City Commission - Regular Meeting

No, no, just the way the pauses make me crazy.

Oh, okay. Let's see. Madam Mayor, it is 6-11 and we are live.

thank you very much madam clerk good evening everyone and welcome to the regular city commission meeting reordered of the city of lake worth beach tuesday september 15th 2026. may i have the roll call please mayor betty rush i'm here vice mayor mimi may is running a little late as we heard commissioner sarah maliga present commissioner christopher mcboy here commissioner anthony segrich present Okay, are there any additions, deletions, or reordering?

I think we have to do the invocation.

I apologize. It's been a very, very long day. It's been a long week. Okay, so Mr. McCoy will lead us in a moment of silence.

Or an invocation. As we consider our actions today and into the future, may we always remember that we have been blessed with a system of government established as being of the people, by the people, and for the people. Equally, let us be conscious of where our country is today. Let us be fully conscious that from this noble beginning, our country has unfortunately slid. As we know, confidence in government in our country is at an all-time low, with only about 20% still retaining confidence. May we here take to heart most solemnly our responsibility to increase confidence in government by and for the people. May we recognize that silence is rarely neutral. In history, silence, tragically, has been sometimes implicit support for wrongdoing. and so it can be again. May we all here in our small city be granted wisdom to recognize wrongdoing, and may we all be granted the strength and courage to speak truth to power. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Now additions, deletions, or reordering.

Madam Mayor.

Yes, ma'am.

I have a request from Community Greening. They have a representative here this evening, and they requested that their item, which is unfinished business A be heard earlier. on the agenda, so if you're all in agreeance with that, we can move it to follow the consent agenda.

my opinion is we have other people here we have so many people here yeah i i i respect that but we just can't do that um okay um i would like to add something i believe that we have a couple of representatives from our park rangers our newly installed park rangers and captain carr is going to introduce them right after um this so we just accept any other additions deletions over mr mcvoy um

if it was possible and it's just as a favor if we could move under new business the bennies to b from d i'm not feeling terribly well and i would probably leave after that one and i would like to be present for ben there's no substantive reason other than it would be helpful for me but um if we moved d to b

if nobody else minded well the thing is we have a lot of staff here for those for b and c i believe we have a lot of staff here for that and then he's going to no doubt be quite a conversation mr um mr perry do we have some staff here tonight for the items b and c the consulting engineers and the employee health benefits i believe certainly for the house i would think there would be mr mr my boy if you want you should you could go home after a and then just zoom the other one if you're not feeling well i mean that's always a yeah i'll i'll but if he's not feeling i'll live all right i don't know how contagious thank you yeah don't be no i don't please well i don't know either but i don't think so all right so if anybody needs to like leave the the dice quickly because they're not feeling well please feel free i have a headache okay um So we're going to add the park arrangers right after this.

Do I have a motion to approve the- So you're going to do it before public participation? Yeah. Motion.

Motion and second by Mr. McCoy. All in favor? Aye.

Thank you very much. So, Captain Carr.

Okay. Good evening, Mayor.

i'm commissioners and the city manager i just want to introduce lieutenant chavez he's the lieutenant over the park rangers and he's going to introduce the other two partners

Thank you. Good evening to all. I'm Eli Shavitz. I'm the administrative lieutenant in charge of the park ranger unit. I have rangers Seitzke and Jefferson with me. They are not assigned to Lake Worth Beach, but some of you may have already seen park rangers out there. We're already getting some positive feedback. I've been cycling our county rangers through so they can learn your parks and become familiar with them because we're one big team and we're all going to work together and very excited and you may have uh possibly seen the park ranger vehicles when you were coming in they're parked right outside and i wanted to also uh show off these brand new uniforms that they have we're we're very excited probably the most comfortable uniform i was gonna say chinos are pretty yeah better Very nice. So that's really all I have. I'm very excited to get things started here. And we'll have the five ragers trained up very, very soon. But we are providing you coverage starting as of last Saturday. So you're going to see them out there.

and i think of speaking for us i think that it would be fun interesting when the people no disrespect that are going to be here come and meet us and here is what we have to say and and have a little interchange that'd be good but welcome to lake worth miss valega thank you madam mayor so my question is where do they put their body cameras

So obviously these are county rangers. They do not have them. But much like the deputies, there's a mount that goes on their uniform. It's an integrated mount that grabs onto a piece of the shirt material. So just like the deputies have them on their basically their shirt or vest, they'll be in the same place for the rangers.

So those polo shirts will hold that in place? Yes. Okay. Thank you. That was my question. Welcome and thank you for coming in. Thank you very much.

Thank you. public participation of non-agenda items and consent agenda do I have blue cards do I have public participation blue cards there's no public participation all right that's interesting amazing but it's a first okay what about really well don't question what about online maybe Melissa no we don't read those no and well there aren't any but no they're not read at the meeting only the action items okay so that was fast approval of the minutes do i have a motion motion to approve do i have a second second by mr segret all in favor all right thank you very much consent agenda consent agenda change order number two for a time extension with johnson davis incorporated for the 10th and 13th street stormwater improvement project motion to approve I don't think any of the public comments were on this either I just want to make sure because people you know they put a thing no oh I'm sorry I don't I didn't be I thought I saw one okay

madam mayor yeah so we had talked about this during the pre-agenda meeting and i know that director vaughn is here um from now on when we have things on consent agenda and we have 10th and 13th streets that we're putting north or south so the public knows where this project is taking place but we have talked about it oh no there's not okay and these are both yes yeah yes yeah okay there are

There are no public comments on that particular item. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Who was the first? McVoy?

I think Segret. Mr. Segret? Sure.

Okay. Public hearings. Ordinance number 26-11. Second reading. Please read by title. I think there was... People are tired now.

ordinance number 2026-11 is an ordinance of the city of lake worth beach florida amending chapter 23 land development regulations article 1 general provisions division 2 definitions section 23.1-12 definitions to add a definition and article 5 supplemental regulations subsection 23.5-1i non-conforming signs related to poll signs and fighting for severability conflicts codification and an effective date

thank you so much do i have a motion just to start motion uh motion by miss melega second by mr segers second okay thank you i have a question um i'm looking at page two of the ordinance section three i two the highlighted section the the yellow one um when i read it i was a little i was a little concerned about the language and i didn't pick it up the first time it says any non-conforming pulse sign may be repaired reinstalled or replaced later on it says this doesn't um you know changing the face sign alone does not constitute an alteration but it sounded like you if your if your paul sign got hung knocked over in a hurricane you could replace a paul sign is that correct the whole thing you can do the whole thing that's correct not just the face all right yeah that was my question okay thank you um I don't think I have any where's Mimi she helps me I don't give them here I can do them just hand them here I'll stack them thank you uh I used to be the vice mayor all the favorite she's well seasoned all in favor I wouldn't say that thank you ordinance number 26-12 second reading please read by title This is a big one.

Ordinance number 26-12 is an ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Lake Worth Beach, Florida, amending the official zoning map by approving the creation of a mixed-use urban plan development district located at 610, 615, 617, 621, 622, 625, 626, 629, 630, and 702 South 8th Street to construct two multifamily buildings containing a total of 92 dwelling units. is more particularly described in exhibit a located within the next mixed use dixie highway mudh zoning district with a future land use designation of mixed use east mue subject to specific development standards set forth in exhibit b and conditions of approval set forth in exhibit c approving a conditional use permit approving a height density and intensity bonus incentive through the city sustainable bonus incentive program and affordable workforce housing program proving a major site plan for the development of a residential plan development liability conflicts and an effective date easy for you to say do i have a motion

Motion to approve.

Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. And we extensively went over this at the last hearing. All in favor?

Aye. Thank you. Okay, moving right along.

Ms. May is missing out.

I know she is. Okay, now we are unfinished business A, and I do have cards. Thank you very much, ma'am. Okay. So this is the tree and landscape board requesting city commission consideration of a partnership with the community greening to host the tree giveaway for city residents. And is there any staff report? Okay.

anybody i think madam mayor commissioners scott rodriguez assistant director for planning preservation with the department of community sustainability i did bring this item for your consideration i am mr cassini who is a representative for with community greening is on his way he's not quite here yet uh he said 10 minutes about five minutes ago um so i wanted he he can answer any technical questions you may have But I'm here to answer any questions.

we're not gonna stop i understand i thank you for your consideration i'm just waiting on on him if the commission needs him yeah i was gonna say may i recommend that we then skip and go to new business b maybe and wait for the strong one to get here just to keep things moving that's not sure that makes sense uh motion to give me a motion motion i'm sorry to interrupt before you do the motion how about if i have three long public comments do you have public comment

Oh, I think he could read the public comment and hopefully he'll be here.

He just walked in. Oh, look at that one. No, there's a couple in there. Yeah.

And look at that. And there's Ms. Mene. It's all coming together.

Motion for discussion.

Second. Okay.

Oh, did you call on me first, ma'am?

Okay. Glad you could make it. Do you want to present something? Or just wait for any questions?

Mark Kissiney, I'm the co-founder and executive director of Community Greening, so thanks for having me. I'll just tell you really quick Community Greening, an urban forestry nonprofit. We started this 10 years ago because residents in Delray Beach wanted to respond to tree loss in our parks and our neighborhoods and green spaces. And so we joined the Alliance for Community Trees of the Arbor Day Foundation. We went around the country. We went to Atlanta, Chicago, Baltimore, and really learned from groups that have been doing this for 30 or 40 years. So our programming includes deliveries, which we have a contract in Boca and Boynton and Delray. We do tree giveaways. We do tree plantings and maintain those. Then we have a nursery in Boca Raton. We were approached by Lake Worth Beach recently to do a tree giveaway. That's one of the major ways you can increase tree canopy is on residential property because it's just the majority of the land that's inside the city limits. and um and so we're we do these regularly we just did a martin county one on saturday gave away 200 trees we're doing one in boca next saturday we're doing one in the glades a couple weekends after that and we do them with the state uh and the community foundation it's just kind of regular business for us so florida native trees and fruit trees And that's kind of how we can engage the community into helping respond to tree canopy loss. So I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Ms. Mulligan has a question and I have a couple of questions.

Sure. First, I want to say, yes, I've worked with you. I think we did the Howard Park together. I know that you guys have also done a lot in John Prince Park, and I was there to watch the volunteers come back and remove this. They replace the stakes as the tree grows and really take care of them. So I support the initiative. My concern is, and I brought this up to our city management, I live in a part of the city where irrigation is not used. Most homes don't have irrigation and most people can't afford to water the trees and the plants right now. I'm really concerned about us doing this giveaway and not them just sitting in a pot, but even if they are planted, them coming to fruition, if you will. So I would, and I think I said this a couple of weeks ago, I would support this initiative with 100 trees, but working in conjunction with our green space master plan that we've just done, and finding and identifying places where these trees can be planted within the city to bring more shade trees and make the city more walkable, I think that that is a win. I just don't see people in my neighborhood, because I know what the grass looks like when we do a habitat home and we put in this brand new sod. Nobody waters it because they can't afford to pay that bill. So that's my genuine concern. I do support this. I do want more trees. I do support the dollar figure. That's not it. I'm just more worried about the end result.

Yeah. Give me a response.

Yeah. I have the same concern. We had a tree giveaway. And maybe this is the way. Do you actually plant the trees?

Not for a tree giveaway. Okay. See that?

Years ago, we had a tree giveaway. I mean, we've had a few of them, and I support them completely. If you saw my yard, ridiculous. But here's your tree. Go plant your tree. There's no guidance as to where, how, how long. Yeah, that's my concern, is that here's a bunch of trees. Go plant them and hope that they don't sit in a pot in the backyard and die. That's my first concern. Then this can't go on city property. It has to go on private property.

Well, it's a tree giveaway. I mean, so the point that we're paying for, we're really trying to get the residents to plant trees on their property. And with the survival rate, I mean, that kind of comes along with a tree giveaway. And there's been studies on, you know, whether it's 60% or 80%, that kind of comes with the territory of the tree giveaway that you are going to have people that aren't going to plant them. but like the biggest bang for your buck to be able to increase the tree canopy i mean like i said the forest service does this it's done across the country with understanding that there's higher mortality rate in the tree giveaway but it is the strategy and we can pick drought tolerant tree species i'm just saying it's it's done everywhere um what your what your concerns are is kind of like yeah we we understand that but this is something you kind of have to deal with because then the budget goes way up if you're planting trees for people or if you're maintaining, you know, we do that too, but it's not for what this, you know, what we were approached for.

Do you ask them any questions? Do they have to prove that they own a home?

We ask for their ID and then we basically, that has planting instructions on there. And, you know, we are familiar with working with IFAS and working with City Arborists that we can choose some very hardy species that, you know, we would shy away from other ones that might need to be babied a little bit more. when you say you asked for the id so you would make sure they were lake worth beach three three four six oh and three three four six one yes that we didn't have people coming from boynton there but there could be renters we have to do that for all city funded uh you know in other cities too like both the return will check each id and we make sure it's not unincorporated so my last question i think is um are you working with a tree board on this project I think that's who initially. I just want to make sure that we need to recognize them more. Okay.

Thank you. Mr. McGoy, I think you were next.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

I've participated in tree giveaways when we've done them in the past. As I think I've mentioned sometimes here that one of the slash pines is now about three times as tall as I was. It came home, it or one of the other ones, it's maybe a little shorter, it's maybe only two times as tall as I am, came home on the back of a bicycle, probably didn't have the best treatment along the way but um did fine i do hear the concern about uh planting and watering them in and all that sort of thing and staying on it uh i would suggest that we a keep in mind what mr cassini has has mentioned that it it's nothing like this is going to be 100 success it's just even if we paid for everything from starts for it's still not going to be 100 success it's trying to move the needle on more urban canopy and this has been recognized as a way that it's does move it um and significantly uh I would think that if we want to help out the process that we might offer from the city side a little bit of help for instance an easy thing to do for irrigation because they're only getting one tree is a hose and an orbit timer and a single timer is like 30 40 bucks so times 100 that's another 3 000 if we wanted to help people out or tell them hey we'll give you five bucks toward a timer if you want to do that um that's a way that you know you can set it and then forget it and it'll water your tree um i i would say let's go for it look for some ways that we can provide a little extra support for people that call us and say hey Help me out here. I got this tree. It's really nice, but what do I do now? They're going to go home with some instructions, and they'll talk to people. Typically, what I've seen at the tree giveaways is people ask questions, and people mostly don't take them if they don't have a pretty decent... well and she probably you know there's there's a good number of fruit trees in lake worth but people usually if they're going to mess with it they're inclined to do something they want a tree yeah okay mr sandwich i'm sorry uh thank you so you mentioned there were studies that tell us about the the percentage success so what is that percentage

that's why i said it can rain like there's one out of st louis that's sixty percent there's one out of sacramento eighty percent so florida forest service they recognize anything over sixty percent successful uh survival so yeah okay um and do you do these giveaways that are not city funded we just did one in uh community foundation and that was funded in martin county yeah so every once in a while but it's not as okay um

And I guess for staff, this would be coming out of our tree beautification budget?

Assistant Director for Planning and Preservation, Scott Rodriguez. Yes, that is correct. It would come out of that fund.

And approximately how much money is in that budget right now in the fund?

Last I checked about a few weeks ago when we initiated this request to come before the city commission, it was about $118,000.

It will be increased, but it is a significant portion of our budget for this. I share the concerns that Commissioner Malega brought up. I would much rather see the city do a targeted increase of the canopy. um i went to the last giveaway that we did here in lake worth beach and um it was great you know a lot of people came and so on and i knew a lot of the individuals personally that they came and got trees the vast majority of them their yards have many many trees um they're tree people they they you know i mean i planted a lot of trees in in our yards I'm not convinced that it helps in our areas that are kind of tree deserts, so to speak, or canopy deserts. I have not seen a lot of improvement in that. So myself personally, I would be more in favor of us working with an organization like yours because you did say you have the nursery, you do plantings similar to what Nest and Smarty Plants did for our parks. examining some of our tree deserts that we have and coming up with a plan to correct that. So, you know, the 10th Avenue corridor coming in, the 6th Avenue corridor coming into our city, those medians and those roads are screaming, let's have a nice, big, beautiful shade tree there, right? um as you travel further south in our city a lot of those streets um you know whole whole blocks not a single tree in a front yard and it's part of our code of ordinances that there is supposed to be a shade tree right um and i know it is expensive to to plant and ensure but i would be much more in favor of establishing some sort of incentive program for homeowners where we could measure where they invest in a tree for their front yard in the city gives them some sort of break after year three or year two you know they send in a picture of their tree living and and so on what kind of break whether it's a utility break or a credit or or something where we would be essentially investing the same dollars but we're investing in success versus the the hope of success for this um you know we do have 140 000 some odd dollars in that in that fund this to me represents a significant portion i would much rather see us do a targeted approach with those monies well the the places that you mentioned are dot or city they're not private Well, there are others, you know, I mean, there are many, many, many, many yards in various neighborhoods within our city that we have parks that are lacking for tourism. No, I understand. But these funds and, you know, we are asking people coming in, developing, you know, one of these items is coming up next where we're asking to invest in our fund. I want to make sure that those funds are being used in successful programs, and I think we have a lot of areas of our city. Public land and private and and even even F dot we can campaign with them to see if we are allowed to do that that could use a more targeted program that's all Mr mcboy Thank you, Mr boy.

uh it was just as something was mentioned uh our Gateways 10th and 6th I believe I could be wrong but I believe that they used to have trees on them and somebody took them down I don't know whether it was the city or fdot and I'd you know I as I was thinking about it there might be safety concerns of visibility of people trying to cross those roads and the trees getting away but i i hear commissioner cigarettes on the concern i hear my colleagues nothing is perfect as far as as how do we get there best would we get there better yes possibly with a more targeted program but we don't have an offer to do that nor do we have necessarily the funding to do that I would say 10 000 out of a 140 000 I'd say there's room to do the experiment and you know encourage it and I'm all for finding some informal ways or formal ways to um try to increase that 60 to 80 and move it up to 90. you know if we can that's fine but i would go ahead and do it would be my thought it it builds some movement on interest in trees and maybe we can go ahead with with other things after that do you take the name do you take the names and addresses of the people that get a tree yeah we take the name address species and then we okay give that if we wanted to follow up somebody could

John Potter, yeah I mean there are other cities that follow up or they asked for someone to send a picture in like both it does for delivery program not for their their giveaways but I mean it's all information that we give you in tree plotter and then the city can can use it.

maybe the tree board um yeah i got two royal poincianas and a jacaranda and i am i had no um irrigation and that was probably about 25 years ago and they're just they're big they're enormous they've grown really fast without a lot of care miss uh i can't see it oh she's very shy go ahead you haven't had a chance hi hi everyone um

For me on this item, I agree with Commissioner McVoy. I think that the item, it's 7% of the funding. This is what we're being offered. If 60% of them live, that's better than the 0% we have right now. I think that the other items that we're talking about having more tree canopy within the city or on non-city, but Non private lands is another conversation. I think when we're talking about this conversation here, I think it's great that the tree board came forward. It's $10,000. We'll get trees in the ground and I fully support it.

Thank you. Ms. Mulligan. So I do like that you track them. That makes me feel more comfortable. I didn't know there was a tree blotter. That's very cool. And maybe we could do something where if you do take a picture and submit it or send it to, send them all to Scott. He's not even listening to me. That we would put you into a drawing maybe for additional free trees presented by the city. you know i think that we should really capitalize on this and really spread the awareness or refund in your water bill yeah or or something some kind of incentive but plant your tree take a picture send it into the city and we'll put you in for a raffle or we'll give you a 10 credit on your water bill or something but i think that we need to i will support this but i think we need to capitalize on that data that we're getting yep mr segrich

So I like that idea because it gets us to an incentivized program quicker. What if we incentivize, like if after a year they can send in a picture and we verify it against the database and if the trees survive, we give them a $50 credit on their utility bill.

I don't know that we can do that, but we can do something. I don't know.

Staff can figure out something in the $50 range.

Of the Christmas light decorations downtown, they got X amount off on their utility bill. So yes, we can do that. Okay, good.

um and that increases if we had a hundred percent success that would increase this budget to 15 000 which is still well within in range um so if it seems like that sounds like a good idea to you guys i'll amend my motion to approve this program with the addition of an incentive program that based on your tracking um residents can send in a photo of their successful planting and receive a $50 credit on a utility bill after one year.

I will amend my second as well to match that. And we're going to put Mr. McVoy in charge of keeping up with this a year from now.

I was just going to say that's what the tree board can do.

I said that already.

Madam Mayor, before we go to vote, that is what I'm saying. It doesn't have to be an commissioner's job. so yeah i think the tree board as bringing this forward should can make sure that they're taking you know they can get the pictures they can get everything they can be part of this process um because that's what they do i learned a new word recently volun told well okay we have a couple not under that name public comments if you want to take a seat for a minute

Okay, first up is Ginny Powell. And we're not going to ignore you, Ms. Brown, followed by Diane Brown, followed by Ramsey McLeod. Madam Clerk, do you have any public comments on this item?

I have three, Madam Mayor.

Okay. Jenny Powell, 224 North Palmway. Well, I'm glad there's been such a robust discussion. I didn't anticipate that, but I know that from the pre-agenda, I think it was, there were some concerns about survivability. I think we can work something out. As a matter of fact, I've already written something up to present to the tree board this week at our meeting. So I think also the mayor mentioned something about establishing a tree and hand watering it for every day for a couple of weeks and then every other day for a couple of weeks and then every week for a couple of weeks. And then maybe the summer rains come. I mean, you've got to track it a little bit to help it along. But I have a landscape. I have no irrigation. I have no grass. And if I do say so myself, I think it's a very nice landscape. So it can be done. I don't expect that every homeowner is going to do that. But just so you know, we also have scheduled a free lecture at the library on November 5th. Two days in advance of the tree giveaway, the speaker will be John Roberts. He's a PhD, IFAS, University of Florida, IFAS, Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension agent. He will be the speaker talking about tree care, planting, and maintenance. So we can then tell people, oh, by the way, Saturday, come and get a free tree. Bring your ID. so that's going to be with the library and leisure services and the tree board cooperating to um bring that presentation um that educational program it's set on the november 5th from 6 to 7 30 p.m also as i said i'm going to be in discussion with the tree board this thursday at our meeting to talk about a survivability plan if you will you can't You're not going to get 100% survivability. You're just not. I think we can maybe improve it a little bit. And I think some kind of a contest or at least let us agree to track your tree. We'll give you some resources. We'll help you along. You call this number if you have any questions.

thank you that's time approved thank you very much so please vote for this thank you and i'm i'm assuming that our staff is going to put out the word about that november 5th lecture about the trees well get on it okay thank you miss love uh yeah laura a little bit no i'm wrong never mind diane brown followed by our own ramsey mcleod

And I would also share that I'm going to share that all with Habitat for Humanity and all the new homeowners and make sure that they get that information on the lecture and the tree giveaway.

Mark, it's an excellent idea. Diane Brown, 905 North Lakeside Drive. I am on the tree and landscape board. I... don't know what to say um uh i think giving resonance shade trees and fruit trees is a great thing to do and we will try to track it some if they agree to that but i you got to increase the tree canopy somehow people come here and cut down their trees and abuse their trees and i trees are will save our life as climate gets hotter and hotter which is why we're proving this um

that's random I like it I like that though I mean I say that in court um okay so Madam Clerk we have public comment on your end okay Madam Mayor the first comment is from Giovanna Dominguez Timor 301 8th Avenue North

Dear members of the Commission, your Tree and Landscape Board works countless volunteer hours trying to come up with ideas to engender a love of shade trees, native plants, and native ground covers that are more plentiful in Florida than in most places on Earth. This tree giveaway is one of the ways they can educate and share with the public the importance of greening our city in order to keep it healthy for future generations. In addition, an event like this is required in order to keep a Tree City USA designation that we have in the past lost and betrayed because we failed to apply on time and listen to your advisory board's research or recommendations. Every member of this commission should enthusiastically support this event, even if one of you believes this expenditure to be a waste of money and another one of you has seen a tree left in a pot for what may appear a long period of time. I suggest you offer to help plant that tree instead. Talk to your neighbor and resident about the beauty and benefits of trees. You may make a new friend or at the very least pass on great advice. The tree giveaway is a great way to positively impact our community about the importance of a tree canopy, especially given the immeasurable losses we have suffered and continue to suffer in Lake Worth Beach. Donna Kerner, 1012 North J Street. The Tree and Landscape Board has requested a tree giveaway event to benefit Lake Worth Beach residents and help increase our city's tree canopy. Community Greening will provide 100 Florida native or Florida friendly shade trees and 50 fruit trees at the event. The trees will be three gallon size, large enough to provide residents with a meaningful tree, yet small enough to fit in a car or be easily carried home. Community Greening has conducted numerous successful tree giveaways throughout Palm Beach County. including two highly successful events funded by the Lake Worth Beach CRA in 2024 and 2025. The proposal currently before the city is identical to the proposal used for the CRA sponsored giveaways. I understand that some commissioners have questioned whether residents actually plant the trees they receive. That concern is simply not supported by the experience we have had with these events. The overwhelming success of the previous giveaways demonstrates that residents value these trees and are willing to plant and care for them. If there were concerns about whether the trees were being planted, the appropriate response would be to gather the facts, not to assume that residents aren't using them. We should also recognize that this program accomplishes beyond simply giving away trees. It puts trees directly into the hands of residents who may not otherwise have the resources to purchase and plant them. It increases shade, improves neighborhood aesthetics, contributes to cooling, supports wildlife and helps build the city's tree canopy, one residential property at a time. And importantly, this isn't an untested program. We've done it before and it worked. The Tree and Landscape Board is asking the city to continue a program that has already demonstrated community demand and participation. to support the requested tree giveaway and continue investing in a greener, healthier, and more livable Lake Worth Beach. And the last comment on this item is Gail Silverblatt, 414 North Ocean Breeze. I support the Tree and Landscape Board's annual tree giveaway. Trees enhance urban living by reducing the heat island effect. They lower air conditioning demand, reduce stress and depression, and provide food and homes for birds and wildlife. Shady streets increase property values. To make a difference to our hot streets, neighborhoods, and parks, we all need to pitch in. Not just tree giveaways, not just nests planting trees in Bryant Park, and not just development adding trees to their projects. To enrich our tree canopy, it takes a collective effort from the city and residents Planting shade trees should be a staple of our city's annual maintenance services alongside paving roads and filling potholes. Green it up. Let it be more than a slogan. Let it be a promise. That's the last comment on this item, Madam Mayor.

Thank you very much. All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much. Make it pretty out there. It makes such a difference when you walk down a street, if there's trees.

Oh, 100%. When I walk here from my house, I have to bing-bang across the street and try to find shade.

It's horrible. Be surprised how little shade there is in College Park.

You know what's crazy? Most of our sidewalks, you guys, don't have swales like they do up north, where you can plant a tree on the swale that's closest to the street.

We do.

And in our neighborhoods, there's not.

There's just concrete.

We don't get swales. We're swaleless. We're swaleless. Okay. Okay. uh new business a selection of the new city manager we have very little backup on this um uh item and motion for discussion okay second for discussion okay so let's just to discuss um so I see Mr. McVoy's light on. I don't know how we're going to handle this. Let's just talk about it. Open a prayer. I'm sorry? Open a prayer. Okay. Mr. McVoy.

I was going to make a motion. I don't know whether I can do that at this point.

We have a motion. We're discussing.

Okay.

What is the motion on the table? What is the motion on the table?

Just to discuss.

Just to discuss.

Motion for discussion and seconded.

You can always have a substitute motion if someone wants to make a substantive motion, you can substitute a motion.

May I make a substitute?

That's up to the mayor.

I want to go home. this action might help with it well maybe god knows um i mean we're going to have a discussion we're going to have a discussion obviously whatever happens we're going to have a discussion so are you are you let me are you making a motion to appoint somebody or what did not i i can't be tipping my hand i mean you know god if there's a if there's a substitute motion i'm just if there is a substitute motion it has to be seconded

if mr mcvoy wants to make a motion make a motion we have a motion and then we have to it has to be second and and voted on follow up that might be a dud mode may not go anywhere who knows just do it

I move that in light of a number of missteps in the process that we have been involved in for the last X number of months that probably have not helped us in our visibility as a city around the country for potential city managers. and that may have negatively influenced our pool of candidates my motion would be that we terminate this process and start over is there a second calling again for a second hearing none the motion fails i tried i was going to get you what's that yes that was part of my that's not how you do it though okay

So there are four finalists that we have interviewed. We have seen the videos of their interviews. The public that was interested enough to come had the opportunity to come and speak with these people. I'm sure we all have gotten lots of emails, pros and cons. So I'm going to let Ms. Milligan speak.

Thank you. Here I go, dying on the sword. The only word I could come up with, ironically, we were talking about this earlier, and I use this word in conversations with my spouse at home. And I have been praying and I've rewatched videos and I've reread resumes and I've gone over my notes, which I've narrowed down to this. Um, and unfortunately, when I think about the city of Lakewood beach, and I think about giving somebody the keys to the, to the kingdom and representing us to our residents, potential business owners, potential investors. And doing things like union negotiations and representing us on the state and the national level. I was not wowed by anybody. And this is just me being honest. And I've been through this process before. It's not that I can't hire somebody. I mean, I made a strong decision on an internal auditor. I made a great decision on what I thought on a previous city manager. I'm in an impasse. That's the only word that I can use to come to any kind of conclusion for me is I am literally in an impasse. When I look at pros and cons, i don't have a superstar and it's i don't want to belabor this trust me um i don't think the sky is falling in the city's falling apart regardless of what some people think i think mr perry has kept more than just the wheels on the bus and when i look at we've gotten through budget we've gotten an internal auditor coming in we have an executive or legislative assistant coming in we have done so much in the last 45 days in this city with his leadership I am not, it's not beneath me or above me or beside me to say, I don't want to start the process over, which is why I didn't second you. Am I disappointed in how some of the process went? Yes, but that's a discussion to be had in private with the person we hired. I do not think that there's anybody in my opinion that I want to hand over 46,000 plus residents, seven square miles, eight enterprise funds, the budget that we have. I'm in an impasse. And that's hard on my heart because I was really hoping that I had a rock star or somebody who was close to a rock star and I'm just not there. And as somebody who's owned businesses and done many interviews, it's not because I can't hire somebody. I just don't want to hire a subpar person because our city deserves better. And I'm at an impasse.

Now you know you'll have to vote one way or the other. If there's a motion to hire someone, you'll have to vote one way or the other.

I understand that. But I'm giving you my feedback that I am at a hard impasse on the four candidates that we've come down to. Now, maybe if one or two of those other candidates we wouldn't have lost along the way. One of them was my top pick. I know one of them was Commissioner Segrich's top pick. And I thought when I went back and reread their resumes that they had more to offer just on paper and on... From that perspective, every candidate had something positive, but they all just didn't have it. And I don't know how else to put it, you guys. I just didn't see somebody, in my opinion, Joan Oliva of our CRA has it. She's a rock star director. And that's what I would expect as a city manager.

How do they know that before she was hired? Mr. Segrich? Well, I'm just getting, man, I'm just, it's a lot. It's a lot to think about.

Before we get too deep into our discussion, shouldn't we hear from the public?

We're definitely going to, before motion is made, there's going to be public, we're going to hear the public comment. That's what we're doing.

But usually we... I would rather hear from the public and then have our discussion.

You said motion for discussion, so I was discussing.

Yeah, yeah. I would like to as well at this point. No, I would like to comment at this point if I might, Madam Mayor. Sure. i really appreciate um commissioner malega's sincerity and um i think there might be another word for sincerity but can't think of it right now but um i think it's spoken from the heart and uh after a good deal of examining you know from six ways to sunday and i'm sure we've all received a lot of input I have to say that I am in exactly the same place that And the only thing I would add to your comment is that we did set ourselves a high bar. Well, actually, two things. The first one is a technicality. My understanding from the attorney from when we met the last time is that we have no legal obligation to hire any of the four. So just so we're all clear that we can choose to, but we can also choose not to. There's no constraint on that. we when we somewhere along the way we talked about salary range i guess when we were writing the or somebody was putting together the the job advertisement And we set it very high. We set it to be one of the highest, if not, I don't think it's the highest in Palm Beach County, but one of the highest. And we're certainly not the biggest city in Palm Beach County. We're not the largest budget city in Palm Beach County. We do have a whole string of things. So I agree with the analysis that before we go handing this over to somebody, we ought to be wowed. we ought to be saying you know the community has come out maybe not 100 just like trees you might not get a hundred percent on anything but that the large majority of feedback that we get is rockstar is person number two or whatever it is and that is not the case And I definitely do not feel like I would feel very uncomfortable, particularly at the salary range that we're offering of saying, Hey, I see somebody in the list who boom, yes, definitely. I'm I feel great about going forward with it. So I'm at a very similar place. That's why I made the motion. Maybe we need to cut our losses and try again. That's that's

um yeah and there may be other options but I am not comfortable moving forward with any of the four that we have okay do we want to hear from the public before we comment again okay all right all right fine voices from all over okay we're gonna everyone has to understand then we'll do the public we've been a city without a permanent city manager for almost three years now

John Kane, several times, there were opportunities to start this process, and it was delayed. John Kane, It was delayed before I got on the Commission, it was delayed while I was in the Commission. John Kane, To me that's a terrible disservice to our residents. It's no secret. I was disappointed in the process. I too was disappointed in losing good candidates. It wasn't just my top choice of candidates. It was also the timeframe that we took. We started this process before the new year. We're almost about nine months, I believe, or eight months into this process. three other cities used our same search firm and three other cities got placements before us um and i i i think that it's a very complex process and and blame is shared all over the place and lessons learned on on how we can do that better right um you know a couple of the achievements the the commissioner malega brought up you know hiring hiring the auditor hiring the legislative assistant that internal auditor position has been also taken eight months to to fill the legislative assistant my colleagues have been talking about that for years So we haven't had one since I've been on the commission. That's 1.5 years. And it was at least six to eight months before that. So it has been years. When we went through, we interviewed the candidates. I do believe that there is a candidate in our pool that has the capabilities of running our city, that has the experience with budgets and complex situations in multiple departments, that has the experience with metrics and measurement and accountability. These are all things that our city lacks. One of the candidates rather astutely drove through our city and mentioned the decay. of our signage our facilities and so on and you know uh i do know that mr perry is doing a better job than um keeping the wheels on on the bus however there still isn't accountability. And with that, we need accountability as a city. And yeah, I mean, these are all our opinions. I think we do have a choice of candidates that could bring that leadership to our city. So I am not... ready to throw the process out as far as that an impasse. I am personally not at an impasse. However, I will say that my choice is rather singular in terms of the candidate. I do not have a good second choice. And so for me, it's going to be a very hard decision and hard discussion once it's appropriate to start getting into the individual candidates. I think we owe it to the residents and constituents to go through our pluses and minuses on these candidates and examine them each and then come up with a decision. Oftentimes, I find that others see things that I don't. and are able to bring things to light that maybe I didn't see. So even though walking into this meeting, I had one candidate in mind, walking into the other interviews, I had three candidates who i thought could have been out of that before and after a while i had two and then it dropped down to one based on more interviews and more feedback from from from people so um i think we need to proceed forward with this process and i think we need to examine each of the candidates and their pluses or minuses for the city or at least us give our choices and see if there's any kind of agreement of who the top candidates are for going through that detailed discussion. But I am prepared to vote and make a decision tonight on a qualified candidate.

Thank you, Ms. May.

I mean, I know I have to talk. You do. And I'm... No, it's just hard. I mean, I got all the emails from everybody and my response to everyone was thank you for your feedback because I agreed with pretty much everybody. I think that each one of the candidates has some really good qualities that we're looking for. I thought after my original watching of the videos, I thought I had a favorite. And then I interviewed them one-on-one, and I was maybe with somebody else. And then we had the interviews here, and I was thinking one way. And then I took the weekend, and I went back, and I rewatched everything when nobody was around, and it was just me. And I asked myself, is this person worthy of our city? Is this person... The best of the best. And I think that there was an issue with the, there was an issue with the process. I was reminded today that we hired Sumter in January. It's September. I read through their contract today. I don't want to use the word breach, but there were promises in their contract that they said they were going to do that they did not do. There were things in their contract that said that they would do and specifically city staff would not do that our city staff did. I feel that if we make... I don't want to kick a can anymore, but I've been sitting here. I went to the beach. I meditated. I prayed on this. I mean, this has been really hard. I've had everybody and their mother texting. What are you going to do? I think we need to not offer a position to any of those four candidates. I can't do it. I can't do it. I really wanted to be able to find somebody and say, okay, we're ready for this, but I'm not there. no you're not the only person at it and it didn't really come clear until i watched it watched the videos a second and a third time and i and i said you know what are they really saying and there was a i mean i just I know it doesn't matter what you do with this decision. Somebody's going to call me afterwards and somebody's going to say, you're brilliant. And then the next person can call and say, you're a moron. And that's true. I mean, that's not true that I'm a moron, but it's true that it's true that that's going to happen to us no matter what we do. However, it's a very important decision. It's a lot of money and I don't wanna have, I don't want, I want to be able to hire somebody that I feel like I wanna walk hand in hand with. well there's a gentleman in the audience who might he didn't know he went home oh um do you know what I mean as far as far as partnering to be the leadership of the city and I just I don't feel it I wish I did I just don't now as far as what to do if we come to the point where it sounds like three of us are are there um which I'm shocked but Yeah, but I can't do it. If we come to the point where we don't have a certain number one candidate we would like to offer the position to, I want it to be very clear what our steps are going forward. I don't necessarily want to continue with our current company. I want to go to our number two. I want to put out an offer to them and when they answer, hopefully they will be interested. I don't believe we have to go out for RFP because it's less than 50,000 and we've already put them through the process. So we do have a number two company. But I want it to be super clear to us, the candidates, and the residents, the exact timeline. I want somebody who's applying for that job, say we open it up on Tuesday, it's open for three weeks. Then we have the interviews, then we have this, then we have this, and we will come back to have the hiring discussion on X. I don't think it should take longer than two months to do that. I agree. So I don't want to hire any of the four we have. It's not starting over, you guys, because I'll tell you two things. One, we've been now through the process with the five of us. We know what we had as a potential. i just don't think we found the right manager for the city of lake worth beach i just don't and um but i don't want to go through a blind i want to put in rock hard side rails dates and make sure it's very clear because i think a lot of what happened was it was a lot of loosey-goosey and when you're applying and you see a job opening in january it's september A lot happened in those nine months. And I just don't want to trust the future of Lake Worth Beach to that small few that were left. And maybe, you know what? You never know. They were all great guys. And my first statement was we actually would be fine with any of them. And we probably would be fine. But fine isn't good enough. not for this city, not for my city, not for your city. Fine is not good enough. We have to make sure that we are, and you don't want to hire someone three to two. No, you want to have, I mean, we, we are all different up here, but we all four to one is better. Five, five Oh is a dream, but I don't know. And who knows if that's going to happen, but I just worry that we're not there. So I don't know what motion is involved, but if you ask me my thoughts, that's where I am right now. And I've had so many conversations where all I've done is listen in the last couple of days. And I hear very good points and very good trusted people say, I think you should hire X. I think you should hire Y. Um, honestly, that's it. There's only been two people. So, I mean, I could come in here with two and narrow it down, but I don't think it's good enough for us. Um, so that's where I am. Thank you.

Well, no, this is, I don't pray a lot, like in the formal sense, but this has been a real, I pray to the universe. Um, works for me. Um, And this has been hard, hard, hard. A couple of us have been through this before. There's one candidate that I like very much that I think would do a good job have a different view of things but i also understand that it's a it's a small pool that we have been given to choose from and i agree that's so in turn it's terribly hard because it's you know it feels like starting over again in fact if we use a different company it's going to be starting over again so i have a question either of finance or attorneys or hr somebody tell us do we have to um 50 50. um no don't ask anybody yes absolutely um I want this timeline I agree I want this time because we do have a couple people on the on the dice that won't be here and it's been said that we're irrelevant and we shouldn't have a choice a part of that choice but I disagree respectfully um Thank you. And some of us have been here a long time and have, you know, I really think that was an unkind and irresponsible statement. If we can do this, if we can get to what's the timeframe, what can we do to get this timeframe going?

so you see looking at me and um and i'll give you my best answer so you have a lot of different options i'm hearing that nobody is going to get hired from this pool there's three of you that have no one though so that's not going to happen uh i'm also hearing that you're not that thrilled with this particular search firm and you might want to go to a different search firm and the number two search firm i think was mgt So one path is if you'd like me to reach out to MGT and say, are you interested? And do you stand by your former proposal? And if so, get that on the next agenda that we can either September 29th or October 6th, hire them. But if you'd like during that conversation, I'll make it very clear. This commission wants a candidate hired, I'll say before the end of the year, which is less than a little less than three months from say October 6th. And you do that. I mean, ask them that question. Can you do that? Can you get us a pool of candidates so that a month from now, the commission has candidates, the following month, they're interviewing candidates, and the following month, the third month, they're picking someone. If you can't do that, then I'm not sure if the commission is interested in you, but if you can meet that timeline, then come to the meeting on maybe less October 6th. And you guys have that conversation. Meanwhile, you would presumably terminate the agreement with your current provider. And if you want, we can even negotiate how much, if anything, we might still owe them. Because my understanding is they haven't been paid.

Right.

So different options. Those are more detailed. So if that's the direction that you want to go, It's kind of like one, reject all candidates. Two, terminate agreement with this. Three, reach out to... And you don't have to terminate the agreement tonight. You could reach out to number two candidate first, MGT. And if they say yes, then you can terminate. But if you're dead set that you don't want to use this consulting firm again, then you might as well just... you know the fish are cut bait so go ahead and make the decision so one and the pool of candidates two and the relationship three seek somebody new knowing your timeline and bring them back i have one more question um you know the sound we did go high on the salary we've got quite a bit of kickback i wonder if we could lower the can't we i think it's a new i think you better have that conversation with this new consultant too because you're right the salary's out there um and i don't know you know I don't know that salaries have gone down in the universe from January when you set that salary. I think if anything, they've gone up. I mean, other city managers are getting hired around the area at significant money. I mean, Belle Glade, quarter million dollars for that city manager. That's a quarter million, 250.

For Belle Glade.

For Belle Glade. And Belle Glade is a complex city as well, but they're half the size of Lake Worth Beach. But it's kind of like the position is the position. You want a good manager, you're competing with Juno Beach and Belle Glade and everybody else. So I don't know that your salary, I frankly was a little surprised at how high you went, but I don't think you were way over the top because the range is 275 to 325. I think your range was 300 or 335? Yeah. So you are in the ballpark for what city managers are going for in Palm Beach County nowadays. And maybe a few dollars less, maybe a little more, but you're definitely in the range. So that's an option.

yeah I think now is the time to move well um we have public comment and it's going to be quite a different the public comment is going to be well assist you since we already started the discussion I'd rather finish our all right this part okay all right okay so Mr boy Mr sandwich I'm sorry Madam Mayor I just want to give you a time oh God

We have seven minutes and 12 seconds.

Motion to set aside the 30-minute rule.

Second.

Second.

All in favor? Aye.

i i do appreciate that my colleagues have been very forthcoming i think with how we feel and i think uh again i thank everybody for being very sincere that people are conflicted um but i think that is useful for us to know that we are not in a position where in terms of groundswell of yes let's do x two thoughts that come to mind one is if we feel that there's been not as much happening with the city you know i think there's a range of opinions i think commissioner malega pointed out that we've actually done quite a number of things and i i would tend to agree with that um if there's been a feeling there's a lingering feeling that we haven't done as much as we should can we perhaps more empower in some fashion give a green light to our acting city manager and say look if you see things that need doing don't hold back full speed ahead let's keep the city moving forward i think that would be useful direction to give um the other thought is on the it sounds like we might be moving toward a different provider and and doing it i'm a hundred percent in support of a fixed time frame I believe that that sends a professional signal out to the world that we are serious. We know we really want to do this. I'm very hesitant about what that time frame is do i know for a fact that i can get a first rate that we would all feel good about city manager in two months or three months or five months i don't know that i would look to whoever we negotiate with and say are we shooting ourselves in the foot by putting it that tight fixed schedule absolutely This is what's going to happen when and so on. I don't know that we should be deciding, hey, it has to happen before this date. I would not feel like I have a strong basis to to say that I hear. you know that there are two people on the commission who would like to be involved in it and i think there are perfectly valid arguments that can be made both of those people bring a lot of experience they've been on the commission for a while i think you can make a counter argument equally well that hey the people who are going to have to work with this manager don't include those two people it's going to be somebody else maybe they should be involved in the decision making Both arguments, I think, have a degree of validity to them. Which one weighs higher? I'll defer to the attorney. They decide things like that. So that would be my thought. Give some sort of additional empowerment, green light to let's do the things that need doing. You've got the backing of the commission to move forward. don't hold back on things that you were thinking well on the interim because i know that that was the case a lot uh in the past yeah so let's let's i think we have agreement on that and let's i would say before we nail down yes to a definite time frame whoever we hired to do it that they tell us a definite schedule but we don't necessarily tell them what that is let the professionals say look Yeah, we could rush it through, but you're going to be putting yourself at risk that it's rushed through and you may not like what you get. We recommend you do X, whatever it is. And I don't know what that is. Maybe they say we can get you a great city manager that you'll all love in two weeks.

Yeah, they did. They were.

They all said that. Mr. Segwitch?

They did not.

Thank you. I'm not ready to give up on the process yet. I hear Commissioner May saying, I think that there's some candidates on there that would do a good job. It sounds like Mr. McVoy doesn't have one that he thinks will do a good job. Looking at each of the four candidates, Mr. Morris for me is a non-starter. There were several issues, including not prioritizing interviewing for the position, not meeting with our constituents. And I felt that his answers indicated that this was just a step up in the ladder for him. There was no passion, I felt, for our city. I think he's a very capable person. I think the environment that he comes out of is a leap too far for me. And I did not I didn't feel like he was in it. Mr. Hillard, out of everybody, I felt was the most prepared. He did research on each of us. He knew what we liked and didn't like. And I suspect he was able to interview very well with each of us individually and really hit on the points that resonate with us. However, in the public interviews and the less scripted without the research guiding him, I thought he struggled to give specific answers. The answers were more or less, I have 30 years experience, I know it all. And that's my answer. Another item that bothered me a lot, I asked him about a particular piece of... I asked him about a particular piece of Florida legislation that would basically preempt a lot of his ideas. And he said to me that he would just call it something else. And that's not something I will deal with. We have to follow the laws. Whether we like them or not, we have to operate within the laws. And I do not want to be a city that's trying to circumvent things. So that leaves two for me, Jonathan Lynn and Christopher Rodriguez. Jonathan, I thought, had a very good demeanor, very even-keeled, hard to read, frankly. But he has some good experience. He said all the right things in terms of when I wanted to know about accountability, about metrics, about how you manage departments, how you manage budgets. So technically, he checked the boxes for me in terms of what we said we want as skills in a city manager. Where I found shortfall was that he really didn't have any tenure anywhere. And and hiring as many people as I have in my career, tenure becomes important. There's only so many times you can chalk it up to the process. And being a city manager, it's tough. A new commission gets elected. You can get booted just because they don't like you, just because they didn't like the old commission and you worked well with them. Right. So I get that. but I wasn't satisfied with his answer on why it was happening to him. I was a little more satisfied with his follow-up that we received. And so if I'm going to score him just to put relative stuff out there, I'd score him a six or a seven out of a 10. Mr. Rodriguez was a little bit of a unique candidate. He didn't come to us with 30 years of city manager experience. And I don't necessarily see that as a negative. He came to us as a CIA counterterrorism analyst, meaning he's probably one of the smartest of the smart. The CIA is not necessarily in the business of putting low performers, underachievers as counterterrorism analysts, especially after 9-11. That's a high stress job. That's a job where you have to perform, where you have to succeed. Your people have to hit their metrics or people die. That's serious. Also looking at it, his budgets, 200 plus million dollars for one of his directorships, close to a billion dollars in another. As assistant administrator to the city of Washington, D.C., the budgets that they are going through are massive compared to ours. And I know there are some people online and personally who sent us emails that say, well, it's too big to apply to our little city. I don't see that as that. I see somebody who's got a wealth of experience, who's looking to take on a challenge. Lake Worth Beach is a challenge. and we are facing political headwinds struggles financial struggles like you will not believe he survived in that environment he's been promoted in that environment he succeeded in in the killer be killed environment of management politics essentially he also testifies in front of congress If people think that we are sometimes dysfunctional on this dais, go hang out in Congress. They're a step above. It's able to navigate that and able to get things done, able to deal with a billion dollar budget cut and work through that. We're about to face a large budget cut if the November amendment passes, right? We have these challenges. In my opinion, he has the experience. I see direct relevance in his past positions that will help him be a good manager. You don't have to have done every single job in an organization to be a good manager. You have to know how to lead by accountability and metrics. Was he my first choice? No. Now, he wasn't even my third or fourth choice until I got deeper into where his head was at, seen him in multiple interviews, seen him interact with our residents. People were lighting up. People were having good conversations. People were responding well to him. People were responding better to him than I saw with any of the other candidates. And to me, that's important. When we interviewed him in this chambers, we kept going and going and going and going and going until we hit the buzzer, and then we stopped. Some of the other candidates, we were sitting up here going, well, there's a half hour left. What else are we going to ask? So do I score him a 10 out of 10? No. Score him an 8 out of 10. I think we're crazy if we think we're going to get somebody perfect without blemishes coming into the city who absolutely has every single thing that you're looking for. We call those a unicorn. They're rare. They do exist. You got to get really, really lucky. My friend owns a staffing company in his 15 years. He's probably spiked about three of those. three in 15 years. Most of the time, it takes taking an imperfect candidate and working with them to be great. Sometimes you find the person who you think is the dream candidate, and I've hired them. And within two weeks, I've fired them because they were so good, they pulled the wool over my eyes. That's what I got out of Hillard. The first couple of interactions with him, I'm like, this guy's it for me. I was like, he's good. He's got everything. Philosophically, I may have disagreed with him on a lot, but experience-wise and everything. But as we got deeper, it all crumbled. As I worked and got deeper into Mr. Rodriguez, it got better. Now, I know it's my opinion. That's why I'm talking. So, he does have blemishes the domestic violence stuff was there I asked him about it in in my interview others didn't choose to do so others didn't even know it was there because they didn't read or watch this full interview because it was disclosed right from the beginning and that's okay I am satisfied with the outcome from that. His own administration did an investigation. Police did an investigation. The charges were immediately dropped. Washington DC is a must arrest state. Those of you that are involved in the legal surroundings of divorce and some of those states understand that that happens a lot and it ruins a lot of people's lives. the pushback on him as a candidate that was the major pushback and and for me i'm satisfied with how he answered that and was open about a very painful experience in his life and i don't think that it's going to negatively impact his ability to help us run this city it takes a team it takes a team to make a good city manager a great city manager If we on the commission don't help them, you can hire the greatest person in the world and they're going to suck at their job. You can also hire a good person. And if we work with them and set expectations and address, these are the deficiencies we think you might have, they can get turned into a great person. you almost never hire the unicorn. They become that by working in the right environment with the right synergy. So I've laid out some of the high level pluses and minuses that I see. I would like us to move forward with Mr. Rodriguez. I would like to know where are your shortcomings with him and can we live with them? Okay, but let's be specific.

I haven't really spoken. Thank you, Mr. Zagridge. I am sort of in the same position. When I watched his initial interview, And then met with him and then watched him here. And I'm well aware that I'll go a little bit into the DV stuff. But the difference between him, he and the other three, where he wasn't like, I'm a city manager. I used to be a planner. I know what I'm doing. He had a much more global view. of the city and lifting the city up. He had a much more, and it was very, I'm not the most organized person, but I was impressed with the way he presented accountability and answering to, and I liked him. I don't, in terms of the domestic violence, i was joanne golden and i opened up the first new england domestic abuse shelter in 1976. i've been working with domestic and sexual abuse victims since then i'm a family lawyer that deals with this every day on a regular basis and i also know that there's a lot of different story you know the you know oh we can't if the headlines will say domestic violence i don't care about the headlines i care about the person and i know that in a terrible divorce situation things happen that should not happen and i also know that we weren't there and didn't see what happened if i if i knew you and did you and did you and you did you and you finally got that exactly exactly my point so i'm not as concerned i certainly wish it hadn't happened but i am not to me that's not a disqualifying factor and you know the my women friends are going to say betty you don't care about domestic violence victims of course i do i work with them on a daily basis um but i think that there's two and and they are he did say they are now co-parenting they have three kids they're co-parenting they've made up you know they've figured that out the divorce is over and they figure that out I liked his 30,000-foot view. I mean, I did. I think he was, of the four people, the one that I would pick. But I also know that it's very difficult to go forward. I have been up in this dais in a different chair. And I know what it's like to be there and having a commission. And I've been up here in this chair. What it's like when a commission turns against an employee. And it's awful and unexpected and confusing. But If we were going to vote tonight, I would absolutely vote for Mr. Rodriguez. However, right now, it sounds like you and I are the only people that are even willing to talk about that. If that's not the case, I'd like to go forward. I also think that why this took so long, I agree with you. We can't say we'd have to talk to the consultant about how it was reasonable. But this should not take six months, eight months. We should be able to hire somebody well before the election. so miss devlin we're talking you'll get your chance um so that's where i'm at i mean if there's not support i think it's it's unfair to bring someone in if there's not at least a 401 and i don't know that that's happening no you know i don't know that that i mean it sounds like that wouldn't happen um and i don't think it's unfair if we do open up the search again and mr gonzalez rodriguez is interested he could apply again know if by comparison he to me is absolutely above the other four the other three so i'm it's it's a quandary it's a quandary because i don't so i'm gonna let other people speak i do wanna hear we've all we've all spoken so on here from the public now i think that's appropriate no he got two What?

He got to go twice.

Oh, okay. I wasn't counting. So everybody else gets the second chance. Who goes first? Who's up first?

Who had their light on first?

I think.

I was the first one to die on the sword. So I can't be convinced to change my mind because it's not that I haven't put the time and the energy into this because I prepare for my meetings. And those who work with me know that. First, I'm going to talk about, I'm going to go with your two top picks, right? Because if I was going to agree, I could agree two out of four. I'd probably score a five and a seven. So I'm going to start with Mr. Lin. His tenure did bother me. But I'm gonna start with those of us who are here in the room. I asked my very first question. And the reason I asked it was because I was giving an open door to addressing things that are on Google, things that the public already knew were out there, things that I did not ask in closed door. because i i i want it to give an opportunity because i've been arrested and those who around a couple years ago know that my face was on a mug shot on a postcard and i it was a domestic violence situation with my family and it came to light in an ugly way i was very hurt commissioner secretary you and i spoke about it not long ago um so it's not that i don't have grace and understand that things happen but my question for those who are in the room was and who weren't tell me about a time where you made a decision that you wish you could go back and do it over again i said a mulligan if you would i didn't say personal and i didn't say professional and i did that with a hundred percent intention if i ask a question it's from a place of intention And it was for that person, whichever candidate, to address whatever was out there that they may say, you know what? This might just stop me from getting the job. Let me just get it out there now. For the people who are listening, for the public, for the staff, whoever. Not one of them answered the question like I thought that they should have or addressed something that I thought that they should have addressed. They all went back to a professional decision they wish that they could have went back and done over again. So that was my lead into saying, you know what? OK, if I was Mr. Rodriguez, I'd have said, well, of course, you guys have all looked at Google. I'm sure the residents have. Let me just answer the questions and let's talk about it. Let's air it out. He didn't. He sat up here as a well polished, well educated, has been around a lot of higher elected officials, which I 100% respect. If I was looking for a running mate or if I was looking for someone to run for a higher office, he presents well. But just because something is in a Tiffany box doesn't mean it's a Tiffany quality diamond inside. And that's the only thing I can tell you. His very first words, if you go back and listen to the interview, why did you choose to put your application in for Lake Worth Beach? It's one of the most important counties in America. That was his answer.

Cool. We have county status.

It is in one of the most important counties in America. And I wrote all the notes during every single video that I watched, positive and negative. And that resonated with me for somebody coming from D.C. Why would you say that? There's a million other reasons that you could have said, why Lake Worth Beach? And he said, because it's in one of the most important counties in America. So that led me to believe, number one, we were a way for him to get here. Number two, I'm going to pay for his move. And number three, he's going to be able to come down here and build the relationships that he needs to get to the next level. But I put all that aside until I met with him. Because again, I did not like Carmen Davis on paper on her video interviews. And it wasn't until the first face-to-face interview that I really started to like Carmen. So, again, he presented well. I've been around a lot of higher elected officials. I've been around D.C. and Tallahassee. He literally is what it takes to survive and to get things done in that environment. And you know what I thought when I met him? He's going to be able to work with our lobbyists. He's going to be able to get us appropriations. He's going to demand respects when he walks into a room. That's great. But how is he going to interact with my staff? How is he going to interact with our residents? How is he going to interact with the business owners? I don't need an elected official who's a higher up representing us. I don't need a lobbyist. We have one. So with all due respect, I've heard you sit up here and give your talking points and your pros and cons. And I do agree on a lot of that. But again, that's not to me what I think our city needs right now. I love the fact that he was part Guatemalan. I love the fact that he did have Homeland Security experience and maybe could help lessen that impact on our city. Like, I really thought about all of that. But at the end of the day, I don't know if the diamond that's inside the box is the quality we need for our city. And that's on Mr. Rodriguez. I'll go to Mr. Lynn. Again, the tenure was an issue. He did apply to Juneau Beach. He did not get that position. And his answer to why Lakewood Beach on his interview, it's a beach community. I don't want to be somebody's meal ticket to get them to move to Florida because we're paying moving costs. I don't want to do that. You know what I want someone to say? This is the only place that I applied for because I love everything about your city. And give me facts and tell me why. Mr. Hiller did that. My concern with Mr. Hillard, and he's from Michigan. Of course, I'm going to like the guy from Michigan. We even had them next to Wisconsin, which is kind of close to Wisconsin. Yeah. But he did present well. And he had all the boxes, right? The utilities experience. He had the tenure experience. but when i honestly when i watched his demeanor my first concern was whoever's sitting up here and i know the body that used to sit up here and some of those electeds would walk all over him and destroy him i didn't think that he could handle the strong personalities that we have that come through these offices and i would hate to have another hire like the mayor said earlier and then all of a sudden these seats change And somebody who's not of the same demeanor be aggressive. And this man's now moved from Michigan. And I just didn't think that he had lack of better words, if you would, for our city. We have real challenges here. And I, I, I think that he was, I, I really did like everything about him, but I just kept thinking we need, I hate to say it. I want, I want the Iron Man of the unicorn, if you will. And if they're close to a unicorn and I just see the top of their little horn showing, I'm jumping in. I don't see that. but i did ask that question with full integrity of wanting them to address the issues that were out there and nobody did so i am not going to vote for anyone tonight i am not going to be persuaded or renegotiate it um i am again in an impasse and with that being said i cannot support any of the four candidates okay i just want to react to one thing you said you the question that you asked is what decision have you made that you would go back on i don't think

A decision was made.

No, no. I said, tell me about a time in your life where you wish you would have done something different. And I said, where you could get a mulligan if you want it.

and that's why i left it that way and i didn't say who's next just want to go down the line what whatever i just go ahead um i too am firm in where i am that i would not vote in favor of any of the four um just to you know maybe address some of commissioner um cigarettes points um i met extra My wife and I made an arrangement to meet extra with Mr. Rodriguez, which he kindly agreed to do before he left. And she and I both went to Notre Dame for, I don't know, three or four or five days when we were taking a new student up there who had gotten a very interesting and unusual scholarship. And obviously, I have a lot of interest in education. um and higher education and I I have a lot of respect for for knowledge and education I thought Notre Dame was a very interesting place that's pretty high intellectual standards but also puts a lot of emphasis on values explicitly um so that for me was quite a a positive for him bottom line i think uh i don't need to repeat because i think commissioner malega basically captured it well that uh it's it's it's not is he a smart person does he prefer that well is he talked to you know people in brussels whatever um all of those things yes he's very smart he's very polished i don't think he would be a good fit and i think your your comments particularly how would he relate to staff how would staff relate to him how would he relate to the community and and to business owners and I have to say that to me, we'd be a stepping stone for him. And I don't think that's what we want. So I'm not convincible on it. On the Guatemalan, I thought initially, wow, that's cool. We did talk with him additionally.

He did not grow up very Guatemalan.

And he would be the first to tell you. He grew up pretty much Italian. His mother was Italian. He did not learn Spanish growing up. He has no connection to the indigenous languages in Guatemala at all. No, he doesn't. He's not even very comfortable in Spanish. And he regrets that. um it's a source of friction especially because his father was a spanish teacher here but um it was a different time and and i respect both his father's decisions uh and his and mr rodriguez's frustration with it but the reality is is he does not have the connection that would actually be very cool for a community but he doesn't have that um but overall it's a question of fit not a question of of know is he a smart guy does he present well those are all i think undisputable just not a good fit for the city um okay miss mills just go down miss mick thank you um you know

You said it was an hour we were listening and then it kept going. When he was interviewing with us, the buzzer sounded and we were like... I think part of that is because he's an excellent storyteller. He had us. He's polished. I will be the first to admit I fell for it. I was like, yes, he is the guy. Then I re-watched the videos and... His decision, and I may be wrong, but I don't think I am, is the mayor is a strong mayor in D.C. So she's making all the decisions. So she's the city manager. And then you have the... the actual city administrator right and then he's the assistant city manager or city administrator so he's not making any of those decisions he's got two bosses telling him what to do which I mean, as a city manager, you do get where you'd have five bosses telling you what to do. But it's not but I don't believe that it's it's apples to apples, you know, and I don't really believe when he says we did this, we did this, we did this. I actually like the fact that he used the word we because it was we it wasn't him. He wasn't in charge. And I think that the shiny, the polished was very impressive. But I just don't think that it's what we need here. And, you know, you, Mr. Segrist, said you rate him an 8 out of a 10. Well, I mean, I personally believe that we have an 8 out of a 10 right now. Why would we replace that? If we're going to replace Troy, who I think is doing a great job, if we're going to replace Troy, we're going to replace him with a 10 out of 10. Otherwise, we're wasting our time.

At least a 9.

All I know is that you don't want the... We're not in a bad place. We have a city manager. He doesn't have the title of city manager, but he's managing the city. Now, I agree that he needs to have more authority. And I think if we as a dais gives him more authority, I do believe that there are things that he would do. And I think that those are the that's the frustration that I have is that we're saying we're on the city and then we're tying his hands behind his back. We're saying go dive in the ocean, but you can't swim when you get there. You know, that's not fair. It's not fair to be angry with an interim city manager for not doing something when you don't give him the power to do it. So I I don't know where we're going to go on this. I wish I could have come in here tonight and said, Chris Rodriguez, let's go. I was actually going to come in and make a motion for Jonathan Lynn because I actually was impressed with him, but I just, he's not, he's, he's not a 10. He's not better than what we have now. Um, and what we have now is pretty strong, you know? And I think that, um, you guys know that I, I, I like Troy and I think he would do a great job. He chose not to apply. There's nothing I can do about that. Um, where we go from there i don't know but i i just can't i would love to be able to put this to bed because i know i'm going to hear you can't make a decision and that's not true making this decision is a decision okay i'm not choosing not to make a decision i'm making the decision that these four men as good as they are aren't good enough okay mr segret

So I'm not sure what is tied behind our interim city manager's back, what powers they do not have in their contract that says they must fulfill the full duties of the city manager. Full duties. That was a personal choice. Jamie was very vocal about it. I am just going to keep the wheels on the bus. That was his personal choice. He was given the full authority of the city manager. He could have hired and fired anyone he wanted. You're shaking your head no. What in this contract prevents him?

Not in the contract. That's not the case that the issue is.

it's it's interim we can't start something because i'm the interim well that that's again wait when you're when you're in when you're in that position for over two years at what point does it stop becoming interim and you can actually take action and the point that we give different direction which we didn't do the interim city manager has has the full power they do so i'm not going to agree with you on on that contractually and everything they have the full power of a city manager. Thank you for your insight, Commissioner Malaga. I, like the mayor, when listening to your question, I took it as a professional question. I think the way that was phrased left it up to a lot of interpretation. And when you're standing up there on a professional interview, when you're asked a question like that, your mind immediately jumps to what professional mistakes have I made? And I think it's kind of a gotcha question to eliminate somebody. If you wanted... This is just my opinion, right? It's not discussed. So, you know, and you mentioned you went through a very difficult thing. I don't think you let out your campaign telling everyone about it.

No, we did not.

Once it came... Okay. But once it came out, then you had to defend yourself on it. And I don't think... In this case, I will disagree with your assessment of that question. I do think how the other candidates answered it professionally was troublesome. I will give you that. And it was a very good question. But I think if you wanted it to be an opportunity about anything when you're dealing with an interview, nerves are involved and everything you got to give people a little bit of leeway and be specific on what you're asking not hoping they're gonna read your mind on on exactly what what they're asking and I would hope if we do go to future interviews keep that in mind and and and in that The answer to why Lake Worth Beach? When I asked that, his answer was he enjoys a challenge. He sees a tremendous amount of potential in our city, and he knows that we have tremendous challenges. A little different than Palm Beach County is an important county, right? Yeah, no, I'm just saying when I interviewed him in person, We went out there selling the importance of Lake Worth Beach. We went out there selling Lake Worth Beach is sitting in one of the most important counties in the country. We actually did that in our materials. We sold the fact that we are an important place to be. There's opportunity. And this is an awesome place to come and do something. That's going to attract people who want to actually do something. I don't fault them for thinking this is an important role in an important county wanting to do great things. You guys mentioned it's a stepping stone. I don't want someone who's coming here to retire and this be their last position. God forbid we get somebody who comes here, helps us turn things around, skyrockets us, and then moves on to something else. That wouldn't be so horrible. And it's unrealistic to think that somebody is going to want to come here and it be their be all end all. And I understand it sounds like my colleagues are not going to budge and I won't belabor the point other than we are going to have to make a tough decision and we are going to have to hire somebody who probably isn't going to be a 10 out of 10. And I don't know if we can ever get to a 4-1 or a 5-0 with this commission. Most of our votes that are contentious go 4-1 at best. So we're already starting at a disadvantage. And the priorities, you know, of the city, I think we each have our own opinion on it. And I don't think we're going to get to a perfect agreement on it. I will say, We do need accountability in our city. Again, I don't know what's tying the hands of the interim manager or if our interim manager even thinks their hands are tied and they can't do things. But I will say tonight, sir, you have my full support to take any actions you deem fit, and I will defend that to the end of the earth. full powers of city manager and I think that's just how I feel but I would like to hear from the public and then we can figure out what we're doing but

Okay.

I just want to, Madam Mayor, in response to what you just said, Commissioner Segrich, I'm glad you just went on the record because Interim City Manager made a decision with a staff issue, and you weren't happy with that. So that's not true.

I don't have to be happy with it.

But you don't have... You just said you're going to give him your full support. But he made a decision that you didn't support that you then went to the press about. So if you're really going to do that... The press actually...

if you're going to do that i just i want a record listen to me publish the public record between my conversation it was a private conversation between this and the major there is no private conversation mr segwitch i'm saying i'm glad to hear that you just said that because in the past

I don't think that that has been the tone that has been set. You literally just said to him, you will have my full support on any decisions you make.

That doesn't mean that I have to agree with it. And it doesn't mean that I can't express supporting his ability to have that authority. He has that authority. I didn't challenge his authority to do that. I challenged to him in writing and to the city attorney my opinion of it. There's nothing wrong.

But that's not supporting.

You are very mistaken. You can support someone having the power without having to agree with them.

All right.

And it also way overstepped our role as commissioners.

What I'm saying right now?

No, no. I'm sorry. Are you reporting a crime?

What are you talking about? Let's move forward.

I reported it. You didn't like the way he handled it.

So then you went around him because you didn't support him. That is my point.

I did not. How did I go around? You're going to support him. I'm being accused of going around him. How did I go around him? We're going to stop it right now.

We're going to stop it right now. Mr. Segrich, we're going to stop it right now. To the city manager. You really need to... Okay, first up. Anthony Zeitlin.

would no i know that miss may got here a little later but she might be in favor of a comfort break before we start so that we don't break yeah all right we'll do a real quick one all right quick comfort break and then we'll be back and let's start in you can't get a comfort break without one

Thank you.

Karen Hollweg, Madam Mayor. madam mayor so

Madam Mayor? Yes, Madam Clerk.

I wasn't sure if you could hear me.

We're going to settle down this rowdy crowd.

It is 823 and we have reconvened.

Okay, folks.

I'm waiting.

Okay, we're going to do public comment now. first i'm going to read your name and then the back then you're on deck uh anthony zeitlin followed by laura laura i cannot remember 11. i keep doing it wrong i see that all right so okay that's good okay mr mr zeitlin is he here he left he was miss levitis did did he leave anything

I don't know why we do that. It's the same thing. Okay.

Well, I appreciate your patience.

Okay. Laura Levitis.

Diane Brown after.

1030 North Lakeside Drive. Okay. I came here prepared to read something. I'm going to talk about part of it. So with what you said, okay, so I found myself asking two questions. The questions I was asking were, do we want the safest municipal resume or do we want someone who has demonstrated leadership vision and the capacity to manage a complex organization? And do we want a city manager who simply sits in the seat or someone who leads? For me, Chris Rodriguez stood out. That's just for me. I know he's never held the title of city manager, but I also believe a person can be really good, even great, like super great at things they haven't done before. What got me is he managed employees, agencies, budgets. the thing that really interested me was he was thinking about where our city was going and not simply how to administer where it's already been.

How do I say this?

We are a city of artists, creatives, free thinkers. We are not status quo. So I ask in the future that we think about that. We think about creative, free thinking. We live here because no place else is like here. That is why we live here. So I just ask an open mind and to not have somebody's status quo because that is not who we are. Going further. And yes, Sumter, bye-bye.

Thank you.

And thank you.

Diane Brown, followed by Mr. Jackson Stahl.

5 North Lakeside Drive. I certainly am surprised, shocked at where this conversation has gone. I would support delaying or reopening it. Of the candidates, I mean, I wrote to all of you. You all know I supported Robert Hillard as the candidate. and not Mr. Rodriguez. He was troubling to me. He's shiny. He's good. He's a good storyteller. But I'm happy to hear that you want to look for somebody that you're all more comfortable with.

thank you Mr Stahl followed by Jenny Powell followed by all right Jackson stall 211 North Lakeside all right so I feel like we got off track not sure on what we're doing here tonight but um what I would suggest is that we don't do what we were doing before uh that seemed it was why you guys were arguing a lot and i think that that that contention makes it makes it tough for us to find somebody who wants to come be part of the team i think we need to be i think we need to hold ourselves a little higher up here it's just it's tough to hear it um and i you know i heard things also in regards to uh chris rodriguez you know i i do think he's the most qualified candidate i i i I think he has a unique background. I think he's very qualified to do this job. And I enjoyed listening about his Guatemalan heritage. I think we should refrain from saying that he's not enough Guatemalan. up here um that is that was a that was a rough that was a rough comment and um and then to turn around and and yell at somebody for trying to do what he thought was best in regards to a you know dispute he was having it just seems like we just defined someone as half the person that he could have been because he was brought up differently uh and that and then we're yelling at each other and looking ridiculous and i don't i don't know how we get someone to play on our team if we do if we do that uh Listen, I thought he was super professional. As a dad of two lovely, beautiful kids, I connected with him on that. I thought he was actually charming. Yes, he's polished. Listen, I worked in Hollywood a lot of years, and I know what polished looks like. He was good at storytelling. I'm good at storytelling. I appreciated that. I think he's a focused dad. I think he did have a tough experience, which he was open about. Thank you. That's time. A lot of those were baseless and please don't defame someone or take away from their actual background. Let's just, thank you.

Thank you. Judy Powell followed by Ms. Rashkin followed by Mr. Zerdy.

Jenny Powell, 224 North Palmway. I actually appreciate the discussion, the robust discussion about this issue, as well as the tree issues. That was not what I was expecting. I think everyone made some excellent points. I found myself agreeing a lot with Commissioner Maliga about I guess in particular, Mr. Rodriguez said he was polished. I agree with that. He presented well. But I think when it comes down to sitting down with some of our employees, some of our staff, I'm just not sure that that was the type of thing that we're a small city with some big city problems. And I just didn't see the connection there. And I liked your use of the term Mulligan, not necessarily. I agree with someone else who said, yeah, Mulligan may be related more to their professional careers. But at the same time, I think he was given a chance. And he presented he did tell the truth about a couple of things in his background. And that was kind of behind the scenes. But he he didn't reveal one of the other ones that I thought to me was a deal breaker. I think he should have learned from that first experience. And five months later, he did the same thing again. um or a similar thing so um i i my first choice i wrote to all you all uh hillard was my first choice i you made me see some things that maybe i didn't see about him um i thought that he was pretty good but again the eight out of ten the nine out of ten the ten out of ten are we going to get better next time i i agree that we should Try again. And I would be cautious about putting too many timelines on it. I think the Sarasota search was 17 months, if I remember right. I read there's so many things that I read on this, but I want to say somewhere it said it took them 17 months to select a city manager. So don't beat yourself up over that. We've learned a lot. I think the questions that you and the discussion here tells me that you have learned a lot. You studied this. It wasn't easy. That's time. Thank you.

Uh, Ms. Rashkin followed by Mr. Zerdy followed by Ms. Fisher.

Good evening, Cheryl Rashkin, 1302 South Palmway. Just real quick, I want to thank all of you for finally showing your candor. And that's what we as residents want to see. We want to have you interacting together, making a good collective decision. And I think your decision to go out again, as in my old job was out for bid again with employers and employees. It's a good step if you're not all confident with the ones that you have left. So good luck. It's a hard road. Been there, done that too many years. And thank God I'm retired. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Surdy, followed by Ms. Fisher.

Good evening. Good evening. John Zerdy, 217 South Palm. Could you speak up just a touch? Or just pick up the microphone.

Yeah.

Chew on it a little bit.

That's better.

Okay.

A little bit. A little crooning.

Thank you. I was coming tonight because I thought there would be a decision after really a lot of conscientious thought and time was put into this. Quite a long process, longer than I thought, but it's Lake Worth, so it's going to take a while. to belabor that but i've been up here not that much a little more lately one of the things when i finally kind of came back to see you all working hard and trying your best was have courage i think you might remember that when i said that and i think that you know as far as this this whole sorting out goes i haven't seen a 50 decision very often here at all or hardly ever a 4-1 I don't know if that premise is going to bode well for you to find a 9 out of 10 person or whatever, but this needs to come to something here tonight. I really feel that this has just gone on so long. Chris, he's used to being in Washington, D.C., where it's not everybody consensus. It's as close to being as far apart as possible, and he survived and succeeded in that environment. You all need to do something here tonight. I know you'd like to push it down again. What do you think people are going to do? Oh, they're putting it out again. They can't even make a decision. Maybe I don't want to go down there and spend all that time and do all that again. I'm not going to go down there. You really think. I want you to think about that. I don't know if it's going to make that big a difference, actually. But I really hope however decision you make tonight is going to be helpful. I've hired and fired a lot of different people over the years. And I agree there, Anthony, that people go, wow, that person's going to be great. And it didn't end that way. I mean, I also do stocks, right? So you think, oh, that's a great one. And that's not. So do the best you can. We all know that you did your best, somebody. And I think Chris is the best one that I've seen out of the bunch so far that's left. And I think you'll do great. I really do. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Fisher?

Peggy Fisher, 508 North A Street. I appreciate all your discussion. I came up here to say this is your decision. It's not mine because of who I think is the best or my daughters or my neighbors. this is your decision and your decision is based on all the information you have and if you've come to the decision that none of them are right then let's move on it's almost been three years we've got to move forward mgt was your highest rated company and you didn't choose them you chose sumter which was your second highest rate so go back to mgt see if they'll do it exactly like our city attorney laid out and commissioner may later or vice mayor may and see if everything can be lined up and i do think there should be a time frame on it takes it's too easy to draw things out and if somebody really is interested in the job they'll come and and meet with you all and i just encourage you to make a decision don't talk anymore you've talked back and forth everybody's had three four or more comments that they've made um make a decision and move forward and just decide that's what you're going to do

thank you thank you and the last one is from Horace Henry um who's the owner of uh off the clock across the street he wanted me to read this decisions are important especially long term our city is the most beautiful city in Palm Beach County I believe you as Commissioners will find the right answer make these three months count thank you madam clerk you're up and there's a lot it is a lot um

Okay, Delia Michelle, 1013 North M Street. Dear mayor and city commissioners, thank you for your service and careful consideration of the selection of our city's next city manager. After careful consideration, I would like to submit my vote for Dr. Chris Rodriguez. As the daughter of Mexican immigrants and having grown up in Mexico, I find it exciting that we would have a person who can identify with a large population of our city. The diversity of our city residents makes our city complex and beautiful. I truly believe Chris is the right candidate to reach across the aisle. I also appreciate his resume and background. I anticipate he will bring fresh ideas and move our city forward in a positive and inclusive manner. Luke Wilson, 925 South L Street. Good evening. I would like to express my support for Chris Rodriguez as our next city manager. I believe he is the best choice for our city because he brings strong leadership and a perspective that can help connect City Hall with all of our communities. I live in a predominantly Guatemalan neighborhood, and I believe having someone who can serve as a bridge and help residents feel heard and representative would be incredibly valuable. I respectfully encourage the council to select Chris Rodriguez as our next city manager. Brendan Lynch, 920 South Lakeside Drive. I would like to voice my support for Dr. Christopher Rodriguez for the open city manager position. i was able to spend time reviewing each candidate's resume and i watched the recorded interview to me dr rodriguez is the most qualified candidate for the position i have lived in lake worth beach for 22 years and i have seen good and not so good city managers lake worth beach needs strong leadership from someone with experience leading a time of people toward a common goal we also need a resilient city manager that can handle the diversity and opinions on what is best for our small city thank you Kim Stokes 1321 North L Street earlier this year Commissioner May appeared to pull a three hundred thousand dollar figure out of thin air and somehow conceived I'm sorry convinced the majority of her colleagues to go along with it And as a result, Lake Worth Beach is positioning itself to have one of the highest paid city managers in the country, if not the highest. The logic seemed to be that you wanted to attract top talent, someone with experience, someone for whom, as Commissioner May put it, it's not their first rodeo. When the recruitment firm submitted its initial evaluations, Robert Hillard was a tier one applicant. He received a score of 60 based on experience, education, and certifications. Meanwhile, Christopher Rodriguez was a tier two candidate who received a score of only 35 points. Since then, many concerns have been raised by community members. Rodriguez does not have the direct municipal management experience the commission said it was looking for, the kind of experience that would justify rewarding a candidate with such a generous salary. Additionally, many people are very concerned about his record. That includes two documented domestic incidents, one of which resulted in his arrest. Prosecutors ultimately declined to pursue the charge after his wife indicated she did not want charges pursued. That is not the same as an exoneration and victim withdrawal or non-cooperation is well documented in domestic violence cases. It also includes the firing of a 61-year-old employee while Rodriguez headed HSEMA that a federal jury later found constituted unlawful age discrimination by the district. I know the commission will say whatever it needs to say to blow past these red flags. What I can't understand is why. Why take on all of these concerns for a candidate who, even without them, doesn't have the experience you told us justified paying top dollar in the first place? Ava Kowalski, 129 South Gulfview Road. Good evening, mayor, commissioners, and members of the city council. I'm 20 years old, and I am proud to be a homeowner here in the city of Lake Worth Beach. I am here tonight to express my support for Dr. Chris Rodriguez for the position of city manager. As a young homeowner, I have a very personal interest in the direction of this city. I want to see Lake Worth Beach remain a place where people of my generation can afford to live, build a future, own property, and be proud to call home. I believe Dr. Rodriguez brings the leadership experience, professionalism, and forward-thinking perspective that our city needs. A city manager has an enormous responsibility not only to manage the day-to-day operations of our city, but also to plan for its long-term future and make sure the city government is working effectively for its residents. At 20 years old, I know I represent a generation that will be living with the decisions made by this commission and our city leadership for decades to come. I want leaders who understand that the decisions being made today will determine what Lake Worth Beach looks like tomorrow. I believe Dr. Rodriguez has the ability to provide that kind of leadership. He understands the importance of responsible management, strong city services, fiscal responsibility and maintaining a vision for the future while respecting the character of Lake Worth Beach. I encourage the commission to seriously consider Dr. Chris Rodriguez for city manager. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak tonight and thank you for your service to our city. Thomas Convoy, 30 South M Street. The search firm botched the search by recommending a candidate with a violent background and did not disclose this. With the elections in March, any good candidate will only apply after the March elections. Do the right thing and ask for a new search to start after the elections. Katherine Kohlmeyer, 503 First Avenue South. This commission decided to offer one of the highest city manager salaries in Palm Beach County to attract a top tier candidate. After the fiasco created by two members of the commission, when at the last minute one decided to add a new candidate who had not even applied and another responded inappropriately to that addition, The two top-rated shortlisted applicants withdrew. If the Commission insists on pursuing this tainted process instead of starting afresh, they should consider Robert Hillard, the one remaining candidate with the appropriate experience, who was evaluated by the recruitment firm as a Tier 1 candidate. Hayden Huffman, 1505 North End Street. Dear Mayor and City Commissioners, thank you for your time and diligence in this important decision for our City's next City Manager. My wife and I moved into our first home in the Eden Place area last October, and we're proud to now call this city home. I'm writing to voice my support for Dr. Chris Rodriguez. As new homeowners just starting to put down roots here, we've been paying close attention to who will help shape the city's direction going forward. Dr. Rodriguez's background and experience stand out to us, and we believe he brings the kind of fresh perspective this city needs. This is a diverse and complex community, and having leadership that can connect with and represent that diversity matters to us. We're excited about the possibility of Dr. Rodriguez bringing new energy and an inclusive approach to moving our city forward. Thank you for considering our voice as new residents invested in this city's future. Nick Palyugi, 825 North D Street. I'm deeply concerned that one of the leading candidates for the $300,000 a year city manager position has two separate domestic violence-related incidents in less than a year in 2023 to 2024. All of this is fully visible from a Google search, but neither the recruiter we paid for or the Commission seems to think this is worthy of serious consideration. In politely ignoring these facts, the mayor and commissioners are applying a personal ethic of giving grace in a context of professional vetting, where it is not applicable. City manager is a highly sensitive position with wide authority over city staff, public resources, internal systems, resident information and decisions that directly affect the people who live here. That level of trust, I'm sorry, that level of responsibility demands a high standard of judgment and public trust. The recruiter and the Commission are failing residents if they do not do a better job of due diligence and professional judgment when picking candidates for such an important and highly paid role. Jack Loudon 129 South Gulfview Road. Dear Mayor and Commissioners, I would like to submit my vote for Dr. Chris Rodriguez. After a careful look, I believe he is the best choice for the next city manager. He clearly has the background and experience to be a great manager and move this great city forward. Jason Browning, 109 North Gulfview Road. I support Chris Rodriguez for city manager. Andrew Cavanaugh, 1321 North L Street. You have taken a process that should have been about identifying the most qualified person to lead the city and somehow brought yourselves to the point of defending a candidate ranked at the bottom of tier two who did not fully disclose the extent of serious issues in his past. Think about how far this process has strayed from where you said you wanted it to go. You made headlines countywide by saying you wanted the best and were willing to pay for the best. And after all of that, we may end up with a city manager about whom a Washington Ford News article states, it was the second time police were called to the home about Rodriguez. Susan Ona, 826 North Palmway. You all have an important decision to make this evening. I know you will make the best choice for the community of Lake Worth Beach. I urge you to select Robert Charles Hillard as your first candidate for city manager. He expresses an honest and experienced approach to organizing the city, considering not only through the staff of all departments, but also in listening to the needs and concerns of all the members of our diverse community. He appears confident, knowledgeable, and proactive, all the while willing to listen and go about solving issues importantly with good communication. Thank you for hearing our voices. Donna Kerner, 1012 North J Street. I believe Christopher Rodriguez should be disqualified from consideration for city manager. This is not about judging someone for having a difficult divorce or a messy personal life. It is about the conduct documented during that period and whether it meets the standard we should expect of someone seeking to serve as the chief executive of our city. Rodriguez was arrested in November 2023 on a domestic violence charge involving his then wife. Five months later, police investigated a second incident involving allegations that he entered her home, harassed her, and refused to leave until police were called. The first charge was ultimately not prosecuted, and Rodriguez has denied misconduct concerning the second incident. But these events occurred in close succession and raised serious questions that the Commission should not simply dismiss as part of a very messy and contentious divorce. We have all experienced stressful relationships, difficult breakups, and contentious situations, but there is a fundamental difference between having a difficult personal experience and conduct that results in a domestic violence arrest and month later, another police investigation involving allegations of harassment and entering a former spouse's home. For someone seeking to lead a city, these are not insignificant personal matters. and the city manager is entrusted with enormous authority and responsibility the position requires sound judgment respect for boundaries accountability and the ability to handle difficult and highly stressful situations appropriately as someone who has served as a federal official rodriguez understands the standards of conduct and accountability expected of public officials That makes these incidents particularly relevant to the Commission's consideration since it raises very legitimate questions about his judgment and accountability. For me, this is a disqualifying concern. I urge the Commission not to select Christopher Rodriguez as our next City Manager. Nikki Stahl, 211 North Lakeside Drive. After meeting with and researching each candidate for City Manager, I ask you to strongly consider Dr. Chris Rodriguez for the position. He is absolutely the best person for the job and has a unique background that will help guide Lake Worth Beach in a positive direction. He is kind, professional, and dialed in. As a mom, I also connected strongly with his love of his children, and furthermore, I think his Guatemalan heritage fits perfectly into our beautiful city. I deeply appreciated him sharing the story of his father, who is a shining example of the American dream, and it seems like that story is what this city is all about. Let's give Chris a seat at our table. Thank you. and the last comment i have on this item is from amy millah millilich 2032 collier avenue i want to express my support for robert hillard as my first choice for city manager followed closely by jonathan lynn i lean toward mr hillard because of the breadth of his experience with environmental sustainability historic preservation community engagement neighborhood enrichment waterfront communities and thoughtful development. Those areas feel particularly relevant to Lake Worth Beach and to the kind of city I believe we should be working toward. I was especially encouraged by his experience with community listening. Mr. Lin was a very close second for me. I appreciated his straightforward matter of fact approach in the interviews and his willingness to be transparent about what he could bring to the position. His experience with strategic planning, organizational leadership, infrastructure, fiscal management, and development would also be valuable to the city. I also felt he had a good grasp of Lake Worth Beach as a unique locals community rather than simply a tourist destination, and that understanding seems important for a city manager who will be helping shape the city's future. The other two candidates certainly have impressive qualifications and accomplishments, but based on the materials and interviews, I did not feel that their particular areas of expertize and experience was closely aligned with what I believe Lake Worth Beach needs in its next city manager. I hope the commission will give both Mr. Hillard and Mr. Lynn serious consideration as you make this important decision for the future of our city. That is the last comment on this item, Madam Mayor.

Okay, thank you. Interesting comments. Now we thank all of our citizens for inputting. I see Mr. Say, which is light on this rewards like we had it we have, I would like to have somebody make a motion and like act on this, we're gonna we can talk this they make a motion to go back to the drawing board, give staff and legal direction to withdraw our contract to reach out to

MGT and see if they will accept this opportunity to represent us in the hunt for the next city commissioner real quick yes with guidelines of what our expectancy is okay thank you do I have a second point of order real quick there's already a motion on the table okay well okay right but it's still emotional okay so I call the vote we'll discuss okay we discussed

I'm sorry, Madam Mayor. Commissioner Segridge, what motion are you referring to?

A motion to discuss. It's still a motion on the table.

But we did discuss it.

She can call the question following procedure. That's fine.

So I made a motion, a second motion that I just said was to cancel the contract, go to MGT and send them all a thank you letter. But we've decided to move on to another path.

Do I have a second? Second. Second by Ms. May. We did discuss this at length.

Do we need to ask the attorney, do we need to somehow close out that motion to discuss? I just did. Okay.

I don't know. We discussed it. We talked about it. We did that motion. We did that motion.

mr attorney you can either i i take i take madam madam mayor i think that motion is a substitute motion you're substituting that motion for the one that's on the floor but she didn't make the motion right i seconded his motion for conversation discussion there's no vote when you just when you have a vote for discussion right you've had you've had discussion is there any more discussion to be had if not

to say that we have discussed this too with an inch of our lives and other people's many lives so miss malega has made a motion and i have a second from miss may any discussion on that motion all in favor okay i'm sorry okay

so i will just really quickly say that you know the biggest objections that i heard from up here was that mr rodriguez was not the right kind of guatemalan which i didn't say that i know i'm not looking at you which was pretty offensive um you know to say that his heritage doesn't count because he's he's not in tune with the native languages um and and then a mistrust of the domestic violence in incidents um i did not hear a lot about his skills or experience as as a negative so i am disappointed in in this decision um and i see which way it is going um in doing this essentially over there are some points that i think that we should consider um and i think we should discuss them it's it's very important that we we get this right the process was flawed i think we all can make that discussion we already had that discussion i have certain i'm calling the question we need to move on you cannot call i can't right not right in the middle of of me speaking we've already given direction to address those issues her our rules which were sent to everybody today it says if a commissioner has something to discuss during the discussion they are allowed to discuss it if you want to read them it was emailed to all of us I don't know who requested it but that's the rules so I would just ask you given the situation given the acknowledging the time if you have a quick if you have a list of things that I do I do have a list if people stop interrupting me I can get through five items real quick This process is important. It's probably the most important vote that we're taking.

I'm sorry, Mr. City Attorney. When someone makes a motion to call the question, that's a superseding motion, and it must be either seconded or die, and you can interrupt with that motion.

I did not hear a second.

No, because it sort of was also- I didn't second the motion to call the question. I would like to hear what Anthony has to say.

Okay, so in terms of the process, I think we need to discuss whether or not we're setting some sort of a set time. I think when you're dealing with recruiting, setting a set time saying, hey, everyone has 20 days to apply, then we do this, then we do this, then we do this. The waterfall effect that we essentially did lends itself to a lot of problems. There's no telling when the right candidate will come or how long it's going to take us to get the right candidate. If we're looking for your unicorn with a tiny snub and your 10 out of 10 and someone that we're going to get a 4-1 vote on, that is not someone we're going to find in a process that is great. Here's 22 days. Look at all the good ones we got. We had 60, 70 submissions. And a lot of them dropped out because it took too long and because of the waterfall. So I would strongly encourage us to have a rolling process where we are accepting and reviewing, accepting and reviewing at rapid pace. I believe that if we are going to do this, we need to put a placeholder on every meeting during this process so that we don't have to worry about the notice requirements, which is something that slowed us down. We got feedback from our recruiter. And then because of the notice requirement, we couldn't discuss it for close to three weeks. That delayed us further. So if we put placeholders in, the moment our recruiter has something good for us to discuss, we can discuss it. If they don't have anything for us to discuss, we just go right through that agenda item, no harm, no foul. But at least then every single meeting we have, we have the opportunity to move the ball forward. And I think that's really important to doing this in an expedited manner.

I think that's a great idea, but is that a legal thing? We've never done that, so I mean, if it's legal, it's great.

You could have an agenda item every meeting that says city manager search discussion, if that's what you want.

Or update. One thing that was missing from our recruiting process is they didn't headhunt. They did not headhunt. They did not recruit. There was limited involvement with pulling candidates from other searches and so on. But I never saw a list of target cities. Hey, these are the people we're calling trying to get that guy or that woman, right? That's what we need. And if that means we have to pay them more to do that, I am fine with it. But that for me has to be a requirement that the firm is willing to do. They need to give us their target list. They need to be updating us on we called 500 cities they all said you're crazy we don't want to come down there or we didn't call anybody because i don't want to go through a list of candidates people who who are generally top performers unicorns 10 out of 10s they're not applying for jobs you poach them you find them and that was missing yeah um i think okay i'm gonna have to wound somebody in dragon hair kicking and screaming that um that things okay pull up into the tree we struggled with staff responsibility and support on this and miscommunication as to what was going on i thought the moment that we kind of appointed a staff liaison tiana did a phenomenal job and took us over the gold mine don't like where we ended up but at least we got here right so i would be requesting that we appoint a staff liaison she would be my first choice for that to assist us because she can communicate with us rapidly call us on the phone answer this right how many of us got an email or a phone call from her that said commissioner you have a something in your inbox right now you got to respond to in this i thought she did great um I think we need to really put down each of us. What is our 10 out of 10? Because some of these guys I thought checked all the boxes from a skill set standpoint. And if there are intangibles that we're looking for, candidates need to know that. If we're going to say, if you have any blemish in your past, even if you weren't found guilty of it, charges were dropped, They need to know that. That guy came here. He stayed here, I think, the Friday, longer than all the other candidates, met with more people, spent extra time with some of the commissioners, put in a lot of effort and really stuck himself out there. And I know those are the breaks, right? You've got to give it your all. But he gave it his all. And I really feel bad because he should have known before coming down here that something like that might have been a nonstarter. And, and the last thing is just that wasn't a nonstarter.

But that was not that up. And they said stop saying that.

None of us not just addressing us. I'm also addressing the public.

Like, yes, unfortunately, let's let's keep going.

And the last thing is, let's be clear on our questions. really be clear in our questions if there's something you're you're trying to get at just ask so those would those would be my requests for this i agree and i consent to all except i'm going to ask my questions how i ask them so that's i agree with everything else i think it's all good points

okay um mr boy it's nine o'clock yes and and i agree i in general i agree with the motion i certainly agree with the idea we're going to start over with a different outfit um at least approach the m whatever they are mbt or something um i'm very hesitant for us to make a decision right now about some sort of rolling process i don't know what that means i would again somewhat like i don't think that i should be and probably not us should be setting a time frame for it i think that's something i would want to hear from an experienced city manager looker that says uh you know whatever the time frame they think is a good one because i don't want us to be pushing it or put weird criteria on it that they recommend against i would like to hear what their you know thought process is on it i think the idea of uh keeping us informed and once they suggest what a good time frame is that they stick to it that 100 support the rolling particularly given the florida sunshine stuff i think we need to be quite conscious if somebody you know your your point is perhaps a good one commissioner segrets that the most ideal candidate probably is not looking they're probably being appreciated somewhere or other and we're going to have to attract them away from that and it's got to be somebody who recognizes that in this community There are likely to be a range of views up on the commission, regardless of which commission it is, there's going to be a wide range of views and they got to be okay with that and be able to deal with it. so i'm hesitant i'm i'm okay with you know let's find a new person but i would not i'm not comfortable with dictating a rolling process at this point i have no problem with putting something on agendas hey keep us informed as long as they don't tell us hey that's not really a good idea because you're scaring people away i i think they might say no yeah exactly the rolling thing got us and kept going yeah the target the gun target thing i'm really i'm honing in on that i also um coaching i think is not legal in some places but anyhow um i'm a little hesitant of the timing of all this to me it does make sense let's empower who we have now who we you know there's quite a bit of support for and not be in a big hurry about it i would say that you you have a different commission coming in and they have to work with these people with no experience having coming up on those dies yes that is a concern but all right thank you they do have to work

okay so we have miss mulligan's uh madam mayor man ma'am yes sir what i've heard is like five different points can i suggest three motions and i'll read each one and if it the maker wants to make these as motions the first motion would be not to accept any of the candidates terminate the contract with sumner and negotiate the balance of any fee that might be due motion who's the second who made the motion mimi mimi and mcvoy mimi and mcvoy in that order okay it's fine vote on mcvoy yes you vote on it all in favor hi hi the second one seems to be to reach they should reach out to mgt see if they're interested bring back a contract with them and tell them to give us a realistic quick timeline motion thanks may malega may malega all in favor the third seemed to be uh you want to appoint uh tiana mckay as the staff liaison and you'd like an agenda item on every meeting to discuss the city manager status most searches motions all right the last item on that really shows part of your emotion you've talked about empowering the interim manager so i don't know whether you want to do any kind of emotion which is a little frankly that's that's a little difficult to do unless you're the permanent manager you can say it all day long but but you know if you wanted to make a motion like that

to let him know that he's got kind of a vote of confidence that's up to you all that was talked about but i didn't really hear there's a motion i'll i'll make that motion i haven't a clue how to do it but basically in the direction of what that motion to support a motion of confidence to empower our current acting city manager to don't hold back do what needs doing second all in favor

Nope. Nope.

Mr. Perry.

Madam Mayor, I meet with each of you once every week on 101. So if there's something that needs to be done or something that you feel I'm not doing, regardless of the interim or not, I'm here to do the job and make sure things run like they should be running. you know i'm open we can discuss things like i said i meet with you each one and one each one of you every week one-on-one and we discuss everything so if it's something i need to be doing or something you like the staff to be doing when you run it by me you know i'm going to make every effort to get it done so you can take this vote and if we confirm or whatever the case might be but we're still going to talk on a weekly basis and you can give me your input on what needs to be done okay

I appreciate that. I appreciate that, too. But I also think that if you think there's things that need to be done that we're not seeing because we're not here every day and we also don't get to speak to all five of us. If you see something, I'd like to empower you to bring it up to us and say, hey, this is really something that's come up because we have W Moda. We need to get that done. We need to get the parking garage done. You know, we have a lot of things that need to get over the finish line. And staff issues. And some staff issues. So I think what we're saying is we need, we.

Commissioner Segrist has mentioned this several times. So I'll meet with him on Thursday and hopefully he'll tell me exactly what, what he, you know, what he's looking for. And I'll go back and I'll take care of it. If it's something, you know, that I can agree with or something that I understand is vital to the organization.

Well, I also think that if it's something that we need to give consensus on, that's one thing. But if it's staff, in my opinion, that's your position is to handle your staff. You don't come to us and ask us permission to address your staffing issues. I trust you to do that.

And it was interesting when there was a question a few months ago that had been brought up about ethics and what was a potential ethical consideration. What we found out from our city attorney was the very first thing that they list in terms of ethical problems with elected officials is interfering with the operations. That's number one.

So I think we need to be aware of that.

Okay, we have a motion. We have a motion to give direction.

I would like to incorporate by whatever the right word is, what Ms. May generally said.

A second.

What was it? What was that?

Somebody can fish it out of the recorders. No doubt. No, really.

The intent was to get the things over the finish line, she said. I seconded it. Yes, her additions were great. Get us over the finish line. Make the decisions. We trust you.

right no yes okay all in favor aye aye okay that's unanimous mr sedgwick i didn't hear you okay i didn't hear you i just didn't hear you okay okay thank you zero look at that somebody said we can vote five zero we do a lot of five zeros we actually do most of them there's a lot of four ones that's because of mimi it's all about vice mayor hey hey i don't know who that would be it's the vice mayor it's all her fault all right all right where are we what day is it okay now we are on task order number 12 with holtz consulting engineers motion to approve second wait a minute wait a minute i have a public comment i may have public comments no one's helping me tonight i did i put them on order for you yes you did

Here we go. Yep.

I think that's probably the new business B.

It's B.

We have some public comment, Ms. Powell. Which one? The last one?

Just now. Yeah. And you? Okay. Thank you.

Okay. And I'll read all in favor again. Ms. Powell? Okay. Mr. Volker? Left? Ms. Rashkin, followed by Mr. DeVoe, followed by Mrs. DeVoe. We're getting the entire DeVoe family tonight.

Katie Negan, Cheryl Rashkin, 1302 South Palmway. Also as the current president of South Palm Park Neighborhood Association. We're glad to see this request go through again and the funding to go through. Our only request is this time, please use it. in our neighborhood. This has gone through two other events where those dollars were taken and used in another section of the city, and it wasn't in ours. And we really want to have the sewer issue taken care of. So thank you for putting this forward again. We greatly appreciate it. And I told you I'd be back on the 15th.

thank you you're a woman of your word Mr Volker left but he said please measure the flow before and after cleaning so we know what we bought and how fast I don't think it silts back Mr um really yeah never mentioned

I know it's linked. I don't understand why you want to... Name and address. I don't know why you want to spend this money when you have the tools. We can't hear you. I don't know why you want to spend this money when we have the tools at our disposal at the water plant, at public work. Somebody's going to come in here with a back truck. Somebody's going to come in here And how much the amount was? $400,000? Why would you spend that money when you can do it yourself? Somebody got to explain that to me.

Well, apparently we can't.

You can't.

I mean, I shouldn't comment.

You have the truck. You spent $200,000 for the truck. All you got to do, if you don't have enough to reach it, you call United Rental, sir. and you call them up, I need another 1,000 feet of hose. You're going to pump that sand to the next man's hole. That vacuum is going to suck it out of there. You're going to save yourself that $25,000. You're going to save yourself $375,000. Well, obviously, if you take that $375,000, and you hire a civil engineer, get you a shovel-ready project, The sewer system is not that far off. Your shovel-ready project, like the people down south, Broward, Dade County, Gohorn, they had shovel-ready projects, fixing their sewers, getting the money from the feds. Why would you spend that money when you could use it for a civil engineer? Somebody got to explain that to me. You could do it yourself. Do you have a backdrop? All right. all you have to do we can we do not yes we do not respond all you have to do is if you don't have enough reach call up united rental get an adapter put your back truck and save that money thank you don't vote yes thank you mr

Teresa Devoe, 1106 South Palmway. I'm just going to follow up on the statement I made last meeting, and I'm afraid you're just going to keep seeing us till we get some satisfaction about what we're going through down there. So I had kind of asked a question out into the air there that, you know, was the sewer reviewed the lines are supposed to be reviewed see that they can hold the volume be any of these contracts or redevelopment are ever done and i don't even know if that's going on now we've got moda coming in and this pinnacle and another thing i found out in my research because i wanted to go back and find myself did they do a review of these sewer lines before we started taking in all these other cities and um The only report I could find was from 2020, and that was also Holtz, but they did it. Unfortunately, they did not, I didn't find a report for Lakeside, but if people in this city think it's only a Lakeside, South Palm, That report from 2020 stated 41% of the streets. And that was like, I don't know, it's like a 10 centimeter diameter and lower to six. So it excluded Lakeside. It said 41% of the sewer lines in this city are in poor condition. And to be designated as poor condition, that means failure within five years, they feel. So this isn't just an R problem. This is a city problem, and it's going to be a problem for all the residents in here. The other thing I found while I was looking through things is the budget. And that's kind of following up what Cheryl was saying. This test said 2020. Again, I didn't see the lakeside, but I think it was in 2022. Definitely no in 2024. There was a line item budget for $100,000 to clean the sewer line on lakeside. both those years it was not done and now we're spending 400 to do the same thing thank you um madam i'm asking madam clerk madam clerk do you have any comments on this one yes i have one madam mayor alex schultz 612 second avenue south the

2003 redevelopment plan in Florida law requires that an assessment be made for sanitary sewer raw human waste be adequate for capacity and condition before redevelopment occurs. Holtz Engineering recommends emergency action on the lakeside in SEPTA from Lantana. Whether it's constructing big apartment buildings in Lantana or the Bohemian, Madison Terrace, Ramona, or Pinnacle on Sixth, The surrounding residents, particularly Lakeside, serve as the cesspool for this redevelopment because the CRA and Community Sustainability Department recklessly failed to have a capacity and condition sanitary human waste sewer pipe assessment before proceeding with each project. The 2018 red zone robotics inspection shows that 41% of the city's raw human waste sewer pipes are in poor condition and that the blue line Pipes that are greater than half inch diameter were not inspected. The city's failure to inspect explains why the raw human wastewater in the 36 inch main near Lakeside is higher in the manhole than the 36 in Maine. Before going forward with redevelopment, starting with the downtown, then the unexpected pipes, the city should immediately inspect these raw human waste pipes to prevent another Lakeside. If the commissioner residents want to see select pages describing the 2018 red zone robotics pipe inspection with photos of collapsing raw human waste, sanitary sewers and maps of the red poor condition, raw human waste sewers. Email the city clerk and ask as a public records request for a copy of five select pages, 2018 sewer inspection. It would be helpful if the city posted all these bad sewer reports on its website. So the residents can see the residential cesspool areas. The city should replace the force main to the master pump station in 2027, not wait until 2028. Assess raw human waste sewer capacity and condition now. That's the only comment on this item.

Okay, thank you. And these are interested citizens who have questions, and I would just ask that we, not now, but that they be addressed, that those questions be answered. No, no, no. Well, I don't know. We usually don't respond to public comment. What do you guys think?

I think I was going to ask some of those similar questions.

I think that we should be educated as well. I'm good with that.

Yeah, okay. Come on up. Sure, no, I agree. Hi, thank you.

Bomb Baker water utilities. So a couple notes that I took as far as could we do it ourselves? No, we absolutely could not. Um, if I can kind of scale this for you, the majority of our sewers that we clean and inspect in house are eight inch diameter. So I mean, um the pipes that we are talking about are up to 36 inch diameter which is more than half of me um the hydro jetter that we use for our eight inch pipes is actually referred to as a mini jetter it in no way shape or form could move the debris out of the 36 inch pipe let alone the level of compaction that it has achieved in however many years um regarding the vacuum truck we do have our own vacuum trucks I believe we have 300 000 uh no that's not the right um I'll have to get back to you on the actual capacity of our vacuum trucks but the purpose of this work order will be to have combination cleaning trucks which is going to be the enormous amount of water pressure and mechanical cleaning which we don't have um our own of and when we send that through the pipes to clean it it does end up in another manhole the combination truck also picks it up the intent of this operation which will be overnight is for one truck to be doing the cleaning and collection while the other truck at the end of that process calls it to West Palm Beach which is the ECR wastewater treatment plant there's nowhere else to put this level of as Mr Schultz lovely stated raw human I don't remember wait um we cannot do it by ourselves we can't and please don't Mr Mr we're not gonna so um That that was to address that portion something else that I have received a lot of comments about is when we get public records requests for our sub regional sewer annual report, which is completed by mock Bruce one of our consulting engineers. that is not the budget um in that report they write the status of our facilities as they've evaluated them to be that particular year they write recommendations for our cip and they do have a table that has cip planned projects for several years in advance that is not the same as the adopted sub-regional budget, because as I've stated in the past, we cannot adopt our sub-regional budget without the permission of all seven partners. So while Mock Roost produces that report for us independently, that does not equate the official City of Lake Worth Beach sub-regional sewer budget. And in this case, it did not. oftentimes what will happen in that annual report, because I mean, we've talked about this in all of the funds for a CIP, you have what, what you would love to be your ideal plan for five, 10 years out, but things happen. And when things that are in the budget are unable to happen during a certain fiscal year, because other more, you know, urgent projects become prioritized, a lot of things get pushed out. So that is something that, is reflected in our Macarus report when they have shown something as a project that in their engineering opinion, we should try to complete in, you know, whether it's one year, two year, three years out, if we do have to prioritize a different project, they will you know, push it to the next fiscal year in their report. I would also like to note that there is no regulatory agency or any type of compliance that dictates that we complete that report each year. It's just that we do it as a way to keep tabs on our own system. The last thing I would like to address is the red zone 2018 pipe condition assessment study that was completed. That was CCTV inspection of all of our eight inch diameter, which is the majority of residential sewer collection in the entire city. And it did come back. ugly lots of red lines that indicate pipe in poor condition um but the purpose of these studies is to complete projects to fix those things so what i would like for everybody to remember is that that report came out in 2018 and since 2018 we have been putting significant capital improvements into our system so um i believe that report indicated 76 Tanya Kessler- ish thousand linear feet of pipe and poor condition we have rehabilitated 20,000 linear feet of that we have a another 20,000 linear foot bid package that will be advertised um. It may have already been advertised any day now. And we have done hundreds of manhole rehabilitations. So our system is not in the condition that this 2018 report shows that it was in. We have made a lot of effort to improve on that. So I think that's the majority of what I had. But ultimately, this project is personally like really exciting to me i think that it has the potential to greatly improve the conditions that our residents are experiencing in southbound park with a time period of proposed 15 days um and because this debris is occupying uh about a quarter of those pipes it will just really immediate impact, like we honestly couldn't have asked for a better problem to run into than something that can be immediately acted upon. while we work on the permanent solution of rerouting Lantana's force main straight to the master pump station. I've also received questions of why would they do that? Why would they tie Lantana's force main into our gravity system rather than just taking it to the master pump station? And I don't know, but I have been talking with Joe Capozzi. He was interested in, and so I learned through my research to give to him that originally lantana's force main only went to 15th avenue south i'm not sure why but it did and in 1998 the gravity interceptor needed to be rehabilitated and lantana's force main's flow was impeding the ability to rehabilitate the pipe along lakeside so they extended lantana's force main up to sixth avenue south and that was like i said 1998 i'm not sure why they didn't just extend it to the master pump station but they didn't so that's the plan now and hopefully that will be a permanent absolute solution to this thank you does anybody else have any questions of miss baker while she's up here yeah i see some lights on i don't know if this is yeah okay um mr mccoy and mr segres

Thank you for proactively addressing those. I feel confident that you're paying detailed attention and technical attention. In fact, I suggested that the nerd button be hung up for anybody who's excited about cleaning out. But I appreciate why you're excited about it and hopefully that will make a big dent. The only question that perhaps in my mind at least remains and maybe in some of the residents and I don't think it's a crazy question, is as one adds more developments, are we confident that our existing system can deal with the added loads and my guess is that unlike electric where it's pretty easy to measure you know wire sizes wire sizes don't change you know ratings on closers and all that sort of stuff it's pretty it's more black and white either you got the capacity or don't or maybe you're within a 20 margin with the pipes it's not like wires they do you know they are in a variety of conditions they can be partially plugged they might be leaking a little whatever it is if there was not now but if there was some way to give us some sort of I don't know whether it's a report or just a verbal kind of something We're reasonably confident in these areas. If you add another 100 toilets, we're good to go. If you added 500, yeah, we're not so sure that you're good to go. Something on that sort of sense, I think, would give some reassurance to the community of

i guess i don't know what the right word is but i'll give you in that part answer well you don't have to answer right now but you can if you want to um there are plenty of areas in the city that i would be able to say yes absolutely we have plenty of capacity in the sewer system uh i would also like to clarify that the sub-regional interceptor in question does not collect the downtown area so just kind of keep those two things separate in your brain however my answer about this specific area of the system when you ask am i confident it could accept more development more flow my answer would be no but completing this cleaning and with the inspection to follow which is also part of this you know 15 days of work will tell me right So that is something else that we need this to be cleaned for is for the ability to inspect and then the ability to conduct further, you know, just metering, being able to see what's actually going on in there will allow me to make that call.

Yeah. Cool. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Segrich.

Thank you. So. As part of this project or have we measured the flow kind of before and after so you can have empirical data as to how.

How successful we were do you want better, we are going to physically. Have a count of. what is removed i don't want to get too bad but the solids yes solids so in addition to giant flushing the toilet really it's disgusting um sorry i didn't mean to take off so So in addition to yes, all of our sub-regional customers are metered. That's how we charge them on a monthly basis for their wastewater flows. In addition to that, we have flow meters in strategic locations where we were able to place them currently for the part of this study. Now we will have absolute data on the actual amount removed from these pipes, as well as, I mean, since the pipes are flowing full, they have a terminal volume, so to speak. So we know what's going through them now because they're flowing full. Once we have this removed, if we're able to get water level, we have the flow metering devices that are going in as part of that study, and we will have the count of the actual solids removed. So yes, we're going to have

extensive data that we can use to move forward with this okay and understanding we don't have the equipment to to do this do any of our and this is a sub-regional right that we're working on um do any of our sub-regional partners possess the equipment no backwards we're the biggest because i'm just purely asking for clarity um so this is really specialized equipment One of the things that keeps coming up is that red zone study. And as you said, you already eliminated at least 20,000 linear feet. We have another schedule for 20,000. And that was done in 2018. So looking at the number of years between 2018 and now, 20,000 linear feet seems like a lot, but spread across those years, it's a little bit less each year. Do we have even a rough idea of how we're going to catch up to that 76,000?

20,000 a year for the next several years. And I also wanted to clarify, just in case for everyone listening, that that is considered local sewer fund. So local sewer versus sub-regional sewer, when we're talking the red zone study and the lining of all these pipes, that's local.

So as we're completing these, do we update a GIS map of it and say this one went from red to green and here's the results?

Currently, we have a field in the GIS system that is called date rehabilitated. So that's how it's logged. With our incoming asset management system, I intend to have that be much more, what's what I'm looking for? Yeah, yeah. Yes. I mean, I could go in and color code it myself based on date rehabilitated, but I don't have the time to do that by myself. That will be part of this enterprise asset management incoming through our wonderful IT team. And I'm very much looking forward to that. So to answer your question, we do have the data. It's not like super user-friendly, visually pleasing.

Yeah. If somebody who was a GIS nerd wanted to grab it and work with it or whatever, something could be exported for them. But in the meantime, we're waiting for this asset management system and that's going to give the public potentially a much clearer vision of this is where we used to be, this is where we are.

Not necessarily the public. That's not the intent behind the asset management system. It's more so that when we go in and do anything to any of our pipes, it can be updated as a link to the GIS in real time. We could have a map maybe posted to our website, but I don't think we have the capability to have it.

Not asking for putting on the spot for that, but in general, the public knows we have a problem. They know we've had a problem since 2018. They've seen things come on and off CIP and not get funded and have a little bit of confusion between budgeted and CIP. Communication helps a lot with the public understanding, you know, how fast are we solving these problems? We are dedicating a great amount to infrastructure in this budget. And hopefully you feel that you received everything that you need to have success. And I know you said you have. it would it would be good for us to be mindful of that to the public this is a major issue for them and i think the more information we can give them of saying hey this is your tax dollars at work this is what these monies go to we are making progress on this i think it would have multiple benefits um from uh perception um helping us on the commission to understand are we making progress and helping our residents understand the level of effort that we are now going. Because if it's 2018 to now we did 20,000 and now you're doing 20,000 a year from this point forward, that's a great step forward, right? That's something to be celebrated and look at. Brett KenCairn, Lastly, I know we are we try to coordinate roads with with what's going on underneath them with utilities and so forth. Brett KenCairn, We I believe just approved doing a bunch of the roads in around the Gulf stream area, the Bryant park aka the master pump stations right there, have we considered. entertaining as we're tearing up those roads pre laying some of the foundation for running the lantana force main directly into our master pump station is that something we can consider i can take a look at it um they may not be the right roads i don't know the conceptual plan for uh a corridor for that pipe to i mean

We're not at a phase yet, but I can certainly take a look.

Okay. Yeah. You know, just at a high level, I think it makes sense to understand, might there be a synergy between what we're doing? Because I would hate for us to budget to rip up a road, fix a road, and then we find out that that's the corridor we need to go down and then have to redo it again.

Well, thankfully, with it being a force main, I have a very love hate, mostly hate relationship with horizontal directional drilling. But if we need to, we can just drill deeper than everything else in the road and not have to worry about a corridor. But if it is going to be a pipe that is trenched the entire way from Sixth Avenue south to the master pump station, we can certainly try to capitalize on those types of opportunities.

And just the final thing, just for the residents at home understanding this, you're saying it's an overnight operation, but I'm assuming that means it's multiple days overnight. And so it's going to be in front of your house one night and then one or two manhole covers down the street the next night, correct?

one or two manhole covers down the street in the same night so that's what I'm really hoping to convey is that it's not like it it's not like this loud truck's going to be in front of your house all night even for an entire night it's continuously moving several segments of pipe per night um so hopefully I'll only have a couple hours of the noise but yes well I'm I'm sure if if this has the success we hope it does the residents will be be very happy um that it happens

I just have a real quick, a real quick question. You said that the pipe from Lantana only went up to 6th Avenue?

Originally 15th Avenue. Now it's to 6th. Now it's to 6th.

Is there any chance, I mean, would there be any advantage or is there any chance to bring it to the pump station? That's the point. That's what this is.

This is the cleaning that needs to be done for the study, that needs to be done for the design, that needs to be done for the construction. But I promise, I promise we'll get it done. There was that too. We were.

Yeah, let's not forget that.

But I promise this is top of my priority list. You know, we're going to get it done. Yeah.

AT&T.

AT&T.

Let's get our defendants straight. Okay. We have, where are we? We have a motion. Yeah. Second. All in favor.

I'm sorry, Madam Mayor. I did not hear who made the motion nor the second.

McVoy, one. May, two.

Correct. She keeps very good track of that.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Baker. See, another 5-0, everybody. We're moving right along.

We're doing it. All right, see. Standard insurance policies for fiscal year 26-27 employee health and welfare benefits.

This isn't the specialty. No. Okay.

Is anybody from our staff going to talk? She was here.

Ms. Lauren, you're up.

of course right when she got through the ladies room that's not fair okay it's not on and you need to pick it up there you go now you're good you may have to lift it up for height up and it turned off again there you go can you hear me now yeah yeah perfect all right very good perfect

um good evening my mayor uh commissioners and vice mayor uh janet jekolovsky assistant director of human resources um what we have for you today is the uh summary of the policies that we are requesting for standard insurance policies for the employee health and welfare benefits um and the gearing group which is the production negotiation for the city standard employee health and welfare benefits insurance policies. Our current health insurance carrier Cigna has agreed to offer or to continue to offer the city the opportunity to continue the identical employee health and dental benefit plans from our current fiscal year into our next fiscal year at a 6% increase. for medical insurance coverage, whereas the city would absorb the cost of the increase and a 0% increase for all other services that they'll be providing. So this is a continued service. In addition to that, we do have a 40.1% decrease for the Employee Assistance Program, which we're doing through Brie Health, who is providing us expanded services than we've had previously from our previous career um and we're getting eight more visits so we're getting additional two two visits for the eap services um and i'm just you know requesting a motion to approve motion to approve second but i have a question yes okay miss melega um

You want to go first? Okay. This was the numbers that we went over in the budget, correct? This has been reflected in the budget hearing that we set, this increase.

Okay.

That was my question as well.

Now is the vote. May. May the motion and who seconded it? I'll second it. Mr. McCoy seconds it. I thought Maliga did. I thought we did that already.

Maliga seconded it.

Did it?

Seconded it.

I did. But I'm so tired I was in a lot of habit. No, I already wrote it down.

May Maliga. All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

We should put Molly back here on the wall for all the five votes. Like a scoreboard.

Ring a bell. That was May Malega.

Okay. We should.

Madam Mayor. We need a motion to go past 10 o'clock. We're starting the last agenda item. Second. Second.

hold her card okay all in favor aye am i voting for oh going past that going past 10 o'clock yes yeah aye boy they're dropping like flies do we all vote to go past 10.

Yes. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Now we have the last item is the consideration for the Fifth Amendment to the lease with RTT Bennings on the Beach.

Motion to give direction to have their increase start at 2033.

I put my light on. I put my light on.

Now you want to follow the rules? Jesus.

What do you want to do? Why did you put your light on?

make a motion okay and my motion is we have we just received uh a day or two ago this wad of information from ziskovich for the municipal beach complex assessment Given that, and my understanding, if I'm not mistaken, City Manager, that we are going to discuss these and be presented in more detail, although that's quite a bit of detail, soon. You can remind us of the date.

That's correct. I believe it's scheduled for October 15th. and at that meeting they'll give a presentation of their findings and staff would also give a presentation to discuss any immediate concerns that we may have and try to come up with some solutions so my motion is that given that we are going to be looking at a comprehensive assessment of the beach

soon in well in exactly a month um I would think it would make sense to do that first before we make any long-term uh contracts at the beach with all due respect we already voted on the 10-year extension Well, it just doesn't make any sense to me. Either we spent $400,000 for some reason, or we didn't.

I don't think that Ziskovich has a complete... It's not a survey of bennies. Correct.

But it's certainly of the whole... What's that?

This is the pier. This is not the ocean walk.

But it's all part of the beach complex. To me, it makes no sense to do them in this order. So my motion is that we move table this until after the October 15th meeting or workshop.

There is a motion. Is there a second? Calling again for a second. The motion fails.

Motion to increase, start the increase in 2033.

Second. Is that the first year or the second?

First year.

Mr. Sigrich?

Thank you. When we renegotiated with Benny some time ago, a different commission ago, we gave him quite the substantial rent increase, bringing it up. We've got escalators throughout this. And the purpose of having a long-term lease is to benefit the tenant as well as benefit the landlord and establish the value of having a good long-term tenant, an anchor tenant, if you will. And as part of that, if someone is willing to stay with your property and has a good business that's doing well and is loved by the people of the city, You work with them. I was in favor, and I thought we had set clarity of this, and I apologize when I made the motion at the last meeting that I did not set absolute clarity on this. It was my intention to start the payments on the second year. That's where I'm at. I think the overall impact to the value to the city on the lease is small to have it second or first year. I think the impact to the business would be a good one. So I am in favor, no matter what, of moving forward with this lease. But I would like my colleagues to consider starting it in the second year.

I already made a motion, and we have a second. And I have had a conversation with the owner of the property, and they're good with it.

Right. So who seconded Ms. Malega's motion? Ms. May did. Okay, great. Mr. McVoy?

Yeah, I just have a problem with how we are perceived in the community. I just heard from Commissioner Segrich that if we have a tenant who's a good tenant and is beloved in the community, then we should treat them well and give them financial breaks. I've also heard repeatedly from my colleagues that we need to be much more organized and in the interests of the city. uh in our rental contracts with people we gave a much beloved institution at the beach club quite a hard time insisted on financial stuff but with this institution we said oh my gosh no it would be very unreasonable to ask for their financials we insisted on them with the other one to me there's a perception in the community which i cannot disagree with there's a perception that we are being very uneven in treating two waterfront city-owned properties uh one extremely deferentially in disfavor to the city and the other uh not deferentially at all and uh to the you know hardship of of the tenant uh if i'm asked by constituents to explain this uh i don't have an explanation and and i i i really think that we do have the perception is not good on it and so i see absolutely no reason to start at the second year why is that in the interest of the city um but the overall contract i i have a lot of difficulty with

Thank you. Is your light still on or?

Yeah, I was just gonna help you with an explanation. The contract for the Beach Club is a vendor services contract that was in existence for a long, long time. As part of that contract, it had certain clauses in it that the occupant and the service provider, not tenant, service provider, was in violation of. They've since agreed to come into compliance with that. And we've instructed staff to go and negotiate a tenant relationship, a lease relationship, which is going to treat them in a very different manner than a service contract. So that's kind of the reason why they're different is because they're apples and oranges. They're two different kinds of contracts.

Thank you. I'm going to make a statement. I'm going to make a statement. I promise I will. I think it's in, you know, there's, I've read the challenges and then you were, and there's this whole perception of we're getting breaks to millionaires and all that. It's as much in our interest to have a commitment from such an amazing tenant that has worked so hard to bring that dive, which I loved Peter and John, but it was a dive, up to what it is now. And I think for them, in the circumstances that they're operating on at that pier, which is not an ideal situation to be operating a restaurant on, I applaud the fact that they want that kind of commitment, that they are willing to make that kind of a commitment to the city. So I don't see anything evil about it. I think that we have a good relationship, and I would approve this. on the front but i don't see any reason why it just started on the second year i mean and we've spoken and and they understand that um they don't love it but they understand it um you know it makes no sense to have the the ray it's a 10-year extension why would you start in the second year so that's my feeling about that

miss me i just wanted to make a statement just kidding i just i just no i just wanted to point out also that the relationship that we've had with benny's is not a one-way relationship you know they have sponsored fourth of july they have every single event that we've asked them to sponsor they say yes they always say yes and um the we can't forget that and and you know when it comes to the beach club when we looked at the financials which was part of the um was part of the tenant what was it called the the services agreement which was in there when they sent their financials the amount that we ultimately ended up charging them for was significantly still below market rate So those are apples and oranges. And I don't think it's fair to insinuate that we're treating anybody differently. There are two different situations, A. And B, we're looking at two different kind of contracts and we're looking at we're not trying to price anybody out of Lake Worth Beach. We're working with each of them individually, as we would with anybody else that's going to bring something to us, because I know other things are coming to us, and we will be looking at those individually as well.

Yeah, I'm good. Thank you. Okay. We have public comment. Oh. uh miss powell followed by miss fisher followed by miss katz do we have any online yes we do i read them all and we'll we'll do these first that's how we do we do these first and then we go i'm just wondering if we did oh no we do we do quit lengthy i do not know

jenny powell 224 north palmway um i don't blame mr lipton for coming forward and asking for this massively extended lease and better terms better lease terms because it's a business this is a business arrangement he's looking out for his business but the same goes in the other direction And I want you to be looking out for the city and for the taxpayers and to get the best deal that you can for the taxpayers. It's a business arrangement. A sponsorship of July 4th is a business arrangement. I don't know the details of that arrangement. I used to do sponsorships when I worked for the county. You give us this, we give you that. It's a business arrangement, just like a lease is a business arrangement. So I know, I don't remember the exact number, but that Mr. Lipton paid for fireworks. You say we asked him to do it. It's a sponsorship. I hope there was a sponsorship agreement somewhere that said, if you give us this much money, you get this. The lease is a business arrangement. I just feel like... They came here, they asked for the extended lease, which is fine. It's his business. That would not be prudent of the Lipton's to not ask for something that they would like to have. But it's up to you to evaluate that and make sure it's a fair deal for the taxpayers. That's what I don't understand. There is no reason to extend this lease right now. it's it's seven more years on the lease and then you're giving them another 10 we don't need to negotiate it now why seven years before the lease expires and then you're giving them on top that 10 more years it doesn't make sense it's a business arrangement please don't forget that Mr. Lipton is doing his business as he should on behalf of, of making money and having a good business. And I'm not saying it's not a good business. I'm saying he asked you and you basically, he tells you to jump and you say how high, that's how I feel about this.

You're just giving him whatever he asked for.

Thank you, Ms. Fisher, Ms. Katz. Are you Ms. Katz in the that's you. Okay.

Peggy Fisher, 508 North Bay Street, June 16th, 2026. This item came before you. You approved it for zero because there are only four people present for that commission meeting. It's been discussed. The only item before you today is whether the rent increase in the 10 years from 2033 to 2043 starts on the first year or the second year. All the other oh let's wring our hands and do that well if you didn't do all that back in june you missed the vote Because you made the decision. I think it's a great decision for the city. Benny's has been on the beer for a long time, whether it was Benny's or their predecessor, and has done a lot for the city. And the city hasn't been the best landlord to whatever entity has been up there. So I agree with all this, and I wish you'd just take a vote and move on. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Katz.

Irene Katz, 418 North Federal Highway.

Could you speak up just a little bit? Pardon me? Just speak up or get closer to the mic. Thank you. I know we need a taller mic.

Ivan Katz, 418 North Federal Highway, Unit 28, Lake Worth Beach. I mean, I can really only say after Jenny said everything so well, no special deals for Benny's. We don't really need to jump in and give him another 10 years on top of his seven years. I love all the sentimentality about how wonderful Benny's is and how everybody in Lake Worth Beach loves him. However, honestly, it reminds me of my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life, where Bedford Falls becomes Pottersville because of all the greed and unawareness of the people in Bedford Falls. And now I hate to see my beloved Lake Worth Beach become Bennysville. It's really sad.

Thank you. Madam Clerk.

Yes, Madam Mayor, I have about 15 comments. The first comment is from Giovanna Dominguez Timor. 308 8th Avenue North. I urge you to carefully listen to every public comment and allow yourself to be persuaded by your well-informed residents who have been urging you to vacate this plan to sign a lease with this one business until 2043. A business that is in no danger of losing their celebrity status, their photo ops, their features in Palm Beach publications, or a single wealthy patron willing to pay high prices for unspectacular food. A business that still has seven years on its current lease this entire request appears insensitive manipulative and greedy. The big famous name making demands, because they promised to bring ever increasing business to our city when their business model actually caters to a clientele that will return to them specifically. While our many little downtown businesses continue to suffer, as does our beach club. which caters to the entire community with reasonable prices and a friendly atmosphere that anyone with even the most modest of incomes can enjoy on a regular basis. Several of you on the dais are business owners, as we are often reminded during meetings. Would a single one of you personally volunteer to freeze your fees, your rates, or your rental income until 2043 for the promise of increased memberships, fees, and an explosion of visitors that would benefit your businesses as well as the entire city? I think not. As custodians of our budget, why would you allow Benny's to ask for even more, even as our city struggles and will likely continue to struggle with larger challenges in years to come? Benny should have already reached out to you in order to pull this outrageous request, given everything they know they have not. This should inform your vote. No one tenant should be allowed to weld such power over a little city trying its best to stay afloat. Andrew Cavanaugh, 1321 North L Street. It looks like you were making a terrible financial decision as the landlords of the city-owned property. Why would you voluntarily give up future leverage on a valuable South Florida property seven years before the current lease even expires? Please explain the financial reasoning behind this decision. What does the city gain by extending the lease this early? What are residents getting in return? And what information do you have that the public does not have that makes an emergency lease extension necessary seven years ahead of schedule? Because without a clear financial justification, residents are left with a very simple question. Why does this look less like a good deal for the city and more like a favor to a well-connected business? If your justification consists only of platitudes about how great Benny's is without demonstrating financial benefits to the city and its tax base, then you are doing a disservice to the residents. Anon Peralla, 717 North L Street. You've given enough away to this business already. Enough is enough. Melissa Salerno, 501 South N Street. I am staunchly opposed to the potential extension of Benny's on the beach lease agreement. Please commissioners and mayor do us all a favor and clearly explain how a lease extension by such a significant amount benefits the residents and the community. Oh wait, you haven't because you can't. There are no justifiable reasons to further extend the lease at this time. It is not a wise or prudent business move on the city's behalf. So unless your goal is to benefit the current tenant and not the very city you were elected to represent, do not entertain this idea. marco salerno 1512 south lakeside drive do not agree to a significant lease extension with benny's on the beach there's absolutely zero reason nor benefit to the city in doing so please remember who it is you work for and are supposed to be representing it certainly isn't the lipton family as none of them are residents of our city Keith Spencer, 1909 Moore Drive. I'm writing this letter regarding the West Palm Beach, I'm sorry, Lake Worth Beach City Commission urgently pushing through a new lease with Benny's on the beach more than six years before their current lease expires, especially considering the timeframe of the proposed new lease. This is very concerning and without a compelling explanation, I must strongly object. Governance requires a steady hand, not impulsive action. When speed replaces wisdom, you betray the public trust that placed you in these seats. Your oath demands deliberation and public disclosure. I've been informed that Benny's owners have contributed to PACs involved in local elections, taking special interest money signals and alignments severely damaging to your public credibility and certainly with me. What is your motive? Kim Stokes, 1321 North L Street. What are residents supposed to think when they watch you make important long-term decisions as casually? We deserve better. If you are going to lock the city into an agreement years before you have to, residents deserve to know what evidence justifies doing it now. That is especially important when the business owner made a large contribution to a PAC that helped elect two of the four commissioners now supporting this premature extension. So I have some questions. One, why don't you think a market analysis or financial documents from the tenant are important in determining a fair rate? Two, why did you take away staff's ability to negotiate a better deal by accepting the tenant's terms made during a two-minute public comment? Three, why do you repeat claims from the tenant without asking for evidence? Four, and why lock the city into a long-term agreement seven years before the current lease expires? There is no reason to rush this. You have seven years. If you believe extending this lease now is in the best interest of the city, then show us. Give residents the market analysis and financial information. Show us how you determine what this property is worth and why these terms are a good deal. Give residents something more than your opinion and the word of the tenant. Give us actual evidence so we can look at it ourselves and come to the same conclusion you did. And if you can't do that, you shouldn't be making this decision seven years early. Diane Brown, 905 North Lakeside Drive. I am opposed to extending Benny's lease until 2043. You are about to hire a new city manager. We have a city election in March, and also you will have the report about the beach complex from Ziskovich very soon, and who knows what will happen with the amendment about property tax. All of these are good reasons not to extend or amend Benny's lease at this time. Thomas Convoy, 30 South M Street. Every commissioner voting on this should disclose to the public any donations they have received from Mr. Lipton, the companies he owns, his family members, This lease extension happening a full seven years before the lease is over, extending it out an additional 10 years looks shady to a fellow business owner. How can we possibly know what fair market will be seven years from now at this time? Katherine Kohlmeier, 503 First Avenue South. Benny's on the Beach's lease has 17 years to run. Why consider extending this lease for a further seven years to 2043 at this time? There was no advantage to the city in agreeing to this extension. However, there is a great advantage to Bennis. This commission is overreaching its authority and trying to extend its influences far ahead and is showing unconscionable favoritism for one city tenant. The terms of this lease are ludicrous and no demand made to Bennis to show its revenue or financials, a standard for such commercial leases and indeed a demand made of the Beach Club restaurant. which is also applying for renewal of its lease. Another comparison between Benny's and the Beach Club is that Benny's is primarily a tourist destination in one of the most prime beach locations in Palm Beach County. The Beach Club is a venue on the golf course in a residential neighborhood, a valued and loved community space well used by residents year round. And yet it is the Beach Club that has to provide financial information in the lease process and not Benny's. Please do not agree to this lease extension. The next comment, sorry, I need to take a sip. Susan MD, 1 South Lakeside Drive. I've known Benny's on the beach for a long time and considered the restaurant on the pier an asset to our town, but I see absolutely no reason to extend this lease so far in advance. It shouldn't be done. It worries me to hear of certain connections between the town government and a private business. Who profits from especially generous favors? Not the voters. Do the owners need extra support? I don't think so. I'm against this extension. Richard Mahler, 1767 15th Avenue North. I would like to express my opposition to tonight's proposed lease extension for Benny's on the beach at the municipal ocean pier to be clear my concern is not with benny's as a business door do i think they do not deserve an extension in the future my concern is committing a valuable public waterfront asset to another 10 years when the current lease already runs through january 11 2033 i'm not usually one to kick cans down the road but in this case i believe the can needs to be kicked with ziskovich's pending presentation on the needs and future of the beach complex that presentation should occur before the city locks itself into a longer term agreement with any tenant of the beachfront we need to understand the broader vision potential improvements and learn long-term needs of the beach complex before limiting our future options again this is not about opposing bennies who have done great things for our community it is about making informed decisions regarding our public assets so a short-term delay is warranted I respectfully ask the commission to defer action until after Ziskovich's presentation, allowing the city to evaluate the findings, review market rents, and determine whether this extension truly serves the long-term interests of Lake Worth Beach residents. Thank you. Donna Kerner, 1012 North J Street. Commissioners, please don't approve the Benny's lease, which would lock the city into a bad deal through 2043. Please use the seven years remaining on the current lease to establish fair, consistent rules for every tenant in city-owned buildings. Don't do this favor for Mr. Lipton, who we know has political influence and has supported a PAC that has backed some of the candidates now sitting on the dais. We have watched this commission repeatedly give bennies what it asked for while putting pressure on the Beach Club. The rules should be fair for every business, not written around who has the most influence. Alex Schultz, 612 2nd Avenue South. All major beach decisions should be delayed until a new city manager is appointed and has the full opportunity to get a handle on what is going on in the beach. Beach fund parking expense is $1 million plus per year. It seems that lots of infrastructure penny sales tax has been diverted to the beach. There seems to be a lack of focus on the resident homeowner. Delay any extensions or modifications until the city manager has had adequate time to review. And the last comment this evening is from Nome Brown, 1701 North D Street. I oppose this proposed lease agreement with Benny's. The way the city has been proposing to favor Benny's in regards to this lease is inconsistent with other comparable local businesses. Where is the evidence that this is a good deal for the city? What is the real motivation behind this proposed lease agreement? That is the final comment for this evening.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. We did vote that we're extending the lease. Tonight is the only question is do we start the raise in the first year or the second year? I won't make that clear. So any discussion about should we extend the lease is moot at this point and I would not entertain an argument for or against it. I think that we need to focus on what we're here for, and I believe we have a motion and a second. Mr. McVoy, I see your light is on, but if it's about- Call the question. Call the question.

Second. With all due respect, I second the question. So all in favor of- Well, you just tipped your hand very clearly to what you- I'm sorry, the Vice Mayor made the motion to call the question.

Who seconded? Mr. Segrich.

Mr. Segrich.

not yet if there was a comment about the extension I have I have a disclosure that I feel I should make okay my disclosure is that when I I was as many of you know I was out of town for that vote that you're talking about the reason i was out of town was providing safety to one of our residents who had been interesting okay hang on i would like to make my disclosure all right you've got a minute please okay when this least came up in the past I received numerous calls from experienced restaurant owners who said you need to get the financials from that guy because he is making buckets of money at that location and the city is getting shortchanged okay and that was not solicited people came to me who were ex you know I looked them up a little bit experienced long-term restaurant people And I think as a commission, we should be extremely sensitive to the comments that you've had from many people that it looks very dubious that somebody who has made campaign donations directly or indirectly through PACs, whatever, is getting leases extended way out when you have no financials when you have no market rate analysis and pretty pretty clear indications that the guy is taking us to the cleaners and you have no evidence to back up why you would do a lease for seven years out ten years out thank you very much it has been decided but it's been decided yes pretty clear well that there was some influence

of course that's a strong accusation it is okay so we have a motion in a second i'm sorry what motion is it because the motion was to call the question and it was seconded right there should be a vote before there's any other discussion so let's all right vote on that calling the question aye aye aye and we went away from them and i originally made them maliga you originally made the motion may second to start and i seconded it to start in 2033. right all in favor aye aye thank you very much sir i over objections sometimes what does that mean i i means i so it means five zero so that's another back zero we had a four one but no back to five zero okay i believe that ends the business portion of this meeting um so now we are on commissioner comments and make those first because i'm tired by this point and i have very short comments let's start with mr segers

uh thank you madam mayor um i wanted to just comment on something i brought up uh in the last meeting and i think it does have relevance um with some of the comments that were were made tonight and and that is our ordinance on disclosure um i had some very specific questions they still have not been answered i'm waiting for our city attorney to let us know the level of effort to answer my question But if I look at, so that we can discuss on whether you want him to actually answer me, but when we look at tonight's agenda, for example, the sewer line item, there are several residents on that street who are immediately affected who donated to my campaign in amounts over $100. According to our ordinance, I believe that disclosure would have been pertinent. with the last item we just discussed. I know there are several people who've donated to Mr. McVoy's campaign who are vehemently against this. That, according to our ordinance, would require disclosure. When we discussed the sale of the T-shirt shop and giving that lease over to Mama Mia's, There are the owner of that business donated to the mayor's campaign in amounts over $100. the ordinance itself is not clear and all i am asking is for the city attorney to tell us the scope because it got contentious last time and i apologize um i should have kept my cool with it this is serious stuff And we either have to follow this ordinance or we don't. And it is so broad that I think we are all in violation of not following it. And my question to the city attorney is, what is the test? Because the note from the city attorney previously said that it doesn't have anything to do with special um special uh economic gain or loss because that's not in there and that there is no definable class meaning you are one of a thousand people or one of 50 000 people who donated therefore you're not a a majority class that doesn't exist in there and i think where glenn was getting was that those things are implied by state law which i would be okay with if that's our city attorney's official interpretation but what was sent to me was the opposite of that and i don't necessarily need an answer tonight sir i you know but i would like an answer and i don't think it's that much trouble to to tell us something like this and i don't think a commissioner asking for an interpretation of whether or not something should be disclosed is something that would require the whole commission to to vote on um i think that's just part of the role as a city attorney i mean that's a very basic question so i am asking tonight for your guys consensus to direct the city attorney to please clarify that ordinance in detail and give us a test that we can apply to these things so that we have clarity because right now The way I read it and the way the email was sent to me, we have to disclose almost every donor who donated over $100 on almost every topic within this city.

Okay. And I asked you to copy us with that email so that we could see it, and I didn't get it.

The city attorney sent it to all of us.

What was that? From Elizabeth. Okay.

It said do not reply to all in big letters at the top. Thank goodness. I agree with you. And I think that if there's something that's not clear, then we can make it more clear. And I'm not a lawyer. I don't pretend to be one. I do trust our legal team to bring us the best data. And if it's antiquated or needs to be cleaned up, I 100% support that. Okay, thank you.

Me too. I'm just a little concerned about this test. Is it open book? state state state state and county ethics as a litmus test for what constitutes interest or or being affected by something all of these all of these special economic interests but but is it for all of the items or is it only in a quasi-judicial um it's for everything that's what i'm asking

so don't answer it tonight i'm not going to say happy to provide the opinion what became difficult is there were a number of hypotheticals and we can go down hypothetical land as the mayor knows as an attorney you could be doing that forever so if it's okay with you we'd rather have a more concise opinion that gives you a general guidance and if there's a specific question from a specific commissioner just says when you have an ethics question if you're not sure you asked that specific one So that's what we'd like to be able to do is just provide what we would normally provide an opinion saying, here's this ordinance, here's the way we interpret it. If the commission wants to amend it, just tighten it up, loosen it up, that's your choice.

But to go down the rabbit hole of answering- In addition, aren't all of the donations public record anyway?

They are. But you do have an ordinance that says you're supposed to disclose donations if you're voting on an item that I believe the words that you have an interest in. I don't have it in front of me.

So wouldn't that be like if I owned Benny's? I probably shouldn't vote on it.

For example, if you received a donation from Benny's and you're voting on a lease extension for Benny's, you probably should disclose that.

Correct.

So that's where I think the kind of guidance that I think you're all looking for. So we're more than happy to do that.

Right.

And again, if once we issue the opinion, if there's specific questions, then we could deal with those one-on-one on specific actual real situations. Right.

Yeah, I'm interested in that.

And if I could, we were already issued an opinion. Whether that's the official opinion or not, please let us know. Someone from the city's attorney's office gave us this interpretation. And at the end of it, it said, if you have any specific questions, please feel free to ask. And so I gave some specific example scenarios, four of them, which should have been very easy to answer, not something that takes hours and hours and hours and hours. The examples were very similar to what I just discussed with you guys. So my two very specific questions are, based on our interpretation of that ordinance, is there any requirement for disclosure that is linked to special financial gain or loss? And the second is, is there any requirement for disclosure linked to somebody's membership share within a class? And that's the, hey, these rates are going to affect all 40,000, 44,000 people in the city of Lake Worth. Guess what? No one's special. versus, hey, you got donations from two out of the three dispensary owners in in the city of lake worth beach and now you're voting on something that has to do with dispensaries you've actually that requires disclosure um so those are the the two important things and if we can get clarity on it and you know your interpretation kind of sets the rule on on on this as to whether or not the county and state

tests for that apply down to our ordinance are they implied in there and i'm okay with that but if we could get those answered i would greatly appreciate it i think we can clean up i'm just reading i think we can clean up the language i think so i have a feeling that once we render the opinion you may want to then tweak that ordinance but but there hasn't been a kind of a spotlight on that ordinance in a long time yeah i mean and maybe so can we amend his request then is not only to give the opinion but also to give

suppose clearer language for the ordinance, a suggestion, an idea.

I'll try to do that. It might be more of a question as to where, where are you comfortable? For example, one thing could, right now it says $100. One question could be, do you want to make it $250? The other question is, do you want to make it tied to the specific class test that's in the state ethics laws? Because right now they're not. Right now there's just a kind of a black and white line that says if you receive a donation of more than $100 and you have an interest, it doesn't relate to the state.

other ones but we're getting into the opinion part so so yeah i think it's a good if we can't even discuss it here and make it up then we probably do need some clarity okay i mean i think we all agree on it okay great thank you anything else I just want to thank staff and I want to thank all of the staff who put themselves out and went above and beyond for the city managers that came to visit. It was not required but they really did they stepped up to the plate they went above and beyond you know especially human resources leisure services um city manager's office um so i would really appreciate that it is not it was not my my intended outcome for us to end with not without having a city manager it's um It's disappointing. And I really hope that we can change that around quickly. And the other thing I need to ask for is on October 3rd, there's an NAPC meeting I can't go to. Would anybody go in my place?

I'll be out of town.

Okay. I'll ask Stuart if he'll go. Because he usually does do an update there. And... Trying to think. I guess that's it that I can think of. Thanks. Thank you.

Mr. McVoy.

I'll just reiterate my concern that I hope my colleagues are conscious of how some things are viewed. And you may not like the conclusions people come to, If you don't provide evidence for decisions that are odd, people are likely to draw their own. I will also add that Father Frank, many people have expressed a desire to support the Guatemala Maya Center founded by Father Frank. He is turning 85 somewhere around now. There is an event on saturday the 26th it's somewhere down in miami i don't have it right in front of me but um everybody is welcome you are welcome to come and attend i don't know exactly what is happening but there's there's a fundraising component to it time I want to say sort of the middle of the day, but I would have to look for the thing.

I don't see it. I haven't put it on the calendar yet.

But I'm sure we can get you that information if anybody is interested. Okay.

I'm going to be ending. I'm going for a two and a half day legal training in Fort Lauderdale. I'll be ending that afternoon. So I might be able to get down to myself. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

That's it. Thank you. Ms. Maliga. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I attended the Habitat for Humanity groundbreaking because we had to shift it to the hatch building. So it was more of a let's hold up the shovels and give the community, the new homeowner a welcome. It was a gentleman and his daughter. So even though it was a massive rainstorm, we still did it. He's very excited. He's going to be on South D Street. Works for the county. And it's actually a... currently in the program with with adopt a family so adopt a family has been working with him for three years getting him fiscally responsible and now it's turning into him going into a home ownership with habitat so it's full circle that was a great event and i just want to say thank you to staff for a dignified and beautifully organized 9-11 event And again, we had rain, right? It was the same day as a matter of fact. Not a lot, but nobody panicked and we were prepared. And I think it was a beautiful program, as beautiful as it could be with that day. I'm very thankful for, we had a lot of higher electeds who literally chose us to be here and celebrate and remember what we stood for on September 12th. I think that was important. That was a big message. So thank you to staff. There was a lot of effort and time and organization put into that event. And I thought it was way above what I expected anyway. I had shared with interim city manager Perry and Tiana today. I keep up with, I don't even know how, but the Atlantic Magazines, Atlantic Avenue, Palm Beach Magazine, and it was set up here today that the city needs to be reinvigorated or done an about face. We're being recognized. When Palm Beach Magazine is highlighting one of our Lakewood teachers on a full page and That same magazine highlights Carew's Coffee in reviews and Common Grounds and Pomona were getting noticed. And these are people who came into our city and nobody knew that they were, you know, here is reviewist. And they really gave good reviews. And I even sent pictures to Kelly Olive of the review of Common Grounds. She goes, oh, my gosh, where is that? And I told her. in addition to the coastal star has written about lake worth beach and they talked about the mango fest and they promoted the playhouse so we are getting good attention could it be better of course could we get more absolutely do we want more of course but i just from being here, not for a very long time, but long enough, I hate when people say we have potential. And I hate when people say that we're a disaster. Lakewood Beach is not. Do we have some issues like every city? 100%. Are we working on moving those issues forward? Yes, that's always the goal to get better. But I really I want to celebrate these wins. And I do try to share them with staff when I see a good write up, you know, highlighting how amazing we are and the great things to do in our city. So I just want us to all keep an eye out and try to bring that good information to the dais and to staff and let them know, hey, we're being noticed. You know, people are paying attention.

yeah the perception of the city has changed a lot in the past few years um when i go out in the community and a lot of us do um we are being noticed for improvements i just went to the city for the first time and it's not perfect and we still have dirty things and we need all that stuff but the overall impression that people have of the city is huh you guys like kicked it up and that's really wonderful also the uh 9 11 was was wonderful i would love to have more citizens come out and observe that with us I don't know how we get that to happen there were more people here this year I think than we've had in a couple of years and um but it was beautiful and the fact that the high school ROTC kids come out and it's great the horses were here I got to pet a horse nose um You take what you can get, right? The perks that you can get. I got to pet a horse nose. I want to remind everyone, Veterans Day, November 11th. I'm going to get some more information out about it. Six o'clock, Bryant Park, light up the bridge for the veterans. Bring a flashlight. I'll bring the gels and the... rubber bands we'll have this year we're gonna have a bullhorn again which we feel like we have a whole event that night it's not just that well i think leisure services in the morning no at night I have to, no, no, no. We'll have to figure that out. I'll find out. That surprised me. It's a wonderful event, and we don't do enough for our veterans. Our historian, Mr. Lockwood, our intrepid historian who takes hours and hours and hours to um to find the history of the city has come out with a new book yeah he's amazing this is the palm beach county the palm beach farms company i get oh okay and no you don't get one um the palm beach farms come up from night from 1910 to 1920 so it's the really early history of the city they are going to be for sale on amazon i think they're 15 but the the work that he puts in with collaboration is remarkable so we what yeah that was before the jim crow days yeah no he's he's remarkable and i have a couple here from give a while um and we're going to put a couple in the library and they are available on amazon and he really it's very intricate um research and we thank mr lockwood we're going to recognize he's out he's he's out up north right now but when he comes back he will um be here and we're going to honor him at a city commission meeting when that happens not the whole book yeah yeah yeah okay um no she doesn't she is concerned with the people other than that again you know staff did a yeoman's job with the work with thank you very much mr uh big boy that's interesting to see it yeah fascinating i haven't i haven't looked at the book yet okay um yeoman's job of of hosting this long process and I also you know I came in with an idea tonight and I changed my position and I hope I don't regret it um but we do need to get this done and you know I I really do have to say once again this i believe wholeheartedly not as a selfish thing but also just as we have we have five people in the commission right now we've been through all this i would like to see this happen before the election i would i mean there's no reason it can't happen before the election i'd like to have it before the first i'd like a city manager for christmas

that would be nice or at least new year's we'll dress them up with like a sash 2027. no now they know all right Christmas Mr Mr manager do you have any comments just a few things uh just a reminder on September we want the second budget hearing at 501 p.m uh Citizens Municipal Academy is tomorrow

24th until i looked at the calendar so i i just the mayor just said oh i had we had changed the date it was the 3rd and 17th and it got switched to 10 and 24 yeah i won't be here on that evening i'll be in fort lauderdale being trained i got you okay thank you i'm not here either so oh wait yeah i'm out of town which day which is the time i thought it was the 17th when i planned my trip i was able to go to the one on the 17th

do you do need a quorum here yeah yeah and the 17th is the day that i said i there's two days i couldn't do it it was the 17th and the 24th well this it was either going to be the 17th or the 24th i mean it had to be one of the two because it has to be two weeks apart so it was either 3 17 or 10 24. so will we have a quorum on the 24th is there are there three of you i'll be here that will be here

no no you have to have three right four number four and five can be on zoom but they have to have three physically here i'm going to be in for what i do until five o'clock i'm doing a guardian light i'm training them i'm on the other side of the mountain um no it's six hour time definitely yeah um

Well, what I'll do is we'll talk to finance tomorrow. We just have to come up with something. But I'll talk to finance tomorrow and see. You'll have three?

You'll be here?

Oh, you're not going to be here either?

I'm sorry, could you speak into your mic, Commissioner?

Can we do it later than 501?

Yeah, so the mayor could get here physically. Yeah.

I mean, do we really have to have every single director here and all of that? No, no, no. They can Zoom if they want to. I just don't want to make them stay late from work for a five-minute meeting. This is the one I did last year on the way to the Bills game. I mean, it takes two seconds, but we have to be here.

Yeah, last year you were on the Bills game and Mr. McVoy missed it. That's because he thought it was at six. So it was the three of us that were here last time, so we're able to do it. Now the three of us won't be here this time and it's on the two of you.

No, I'm just kidding.

Madam Mayor, you think you'd be able to make it later?

I could make it. It's a very important training that ends allegedly at five o'clock. before I mean I can't I cannot drive him from Fort Lauderdale starting at five o'clock yeah it's pretty it's gonna be iffy but I'll do it I mean I I absolutely we can make it seven o'clock I'll just get in the car and book well we meet tomorrow and I'll meet with finance in the morning and try to come up with some some alternatives I don't know I mean I don't know you guys let me the rest of the week doesn't have to be exactly two weeks away

Well, right now, you've advertised that date. So it's been set that date. Now, I'll look into how you can, if you can change it. Certainly, if you have the meeting that's advertised for 501, we could always open the meeting at 501, even if there's not a quorum, and say it'll be starting at 6 or 6.30 or 7. So I'll do some research on changing that date.

501, do you get it?

Well, let's go home, come back. But I think that's what happened. We had had the dates this today. I said, why does it say the 24th? I had it on my calendar for 2017.

Yeah.

Again, let me do some quick research on, you know, what kind of advertising you might have to do, but does that, will that day later work or are we needing to look for even a different day?

I'm not here the 24th. I'm not here the first. Um, but I, but on the street, I mean, I'm, willing to just you know if you open it at five o'clock and say get a pizza i mean i will get in the car and i'm coming from the brower county bar association that's well you're you're at least 6 15 by the time you say at least six six fifteen best yeah on the best day and yeah maybe captain about this before so this is not um we'll work on it tomorrow just come up with some alternatives and yeah i mean yeah i mean if we can do it at

could we move it to the next day is that possible let me ask is it Friday Friday are you out of town so you can't be there Friday either okay oh and just how about the Wednesday the 23rd does that would that work say the 23rd that would work for me that would be I don't know

Would that work for the mayor? Yeah.

Let me see. I have something else, but I'll answer that.

Is there a notice issue?

Yeah.

Well, we don't need you on the 23rd. All four of us will be here.

All right. Well, let me do research and see whether we can move to 23rd. What kind of advertising we have to do if we can. We'll move it to the 23rd. If not, we'll keep the 24th and just move it back an hour or so. Okay. Or so. Or so.

More like two.

More like 630. 630.

I know.

yeah that best 6 30. yeah i'm just looking for where it is and if we open it in 501 but people go away and come back and says it doesn't work no let me let me do some research again i haven't dealt with this in years i've had this situation before it's been a long time um so i gotta read the book again we could put on a movie one of them yeah i'm just gonna sell popcorn

we'll let you know okay uh citizens municipal academy tomorrow uh leisure services is presenting over at the library i'll be there uh we gave you guys the property tax educational campaign literature if you could just take a minute look at it some of the commissions already gave us feedback we also received our signs so some of those signs start going up around the city And the business advisory board is meeting on Thursday at 9 a.m. at Lilo's.

I'll be there.

That's the 9 a.m. at Lilo's on Thursday. And that's all I have.

No, but I will. I know what you're talking about. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

nothing nothing nada i actually did email the um interim city manager perry that if we could get an update on the at t disaster and where we are with that i think for the whole commission that'd be today it's not today no no i'm saying yeah i emailed you back and told you i was going to check with staff and yeah attorney and get an update and maybe another returning client session in a few weeks because i know there's been some discussion so maybe we'll schedule one of those in a few weeks

i'll get with mr cohen who's our lead lawyer on that one more thing 670 south you know they redid the whole thing and they were going to do some landscaping i see no landscaping it's it's dot up until about a street i think you talked about earlier when they're used there's no tree there's nothing and i go a lot a lot and um i see that um it's i'm not sure i i

Towards halfway to federal, I think it's us. And then from federal on, it's a reverse.

Well, we'll find out because I'm very disturbed that we have not had any plantings going on there. Let's try to get some. Yeah, that's FDOT.

Motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much.