City Commission - Regular Meeting

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Madam Mayor, it is 9.03 and we are live.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the pre-agenda meeting of July 17, 2026. May we have the roll call, please?

Mayor Betty Rush?

Here.

Vice Mayor Mimi May? Present. Commissioner Sarah Malika? Present. Commissioner Christopher McVoy. Can't hear you, Commissioner Malika.

That's not good.

Well, Commissioner Malika is present and Commissioner Anthony Segrich.

Great. Thank you very much. Okay. Let's start with the upcoming agenda. Does anybody have any comments? Do anybody have any comments about the upcoming Tuesday's agenda? Mr. Masegrich?

Can everyone just mute themselves so we can figure out who's being the echo? What? There's a really bad echo.

Um...

Let me try something. Is it better? Is it better?

No, it's, it's somebody and their computer.

Hear me?

I can hear you. You can. It might be someone playing the video in the background.

You know, I have, I have a new laptop and my audio wasn't working. So I put on a speaker. So I went back to the laptop. So if you can hear me, that's, that's the answer. Yeah, you can hear me. Okay. Okay. So Mr. Segrich, you had your hand up. Was it just for that?

It's not my speaker. No. Okay. Now the echo stutter. It's got to be somebody else. Okay. On the July 20th meeting where we're having a discussion of code compliance.

We can't hear you at all.

I can hear him a little bit.

A little bit, but not. Maybe we go away and come back.

I don't know. All right.

I'm going to sign in.

Do we have an echo now?

Either hand in the air. I have a breakdown.

Sarah, I can't hear you at all.

Yeah, but your volume. Commissioner Segrich is rejoining, so.

Well, right now there's not an echo, right? Correct. Okay.

Battery 40%. You're very muffled.

Commissioner Maliga.

Yeah, I can't hear Sarah at all. Folks, we're having a little technical difficulty difficulty, just bear with us.

Does somebody want to talk? Do we sound better now?

Yes, you're not echoing. Commissioner Zagridge?

Mr. Zagridge? Thank you, Madam Mayor.

For our meeting on July 20th, discussion on code. I did conduct a town hall earlier this week on Wednesday. We had some good attendance. There was not a lot of issues raised in regard to code compliance during that town hall, so I really don't have any feedback from that. But one of the issues that's been coming up, and I just want to bring it up now so that staff might have time to kind of look into it, is right now, And we've had a couple of these come up where the commission is looking at an ordinance or a section of our code and we're saying, you know, we really want to change this. And there's a number of code compliance cases surrounding that because that's usually the way that we hear about problems with our code is residents or business owners are complaining about it. So specifically, we have the sign ordinance. about the poll signs that we as the commission have asked staff to come back with suggestions, and we're going to be talking about it in the future. And we talked about allowing the ones that are currently existing. But right now, there are at least three open code cases that I know of that are just racking up fines because they have one of these signs. Per our code, the commission in theory is not allowed to put a pause on those fines accruing. And that creates a little bit of an issue. So I was going to bring it up at the meeting to see if there was any appetite amongst my colleagues to basically change our code so that if the commission is thinking that we want to radically change an ordinance that is going to affect current um code cases that we have the ability to pause those magistrate fines so that because it could take a number of months for us to get through this ordinance so you know i think back to artificial turf where the commission did put a pause on those fines um yeah i don't know how that was accomplished but um and now we have the the poll signs well the artificial turf ordinance has taken almost a year or maybe a year and a half to come back to us. So during that whole time, it would be really unfair, in my opinion, to the individuals who are going through that to have to sit there and rack up fines on that. So I just wanted to bring that up so that my colleagues can think about it. But I also did want to see if staff could think about how we can make that possible.

Would that not be a zoning in progress, Mr. Walters?

I let Elizabeth answer that, but because there is the poll signs have been heard by the HRPB, but not the planning board. They'll hear that in August. However, the ones that are actually racking up fines have already been to the magistrate and have a magistrate order against them. What we have done from artificial turf is our system does not allow us to stop a fine and restart it. What we did is we triggered the day under which the commission told the staff to deal with like say artificial turf and then once the decision was made on artificial turf all those days while it was being considered would be taken off the fine because like you said the artificial turf has also been heard by the same board meeting and we'll be going to the tree and landscape board and then the planning and zoning board so you're going to hear at the same meeting artificial turf and pole signs probably out of the second meeting in August or the first meeting in September.

But we do have an ability, and that's just the three that you're talking about that are already running fines. What about new?

I don't have an actual number of the poll signed ones. No, no, no. Just the magistrate. And there's already an order assessing fine. And staff does not have the ability to stop that one, to stop it from accruing. You do have the ability to, I think, waive the fine through an official order, or we adopt the same policy, which we can do, is that once we resolve the poll sign issue and there's a resolution point and the property is brought into compliance, we deduct the days under which you were considering the poll sign changes from the running lien.

So my concern there is we received a letter from the city attorney which basically says we cannot do that, that once once the magistrate has issued fines, there's nothing that we as a commission can do. If we were able to issue a special order to waive them or, you know, as you say, you know, forgive them from a certain date, that would be great. I think that what my ask was really to the city attorney to kind of say, and finalize, can we actually do that? Because the letter we received indicates that we can't. So if we can't, we do have to change our code to give us that power back because it's our ordinances that give the power to the magistrate and handcuff us on that issue. So if we have that ability, great. We would just need a new letter of understanding from the city attorney stating that. But if we don't, I would like to know what we have to change in order to grant us those powers.

Isn't a lot of that statutory, though?

From my understanding, it is.

Yeah.

Good morning, Ms. Elizabeth. So this is one of those areas, the details are important. So you all can't just, once a magistrate order is in place, Let me start over. Anytime there is a code action that where the city is enforcing any of its codes, the commission has the ability to give staff direction to pause on enforcement of that code section or increase in monitoring and enforcement of a certain section. And you all have done that from time to time. When that action is taken, as William was describing, staff puts a pause on any code cases that are proceeding through the process. If a magistrate order has already been put in place that orders time for compliance and a fine, the city commission cannot just change that order. The city commission can give policy direction to city staff, as you all do from time to time again with how you contemplate fine reductions. You can, and as William was describing, city staff does this already, when you have one of these ordinances that's in progress, they take that into account in the fine days after the property comes into compliance. None of those things are taken into account until the property comes into compliance. And that compliance may be by the code changed and that they're in compliance. which is great, or it could be the code changed that got you partway there, but there's more you have to do. So it just depends on the situation. The city commission can also give staff direction to take cases back to the magistrate for a tolling of the fines and get another order from the magistrate on that. know though there are options in the process but it can't just it's not just a simple direction from city commission hits the hits the pause button and along those same lines with code now that we're talking about code you know there are situations where we've been

We've talked about, you know, if someone buys a house and there's a code violation, but it's a code violation that they didn't create, you know, that sort of thing. I don't know if we've ever come to a resolution about that, Ms. Lanehan, about how to handle that. We talked about maybe five years going back, but we haven't really come to a, we haven't had a full discussion about it. And it's tricky because, you know, how do you know five years? You know, if I bought a house, you know, and 30 years ago somebody did, unpermitted work. And I think with all the old houses that we have, and we've had quite a few of these where it's an old violation for a new owner, how do we handle those? And how do we be more fair about that? And I think that would be something that I would like to address as well. Maybe not this morning, but I think we need to address it.

So Elizabeth, I don't expect you to have the answer right now, but

is that by statute or by ordinance that we are not allowed to pause the fines so both statutorily and um and in your code the magistrate has the authority to enter those orders and create that fine and give that direction that's their purpose um so once once compliance is achieved the the lien is a city lien and it runs in favor of the commission but the commission has given authority for reductions of liens to the magistrate and um so that's one of the reasons why uh Those all rely on the magistrate action. The commission, I think at one point wanted to take those kind of code enforcement decisions out of the political realm and give them to the magistrate, but you can certainly make any of those changes.

So we could change that.

Yes. All fine reductions could come to the city commission instead of the magistrate at any time.

Yeah, I'm not, I'm not saying, I'm not saying that, but we could give ourselves the power that if we wanted to, to pause fines on a particular ordinance that we're changing.

Yes. That would need to be a change to your code?

Yes. Yeah, that was my essential question. OK, so this is possible. And so my ask to my colleagues is, this is a very complex question because there is There's a lot of difficulties. There's a lot of good reasons it's set up the way it is. And I understand that. There's a lot of protections that that offers. I just ask my colleagues to think about this one particular case in terms of while we're changing an ordinance, do we want to allow ourselves the ability to do that? I do want to discuss it during the special meeting.

OK. Yeah, there's a lot to talk about with code. Okay, Ms. May, you had your hand up. Are you done? Are you finished, Mr. Segret? Is that it for now? Okay, Ms. May, you have your hand up.

Hi, good morning. First of all, Betty and I went to the FMEA dinner last night where Ed graciously passed the gavel as the president to the new president of FMEA, but Ed will still remain in office. in a position to represent Lake Worth Beach as the immediate past president. But it was a very nice ceremony, it was a very nice dinner, and I'm glad we could be there to support. Secondly, I have a question about tree finds. And I know that there's so many nuances about all of this, but one of the things that I'm getting from people is that they go and they hire a company to cut their trees, to prune their trees. And then the company does. So they pay money to have the company come, the trees get pruned code comes and says, he pruned them too far. Now you have a thousand dollar fine on this tree. Plus you have the remediation costs. Plus you've already paid a company to do this and trusted that they would be able to do this. And I just, I don't know the answer because I have not had this situation to myself, but I know that I'm hearing this a lot. So I, Is there a way to, I mean, I understand if the person themselves goes out and cuts the tree, but if they hire somebody that would be licensed and insured, how do they know that the tree company is going to do it according to our code? I don't know where the protection is there and how would you even be able to trust to do that? And I don't know, the $1,000 fine for that is such a slap in the face after you think you're doing the right thing by hiring a company to trim your tree properly.

I guess, I mean, my response, I mean, I don't have an answer for that, but my thought is, you know, who do they hire? You know, a licensed insured handyman or a licensed, like I hire Zimmerman Tree Company when they come, they have arborists and all that. It's like, who did, if they, and I agree with you, if they hired a company that's an arborist, that's, all the ticks, all the things, and they can defend what they did. I agree with you.

Yeah. If they hired Dave's tree trimming, like the real Davies tree or whatever, like I understand if you hire Joe Schmo to go climb your tree and cut it, but if you're hiring a legitimate tree trimming company, I just think it's not fair when you get slammed with that. If they did the mistake, I don't know. Anthony. Yeah.

It would be great if we had a specific, not right here, but if we had a specific example of that.

And I agree with you. I don't know the specifics about the qualifications per se of said company, but I've heard it enough to think that it is kind of an issue.

And then on the other hand, I get emails and I get yelled at because we don't charge it because the trees are disappearing and we're not being tough enough on people that cut down their trees.

I understand that too.

I mean, that's a whole different conversation.

But it is all aligned.

Yeah. Mr. Segrich?

Thank you. I was going to say, you know, with the trimming versus actually taking a tree down, it's a fine line because that's the protection of a permit, right? So if your contractor pulls a permit to do something and they do it against code, they're held liable. tree trimming we don't really you don't get a permit to trim your tree right i think people would find that rather onerous but you lose that protection um and so i guess the essential question for staff and you know not asking for an answer right now is can the city find a company doing work within our city for violating the code

Um, we might not be able to, you know, um, go, yeah, do the, do the fine written rather than to the property owner, to the company that did it. Yeah.

So, so that would be my question for staff is, is can we find insight, a, a licensed company doing work, um, within the city for violating the code? Um, but the, the other thing is, you know, the homeowner, if they've hired a licensed and insured company, that's what their liability and their E and O's insurance is for. um you know and the the it stinks but the homeowner should file um and sue them either in small claims or or regular regular court if yeah um license a licensed tree company has to be has to know the rules of the city they're working in

They had a question, I guess, for Mr. Waters. If I hire Zimmerman, does whoever, do they have to have a permit to work in the city of Lake Worth? Do they have to have a business license to work in Lake Worth?

Only if they are, their business operations are here in the city. contractors doing work, and people do confuse the difference between a contractor doing building and some people confuse that a tree trimmer should be also a contractor, but they're not the same thing. They don't necessarily have to have a license. And back to the, it would be a civil issue, very much like Mr. Sedgwick described, if they hired an appropriate licensed party. Now, we are working on landscape code revisions. There will be a maintenance and tree guide. But for the public out there, if you remove more than 25% of the tree's canopy, it constitutes hat racking, and we don't allow hat racking. Some of the trees I've seen, more than 50% of a tree is missing. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the tree's been hat racked. And part of our maintenance guidelines will include differentiation between fruit trees and regular deciduous trees because some trees do better when they are more severely pruned than other trees. And that's also been a problem because our code has treated all trees, the deciduous ones, exactly the same. You will be getting an update very soon, probably in the next couple of weeks on where we are with the landscape code. And the survey has been posted online.

I have one other thing along the tree line. Tree line, get it?

It's Friday morning.

There's an example of a situation. I think it's, I forget.

It's like, all right.

Somebody bought a lot. They were going to put buildings on it. There were a couple of magnificent.

You've just gone out, Mayor.

140%. Connected.

We can't hear you, Mayor.

Cannot?

Now we can hear you.

Okay. Technology. Okay, there were these big trees on this empty lot. A guy bought the lot, was going to build a couple duplexes or whatever, and cut down the trees. I would like to say that when you buy a lot, if there's trees on it, you are not allowed to cut those trees down until you have a permit to actually do the work. Because it's been years, and now we have this empty, bare lot. As you go to Lucerne, it's just north of Lucerne, like L Street, I think. And it's really sad because that was a great tree and we lost it and nothing's happened. So I would like to propose as part of the landscape code that you don't get to cut down trees on the property until you actually have an approved permit and you're going to go forward and develop that property. That's my concern. And I think that's happened a few times.

Makes sense to me.

Yeah. Mr. Segrich.

That definitely makes sense, Mayor. But William, once we have the new kind of rules and we decide on them, maybe we could get the guide or an insert into the utility bills to tell people how to promote the hell out of it.

Sorry.

That's important. Get the word out there.

Okay. Does anybody else have anything on the agenda or otherwise?

I see no hands. Well, there's not a ton on the agenda.

I know it's a pretty light agenda, which is surprising because sometimes we have these like killer agendas. And then sometimes, you know, I'm not complaining to have a light one, but sometimes it seems a little uneven.

Mayor, I did want to request consensus from everybody about the proclamations for the August 4th meeting. I sent it to you all.

It was just too great.

There's a water per professionals month, but we do staff automatically and they're red. So that one is going to be on. And then the, it's just these other two.

Right.

I consent. I consent too.

I have no problem with them.

Are we consenting to having them both red or do we want one on consent and one?

Well, the, the overdose one has no one's asked for it.

No one requested it this year. We did do it last year. They were both red last year.

Okay. Um, If anybody comes further, if there's someone out there that wants to be there for the overdose, I'm sure we can get some women to do the women's one.

Mimi, can you reach out to the hub maybe and see if they would like to come? That's a good idea.

Okay. And we'll get some women up there to be women.

Okay, so we will put them both under presentation.

Yeah. Somebody said something the other day about they wanted to present something. Mimi, was I with you yesterday when... I can't remember what it was. And it was something cogent, but if I think of it, I'll bring it up and hope for the best.

Was it the letter from Mary Lindsay regarding the live Cindy?

No.

Okay. Cause I didn't see a request in that.

No. And you know, that's again, we do have a policy about it. You have to be dead pretty much. And we really like Cindy, and we want her to stay alive for a long time. I had an idea when I discussed this in my 101. Instead of naming the room after her, remember last year we got that plaque by the theater, which was lovely and permanent and honored?

Right. Should we be discussing this out in the open so she can hear what we want to do, or should we do this offline?

We can't talk if we're not in a meeting.

I mean, if we give consensus individually to the city manager, I just think this kind of takes the surprise element out of it.

I don't know that it was going to be. Okay. I mean, I didn't know that it was going to be a big surprise. Okay.

That's just my thought. I mean, or not. It's up to you.

What do you guys think? We've brought it up. I brought it up. It's out in the open. The letter from Mary was out on record. I just thought we should talk about it because this is where we can talk.

Let's ask for consensus to discuss in our one-on-ones what's an appropriate way to honor her service.

Okay. Sure. We can do that. Okay. Anything else anybody have?

I do. I have a question. Sure. I was on Facebook and there was coming from us the Help Shape the Future of Our Streets, the public outreach meeting on July 30th. And I am I just, I guess I'll be blunt. Like how, how, how come we don't know about these things? Like, I feel like this should have been in our one-on-one.

Yeah, we didn't hear about it. I'm sorry. What's the name of it again? Uh, commissioner, I mean, vice mayor. I'm sorry.

There's a, um, it came from on Lake worth beach city of Lake worth beach. It's a public outreach meeting on July 30th from six to seven at city hall. regarding um complete streets program for between east coast and h like i know that we had received money it says the city was awarded federal funding through the palm beach county mpo as part of their local initiatives program the project scope consists of an overall roadway repurposing complete streets we want to hear from you join to learn more about the project And I mean, all of that's great, but I mean, what if somebody sees that on Facebook and calls me and said, what's going on with this?

I see Mr. Brown's hand up. I was just going to, Mr. Brown can answer it. Okay.

Yeah, it's part of the federal funding and stuff we're receiving through the DOT process for lab projects. You have to do different public outreach. We did it prior to

uh putting in for the grant we had support letters and stuff we had to get from all the businesses in the area and uh we just scheduled yesterday that's just part of the process okay but i think i think miss may has a cogent point um you know we find it on facebook just send an email it says we're putting yes let us know let us know i'm asking for to be in the know yeah i i that yeah i think that's an oversight you know i agree with you mr segers

I was going to say it sounded like it was part of kind of like the developer outreach that we require developers to do. We do the outreach as part of these projects. It would be very useful for us as commissioners and I think the mayor to receive notice of when these meetings are going on, even of the developer meetings. So we're not always right on top of every project that's coming forward in our districts. it would be nice to know that. So, and they, they have to notice them so that, you know, they, they have to let staff know it's like 15 or 21 days in advance of, of that meeting. So if somehow either the clerk's office or city manager's office, if we can maintain a small calendar of that, and maybe just once a month or every, you know, twice a month, send that out to us, um, because I personally would like to attend a lot more of these. And also some of the problem is when we notice them, not a lot of people actually get that notice. We put it online. I think they have to do some mailing and stuff like that. But a lot of these go almost unattended. The last four that I was aware of was pretty much unattended. And then after the fact, on some of them people had a lot of input and they felt slighted that they didn't know about it so if we could get like a calendar like that together it would enable us as commissioners to do you know the outreach to our various neighborhood associations that might be affected and so on and maybe boost the attendance so that these meetings actually take the form that they're supposed to you know get community input whenever i go to florida league city meetings and we talk about challenges

One of the biggest challenges that is discussed is how to get the word out to our public across the line. It's just, it's difficult. And I don't know how, you know, no one's really come up with a universal solution to that problem, but the more we address it, the better off we are because the more we get our people to not, nobody wants to feel like something happened behind their backs or without them knowing. I also encourage our public, You know, to keep an eye, check the website once a month or once a week, see what's going on. I mean, that's just a little proactiveness on their part, but no, it's a definite problem.

And if anybody has a good solution.

Mr. Brown.

I was just going to say, you know, we had done the outreach prior to going in and actually getting the grant. So we thought we were done. So we realized that we have a meeting coming up. I believe it's the first week of August. It seemed like we needed to have another one and we didn't want to get into the whole, well, it's been, you know, a few years and this back and forth, but we did meet the criteria previously. It was just easier to set up another meeting. So we didn't have this back and forth with DOT. So I got all that set up yesterday through our PIO. I apologize. I didn't send it out to each one of you. I just notified some other people. But we just got that set up yesterday. So I'm assuming it went out at some point yesterday evening. I'm not sure when it was posted.

Yeah, I mean, just when it's sent out, just send it to us. That's just all I'm asking so that we can answer questions or at least direct it to you to answer questions.

Yeah, again, apologies. I just got the draft of what I guess whatever the posting was going to look like yesterday evening. So it must have went out sometime after that.

Okay. Okay. Ms. Blake's got her hand up. I'll get back to you, Mr. Senator.

Thank you. I think that this is also a time when, you know, we have a great PIO, but we need to utilize the NAPC and the business advisory board for getting these words out, right? Like this is the opportunity where we say, okay, let's partner with the people who have the greatest reach. All of this data should be sent to the neighborhood association president's council, as well as the, you know, any of the boards, the CRA should be broadcasting this, the business advisory board, You know, I think that that's how we get the greatest reach is use everybody's database.

Right.

So I just sent an email to Tiana and CC Troy and asked them to please forward it to the NAPC and the business advisory board, you know, to disseminate, you know, I mean, we don't, we only have to create one and then let the community do what the community does. Right. And I think that that's, that's an important aspect. Use the people who care the most and who give us the most, you know, I don't wanna say grief, but the most feedback in regards to not knowing what's going on and let them help us disseminate that.

Yeah, and then there's some criticism that the NA, we've heard, we've all heard that the NAPC is limited They don't reach, we've heard they don't represent everybody in the neighborhood. Well, that's- There's two, but at least they'll reach 100.

Maybe they'll reach- Oh, no, I'm not saying we don't.

Sarah, I'm not saying we don't. I'm just saying. That's a great idea. We need to figure out other ways as well. The board is one way in front of City Hall. The City Hall, the weekly newsletter from City Hall. I wonder how many people actually subscribe to the online newsletter. That'd be a good question. Mr. Segrich.

I was going to say, and maybe have, you know, with these, especially the developer meetings or like where we're seeking public input on something like the landscape flyer that went out. I know I put it up at my town hall and a lot of people were taking pictures of the QR code, which tells me that's kind of the first time they saw it. When we posted into Facebook, let's have the city join the various Lake Worth local and Lake Worthian and Facebook groups and they can post directly to that. Now those groups can choose not to let the city be officially part of it in post, but I think that would also add to our reach when exposing these. And I like Sarah's idea. If it's the PIO who's sending these out, then we just have a broader list of what are the media outlets that we send to essentially, and we include the NAPC, the business advisory board, the Facebook groups, and then as well as to us, that would really, I think, amplify the reach of these.

I disagree with the Facebook groups because there are so many, and I don't want to have to have the PIO decide which ones are legit, which ones to send it to. If there are Lake Worth Beach Facebook groups, they will share it if they feel the need to share it with their...

There's only six of them with more than 1,000 followers.

I'm not disagreeing with you. I just don't think that that's the PIO's job to vet the Facebook groups for legitimacy.

Because we can all, if we get it, I can share it to the different groups as well. They can decide if they're going to put it up or not.

And my point wasn't how to get it out to more people. My point honestly was, please send it to us so we know what's going on. That's all I was saying.

Such a simple, amazing how a simple statement can get...

carried.

You know, it's interesting, because one of the frustrations that we have, that I have had, you know, something comes to us in ordinance, like the lizard-free landscaping. It comes to us, and I don't think there's any way to fix this, but it comes to us as, here's this ordinance, either, you know, pass it, amend it. And sometimes I wish that we would know what you all are working on ahead of time, so we could find out the back stage before it becomes public, an ordinance that so we can have some input before it actually gets there. I don't know if there's a way to do that, but sometimes I'm like, wait, if we had looked at this before it came to us, because once it gets to the agenda, it is assumed, I think, by quite a few people that we are passing that ordinance, that we are approving that ordinance. They don't understand that this is being given to us to look at and to observe. So it's just, it's a frustration. Mr. Segrich.

Thank you. We have that a little bit with our, I don't know what to call the report, but it's essentially the city manager's list of priorities that they maintain everything that we ask for consensus for. There's also what staff is working as part of that. I don't know if it's complete. So that's available to us and they've been doing a great job of keeping that up to date. And I know, at least for things that we bring forward, as far as consensus, we did give direction that when we do that, the people who were providing, who are asking for that consensus were... it was, as the commission, we said it was their responsibility, that commission's responsibility to work with staff to make sure that their thoughts and ideas on how that should be shaped were part of that. So I think we have a little bit of that feedback loop. I at least know with some of the things that I've suggested, I've been able to communicate my thoughts and so on to staff. Doesn't always make it in there because it's not always what is best by code or best by the statutes and stuff. But I think between those two things, we do have a little bit of that and it's gotten a lot better.

Yeah, a little bit.

Okay.

Anything else that people want to bring up? Staff, anything?

Just quickly for the, I guess the clerk. When we have our meeting on Monday, are we going to have the paper with the different names on it and so that we can rank and take notes?

Yes, they'll be on the dance. Okay, you're the best. You'll have the schedule of everybody's time in the sheets. Perfect. I didn't mean to interrupt.

We can go back and get the resumes, I guess, from the...

Yeah, everybody's application was printed in your books. If you need another copy, please let us know and we will do that. But all of the ranking sheets will be on the dais and then you will do the appointing on Tuesday.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. All right. I... If there's nothing...

Madam Mayor.

Mr. Perry.

Just a reminder, the luncheon today, I think it's noon. Yep. Over at the fire stations.

Yep. Thank you. And I don't, we have no official duties this weekend. Sarah.

Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you to Stu for attending the Royal Point Siena Neighborhood Association meeting last month. and getting input in regards to the park that's coming before us next week. I actually took that and disseminated to some new Habitat homeowners as well, and we got some more votes for them. So I just want to say thank you to Stu and Chris and all the energy they put into bringing the options forward. We do have Saturday. So tomorrow at Howard Park is Water Day, Splash Day. from 11 to 2, I think. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. So please come out and enjoy with the kids. Wear your water shirts, get wet. But that is the only thing on our agenda, I think, this weekend.

You went to the Business Advisory Board yesterday, Sarah?

Yes, ma'am.

And can you give us an update? So there was a request to have, actually not a request, Mr. Perry was very proactive in listening to the Business Advisory Board the month prior in regards to their concern of not having enough police presence and support for the downtown businesses in regards to displaced vagrants, loitering, all of those things. So Mr. Perry had reached out to Captain Karn, Captain Karn then reached out to his downtown team, as well as his streets team and the homeless prevention team and had all of them in attendance, which was really nice. We had, I think a total of nine PBSO representatives at the meeting talking about when they work, how they work, where they're at, um, encouraging business owners to maybe put signs out, um, that say, make the call or putting flyers out or, you know, putting some kind of something on the door to encourage that they work with PBSO. We also talked about the, um, possibility of having a downtown, um, ambassador team. So, um, you know, somebody who walks around with a shirt like downtown, um, West Palm Beach has and it says ambassador on the back and they work with the city and with the police in regards to everything from bulk garbage that needs to be picked up that may be dumped to panhandling or displaced individuals. I had mentioned the fact that the previous night I was at the CRA meeting and their pre-budget meeting that was not voted on, there is a $300,000 addition to the business grants bucket that they usually give out. I had recommended instead of that 300,000 going to additional grants for infrastructure or facade, that maybe the CRA use it to help improve the alleyways that are behind the existing businesses that are already here or assist us with maybe this downtown merchant ambassador program and help fund that. According to Joan, that actually is a separate tax entity that would have to be. for them to be able to help fund security or an ambassador program, that that's not in the CRA's purview. But we're trying to work through what that could look like, right? If we have this extra money coming from the CRA, how do we use it to help the businesses that have been here that have really helped shape and continue to shape the downtown? So it was a good conversation. Unfortunately, we did have the two new board members as well as Sam Goodstein, Um, there were other people who were traveling obviously at summer, so there was no actionable items that they could vote on, but having PBSO there was, was very enlightening. Mr. Perry was there. Um, Stu was there to answer questions as well as Rebecca, our PIO. So we had great representation from the, from the actual city as well as PBSO. And we had a, um, a good number of attendees from, from locals downtown. Were there many business owners there? You had obviously Lilo's because he's on the board. You had Greg Richter, who's a realtor in town. John Faust, who represents a real estate agency. Another lady, I can't remember her name, and she has a store downtown. Craig Frost, who's a business owner. Mr. Lawrence from the Gulfstream was there. Amy couldn't be in attendance. So there was some good attendance. But again, it's getting the word out that we're doing this 9 a.m. meeting, right? So I think that, you know, for the first one, the information that was shared amongst PBSO and the concerned business owners downtown, it was well worth getting up that early in the morning for.

It's unfortunate though, that more business owners weren't there.

I mean, it's July, it's summer, a lot of businesses, you know, unfortunately a lot of people are on vacation. It's right before back to school. I'm not making excuses. This was our first breakfast meeting. So I think that once they get the word out and we get back into, you know, getting prepared for fall, we also talked about how to get more people to come from the outside and, and use our businesses. And I had talked about how successful off the clock has been. um horace is reaching a demographic that our downtown does not normally reach he has great social media presence he is booked thursday through saturday during summer and he's doing something right so i recommend that maybe the board talk to him and say you know who are you using for your social media how do we cross collaborate how do we get those people not just to come to your place but to then you know go go to some of the businesses that are downtown and And that brought up the fact that a lot of businesses downtown in the summer are closed by six o'clock. There is no shopping at night. So we're trying to achieve something, but you have to have businesses open for people to go into. So it was it was a good conversation, a good think tank, if you will. And I'm very like I said, I'm just very grateful that he had some really good insight. And I think that we're going to be able to help move the needle.

Now, is there going to be, because one of the thoughts I've had about the meeting, they've been moving around. It's hard for people to like, I know if I want to go to the P&Z board, I can find when it's going to be and where it's going to be. Is this going to be like a regularly scheduled breakfast meeting and then an evening meeting?

I think they're going to try to do every other month breakfast and then every other month night. So they can have business owners who say they can't come at night, attend that one. Kind of like, you know, a lot of groups will have a social meeting one month and then a business meeting the next month. And I think that that's kind of what they're trying to do now that they have new board members.

Will they go at the same, will they have it at the same place?

I don't back up to the board. They haven't, I think that they're just, like I said, they're testing the waters and they couldn't vote on anything yesterday. So.

Right.

Okay. Thank you. It was a great turnout. Good. Ms. May?

Thank you. I was down there, but I didn't want to come in because I didn't want to infringe with sunshine and whatnot. But I do have to say, and I'm not going to mention the officer's name because that's irrelevant. But as soon as that meeting ended, some of the PBSO officers came out and there was a gentleman going the wrong way on the sidewalk, on a motorbike, holding a beer with a paper bag on it, clearly intoxicated. And he stopped when he saw the officer and he put the beer down and the officer got out of his car, walked over to the gentleman and said, have you heard of a DUI? But then he proceeded to take the beer, throw it away and have the guy go on his merry way. And what's the point? He's obviously publicly intoxicated. He's obviously going the wrong way with a scooter bike, you know, a motorized bicycle. So he's going west on Lake on the sidewalk and holding a beer. So, I mean, there's a DUI right there, nothing. And they had just walked out of that meeting where people were complaining. So I love the fact that you said you think they heard Sarah, but I don't. Because that guy should have been arrested right there and then.

So did you say something to the officer? Did you reach out to Captain Karn and tell him what happened?

Not yet, no.

Well, you should have done it immediately because you would have had the car number and it would have been addressed. I know who it is. It doesn't matter. But it does matter because Captain Karn needs to be made aware of that.

Well, she's going to know.

I mean, to bring it up to us is one thing. We can't do anything about it. But Captain Karn should have been contacted immediately and said, didn't you just have a meeting addressing this? I mean, I'm not a fan of DUI. So, you know, I have a zero tolerance policy.

Mr. Perry?

Morning, Mary. I'll follow up with Captain Karn this morning and let him know exactly what happened. Obviously, he probably can't do anything about it now, but at least he'll know going forward. He can let staff know that we want more enforcement of those types of issues. But I'll follow up with him this morning, though.

Yeah. I mean, we do hear... They just talked about it. Yeah. And we do hear from time to time that things are happening and the police are there and Not much happens. Yeah, I mean, I've heard it more than once. Mr. Tegridge.

I would agree with Mimi on that. So hopefully they address it. Trying to be very quick. I'd like to get consensus to have staff to look into revisiting our aggressive panhandling ordinance. I know we tried one and we got in a little bit of legal issue with it. but other cities have successfully implemented aggressive panhandling ordinances. And we do have a problem with it downtown. There are individuals who come very close to almost assaulting restaurant diners when they're sitting on the sidewalk. They shout profanities in their face and so on. So if we could have staff look into that, that would be my ask. Do you happen to know what towns have done that, Mr. Segre? I think Delray still has theirs.

So I was just asking consensus to basically... On that point, Anthony, I just want to say that I sent an email yesterday to Mr. Perry in regards to the fact that when you get off at Gateway and 95 and you're sitting at the Gateway ramp waiting to go east or west, there's a big sign put on there by FDOT that says no trespassing as you're sitting on the ramp. So I said, if they can do it at FDOT, and I said, why don't we have that on 6th and 10th Avenue to stop our panhandling? It literally says, by law of, and it's got the law number, no trespassing, and it's a huge sign that's on the cement wall. And guess what? There's no panhandlers there. There's not one person at that corner. So I think that that's something we need to look into as well. Absolutely.

I would be content with that. Yeah, sure.

Before we get out, I just wanted to verify that we had consensus for Commissioner Segrich's request regarding the... Okay.

And then the second one was to get consensus to have staff spend some time looking at the community patrol or ambassador program. Because I know PBSO has a community patrol program, which works great. This actually was something that came up in my town hall. Several people brought up, you know, hey, why don't we do something like this? So I think there is public interest. So just seeing if I've got consensus to have staff look at that.

They do have a community policing program, but nobody signs up to volunteer for it. We have like four cars in our district. But I mean, I consent for us to figure out what we need to do for the downtown merchants. But if we can't get volunteers to sign up, Anthony, that's, you know, we're pulling teeth.

Okay. But if we already have four cars assigned, I don't think anyone in recent times has really started to promote that. But maybe we can start promoting it through the PIO and try to re-alive that program.

Sure. No, why not? Mr. Perry, your hand is up.

Yes, ma'am. I'll be brief. Just to follow up on what Commissioner Segrist said, that was a concern from the business advisory board as well about the panhandling. So I told him I would write a letter and get with our legal department and see what needs to be done. There's a reference way Delray uses it down there in Delray. And then also, about the ambassador program. I was going to talk to CRA, but it appears that Commissioner Malega did. But one of the things I know Captain Karn did recommend to the business owners that they can use their communications team or media team. So maybe I'll get with him and see if they can assist us with trying to, you know, advertise the Commit to Volunteer program within the city and maybe update and work with our PIO so we can get more, you know, get it more out in the public so people can, you know, be interested in the program and do a media blitz. I'll do that. And then thirdly, and I'll be done, I did want to recognize Ms. Lynn Smith from the Greater Chamber of Commerce. The Lantana Chamber of Commerce did attend a meeting yesterday, so I had a good conversation with her, but she was there, so I just want to acknowledge that on yesterday at the Business Advisory Board meeting.

Thank you. That's good.

I also met with Mary Lou Bedford of the Central Chamber, and she is interested in coming back into Lake Worth Beach. She sees that it is time for us to kind of join back in and get active again. And she is interested in attending the Business Advisory Board meeting. So I will get with Commissioner Maliga and have her set that up.

And that kind of goes along with the fact that there's now kind of an organization, which I didn't hear about the meeting yesterday, but... the central Palm Beach County trying to organize and get us more of a, you know, you think Polka, you think Palm Beach Gardens, but we think the middle, you know, we're sort of the red-haired stepchild, the whole middle part. So that would be a good tie-in because that is the central Palm Beach County Chamber. Also, if you may have heard, Palm Beach State College is considering having, adding a soccer field to their campus, which is kind of exciting. Yeah. It wouldn't be anything that would interfere with John Prince Park like a baseball park, but it would be on their grounds. And giving as soccer is becoming more and more popular, I think it would be a great thing for the central Palm Beach County to have that as an attraction. So other than that, I see it's 10 o'clock. Are we going to go and have a great day, everybody?

Yes.

Be well. I hope you all come out to play in the water tomorrow.

Are you coming to the firehouse for lunch?

Okay, see you all there.