immigration enforcement, it's pretty well known in criminology that there is a danger that community trust in local law enforcement goes down. I know that you've told us a number of times, both privately and publicly, that PBSO is not involved in immigration enforcement. And there seems to be some gray area there. They've certainly received money for immigration enforcement. There certainly are officers who have been given training in that. We're certainly a signatory to the 287Gs. So there's a question as to what really is happening my impression is mostly pbso is not doing that here but the concern about um sort of collateral damage effect to safety in the community to law enforcement as community trust goes down is a real concern and certainly there is a substantial part of the community that is doesn't make a distinction. Oh, you guys are PVSO, you're okay. Florida Highway Patrol, yeah, they're not okay. ICE Immigration, they're not okay. That distinction blurs a lot. So I ask you to be cognizant of that. I have some specific questions in that vein. If I remember right, the event down in the 9th, 10th, South G and H sort of area. Yes. You had a multi, well, I don't think it was multi-year, but certainly a year long, very organized, very careful effort. Yes. My understanding was very successful. It managed something like 110 arrests or over 100 arrests. Yes. How many of those roughly had immigration issues? Do you happen to know?

I don't know the number right off the top of my head.

What I remember being told when the press conference happened, I'd asked one of the other people there, they said there were about 10 or 12 out of the over 100. So maybe 10% that had immigration issues. The rest of them were just regular American citizens.

Well, they were committing trafficking crimes. crimes. No, no, no.

In terms of their immigration status, the vast majority had no immigration issues. They were just criminals. And you managed to get them with very careful, organized efforts, which I think we all applaud and are very happy with. But I think it is important for us to note that it was a very small percentage that had immigration issues. Do you happen to have numbers on approximately how many immigration detentions from any agency have happened in the Lake Worth area in the last year or two?

There is a state database. You remember the database? I think I sent to all of you.

You happen to have.

No, I don't have the number with me right now because I didn't prepare for that. But there is a database. I have I have no way of knowing.

Well.

But this is what I can assure you of. Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office is not doing raids. We're not going to schools. We're not going to churches. We're not doing those things. We're following our policy. However, we are required on the Florida State Statute 908. There's certain things that we have to do per Florida State Statute. So we're doing those things, but we're also following our policy and things have been handled on a case by case basis. But we do have things that are implemented, which we're required to do under the state of Florida. We can't get around that.

I understand. That's a legal requirement. I do understand that. My understanding is roughly 100, somewhere between 100 and 200 folks have been detained out of Lakewood. Maybe higher than that, but that's my ballpark number that I have from people who pay attention to it. The statement... that is frequently made with immigration is the federal government is going after the worst of the worst, the gangs, the rapists, the violent crimes, and so on. In your professional opinion, as our vendor who provides on this, has that detention of 100 to 200 people made our community safer? Has it, and could you get for us the crimes that those people associated with each one.

I can only refer you to. Oh, sorry.

I can only refer you to FHP. ICE and those agencies to get those numbers. What I can say, I can give a little example, and I don't want to give too much information on the case, but we had some individuals doing some violent crimes targeting a lot of people throughout this city. Two of those persons had immigration issues. So once they get prosecuted through the state of Florida prison system, then they are going to be taken out of this country back to where they originated from. And that's a clear example. And they were causing a lot of havoc in the city. And I can say that terrorizing a lot of people. Right. So that's one example.

That's two out of multiple hundreds of detainees.

So I'm only just telling you that from what I know that sticks out.

And, you know, in terms of percentages, that's two out of, you know, however many folks with immigration status issues. But there's probably higher percentages.

Mr. McCoy, I don't want to interrupt, but he does have his crime system. You've got a bigger issue that you're dealing with. I suggest that you deal with Mr. Kahn. These are issues that multiply. No, I have the floor and I ask not to be interrupted. Well, I'm interrupting. I'm speaking. These are things that you can speak with him on a one-to-one basis.

These are things I would like to... I still have the floor.

You've been beating this drum.

Because this is something that concerns many residents in this community.

For answers that he obviously wasn't prepared to answer. You're, you're, you're, you know. I'm not going to him again. Would you be willing to meet with Mr. McVoy to answer these questions?

I'm sure he is. Yes, of course. Yes.

I'm going to call somebody else.

Okay.

Who's up next? Ms. May. Hi, thank you. I love to see the trends going down. That is fabulous. I have a question. Well, two questions. My first question is, do you have an approximate start date for when you think that the park rangers might be able to come on board and actually start working?

August 12th, I believe. August 12th. The target date, yes. Okay. That's the target date if we get everything signed and everything.

Perfect.

I love that. Oh, sorry. I got to remember that.

Okay, August 12th. Thank you. And my other question is, and this is a clarification for residents and me. When there's a, like, let's say an example would be a car parked on the street illegally. Whose job is it to ticket that car?

Good question.

Is it code or PBSO? Because what I'm hearing from residents is they call code and code says call PBSO. They call PBSO and PBSO says call code. So if you're not ready to answer, you don't have to now. However... We do have a lot of legally parked cars in the city or cars that are inoperable on the street and have been there for months.

Yes. That's why we did those red tags that I went over earlier. It was 200 and something. Okay. So we did those.

That's then. who is aware of a car sitting in front of, say, their house for the last six months.

And it has no tag.

No tag, like no nothing.

Contact Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, as long as it is in the public right away. Right, on the street. Yeah, if it's in their private property, no, we don't.

Then that's code. So if it's on the street and it needs to be recorded, should they go through the app?

Yes, they can do that too.

So they can either go through the app or they could call the non-emergency number, which Sarah is. 688-3400. Yes.

We have deputies who can go out. We also have CSAs who go out and handle it as well. We do this all the time.

That's what we did over 200. I'm going to make a personal request for you guys to kind of cruise up and down G Street along the tracks and just look for illegally parked cars that are in the street.

G as in George. George, yes.

And the ultimate result of that is they get towed.

Yes.

Thank you. Okay.

By the city. By the city. The city handles the towing.

That's fine. As long as that, because right now there are some days when you can't drive down G Street because of parked cars. Yeah. And I want people to be able to get down the street. So I appreciate that. Those are my two questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ms. Platt.

First of all, thank you. I love to see the trends going down. And yes, PBSO is a large portion of our budget. But with that comes helicopters and SWAT teams and street teams and people who do things like take down 100 plus bad people who are terrorizing a community. So you can't put a dollar, again, just like we talked about with lifeguards, when it comes to public safety and saving lives. I don't think that you can compare that. So thank you. I do want to say that I was having a meeting this morning with two constituents at 2J's. And we looked out the window and saw PBSO and horseback. And we literally stopped them. We were in awe. And they're like, oh, my God, we just have to take this in. So pay attention. PBSO is out there. I'm very excited about the park rangers as I ran on reelection on getting park rangers. I didn't think it was going to be coming through the county no longer wanting to do park rangers. So I'm excited about that. It's going to give our community an opportunity to have representation. But these aren't going to be. officers are going to be park rangers. There's going to be a big difference.

Yes.

And they're going to be acting with the community and having conversations and getting out of their vehicles and being in the parks. So I'm excited about that. And you also had told me the other day that overdoses were down.

Yes.

And you believe that that is a direct result of the takedown of the South G street. Yes. Is that correct?

Yes, definitely.

And I think that that, that needs to be spoken that the correlation of taking bad people off the streets and getting drugs off the streets and saving lives. That's what we're here for. We're not here to banter about how much money we're paying and what the services have come. When we're saving lives and we're moving the needle, that's what we can be proud of. So thank you to you and all your deputies and all the departments that come together and work to protect the city and the residents.

Yes. Okay.

I'm going to echo that. I mean, when polls are taken about what do people expect of the elected officials of their government, feeling safe is the first one. There's a lot of other important ones, and you have certainly, and I've lived here a very long time, and you have certainly increased our safety feeling in this city, and we very much appreciate it. It's never going to end, but thank you so much.

Yes, all the deputies, you know, because it's a team thing. It's not just me. It's the team. It's the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

And isn't it true that to work in District 14, you have to request to work in District 14? Kind of, sort of?

Yes, pretty much. Yes, exactly.

People want to be here. That's where the action is. Don't want to be on boring Wellington. I take that back. But a city rather than a suburb. Okay, thank you so much.

No problem.

Oh, one more thing.

I know, oh, sorry. Lieutenant Cohen did an excellent job for us, but now we have a new District 14 executive officer. His name is Mirko Ivanovic, Lieutenant Mirko Ivanovic.

So I want to give him the floor.

Who was, I believe, he turned it off. I think.

You got it. Captain, thank you. Commissioners, Madam Mayor, City Manager, I am happy to be part of this team. I am happy to be here to support Captain Karn, his mission, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office mission, this community, and for everything that we stand for in making sure that this is one of the safest places to be in Palm Beach County. That's rule number one.

You do history in Lake Worth, don't you? I do.

I spent 21 years working at the sheriff's office. In that, I spent about a year as a sergeant here in District 14, the city of Lake Worth Beach. And when I say city of Lake Worth Beach, I'm talking about the city of Lake Worth Beach almost 10 years ago. And if you remember what it was like in 2008, that's what we were working with every single day. And I credit what Captain Karn, his predecessors, Lieutenant Cohn has done over the years to bring this community to where it is today.

We're very fortunate to have you. Thank you so much.

Absolutely. Thank you.

OK, there's one more last thing here. One more last? One more last thing under presentations. Tiana, do we have our staff here? OK, great. A proclamation for national parks. Come on up, everybody. Here's the people that when you go to a festival, that when you go to a meeting, that when you look at fireworks, that when somebody's doing a street painting festival, anything, anything. And these are some, a few of the people. Thank you. Oh, I love it.

The Splash Day, Saturday the 18th from 11 to 2.

Howard. These are the people behind the scenes, a few of the people behind the scenes that show up in the heat, in the neither snow nor rain nor dark of night stops these people. On Saturday, I'm just going to shout out right now to the entire department. Oh, my gosh. You nailed it. You just... Nailed it. From all the activities during the day to the evening, the music, everything. It was it was wonderful. And of course, we're going to hear more about the drone show because that was like the best. So I'm going to read this proclamation. Whereas each July we celebrate park and recreation professionals and how they improve the lives of tens of millions of people, making a lasting impact in communities across the country. And whereas Florida is home to more than 170 state parks, trails, and historic sites that inspire residents and visitors with recreational opportunities and scenic beauty. And whereas our parks and trails ensure ecological beauty, provide space to enjoy nature, help maintain clean air and water, preserve plant and animal wildlife, enhance our quality of life by contributing to a healthy lifestyle, community building, economic development, and environmental sustainability, and boost the economy, attract new businesses, and increase tourism. And whereas Park and Recreation Month highlights the power of parks and recreation and the people who make it all possible. Parks and recreation bring us together, strengthens our health and wellbeing, and builds more resilient, connected communities. Whereas the National Recreation and Park Association and the Florida Recreation and Park Association designed designated July as Recreation and Parks Month, now, therefore, I, Betty Resch, Mayor of the City of Lake Worth Beach, Florida, by virtue of the authority vested in me and on behalf of the City Commission, do hereby proclaim July 2026 as National Parks and Recreation Month. And I have set my hand and have the seal of the city done on the seventh day of July 2026. And this is a national proclamation, but I just want to reiterate again what our staff, our tireless, cheerful, hardworking staff brings the quality of life to our citizens in this city every day. And we thank you. And Tiana, come on, Stuart, you're part of the team. I think we need a picture.

Yeah, it is.

You bet. Okay, now we are public participation of non-agenda items. If there's something that you want to talk about that's not on the agenda, now is your chance. You just fill out a blue card. And for the rest of the meeting, if you want to speak on a specific agenda item, fill out a blue card, and you will get your chance, your two minutes to speak. And we welcome all public comments. Thank you. First up, Catherine Kohlmeyer, followed by Peggy Fisher. And turn the mic on before you start.

There you go.

Excuse me. Catherine Kohlmeyer, 503 First Avenue South. I just want to share a perception. in government, whether it's healthcare or police or whatever it is, it is necessary to put a dollar amount on life-saving services. It may not be easy to do that. There are hard decisions to make, but everybody understands that this is essential. And my perception is that some members of the commission are suppressing the job of government to ask hard questions of powerful agencies who do need to be questioned. My perception is that the commission might have us believe it is inappropriate to question PBSO. and to characterize commissioner voice questioning as badgering when his questioning was mild and just asking for numbers. And, um, I feel that's very unfortunate. This is my perception. I'm sharing it and I'm sharing it because, um, I think it's necessary to sometimes do that. I also think it's disingenuous for a police officer to come here unprepared for questions about BDSO's role in immigration issues and numbers about immigration issues in our city, seeing as this is a very prominent issue that we're having at the moment. It's not something that no one knows about. And several of you were at a recent public forum on immigration issues. So I think it's perfectly to be expected that there will be questions on that issue. Um, and, uh, I think it's very good for the public to see questions being put in public, not in a one-to-one where it cannot be witnessed and we don't know about it. So I think there is a great value in having that conversation in public. Although it seems again, my perception is this is trying to be suppressed. So I don't want to come across as vindictive or judgmental. I just want to say, as I sit in the room, I have certain perceptions and I'm sharing them with you.

Thank you. Ms. Fisher, followed by Rebecca Gilmartin. First, Peggy Fisher. We just give you a heads up to them.

Peggy Fisher, 508 North 8th Street. I wanted to just say thank you to all the staff that was involved with July 4th events and everything that took place and to tell them from a resident's point of view, all their hard work was greatly appreciated. Clearly, we had a great 4th of July. I'm not sure about Mimi jumping out of planes all the Probably next year she'll do it again. But I wanted to say that. And I want to thank PBSO for everything they do in our city. I go monthly to the security liaison meetings that PBSO holds for neighborhood association representatives. And we're provided with crime stats every time. We go to these meetings. We ask questions. If they don't know the answers, they get us the answers. They work hard to serve our city and protect us. I understand the previous speaker's concern about perception, but in looking at the title of the presentation, the title says PBSO Crime Stats Update. So I think the captain came here prepared, fully prepared to provide the commission and the residents with crime stats update, which is what he did. And I thank him for that. I appreciate the time and effort he spends gathering this information, responding to your questions. And I'm sure if there was a where you set up a public discussion on other items that he would come fully prepared. Thank you. Thank you.

Rebecca Gilmartin, your name and then your address.

Hi, Rebecca Gilmartin on 714 North L Street. Okay. Okay. Thank you for having me again. Just on a different kind of subject, you know, I was here last week and I introduced myself. I'm an art teacher. I'm a resident here. And my concern that I'm a direct to talk about is the downtown district and I appreciate your efforts in trying to improve everything in the town. However, I feel like when I walk downtown, I'm concerned about current business mix. It doesn't always reflect the kind of downtown experience. our residents are hoping to see. We have seen an increase in businesses such as vape shops and other late night oriented establishments while we continue to have vacant storefronts and fewer options that encourage daytime activity, family visits, and community gathering. For example, like a year after I moved here, we had a surf shop. We are Lake Worth Beach. Surf shop gone. I don't understand. So I just encourage the city to continue working with property owners, local business, try to get whatever is causing the barriers to keep the storefronts vacant and to develop strategies to attract. a wider variety of businesses, maybe healthy type things, and a local economy that reflects the character of Lake Worth Beach, the golf courses, everything that we move here for. And so I wanted to ask in final, What do you see as the biggest barriers in filling vacant storefronts, and what additional steps can the city take to encourage investment to create a more vibrant, balanced downtown?

We don't respond to questions here, however. Okay. No, no, I'm serious. Our website, you can call the number on the website that rings to my cell phone. I'd be happy to speak with you because it's a very difficult situation.

I know it's complicated.

So you can contact me at any time.

Okay, I will do that. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Laura Levitas.

Levitas, I'm sorry. Go ahead. She's easy.

I'm easy. One. Thank you. Laura Levitas, 1030 North Lake Side Drive. Thank you. I had such a great week for real. I immersed myself in everything Lake Worth Beach this week. I went to neighborhood parties. I did the rap race. I fell off and I watched, I felt so proud. I watched the drone show and it was amazing. And the fireworks, I felt so proud to be a Lake Worth Beach resident. It was really, thank you. Cause I was here last year for July 4th and you guys listened. You really listened. And that made me feel good. Until I got this. Code compliance. I just got it. Now, I received a code compliance violation in October. I worked really hard to fix these violations. One, my bush was too bushy. I cut my bush. Sorry. Okay. Then I had hurricane shutters down. I lifted the hurricane shutters. I spoke to everybody I thought at Code Compliance. I just got a $425 bill for an expired permit, which I was told for the past four years didn't exist anymore. This is a permit from 2021. It took me getting in touch with Yolanda today to get to the right administration. question when you get something from code compliance as a citizen you don't know like if it's a bush that you need to go to scott if it's something else you need to go to building at no point over the past five years did anyone direct me to building i would have taken care of this 450 is a lot of money for me i'd like to know if something can be done about this i have no problem and i was told that i had a permit which was 100 not a problem pay the permit But this, I don't know what to do about.

I see Mr. Perry taking notes. Thank you. Give him your address and phone number again.

Thank you. Thank you. And thanks for a great week. Sure. Okay.

That's the last card I have. Approval of the minutes.

Motion to approve May 28, 2026 special meeting in June 26, 2026. Do I have a second? Second. By Ms. May.

All in favor? Aye. Okay. Consent agenda. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve. By Ms. Malega and second by? May. Ms. May. Jumping out of a plane gave her a certain amount of attention.

um so all in favor no not yet he has his light on oh well okay i'm happy to support it i believe this is to allow us to do the extension um i just want to make sure that the reason that we asked for the extension which was it seemed like there was still some they met today at four o'clock at the park unresolved issues. So I'm hoping that staff is in good communication with the people in the community who had concerns. And that was the tropical ridge. I don't know anything about the use in Parliament. I don't think there were concerns with that.

That's my answer. Yep. They met today at four o'clock. We got it. We got it handled. All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much.

Public hearings ordinance number 2026. Session three, please read by title.

Thank you.

That ordinance number 2026. Read into the mic a little bit better. It is an ordinance of the city of Lake Worth, Florida, amending the city's official zoning map from single family and two family residential SFTF 14 district to NC neighborhood commercial NC district for the properties located at 1501 South J Street, 1506 Winfield Street. 1512 Winfield Street, 1516 Winfield Street, 1524 Winfield Street, 1526 Winfield Street, 1528 Winfield Street, 822 Washington Avenue, 814 Washington Avenue, 810 Washington Avenue, 808 Washington Avenue, 802 Washington Avenue, 1529 South Johnson Street, 1527 South Johnson Street, and is more particularly described in Exhibit A for Unstability Complex Under the Practical Gate.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Motion to approve second. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Second. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Second. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Second. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Second.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- I just want to say thank you again to staff and the city and the community for working together and Lindsay. They all worked really hard to get this to what the community wanted. And this is what it's all about, is making sure the community is leading the decisions that we're making for the betterment of the future of the city of Lake Worth Beach. That's all I wanted to say.

Thank you. All in favor? Aye.

Madam Clerk, speak up if you've got something to read. I will, Madam Mayor. Thank you. Ordinance number 2026-06, please read by title.

Ordinance number 2026-06 is an ordinance of the City of Lake Worth, Beach, Florida, amending Chapter 23 land development regulations, Article 3 zoning districts, Division 1 generally, Section 23.3-6, use tables, and Division 4 commercial districts, Section 23.3-21, NC Neighborhood Commercial and Durability Conference Convocation ended effectively.

By Ms. Malega, second by Mr. Segrich.

All in favor? Aye.

Thank you very much. All right. Moving on. This is Unfinished Business A, and I want to make a statement before we do anything. Before a motion is made, I would like to make a little statement. A statement. Yeah.

Can I take a five-minute comfort break before we get into this?

Oh, you want a break? Five minutes.

Five minutes.

Just five minutes. All right. Five-minute break. Real quick. You can leave the room, too. You can come back. All right, so we're going to take a five-minute break. 7.55.

Madam Mayor, it is 8.04 and we have reconvened.

Thank you. We can barely hear you. Madam Mayor, it is 8.04 and we have reconvened. Thank you. Okay, I'm going to make a statement about this next item, which is the Beach Club. And I was not able, I was in court, I was not able to be at the agenda meeting, so I'm not completely up to date, and this may have been dealt with already. But here's my little statement. And I've been thinking about this a lot. And again, it might be moot, because it's already been decided by you guys, but I would like to not have an ITN. I would like to work with the Beach Club on their lease. I don't think that we should be doing it until April. I think that we should be, only April if that's the time that we have between, I feel like we're pushing, we're kicking this down the road. And I would really like to see um the the current lease expires when uh mr attorney or mr perry august 3rd august 3rd quick okay so i would i'm okay with the april extension i'm not okay with the extension i want to see it quicker than that i want to see something by the end of this year i don't think that is so complicated that we can't say that we all have feelings about the beach club. And we've had a very big public outcry about the beach club. I consider the beach club an amenity that we enjoy. And I don't want to see it messed with. There are certain things in the lease that I think need to be addressed. For example, the acoustics in the dining room and maintenance issues. But I just, I feel like we're taking this down the curb. And I would like to see this resolved by the end of the year that we negotiate with Mitch, with the Beach Club, and just go forward with that. I'm not going to take any comment. That's just all I want to say. I understand that we have asked for an updated market study on what rent should be on market rates that we have something to compare it to. And so I think when we get, I would like to have, when we get that report, when we get that back, and I don't know if it's a month, two months. I don't know how long it's going to be. I would like to see by that. In the meantime, I would like to see us negotiating things like the acoustics. Who's going to replace the seat covers? Who's going to replace the tables? What about the decoration there? I would like to talk about those sorts of things, which is not in the lease. And then come to the money when we get to when we get that those figures so that's that's just my friend she has nothing to do with us well that I know that that's what we need it's not an Elisa needs to be talked about that's why i'm asking to have it be. Discussed between the city and and the beach club, because I think those do need to be negotiated so i'm going to now i'm gonna ask for motion motion for discussion okay drive a second second for discussion okay so. And I have quite a few. If you have a comment, blue card, I've got your blue cards up here.

Could we hear public comment first? Could we hear public comment first?

We sure could. Yeah, there are. I have a few. I have less than I thought I would have, but that's okay. And I believe the clerk has some as well, correct?

Yes, Madam Mayor, I have four.

Okay, good idea. Let's hear the public comment first. I'm going to call your name and then I'm going to call the next person on deck. And there's not that many here, so it shouldn't be a problem. Sophia Terry is up first, followed by Samantha Kolejko. Samantha. Samantha.

All right, good evening to you all. Sophia Terry, 425 North Lakeside Drive. I wasn't planning on speaking this evening because public speaking makes me extremely nervous, like most other people. But sometimes you have to go out of your comfort zone for the things you love, and I would do anything for the Beach Club. So I apologize if I sound slightly unprepared. I will be reading off of my phone. I'm a longtime server and bartender of the Beach Club, and owe Mitch and the Beach Club my all for the many positive ways working there has changed my life. Working there has given me family when I don't have one here in the United States. It's given me direction and purpose and has allowed me to positively influence the lives of many others as well. There's not a lot of places left like the Beach Club, a family friendly, affordable neighborhood restaurant where all different types of people can come together to enjoy all the Beach Club has to offer. Our staff cares so much about our customers that the boundaries between worker and patron have come down and we've turned into one big family. We've attended each other's weddings, funerals, birthdays, graduations. And the list goes on. I understand times have changed and some believe there could be more money made if a new establishment were to come in. But I think it's time to listen to the people believing us, supporting us. Many are in this room right now and online as well. As the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Mitch has kept his business alive for over 10 years. He has created his own empire, and it would be a heartbreaking shame to get rid of the Beach Club in hopes some new place could come even close to replacing it. In conclusion, I will say the Beach Club will not go down without a fight, and we are here to stay. Thank you.

Well, I'm going to ask you, because we only have a few speakers, but I'm going to ask you, hold your applause to the end of all the speakers. Please. Thank you. We'll have one big, one big whatever. Okay, next up. And after Samantha is Mitch.

Hi, good evening. My name is Samantha Coles. I'm at 4746 Canal Drive. Sorry.

You would?

Samantha Coles. I'm at 4746 Canal Drive. So I am one of the managers at the Beach Club. After watching the discussions regarding the future of the Beach Club, I wanted to share some concerns from myself and our team. While we're grateful that the extension was approved, operating until April still leaves us with uncertainty. I can speak for myself and the other 41 employees that rely on the Beach Club that having our jobs in future up in the air is not an easy feeling. We all have families and responsibilities that depend on the stability of our employment. Another concern is the discussion of changing our current agreement into a lease while adding additional costs that are still unknown. Those costs will impact any operator you choose for the building and will lead to higher prices, making the Beach Club less accessible to the residents that we have worked so hard to serve. The reason the Beach Club has remained affordable and accessible to year-round locals is because the agreement has been in place since the restaurant has been there. At a time when many people who grew up in Palm Beach County are being priced out of homes and rentals and upscale corporate restaurants continue to open all around us, it is important to preserve places that are still local, affordable, and welcoming. Those other dining experiences are all around us. What is harder to find is a place that truly feels like it belongs to the community. I hope you consider not only the financial side of this decision, but also the employees, residents, and community members that are affected by it and take the time to give us a proper agreement. Thank you. Thank you.

Up next, Mitch, followed by Janet Conrad.

Hello, mayor. Hello, mayor and commissioners. Good to see you guys. My name is Mitchell. I am the owner of the Beach Club. When I first entered this agreement with the city, I made a commitment to create some Lake Worth Beach would be proud of. My goal was never to build a high end restaurant. It was to create a welcoming, family friendly place where the residents could gather, celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, holiday parties, simply just to get together without breaking the bank. Because of the support of this community, we've been able to do exactly what that happened. I'm truly grateful for that. Today though, the uncertainty surrounding our future is taking its toll. We're already seeing people hesitate in booking annual holiday parties, monthly meetings, community events. because they don't know if we're gonna be there. The uncertainty just doesn't affect my business. It affects our customers who made the Beach Club part of their traditions. It also affects 42 people that work for me. Many of these people worked for me for years and some of them for over 20 years. They have families, mortgages, bills, rent, like everybody else. They show up every day and they have helped me make the Beach Club what it is today. As their employer, it's incredibly difficult to knowing their future remains uncertain. I also want you to know that I'm not here to fight with the city. I just want to work with the city. I'm willing to come to an agreement with the city. agreement that allows us to continue serving the community while the city meeting all the city expectations. My biggest concern is being asked to take on utility costs without knowing what the costs actually are. Utilities have never been a part of the lease and I still haven't been given any estimates. Without that information, I can't responsibly determine whether I can financially sustainable.

Thank you. That's time.

Thank you, Mitch. Okay.

Next up is Janet Conner. Remember what I asked you? Janet Conner followed by Helen Levine.

Good evening. My name is Janet Conner, 3349 Custer Avenue, West Lake Worth. We love the Beach Club. My husband and I have been residents in Palm Beach County for 43 years, and we own a heavy equipment business here in the county for 34 years. We hold a company holiday party every year in December, and now been using the Beach Club at Lake Worth for this event, excuse me, for the last seven years. And with Mitch at the helm, we will be there again for the eighth year. I usually switch things up, but they have a special group. Have you ever planned holiday party, a party for a group around 45 people? It's not easy finding a special event space that can accommodate our size, our construction group, to being conducive to somewhere between casual and very nice with a little added holiday decor. And at a price for a mid-sized business like us that doesn't steal away from the other benefits that we give our employees during the year. At the Beach Club, we found that. It's why we keep coming back. And my husband and I personally come for breakfast, lunch, dinner. We recently had another meeting there, a financial meeting with our employees with food and drinks. The staff is wonderful. Since our first event in 2019, I can't think of one person that hasn't been gracious and helpful, not fun. The food's good and the focus is on choices, but still allows me to mix up the menu. They're very accommodating, especially as much as they allow me to decorate the nines with my Christmas nutcrackers. I do know what it takes to run a business, but I won't pretend to know what it takes to manage a restaurant, staff, or the costs associated with doing so. All I know is management here was doing something right. So this is the important part of my story. You have a very functioning restaurant, bar, event space. I hope together you can come to an agreeable solution for both sides and keep current management, keep the Beach Club operating with a wonderful staff at affordable rates for event planners and everyday patrons. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Alan Levine, West Palm Beach. I'm here today your actual address.

114 Murray road, West Palm beach. I'm here today because I care deeply about the beach club and what it means to our community. This is simply is not a discussion about increasing rent. It's about whether the city is using a fair and reasonable method to determine the rent. And this in cars appraisal compares the beach club to properties that are not truly comparable. One of the primary comparison is the North Palm Beach Country Club, which underwent approximately a $19 million renovation. It is simply not reasonable to expect an older facility that has not received similar investment to command the same rental value. The Beach Club has become successful because Mitch has spent years building a business that residents and visitors love. He's invested his time, his resources, his reputation into making this restaurant a destination. He has trained his staff and each staff member is absolutely wonderful, caring, I'm not asking the commission to ignore market rent. I'm asking that market value rent be determined fairly. Please consider obtaining an appraisal that compares properties with similar age condition and improvements. And I'd like to ask the commission one question. If two homes sit side by side on the same street, but one has undergone a $19 million renovation and the other has not been renovated at all, would anyone expect them to have the same market value? I don't believe they should. And I don't believe this restaurant should be treated that way either. I thank you very much. And as a side note, I'd like to thank you for the wonderful conversation fireworks on July 4th. I have the ability to view West Palm Beach and Lake Worth and I always favor Lake Worth and was super impressed that she used the drone with the flag and the state of Florida and I think I saw a turtle. You guys are great and thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Dan Garcia, followed by Becky Fisher.

Good evening, Dan Garcia, 1516 Shirley Court, Lake Worth. Boston has Cheers, Lake Worth Beach has Beach Club. Okay. Very affordable. We've attended very many family functions. We've done, like everybody else that says funerals, graduations, a little of everything. They're very affordable. He doesn't try to overprice everybody to where, you know, he makes it a pleasure to come there. The kids that work there are phenomenal. The kids there have a work ethic like no other. You see the same faces all the time. And that says something about the way the place is being run. A lot of restaurants you go there and they're like used car places. You don't see the same person ever. OK, this place is unbelievable. Very respectful. The kids are second to none. OK, I think that says a lot for Mitch and the way he runs this establishment. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, sir. Peggy Fisher, followed by Brandon Clark.

Thank you, Fisher, 508 North A Street. Madam Mayor, I appreciate your statement at the beginning of this item. I wish you had watched the pre-agenda meeting to hear the full discussion because I think it would be very informative for you as to what your fellow commissioners thought this meeting should be about. One of the things that's been said is they have a lease. And that was very clear in the discussion at the pre agenda that they actually have a food and beverage services agreement, not a lease. which is different. It's a different type of animal, which is one of the reasons that was explained that they weren't paying utilities. And instead, it was being paid by the city with residence funds. I think that the city certainly can work something out. But I think all parties need to be willing to listen and listen to the comments that the city has in terms of the situation and everything else, because there are some things that have not been publicly discussed to a great extent. And I think that's important so that everybody understands it's not rainbow, sunshine, and unicorn every day at every establishment throughout the city. So I do think we need to address what the commissioners talked about and what they wanted when they brought this item forward and remove the ITN for an indefinite timeframe. Thank you. Thank you.

Brandon Clark. And that's the last comment card that I have. If I'm missing anyone, let me know.

Brandon Clark, 529 South L Street. Everybody, good evening.

No, you need to go close to them.

Is that better? So I have to say it all over again, or we're good? Okay, thank you. As you know, we all just celebrated a wonderful Independence Day, and like this gentleman said, guys, hats off. Wonderful show. With that said, I think you guys know where I'm going with this, is that we, of course, went to the Beach Club to go celebrate, and we brought a good friend of ours who is a new resident of Lake Worth and had never been there. And he literally turned to me and said, how did you guys find this hidden gem? Where my seven-year-old, he's like, you just are letting her run off. I'm like, because she can. And he's like, all the parents are kind of looking out for all the kids, as we should. He goes, this reminds me of how we were growing up in the 80s. I was like, as it should. When we have places that we can't hold on to that so much. Due to all different kinds of reasons, these are the reasons why we need to keep places like this. And we need to be able to take new residents of Lake Worth and bring them there and show them that there's a place where they can go, where the kids can go, where you can have a huge event. That place was packed. was packed when we've discussed you're looking down lake ave and it's vacant building vacant building when's this restaurant going to go under when's this restaurant going to go under when are we going to see a revitalization i'm telling you now just everybody just wants this to be fair let's try and make this fair let's keep the beach club going because this is what this city needs that's it thank you

That was the last comment, so you picked fairly well.

Madam Clerk, do you have comments to read?

Yes, I have four, Madam Mayor.

Thank you.

Paige Nieves, 1701 North J Street. The Beach Club is much more than a business. It's a true community staple. As a longtime resident and golfer, I've spent countless days there over the years. I've celebrated birthdays, attended celebrations of life, hosted baby showers, one of them being my own, and now my daughter has grown up making memories at the Beach Club. We never miss kids night because it has become one of our favorite family traditions. Watching her grow up enjoying the same place that has meant so much to me has been incredibly special. Today, I also have the privilege of working at the Beach Club. I've seen firsthand the dedication of the staff and the care that goes into creating that welcoming environment, making our guests feel like family. Extending the lease past April isn't just about preserving jobs. It's about preserving a place that has become part of so many families' stories, including my own. The Beach Club is a true gem in our city, and I respectfully ask you to consider preserving a place that has been woven into the fabric of Lake Worth Beach past April so this cherished landmark can continue serving our community while a thoughtful long-term plan is developed. Adam Youngblood, 1705 North M Street. I would like to state that given the generous nature of the negotiations between the city and Benny's, the same consideration can be given the Beach Club restaurant. This is a fun, affordable, laid-back, friendly establishment that takes pride in customer service and getting to know the clients and families. Friday nights are a staple for the kids and adults alike in the community. Please commence good faith negotiations with the present leaseholder and come in amicable solution much the way Benny's was handled. The friendly Florida nature of the Beach Club is what makes it a great destination. We should be known as a city that honors and works with businesses that contribute to the community, and Beach Club hosts the neighborhood events that we all love and treated the guests like extended family. Keep Lake Worth friendly and laid back. Don't turn our slice of heaven into a Delray-style nightmare. Richard Mahler, 1767 15th Avenue North. Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. I support a short-term lease extension while the city works toward a long-term solution. However, I believe the suggested market rate of $11,823.33 is excessive. At the same time, the tenant's request of $7,500 does not adequately reflect the value of the space. I encourage the Commission to meet in the middle by setting the monthly rate at $9,000 with the tenant paying solid waste water and electric utilities. That strikes a fair and reasonable balance for both parties. Most importantly, we need to remove emotion from this decision and focus on what is in the city's best interest. A successful restaurant benefits the golf course, our residents, and ultimately the city's revenues. The city also has a responsibility to invest at least modestly in the short term. in the condition of the facility, from stained carpets and a deteriorating deck to poor acoustics, aging interiors, potholes, and a severely worn parking lot, the property is showing its age and projecting an image of neglect. It is unrealistic to expect either the restaurant or the golf course to attract and retain customers when the facilities themselves are in clear need of attention. If we want this agreement to succeed, we must be willing to invest in the asset, not just negotiate the lease. Our tenant deserves a well-maintained space and our residents deserve the return on investment that comes from a successful public asset. Addressing both the lease terms and the condition of the facility with clear objective judgment is the only way to move this partnership forward. And the last comment on this item, Virginia Barley, 7442 Canal Road. Good evening. My husband and I are not in support of placing the Beach Club into a bid situation for the lease agreement. This establishment is a staple in the community. We have held several events at the Beach Club within the past 10 years. We drive from Western Lake Worth twice a week to have dinner and drinks. Mitch and all of his staff are like family to many of us who do not actually have family in town. They know their patrons by name and go out of their way to make sure people want to come back. There are enough restaurants going in and out of business in South Florida. In fact, we know one in downtown Lake Worth that took forever to open and it was closed within a very short time. Change is not always a good thing. Mitch has created a neighborhood gem that even weathered COVID. In the past year or so, we have seen improvements in many areas, making the establishment even more appealing. Please keep this gem in the hands of Mitch and his crew. Affordability and family-friendly is a rare find in Palm Beach County. We, along with many others, support Mitch, and hopefully this commission will as well. Thank you. That's the final comment on this item.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Okay, we have a I see Mr. McVoy and I see Miss Malega in a second in comments. And are we going to what? What? Yeah, Madam Clerk, can you keep it just in terms of time? Can we keep an eye on the half hour and see where we go from there and do five minutes each?

Yes, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. Okay, Miss Malega. No, Mr. McVoy was up first. Five minutes, everybody have five minutes. I don't care whoever wants to.

I think the gentleman who mentioned cheers hit it right on the head. I think the consistency of the comments was very clear. and that this is a special place. I think it's been accurately pointed out that restaurants come and go all the time. Someone who is able to make a place that not only persists for a decade and more, but persists and contributes so much to the community and to the employees. The fact that employees don't turn over that much, that people do And I'm told that there are even multi-generational things, people where somebody's kids have come to work there. And it's a first step. And it's very clear that that however the staff and the management organizes this, they train people to make somewhere special, that people do know the names of many of the customers that come. So my request to my fellow commissioners is we clearly have something very unusual here And we should do everything in our power to make sure that it continues to be successful. Yes, of course, we need to charge them some rent. That's normal. Do we need to charge them for other things? I think what we need to balance with that is it's not the management's fault that they didn't pay for water and electric. They didn't have a separate meter. And the original agreement said that that's not how they do it.

I forget what it's called, but it's a vendor agreement, whatever.

If we can work, I'm sure that Mitch and his crew is very willing to work on the negotiations. I think we want to do our part as the city to make sure that This is not going to pave our roads. We have information sitting in front of us that our annual road need is something like $6 million. We could 10 times Mitch's rent, and we still wouldn't put a drop in that bucket of thicket in the roads. So for us to pretend that we have to be fiscally responsible and all those things, no. Our big responsibility is to protect something that is of real value to our community. You've heard it very consistently. Find a way to do that such that the prices can still stay reasonably affordable. um you notice that mitch came wearing uh gucci and um you know i don't know those names but i don't think that there's a lot of extra leeway if you want to keep it affordable and family friendly let's not go crazy squeezing on him let's find a way that's reasonable and balanced and it

If we want to go home tonight, and we do, you can be here. If you just hold applause.

Ms. Mulligan. Thank you. So I find your comments funny because when we had a different person here, maybe because of the type of car he was driving, you thought something different, but Our job is careful stewardship of limited resources. I go to the beach club. I think the beach club is great, but I'm also a business owner and I know what fair market rent is and I know what utilities should be paid. So I'm a little unhappy with the things that have been said on social media, because when you go onto social media and you don't tell the whole story, it's frustrating. So I'm going to start with the original lease, okay? And this is all, excuse me, I'm talking. This is the original agreement, which in here says lease 85 times. Tenants shall at its sole cost repair, replace, and maintain the premises, including but not limited to the walls, the storefronts, the ceilings, the floors, electrical plumbing, mechanical fire protection, life safety sprinklers, all equipment servicing premises in a clean, attractive first-class condition. Not the city. OK, so that's first. And I want us to work this out, but it has to be equitable for everybody involved. I don't think that there's anybody who's going to give us a better experience of a neighborhood community. And that's from the things that we do at the NAPC to meeting and taking everybody who comes to visit me. I take them to the beach club and I make sure that they know about these. And you can roll your eyes at me all you want. I'm going to sit here and do the best decision that I can for the future of the city of Lakewood Beach and keeping employees employed. But at the same time, knowing that on October 24th in 2019, before COVID, Beach Club received a notice that they were in the rears $21,000. Two months later, December 18th, they received another notice that now they're behind $37,000. And this is way before COVID. And it took this city and the finance department and the legal team to come up with an agreement in 2022 of August to get back payment of $27,360. So if you're going to sit there and go on social media and talk about how bad the city's been to you, why don't you talk about how convenient the city has made this? Because these were all... Complete agreement breakers. You could have been terminated. The agreement, the lease, whatever you want to call it, should have been terminated back then and addressed. And I'm not saying it needs to be terminated now, but I'm mad because you don't tell the whole story, Mitch. You didn't say that the city has worked with you, that the city has been here, that we've worked through major, major backlog of payments. And this was at an affordable rent of $4,500, right? So I do have a concern that whatever agreement we come to, how are they going to financially fulfill this obligation? If we looked before COVID, that they were in the rears. And I asked for this data during the pre-agenda meeting in the sunshine, and all of us received this data. OK, so I'm a little concerned that we're sitting here talking about, yes, I want to keep the beach club and I want it to be fair to everybody. But I want pure transparency on how the city has been trying to work. We've got emails for years trying to work things out with the people who run the beach club, their legal team, code violations, permit work that was done without having permits and permission from the city to do it. So yes, I'm in favor of giving them a one-year extension. But these things have got to be addressed. And we've got to make sure that if whatever we're doing, we're setting them up for success. Because you can't sign a lease knowing that they may not be able to pay it. Because then what's going to happen is they're going to be in default. And then we're going to have 45 plus people out of work because they couldn't make the obligation. That's why I wanted the fair market research. I want to make sure that what we're doing is the right decision for today and tomorrow. Because we have lost, as a city, a lot of money in utilities that were paid on the backs of the residents in this city that can't even afford to pay their own utilities. I'm not saying that I want an ITN. I'm not saying that I don't want the beach club. I'm just saying that I'm being transparent. I do like the beach club. I do go there. But I want to make sure that the real information is out there. I would support a one-year extension on a lease extension. with utilities paid, but making sure that Mitch knows the full out-the-door monthly check that he has to write, including CAM. It's not fair, like he said, for him not even to know what this approximate cost could be. That's on us. So I wish that he had that information before today. I would support a one-year extension.

Thank you. Ms. May? Mr. Sigrich?

Sounds good. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I have some questions for staff. What's the square footage of the restaurant?

It's 7,094. It's on the front of the staff report.

Okay. So the whole building is only 6,600 square feet.

So that must mean it's the stadium. So the question is, does that...

I'm asking staff, what's the actual square footage? Because we have a multiplier on cam by 1326 square feet. We've got 7094 square feet on the front. And according to the Palm Beach property appraiser, the restaurant's actually 3932. After...

After the Anderson and Carr report, which had a 6,000 and some odd number, the exact number, staff went out and realized that there were some issues with the report. I think you all talked about issues with the report, with the Anderson and Carr report. One of the issues was they didn't properly calculate the square footage, such as the deck, the areas that are being used. So staff back then went out and rechecked it all and came up with a number that's in the least of 7,000 plus number. that's the number that we've been emailing back and forth with since april and no one's objected to that number that that's the square footage the big issue has been the amount of the rent you know anderson and car said $20 a square foot that's fine um so inclusive so where where did you get the multiplier from the 1326 times seven dollars cam that was uh staffs looked at the entryway the restroom that the restaurant uses um and one other piece of uh the area and the so that's the square footage of the common area of the common area that the restaurant uses it does not for example include the uh restrooms that are used by the golfers the um it's called in the hallway. Thank you. So we, when we were going back and forth, that locker room is an issue. So electric, water, And Cam, how do you separate that out? What's fair? So what we've talked about is pretty much a split. But part of that is going to be the city's responsibility. And part of that is going to be the tenant's responsibility. So that the tenant is responsible for the electric and the water and the solid waste for all of it. And the city will do the camp, will provide the camp services, but not for the locker room.

So... One of my biggest concerns and one of the residents or a speaker brought it up is that Anderson cart report. It's not worth it. It's printed on. I can take my time. The staff report. I don't trust the numbers. That's not how you calculate CAM. You don't calculate the amount of common area. You actually calculate the total building area and what's the common maintenance, and you divide it by the square footage that you're actually renting. So if you rent half the building, you pay half the CAM for the entire building. It's not based on whether the hallway's 1,000 square feet or so on. So there's a lot of issues with this, and I think there's a lot of confusion because This is a service agreement.

It may use the word lease in it incorrectly, but it's a service agreement.

And we currently have a service agreement with a vendor who's providing restaurant services in our building. And I think that's where a lot of the contention comes back and forth. And so while I hear Commissioner Malega say they should be paying this, this, this, and this, I would agree with you wholeheartedly if they were leasing the space. But they're not. They're providing a service in our space. I also understand that they have not held up their end of the bargain. And the story that's been put out there is not necessarily accurate, right? So there's been maintenance issues. There's been bad rents. There's reports that are supposed to be given on a monthly and quarterly basis that have never happened. It's kind of a mess. When I went through just briefly calculating by the actual square footage of the restaurant, and this is not including utilities. Actually, that's the other question. What percentage of the utilities are we estimating that's going to be theirs? Because right now I have a grand total of... John Potter, Close to $80,000 in utilities. John Potter, Do you know at all what possible percentage of that we're guesstimating 10% 50% I know emailed.

John Potter, You know, with some numbers roughly you're looking at about $700 a month, the solid waste. John Potter, And that's $700 a month for the solid waste part of it. The water is about the same, a little bit more. Electric is a big unknown because we're putting in a new meter. Right now, the electric number is the number for the whole property. So we're putting in a new electric meter. So I'm not sure of the estimate. If I had to give you a best guesstimate, you're probably in the $2,000 to $2,500 a month range for all of those things together, which is one reason why I can, which normally includes electric and water and such, only includes the maintenance at this point. There was a way to try to thread that needle. This is an unusual agreement. It's a lease. It's not a lease. It's a service agreement. It's not a service agreement. It's a little bit of everything in this agreement. But the parties that live with this, good, bad, or indifferent for a long time, But the Anderson car report was a highlight that I thought was that the amount of rent was just too low. Whatever the right number is when you guys are talking about doing an ITN and getting another market rate study.

Yeah. The other problem with what we put in the staff report about the Anderson car report is that they said $20 a square foot is what their suggestion was. Even though they had a flawed suggestion, that is not what their suggestion was. It was $22 a square foot plus 6% of revenue. So I've got a really big issue with just how all of this is being structured. And it reminds me a lot of what happened when we were trying to renew the Benny's lease for the first time years ago. It's kind of a little bit of a mess. And besides our attorney, there's no one from staff here to ask questions about And we're getting hung out to dry up here because, I mean, I could sit here and rip this to shreds all night long, but I'm not going to. But I think I highlighted a number of key points as to why this staff report's not worth the paper it's printed on. So for me, it comes down to something very simple. We have a situation that's not a good situation. We're rapidly approaching the expiration of this service agreement. We have an institution that's been with us for a long time. We want to keep the institution. We don't have good numbers to go on at all, I think. The stuff that we were given is just terribly flawed. My gut tells me, I see here a tenant is willing to pay $7,500 a month plus solid waste and so on. But I'm not sure they understand what that actually equals. And based on my rough calculations, that's going to be over $12,000 a month. That's a 3x increase. And that might be what it's worth. But I don't see us making that jump right now, giving them a month's notice. We got to jump to that. And my opinion would be entirely different if we had all of our ducks in a row and we're having this conversation a year earlier, but not when it expires in August and we're in July.

Madam Mayor, I'm sorry, that's five minutes.

Thank you. I guess I'll come back to my comments, but I'm in favor of looking at let's find a simple solution for an extension and really make sure we do our due diligence on what the permanent extension would look like. Because right now, I think we're just guessing.

So you're saying stick to the April?

I would like us to stick to the April and really make sure we do our due diligence and work with the tenant. And as part of that, we're going to need to see those reports. There are certain financial reports that are required per the services agreement that we are gonna have to see. And that is a bit unusual, but it is a services agreement. It is not a normal landlord tenant relationship. And so if we're gonna treat it as such, we need to see those reports. That will give us a good indication of what this amenity can bear in terms of cost of service and so on without severely impacting that amenity and making a change from what it is today to a $30 hamburger. And I don't want to see that either.

So can I, since you were the motion, I wanted to amend my, you were the motion maker. Right. Yeah. And I was the second for discussion. So. You're thinking April, I'm thinking August, because as a business plan, you can't really have six months. You do. I'm just trying to talk to one person. There's a lot going on here. So would you be willing to do the seventy five hundred dollar increase and no utilities and have staff fix this to turn this into a working lease or whatever it needs to be? And keep utilities out. Like, I need to know more for what he was just saying. I know his time is up, but I didn't really get clarification on what you were thinking.

Well, I think we're already going down the route of establishing utilities and meters. And I think if the tenant is willing to pay the utilities, we should have that, but not even attempt to try to guesstimate it. Because looking at these utility numbers and understanding the buildings and everything else around, it's next to impossible. And that's the reason for the hard questions to our attorney. And I wasn't expecting to have those answers. It's because it's almost impossible to get to that answer. So, yeah.

Thank you, Ms. May. Thank you. First of all, I want to thank the citizens who stayed here from 6 o'clock till 9 o'clock. I... If I weren't sitting up there, I'd probably be sitting in your seats too, because I understand you're the beach club. I get it. It's where we take every person that visits. I'm there all the time. That's New Year's Eve. That's everything. But I am sitting up here too. So I have to be thinking with two different hats on. And a restaurant... that pays $4,500 a month rent with no electric, no water, no trash. That's not fair to the residents because the residents are subsidizing that. And so to say that we're going to leave it exactly the way it is, we're not going to, that wouldn't be fair to the residents. And honestly, it's, Even if you work there, you've got to see that $4,500 a month rent for a restaurant is ridiculous. I went to look at just a little tiny office and it was $5,500 and it was one room, no bathroom. So we have to increase the rent. Mitch understands that we need to increase the rent. We've had discussions about that. When we had the Pre-agenda meeting on Friday. Sorry, Thursday. On Thursday, we discussed taking the ITN off because we want to make this work. So I am a little frustrated as Commissioner Maliga said about the story being told because there is not one person sitting up here that wants a different restaurant there. We all want the Beach Club to stay. But we also need to make sure that we understand that Mitch understands and we understand and the community understands. I mean, this is not a private agreement. Everyone's going to be able to see it. So we need to make sure that it's fair on all sides. I agree that one of the reasons we said we wanted to even pull this in the first place, we not even have it on tonight's agenda was because we didn't have all of the information that we're asking for tonight. I specifically said on Thursday, our meeting is on Tuesday. There is no way we're going to get all that information. So. we don't have it. We can't make that decision tonight. Um, we did instruct staff to negotiate with Mitch. That was the direction. So that should be happening. There are several things that, um, has been frustrating with the story being told because there is a responsibility of being a tenant. And when your landlord asks you to remove things from the place that is not your property to store things on and you don't do it and you have to be asked for eight, 10 months to do it and you still don't do it, the landlord has no recourse. So we need to make sure that we're all negotiating in good faith here. I trust that Mitch and his attorney can do that. And I really do believe that this will work out. But we have to be as transparent about this as possible and to an extent, take a little bit of the emotion out of it because we're all fighting the same fight. Okay, we all want this to work. Nobody wants the park at the West Palm Beach to come in and take this over. We don't want that. But you have to understand the position of being an elected up here where we have to be. Fiscally responsible, but also responsible to the needs of the community and that's. Why we have to compromise and we have to work out a way that that we are all able to meet the needs and not put this on the back of the residents who have been subsidizing this restaurant. So I agree that we can extend the lease because I honestly don't believe that anything's going to change before. I mean, I want to do the 7,500 because everybody's agreed to that. I think going to April, April's going to be here before we blink our eye and we're going to be going, oh crap, now we need to extend it to something else. So I think we do the year. We extend it to August. However, in that time, we negotiate when we get all of the information, we negotiate so that we have a lease that extends further than that year. So we don't have to wait until next August to do this again. So my suggestion is that we have a ultimate cutoff date of next August. We work to get the lease terms done before that yeah we could redo it within six to eight months from now just do an amendment once we have information so and we do need to decide is it going to be a lease of the space where they are taking on the lease the leases responsibilities and we are the landlord or are they a vendor of ours and we are responsible for the building so that needs needs to be negotiated that is not going to be answered between july 7th and august 3rd um so i think we need to be realistic with the time frame here i think we need to be um smart about the numbers let's slow down let's work it out we need to as a community take a deep breath and breathe and know that we're all on the same side here we're trying to get this done okay and we need to have a little bit of patience and Um, support Mitch and support the, our staff here who's been trying to put this together. We've asked them to throw this together in 3 days. I'm not trying to put anybody under the bus tonight. We need a little bit of time to work this out.

All right, so that's 5 minutes.

Okay, so I think we might all be actually saying the same thing tonight, guys, and we're kind of coming into a, an agreement here that we are going to extend. Right. and give some time for this to come into a proper agreement. So I'm going to stop talking because I didn't make the first or the second, but I think we are all kind of on the same page. And that's our job up here, guys, is to hear from you, hear from staff, and try to make a compromise so that everybody can get at least the most of what they want. It's not always going to be one way or the other. The idea is compromise. So that's what we're working on now.

Thank you. My turn. I really get a chance to speak. I, in general, I wanted to say I want us to set my my concern is the timeframe. And I think Mitch pointed out or somebody pointed out that, you know, going another year, 10 months is frustrating because they don't, the uncertainty is rough. I would like, and I don't think this is rocket science. I think if we extend the lease until like December, January, six months, seven months, that gives us the city plenty of time to get the figures. and work with Mitch. I just don't want the feeling that we're making this so far in advance that it's, I just think in shorter time, we all work better under a bit of a deadline. And I think that the deadline would be better for us if it was shorter rather than longer, because we'll be much more motivated to keep working on this. I think that, you know, we're talking about the difference between an agreement and a lease. Well, I mean, that's been a blurred line because there were things that were done to the property by Mitch. and his staff that were property things, not alcohol and food. So that line has been blurred, whether we call it a lease or an agreement, that has been blurred. And I think that one of the things, and I said this before, one of the things that we do need to talk about is there are things that need to be fixed at the beach club. The acoustics in the restaurant. Mostly the acoustics in the restaurant. And who replaces the chair covers when they wear out? That sort of thing.

Thank you.

Which hasn't really. So I just think a shorter time frame would be more effective in all of us to negotiate and to work and still plenty of six months is plenty of time to get those do the staff, do you think we'd have a problem getting those numbers from the within a couple of months, three months, four months.

what I'm hearing and from my conversations with their attorney, I mean, the 7,500 was they proposed, not the city's proposal. And then over the last several weeks, since your April meeting, we've talked about the water, the electric, the solid waste, they're aware of the fact and they've been provided copies of emails from our staff saying this is what we estimate these numbers are going to be. So these are not big surprises. And we're already working on putting in electric meters. So my what I'm hearing is do a lease for till next August for one year, 7500 a month. Plus they pay electric, water and solid waste and the and the $7 a square foot per can. And I thought we pretty much had an agreement on that walking in the door. from the landlord, I'm not sure if that's where the city wants to be anymore.

You said for the tenant, not where the landlord sits.

No, I think I knew where they wanted to be. I wasn't sure now where you all want to be.

I just think it should be a tour. I'm maybe fighting a losing battle here, but I just think it should be tighter to give them a little more certainty of the future. I don't know that we need a year to figure this out. That's up to you. That's my thought.

Okay.

Mr. McElroy? And are you keeping track of our half hour? Madam Clerk?

Yes, Madam Mayor, you have four minutes, 58 seconds. And actually, Mr. McVoy still has a minute and 49 of his five minutes.

Okay. It looks like we're going to maybe have a motion to waive the half hour.

Motion to waive the half hour.

Second by Mr. McVoy, second by Mr. Segrich. All right, here we go. Mr. McVoy, all in favor? Aye. Thank you. You have a minute and 41 seconds.

So I think we have to be very clear, and I think Commissioner Segrich alluded to some of it, and Commissioner Malega also, Everybody says they want what has been alluded to here to stay, that they appreciate the qualities. Okay, you got to put your money where your mouth is, commission, if that's what you want. So before we sign on to CAM plus electric plus things without knowing solidly what those numbers are on, If you say that you like a family-friendly, affordable place, and you're going to run the rent from 5,000 to 12,000, I can tell you, as a soil scientist, that's probably not going to work out. So... Money where your mouth is, guys. If we appreciate and really value what's going on, I think what needs to happen is you've got to give some stability to Mitch and the 42 employees and all the people who use it and say, look, we're not going to do anything for a year to totally upset the apple cart. And you got to give Mitch some time to say, well, I can squeeze this another thousand a month, another two thousand a month, whatever. But you go much beyond that and the prices are going to go up. He's the one who offered seventy five hundred originally. Now, originally, recently, he was asked, can you get me a number by the end of the day? And yes, ask the attorney. I just asked. I verified that because I had heard that. So it was not done in a fulsome way. And I don't want to lock him into something or other that we know is going to fail. If we say that we really want this, then make sure that we don't put something so onerous on it that you don't get it. Yes, I'm sure that we could put something in that location that made buckets of money And had none of the things that we value here, that we all are saying we value, and that certainly the community values and the employees value, I'm sure we could make buckets of money. But it wouldn't make a drop in the big budget of the city. It just wouldn't. So we have to be very clear. If your focus is, oh, the numbers have got to be right, and we've got to pay fair and all that sort of stuff, and that means putting it out of business, Be really cautious about going that route. We have all sorts of restaurants downtown that go out of business. And part of the big reason why they go out, I was going to answer to Rebecca Gilmartin, part of the reason they go out of downtown, the landlords have very high rates. You can't make it work.

Sorry, Madam Mayor, that's five minutes.

Thank you. So let's give them a year. Let's give them the $7,500. They're willing to go up. I would not add the electric and utilities and cam on at this point because we don't know that they know that, yeah, we can make that work.

Thank you.

Wait on that. Mr. Secretary.

Can we ask the attorney if they do know that they have said that if they can or cannot make that work?

I think we all have a pretty good sense of what that estimate would be, and I'm about to throw out something I shouldn't do, which is make a suggestion. Please do. Maybe you say, okay, $7,500 a month plus all these utilities and cap it at $9,500 a month for the next six months and then revisit it in six months. Good idea. Because our best internal estimate is you're somewhere in that $2,000 range for those things. It might be $1,800. It might be $2,700. But it's unknown, because you're right, this is going to be a new electric, a new water meter. We're definitely not watering the grass for the golf course. That's not part of it. Water meter as well? It's a water meter as well, not just electric? Yes, water and electric both. I thought it was just electric. Water as well. Water for their restroom, for example. We have staff. This is a lifeline.

Good evening, Tiana McKay, Interim Assistant City Manager. They are only getting a electric meter separate. Water will not be separate. Okay.

Thank you.

so mr attorney so again if you want to put a cap on it and then at the end of six months you can revisit it and say okay it's almost like an annual cam when you adjust you can look at it and say okay we were way off mitch it's really 11 000 or it's only 8 500 whatever it is but at least then there's some certainty um and also some reality as to what the electric the water is you have six months of experience say okay what is that

Is the water bill for the building or for that area, does that include the sprinklers on the, is it just the building?

Just the building. Okay, sprinklers are supplied from the ponds. Okay, thank you. Well, thank you.

Mr. Segrich? All right, so that's a suggestion by our attorney. Is there a reason we're not putting a water meter? That's a big difference.

The only water that is used in the pro shop is one toilet facility, which doesn't flush very often. And then the pro shop, which only has one staff person in it. It's not being utilized very often. But then there is the, of course, restrooms. Those are the washrooms. Thank you.

Right. Is there a reason why we're not just putting in a water meter for the restaurant portion?

The infrastructure, I can check with the water director, but the infrastructure is challenging to do so. So if we wanted to explore that we could work with the director, the water utilities director and look at maybe a percentage, if that's what you'd like, but it's the infrastructure of the actual system. Currently,

Are they paying $4,500 a month? No. Or what is the actual amount they're paying?

I do not have the exact number on me. I can look it up. But it's closer to $49 per month.

Because of the increases. Because of the increases. So they're at $49. They're at $5,000, give or take. Okay.

So the proposal would double their rent.

Yes, thank you.

even with the county.

I think they're okay with that. I think from our conversations, and you can always call them up and ask, and I hate to do that in a public meeting, but I think they're okay with that. And again, you can always look back in six months and say, okay, let's sit down and do an adjustment. Because we'll also be getting that information that we've never received. The revenue information that is in the agreement that's not been provided in the city as a push form.

And that would give the city some time to get those reports.

That would give everybody a better sense as to what's the right number.

When do we expect the electric meter in?

They said they can have it within a matter of weeks. They're already been working on the infrastructure and everything for it. So they will have that in as soon as we get everything confirmed. They said they'll make it finished.

So I'm going to amend my motion and I'm going to make a motion to approve with the following criteria or bullet points. Number one, that we instruct staff to immediately conduct a survey of the property and actually get a real square footage number of what the future lease would be for the restaurant. Okay. Okay. Number two, that effective immediately, the beach club adhere to the reporting clause in their current service agreement and provide those reports in a timely fashion, as well as give a summary from 2025. Number three, that staff be instructed to work on with the tenant on an actual lease, not a food services agreement, an actual lease, standardized lease. I would like to only have this extension till April, and I do agree with the mayor on that. There's two ways of going with that, though. I do understand extending to August to give certitude to staff in the restaurant. And I want staff to be working on this hastily so that we don't have to go to like, let's say August. So I'm okay if we phrase it as staff has a goal of finalizing something by April. Yeah. um if not we extend to august for them but what i don't want to have happen is april comes around and we don't have anything we're just like oh well let's wait till next july and then and then and then so on so i do understand that um but i i think we can get it done by by april with the stipulation that if if it's the city's delay it automatically extends to august under the same terms right That the tenant pay the electric utilities once the meter is established.

What about their garbage?

I'm just saying electric utility for now because I believe water and garbage would get determined by CAM in the future.

If you look at the email that Jamie sent us today, they have their own account. but for some reason the city's been paying it every month.

So I'll change that to pay the electric utility once metered and their garbage. In the future lease, we don't have section 11.1 giving the tenant a 90-day out because that's not a lease. That's not a five-year lease if you have a 90-day out. That...

I disagree with him.

That's okay. You can vote now. That the rent being paid be $7,500 a month during the duration of the extension that can be established in the future lease. And that's it.

What about the CAF idea of the return...

I wasn't asking for water to be paid during this extension. So I believe that will give them enough of a financial relief.

And do you happen to know, do we know, I need this for...

Well, he was thinking and Mr. Mr. Boy, you really wasn't on this one.

I'm looking for a clarification on the numbers so that I can see whether I agree with Commissioner Segrich's proposal.

She might have a question, too, and she has had her line.

So I would like clarification on your motion. So motion is to give staff direction to extend this until April. I personally think that we need to August to give them the ability to see in 12 months what they can afford and what they can't afford, what the utilities really are. I think that during season it's feast or famine. And I don't think that season is a good time for us to put the pressure on them, but that's my point. That's, that's just what I feel. I am in support of 7,500 plus garbage and electric and You've got 15 days to fix the remaining issues. And within 15 days, if those issues are not resolved and we all know what the issues are, then this is null and void. Because we can't be the only ones up here, again, extending the olive branch, extending the olive branch and feeling like we're not being taken serious. So that to me is a bigger conversation on that. enforcing the terms of this lease. Like you said, Commissioner Segrich, there are reports that we have never received since 2013 that we should have been getting. There's been no consistency. So I also would like to make sure that in the next 13 or 12 months, whatever we have, 12 and a half months, if any of these are violated, it is instant termination of all agreements because we have extended the olive branch over and over and over again. And I, I just don't think that that's in good faith for the, for the residents as commissioner vice mayor may was saying, we have to do what's right for everybody. So I'm in favor of a year. I don't want to do, I don't think six months is fair to any business. If we're going to do it, give them a year, let them figure out, in that negotiations in that year, they'll be able to see their utilities, the flow, what they're really using and say, okay, here's what we can sign in a year from now as an extension. So I personally, I will support everything you said, except for, I would really like it to be August.

So extend it for a year, but the future extension has to be executed within nine months.

Perfect. Second.

Third. Okay.

Good.

Mr. Rapport?

Could I just get, do we know the electric for the whole building right now, monthly, roughly?

53,000. Oh, 53,000 divided by 12.

Well, so 5,000 for the, I'm trying to. 4,000. 4,000. I'm trying to figure out, somebody can help me. Are we, what are we doing? What is, Mitch looking at for a bill compared to what he's paying now and are we no I know I understand that but the total is it realistic that he can continue to have an establishment similar to what we have somewhere all that extra money's got to come from my fear is well It's going to be the prices.

Only paying $5,000 a month. Right. I'm calling the question, Madam Mayor. All right.

If he had handed in the reports, we would know.

Yeah, exactly. And I hope Mitch understands the importance. And on the city, we have never demanded those reports, which I think is a thing to point out. So we have a- Wait, I'm sorry, Madam Mayor. Go ahead.

Commissioner Maliga- Call the question. So we need a second on that and a vote.

Second to call the question. Second by Commissioner May. Thank you.

Call the vote.

And a vote on the question.

Call the question.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Clarification question. Yeah, Mr. On the 90 day 11.1, is that for the, to take it out of the future lease or the.

Let's worry about that later.

Okay.

Take it out of this in the future for the tenant.

This extension that we're doing now, not the next. And the next. I missed something. Right now in 11.1 of the original lease, which still exists, either party can terminate on 90 days notice. And that's what I'm clarifying. Is that section going to come out now, which means neither party can terminate other than the normal course, or is it waiting until the next new lease, which might be a year from now?

I'm not comfortable taking that out.

I think that we just leave it in until the final real lease is negotiated with all the release terms.

I mean, unless you keep what, what commissioner Malika just said, where if anything's violated, it's null and void anyway, but it's already in there. It should be in there anyway.

It isn't there.

Well, then, then the 11.1 is irrelevant. Yeah. That's my question.

11, 11.1 allows the tenant to just say to the city, Hey guys, I'm leaving in three months. Good luck.

It allows us to do that as well. But if we have the other part where if they violate the lease, that's already in there.

I don't want to change the instant termination because every agreement needs to have a breach and a cure.

We're not talking about... I didn't know that there was... The 90 days, I think, is just... sort of arbitrary, just saying for any reason we could do it. And I think that in terms of stability, if they violate the lease, that's already in there. If they don't pay the rent, like they have done stuff, they've been forgiven a lot. But in terms of just randomly 90 days we're going to stop or you're going to stop, I think that's a little unfair.

I would like to take that. You're talking about 11.1 or 11.2, which did take out 11.1 on their last extension.

11.1 is still in there.

It's still in there. It's just not the 11.2. No, it didn't. 11.1 stayed. 11.2 was added. 11.2 was not in the original. So it didn't modify the original. It added on to it.

I'm reading the one that was done in 2016. It says subsections 11.1 and 11.2 are deleted and replaced with the following. 11.2. If the city manager or designee deems that the tenant is in default of any material term of the services agreement, including without limitation, or failure to supply an adequate working force or service of proper quality, for failure to pay rent or other costs, for failure to satisfactorily perform the services specified in the service agreement, or or failure to maintain all required license and insurance, the city manager or designee may give written notice to the tenant specifying defaults to be remedied within 30 days. Such notice shall be set forth for the basis of any dissatisfaction. If the tenant does not remedy the default within 30 days or promptly commence steps to remedy to the reasonable satisfaction of the city manager or designee, the city may, A, remedy the default and charge the tenant all reasonable cost and expense associated with such remedy, including without limitation, The city's reasonable attorney fees related to or arising from such remedy and or the city may withhold any money due or which may become due to the tenant under the services agreement. So it's okay.

That's fine.

That was not where I was reading it from.

It's from the second amendment in 2016.

I read it as a replacement of 11.2, but you're correct.

Start with a brand new. That it's not like the amendment to the third amendment. Did you want me to recap?

If you'd like, I mean, I was taking notes and they can obviously check the video. Yep. But you want to recap? No, that's a deal.

Okay. All right. So all in favor of the motion? Aye. Aye. Aye. Unanimously. Thank you very much.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. August.

I'm in your party, Earl. I'm in your party. Thank you.

Well, you're not going to... Not in mine. Okay.

Thank you. New business A.

Or have to make decisions.

Application for the automated permitting systems demonstration, NOFOs of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Motion to approve. Second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Madam Clerk, do you have any more public comments?

Yes, I do on the next item, but I'm sorry, I heard several people second.

Madam Mayor, I just wanted to thank staff for their effort on this particular one.

It came to them very late in the game and they've really put forth a monumental effort to get this. So thank you.

All right. So we have a motion and a second. All in favor? What, we voted? We did? Very good. 5-0, I think. B, interlocal agreement with the CRA for funding of road improvements on South D Street from 3rd Avenue South to 6th Avenue South and North D Street from Lucerne Ave to 3rd Avenue North. Motion to approve. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor?

Wait, wait, wait. I do have a public comment on this.

Oh, you have a public comment. Okay.

So the one comment on this item is from Richard Mahler, 1767 15th Avenue North. Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. I am pleased to support approval of this interlocal agreement between the city and the CRA. This agreement demonstrates exactly why the CRA is such an important partner in our city's future. By reinvesting funds from a project that came in under budget, the CRA is maximizing every dollar and ensuring those savings are put back into the district where they can have the greatest impact. Investment like these are about much more than asphalt and concrete. They create safer streets, more inviting sidewalks, and public spaces that residents can take pride in. They send a message that we are committed to our neighborhoods and to the continued revitalization of our downtown. I hope this project is just one of many continued investments by both the CRA and the city to beautify our public spaces, strengthen our infrastructure, and create a downtown that attracts residents, visitors, and new businesses. Every successful downtown is built on consistent, intentional investment over many years. Without, we will continue to falter. For too long, our city has fallen behind while critical infrastructure and public spaces have aged. We cannot reverse decades of underinvestment overnight, but we can change the trajectory. By continuing to invest in our streets, sidewalks, parks, and public realm, we begin repairing the foundations of our community and building a city that future generations will be proud to inherit. I encourage the Commission to approve this agreement and continue making the investments that will help move our city forward. Thank you. That's the last comment I have this evening, Madam Mayor.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor, I have something that I want to read from a resident. I had sent an email to staff from Garth Kelly on South D Street. He's a Habitat homeowner. Good evening. I want to say thank you to the CRA team that got South D Street looking great.

Thank you.

Okay. Oh, hi, Mr. I did want to make one correction on the staff report. It's actually D Street from 6th Avenue South to 3rd Avenue South. It actually said North. I caught that earlier. Okay.

So now you can vote. All in favor? All in favor, aye. I'm sorry, who was the second?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Wait, Ms. Fisher has a comment. I'm sorry, Ms. Fisher has a comment.

Peggy Fisher, 508 North A Street. I appreciate the CRA doing these pavement jobs. One question that has come up in the Tropical Ridge neighborhood where it was north d street was being done from lucerne to third avenue north is are the speed bumps going to be put back in because it's i notice it's being prepared to be striped but they've lost their speed bump they're asking the neighborhood association so i'm asking thank you thank you mr brown do you have an answer for that

I will confirm. But yes, the whole point was anything we're doing if they were currently traffic on there, we go back. Okay, thank you. Now, some of those that were done in the past, that weren't necessarily expected. Some of those are rough. They're being corrected to specs. Thank you.

Okay, so all in favor. Thank you very much. Moving right along. See, Resolution 26 dash 2026 authorizing the 8th budget amendment for fiscal year 2026 operating and capital budget. Motion to approve. Do I have a motion? Motion by Ms. Malega. Second by?

Second.

Mr. Sagrich, all in favor? Aye. Next up, revocable permit for installation of a fence along the south side of 1229 South End Street adjacent to 13th Avenue South. Do I have a motion? Motion by May. Motion by May. Second by?

Second.

HAB-Juliette Boone, i'm like. HAB-Juliette Boone, Mr secretary see your light is on.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, So are there any requirements being placed on what kind of fence can be there, are we going to end up with a chain link. HAB-Jacques Juilland, So it's gotta be would or.

HAB-Juliette Boone, You would have to go by the city's. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Well i'm just wondering it's bordering our.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, easement to be.

HAB-Juliette Boone, Well, if it's visible, then it can be chain link.

Okay, so wood or something.

It'll work on a regular fence burning process. It's just a lot. Got it.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- All in favor.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Thank you. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Yes, the. HAB-Masyn Moyer- The.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- I thank you.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- That's unanimous. He wrote a permit for us for community welcome sign in the row WB headway behind 1537 railroad Avenue. HAB-Masyn Moyer- To approve. HAB-Masyn Moyer- By miss Malika second by. HAB-Masyn Moyer- This may. HAB-Masyn Moyer- All in favor. Oh, Mr. Brown, would you like to say something?

Don't you want to go home? You've been here all night. There were two documents that were going along with this. One was re-signed for the children. which is um i guess hopefully one person one who is kind of running with this um but they are not the actual entity um so we didn't get that document today it was signed by for the children because for the children is the fiscal agency for helping them that's correct so we did receive that one the other one was an actual affidavit that would be signed by the neighboring property owner um just to make sure that they were fine with that um it turned out it is uh peters and Yeah. So we do have an email saying that he is, he emailed Kristen CRA. He is fine with this happening. He did not want to sign that document. So I just wanted to make sure.

He didn't want to sign the document, but he said it was okay?

Yes.

This is Mr. Peters?

Yeah, I believe it's him. So, the father? Related to him or his person. So I just wanted to let you guys know before you vote that we do not have that signed affidavit that the adjacent property owner is okay.

But do we have an email?

We do have an email from CRS. That's not sworn. He spoke with the property owner. And the property owner is okay with this, but they do not want to actually sign it at me. They don't want to sign the document. So I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of that.

That's a problem. Yeah.

The reason I guess he did was in case in the future he wanted to develop that or something like that. Well, that's the whole purpose of the document.

That's the point.

That if something were to happen in the future, it could be the book.

That's a problem.

But I just wanted to make sure that you guys were aware, because what I don't want to happen is this to go in, all of a sudden, that adjacent property, we did not sign the document and say, well, yeah, I'm not in favor. It's not going to happen. I mean, yeah. That money has been spent, and now we're looking at...

I will call Mr. Peters tomorrow and loop the plans, the CRA, and Health Care Labor.

Well, I'm sure that's table. Unless we have a signed agreement from him. I think we've got to. So we can approve it pending a signed agreement.

Can we just bend it conditional?

Yeah.

Yes.

Sure. Okay. Mr. Since I made the motion.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- No, I mean the most know what you said group would. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Get signed by the other landowner right.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Second, I was just asked is the Osborne neighborhood actual historic neighborhood in terms of like following historical and all that and protections and.

PB John Gerstle, it's not just what's where, so this is the only location, the same as why this kind of a new process right where you're having signage put into a city right of way that's not actually owned by the city, so this is why we had to kind of go and create this this process. PB, Sarah Silver PB, Peter Vitale PB, Sarah Silver But I mean there are a lot of things that were requested.

PB, Sarah Silver But I agree with the caveat. Okay, so we have an amended motion. All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much. Okay. Oh my goodness. Now, Commissioner comments. Who wants to start? Ms. May is jumping right out of that plane again.

Oh, I mean, I don't care. I can start. Let's see. Um, I just really wanted to thank staff for an incredible Fourth of July. I mean, everyone's gonna say the same thing, but if you look all over social media, it's very, very, very rare that you see 99.9% positive feedback. I do want to address one question that was asked to me regarding the flight and the parachute jump was part of the show. The tandem did not cost extra. So it was part of the show. So I was asked who paid for my jump. My jump was not an extra cost to the city. So, and... worth it I would have paid the extra money myself because that was amazing and I really want to thank Stuart for setting that up that was like bucket list stuff and I didn't even know it was on my bucket list but I will tell you that the plane was from 1963 and the plane was scarier than jumping out of the plane so But no, it was great. And the drone show was fabulous. I mean, they really knocked it out of the park. And I thought that was it was fabulous. The other thing is and I'm just putting it out there to suggest maybe you guys wanted to follow suit. I don't know. But we are doing. We are doing the back to school bash that's supporting just Lake Worth Beach kids by giving them backpacks full of school supplies. And I did make a donation today out of my discretionary funds. So they have asked, Leisure Services has asked and that as well as I know that Dave's and Allen Realty have also made donations. So if you're listening and you'd like to help out, there are different donation levels, as well as you can donate anything you want in order to help the community. the kids get the more donations we have, the more backpacks we can fill, the more prepared kids we have going to school. So that was another thing. And then, um, I think I wanted to thank Stuart for meeting with, um, the tropical rich neighborhood association regarding the fitness park today. Um, it was, the meeting was at four, so I wasn't able to make it, but, um, I I'm, I'm hearing that the conversation went well and that there is good community involvement and city participation. So I want to say thank you for that. And that's until you guys start talking and I say, oh my God, I forgot that. Oh, sorry, duh, NAPC. I wanted to thank the NAPC for eight wonderful nights of events, as well as a parade. And thank you to PSO for keeping us safe during our rolling parade. I want to thank the residents for really taking under, under advisement that we were not walking. I mean, I was first in the parade, so I don't know if people walked, but I don't think they did. And I really want to thank the city for working with PBSO to allow us to do the parade. The boat ramps packed. College Park won. the the race again so that was exciting um but it was really fun and what was cool is when the awards were given out basically an award went to each of the neighborhoods so really all the neighborhoods showed out especially eden place who had been asleep for a few years so they have woken up with um verve so they are that's really really really good to see and you know most of the neighborhoods in the city really came out and um showed off their spirit, you know, for their neighborhood, for their city. And it just felt good. Like, like Laura said, it just felt good to be from Lake Worth beach on the 4th of July. So thanks for letting me share.

Thank you very much. District four.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, I mean, to echo the sentiments on the 4th of July, absolutely amazing. Sitting there watching the drone show and the fireworks and just surrounded by a sea of children who were just in absolute amazement of what was going on. It was pretty cool to see. And it really took months of planning and rehearsals and so on. And our staff really did it right. They accomplished a lot. Some other kind of fun facts I was made aware of about it. Apparently, it was so successful that most of our food vendors ran out of food. Yeah. And our, um, Benny's and Lilo's, um, ran out of drinks, um, or almost sold out. Um, and so, you know, the absolute volume of people we had there was in the tens of thousands. Um, so that, that was amazing to see. And it was all over Bryant park. It was in the festival area. It was all the way down to South Bryant park. So the entire park was wall to wall people, um, It was all safe. PBSO did a fantastic job of kind of corralling all of that traffic. It was a little hard to get home and park, but that was a good thing. I was happy to double park in front of a driveway because of the success of it. And, you know, so I mean, it was just absolutely just a great event and a sign of good things to come. Also happening in Bryant Park. I don't know if anyone's noticed, but that playground's looking awfully close to being finished. So we're going to have the dedication or the ribbon cutting for that soon. And I know the families are eager to see that come about. On July 15th, next Wednesday, I'm doing my town hall. It's at the Beach Casino, six to nine. And then similar to you brought up the backpacks, every year, this time of year, the Fraternal Order of Police does their annual show. And I will be contributing to that. It benefits the family PBS. So if you guys are interested, I could send you the information. I thought it might be nice for us as a city instead of individuals to take out a small thing, you know, as a city, take out a nice thank you. They do a play. So the children do a play and so on. So it's really cute. So I will do that. And other than that, just thank you guys for voting positively on that grant application. Staff really did put in a lot of work and we have our fingers crossed. We've got a lot of work to do between now and the 13th to get that out the door. So it was a little last minute this year, but hopefully we'll be able to get that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McVoy.

I, too, Karim and I enjoyed the July 4th activities.

The drone show was very impressive. I had never seen anything like that.

And we were happy to have the support from Tiana and the Leisure Services staff with setting up a science table there and It's a little slow start, but definitely once things got going, lots of folks came and seemed to like it. So that was good. I had a volunteer who used to live in Lake Worth, but we imported her back from Pointon Beach to help out with that. So thank you all for helping make that happen. I know that there is some reluctance from my colleagues to hear about immigration issues in our city, but people continue to get yanked off our streets. I unfortunately do not have the luxury to just kind of say, oh, well, stuff's happening. Some of you probably know that, I don't remember exactly what the date was, but a few meetings ago, I was not here. One of our city residents, on the order of 30-year resident who fled Guatemala because she saw her relatives getting chopped up by machetes and thought, I think I need to get out of here. and wound up here in Lake Worth Beach. She has served as a translator to PBSO for some of the Mayan languages, has four kids who are American citizens. I went out to Arizona. She was in immigration detention, no criminal activity, no nothing, just normal, hardworking person here. detention after eight, I believe it finally was 10 rescheduling of her hearing. So you can imagine what it's like to be her kids watching. Well, what are they going to decide with my parents or my, in her mother, in this case, um, the father had already been deported again, just a landscape landscaping. Why God, while God of Malin, um, Her deportation hearings were rescheduled 10 times. They finally released her on her own recognizance, but said she had to leave the country, leaving the kids behind. Dumped her at Greyhound Station with 50 bucks and says, you need to report to Delray Beach for your, to the ICE people for something or other. So I went out. That day, went out in a day, flew out there and helped make sure that she got on the plane. It was a little stressful because passport was not available, a Guatemalan passport. But TSA was very decent, very proper, and there was no problem as it turned out.

What's today? Today's Tuesday?

Yeah. The 7th. Yesterday, We drove her down to Fort Lauderdale, put her on a plane with the four kids here, trying to keep a landscaping business going to try to pay the rents. I think it's important for us to be aware that this whole deportation program is based on repeated lies. They are not going after the violent, the worst of the worst, all that stuff. It's just lies, and it's happening in our community, just regular people who had some pretty good reasons to flee. Being out in Arizona, Eloy, Arizona, it is barren, it is hot, and it's the same sort of area that people walk through to try to get into this country. They're not doing it just for the hell of it. It is rugged. And I really hope that we as a commission will eventually rise and recognize that we have people that we owe it to help with their health, welfare, and safety. They're human beings also. And I have relatives who didn't make it through World War II. Because they were picked up off of the street and wound up in things. Our governor spent a billion dollars for a year of alligator Alcatraz. Because some idiot thought it would be a good idea to say, well, they're out in the alligator, so they probably won't run away. A billion dollars of our taxpayer money. didn't follow federal procedure, claimed it wasn't federal. The whole thing has such a nasty and in many cases illegal. Many of the things associated with it have been the courts have found, yeah, no, you can't do that. And yes, people are entitled to due process. I just hope that we as a Commission will recognize that we are a diverse community. We like to say we care about human rights. We like to say we care about people. As was mentioned by somebody in the audience, we had a recent forum on immigration. Several of the commissioners came. But the community is not seeing people who care about it are not seeing any action to help.

Thank you, Ms. Malega.

Thank you. I'll keep it brief. And to city stuff on next week, the business advisory board is having their first breakfast club meeting on next Thursday at nine o'clock at Lilo's. So we're going to try to see if we can draw more people to attend and hopefully have conversations to address some of the concerns that the residents do have about the types of businesses that are here. Some of that is beyond our control. There is a new law and I, had passed it on to you guys um a deep dive from a local woman who's a retired dea agent who gave us the scientific explanation to what the kratom versus this new 70 that's out there um and i was very thankful that you took the time to send that to us thank you for sharing and i did share that with captain karn and he he was very um accepting of the information and i think that it's a you know it's our due diligence to make sure that the stuff stays out of our city And encourage residents, if you see this stuff being sold, please call VBSO. Please let us know so we can address it effectively. I'm hoping that Kratom one day just becomes completely illegal, but they have strong lobbyists and big dollars, so I don't know if that's going to happen. Next Friday is also our fire department barbecue at noon. This one right here. Friday at noon. What is it? 91. Thank you. House 91. The 17th. The 17th at noon is the fire department. They wanted to barbecue for the commission, which I think will be fun. And then Saturday is... Nope, that's it. That's all I got.

Thank you.

Just breakfast club and pre-agenda meeting. And we have... Oh, and I have CRA board meeting next Tuesday.

Thank you. Just a few things. Again, the fourth, what else have you said except how fabulous? We all have to say how fabulous it was. I have asked a couple times, you know, we have speeding for traffic. You know, if we could have the sheriff come and do those, you know, you're going this. But then I noticed I was coming down Federal Highway. We have one on Federal Highway permanently. It's up by Centennial Park, I think. So I'm wondering if we can't look at something like a few of those around the city in our budget, because they really do, I think they really are effective when somebody says, you know, the speed limit's 35, you're going 40. So I would like to just put a plug in to look into that. The empty storefronts downtown, we've talked quite a few times about can we do something to encourage, not compel, but encourage the owners of these empty storefronts to allow us to have either art put in there or, you know, once there was Halloween a few years ago, there was a painting on the storefronts. I would like to see something if we can approach, and we have a fairly, apparently unapproachable group of homelessness properties, but to go down there and to see if we can get some sort of compliance with them about letting us put some art in them instead of just... Yeah, but not everyone's done. And I just think it'd also be something that these people who are not really contributing to our city could give them the opportunity to contribute a little bit, have the high school seniors put their artwork in the buildings, that sort of thing. I'd like to encourage us to pursue that a little bit. The you know, Mr. McGuire, please, you know, you keep saying that we don't care about that. I just think that there's, I'm not going to look for a response. I think that's unfair. I think that we also realize, or we, some of us realize the limitations of the power of what we have on that sort of thing. And I think it's very unfair to characterize us as not caring if we're not doing something, you know, I don't know exactly what is expected, but I just think it's, you know, we get lectured quite often by you and it's really a little insulting. Good news. The Citizens Municipal Institute, and this is going to go out on social media. One of the best ways to build a stronger community is to help residents better understand how their local government works. And that's exactly what the City of Lake Worth Beach New Citizen Municipal Institute is designed to do. The City of Lake Worth Beach is launching the Citizens Municipal Institute program. It's an eight-week program designed to give residents an inside look at how city government operates and the essential services we provide to the community. The program will bring together 25 residents and five students to learn directly from city leaders and department staff about the work that keeps Lake Worth Beach running every day. This free eight-week program gives residents a behind-the-scenes look at the police, the people, departments, and services that keep our city running every day. The sessions will be held on Wednesdays from 6 to 7. at six o'clock during August and September of this year for the graduation ceremony at the city commission meeting of Tuesday, October 6th. One thing that you'll be able to look at is learn how city government operates, meet city leaders and department directors, tour our facilities, understand city services and infrastructure, and become more informed and engaged community members. Sign-up will start on July 13th on the city website. And this is going to be shared with social media and on the things in front of City Hall. This was done a number of years ago, the Immunizable Institute. I was a part of it, quite a few. As a matter of fact, Erica Whitfield was there, and that was one of the things that got her invited, involved in running her office. It's a really wonderful, it's a bonding experience for the people that do it, because you get to know more people. And you also get to see the inside of the water plant, which it all seems, we just take, let's do it. We take a lot of this stuff for granted, but we just want to have a more informed interaction invested uh citizenry so um and there's food at the end as you get oops there's food at each one yes yes okay uh we're gonna work on that and uh it's a really exciting time and it's a lot of fun and i hope that um a lot of well we have 25 openings so it's the 13th it's going to go up for um for bid so the first 25 people to sign up will be the lucky 25. uh i don't think i have anything else do they have to prove their residency yeah of course it's like with residents only it's only for lake worth residents yeah um we don't want access so um that's it mr city manager

Yes, good evening, Mayor. I'm just going to recap a few items that we've discussed during our weekly updates, one-on-one with the commission. You all covered most of them, but I just want to go over a few of them. The lighting update, as you know, a few weeks ago, one of the citizens brought to our attention that the lighting at the beach was less than perfect. So we've been working on trying to get that fixed. We finally got some of the parts in. So they should be fixing around 66 lights up there that needed additional work. We're also working on, they're also working on repairing the step lights in the stairwell so we can have more visibility. So those things are being taken care of. Also last weekend, we talked about the wheelchair information. Signs are up. at the beach um um our pi was going to be doing like a communication you know more public awareness so people will know about those items so you should look forward to that being posted on the internet a reminder about the budget a second budget workshop taking place thursday so our ninth at 9 30 9 30 9 30 a.m that's great appreciate that Just to follow up on the PBSO agreement, we did receive a written agreement from the PBSO last week. We're in the process of reviewing and making some changes, making some recommendations. For the Park Rangers. I'm sorry, Park Rangers. Sorry about that. And one of the things we are, and I spoke with legal, we're thinking about, I know at one point the commission said they wanted a brand new agreement. So we're trying to get the PBS to write a brand new agreement instead of all those addendums that we've had for the last 10,000 years. So we're working on that as well. But we should be ready for that August deadline, as mentioned by Captain Karn. And everything else, like I said, was basically mentioned. And that's about all I have.

Okay. On signs. There's still one of those death algae signs across from the beach.

What?

We had these signs that said you'll die if you touch the water. There's one left. Yeah, it's across the street by the jogging path.

Mr. Tresidio. Just July 1st was the deadline for filing your form once. I hope you all have. If not, please do it ASAP because they do fine you $25 a day and they don't cut any breaks.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I will entertain a motion. I think we'll muddle through. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Do I have a second? Second. By Ms. Malay. First by Mr. Segrich, by Ms. Malay.