Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. My name is Ron Herman. Michael Well is not present today so I'll be vice chair running the meeting for today. I'll call the meeting to order and if we could please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Of 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.

All right. So good afternoon. Again, today is Wednesday, 09/10/2025, 04:01 p. M. For the Public Safety Committee. I'll start with the roll call. If you want to start with Michael on the end.

Present. Michael Arana.

Matthew Aldrich, present. Matthew Ladd, present.

Ron Herman, present.

Mrs. Munoz, present.

And does anybody have any opening comments? Okay, moving next, approval of the agenda, motion to approve.

Motion to approve.

Second. Second the motion. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion to approve agenda passes unanimously. And then we have to approve the minutes. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? Second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Okay. Motion to approve passes.

Now on

old business, any old business that we need to discuss? No? Seeing none, moving to new business. New business, Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, District eight, Wellington Annual Report. Good afternoon.

Good evening.

Good evening.

So this is the Public Safety Committee, and I just wanna say thank you for having me here. My name's lieutenant Matthew Lavinia with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, District 8, Village Of Wellington. I work as the executive office officer there.

And

tonight, I will be presenting an abridged version of the 2024 annual report. And let's just get right into it. K. There were 91,703 total calls for service in 2024. It's an increase of 2,424 calls or 3% over 2023.

There's been a steady upward trend since 2021. The increase is due to self initiated activity, deputies being more proactive. Non self if you look at the graph on your right, the non self initiated activity, which is nine eleven calls, non emergency calls, make up 19% of all calls for service. In the self initiated calls for service, those are like traffic stops, residential and business checks, suspicious persons, you name it, make up 81% of all calls for service. Compared to 2024, self initiated activity increased by 6.8%, where nonself initiated activity decreased by 13.2%, which accounts for the overall decrease in calls for service.

Here's a five year statistical comparison. The crime index dropped 25% from 2023 to 2024. Total crimes went from 757 in 2023 to 570 in 2024. And as you can see, most major crimes declined. Annual cases since 2009.

There's been a a long term reduction in major crimes. Burglaries, thefts, vandalisms, and stolen vehicles have all consistently declined since 2009. And if you just if you notice on here, 2024 is amongst the lowest crime totals in the past fifteen years. So we'll start with the residential burglaries. And there were 27 residential burglaries in 2024.

12 were cleared, which is a 44% clearance rate. Seven of the 27 cases involved unlocked open garages. And I don't just wanna point out that the national average for residential burglaries clearance rate is approximately 13%. We're at 44%. Next we'll go to vehicle burglaries.

There's 108 total cases. 80% of those or 86 of them were unlocked vehicles. Seven of those or 6%, the windows were smashed. And only 15%, that's 16 out of 86, the suspects that that were the suspects involved in the crime were residents of Wellington. So everybody else, the overwhelming majority came from outside of the village and to commit their crimes.

So our our message is to lock your vehicles, no valuables in sight, park strategically. Park in lighted areas. Park around surveillance cameras. Harden the target. These are crimes of opportunity. Make it a lot more difficult for them to wanna even commit the crimes. Make it so they move on and go somewhere else. Stolen vehicles. There were 50 stolen vehicles in 2024, which is an 18% decline. When compared to 2023, there were 61.

Of the 50 stolen vehicles, 37 were recovered, which gives us a 74 percent recovery rate. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that glaring green piece of the pie on the left, on your right, that number indicates the stolen vehicles that were unlocked with keys left inside. That's 62% of all stolen vehicles in the village. And the last graph on here is our robberies. There were three robberies in 2024 accounting for accounting for a 50% decline from 2023.

Shoplifting. There were a 139 cases in 2024, which is down 19% from 2023. Seventy two or fifty two percent of them occurred at the mall. Fifty nine or forty two percent were cleared either by arrest or exceptionally cleared. So many of the cases for these exceptionally cleared cases are where the victims would rather trespass the offender rather than pressing charges for the theft itself.

16 of the cases involved juveniles. Golf cart incidences. There were 80 total golf cart incidences in 2024 with 27 traffic stops, 19 incidents that involved juveniles, and 16 crashes. So we recognize the importance of this issue and made it one of our top priorities. In the 2025, we conducted a large scale operation focused on education and safety.

Community policing created a public safety announcement, which was disseminated throughout major media platforms. Operation Fairway amounted to 24 golf cart stops, 35 plus consensual encounters, 70 vehicle stops in school zones, 24 ordinance violations, 66 written warnings, 15 citations, and two bicycle warnings. Traffic crashes. There was a 12% decrease in crashes in 2024 when compared to 2023. We do recognize that there are seasonal spikes, and we monitor trends closely to adequately deploy resources accordingly.

Citations and warnings. Although we still have a high frequency of stops, you'll notice a decrease in all categories in 2024. And this is the contributing factor to this included being an election year and the reassignment of our traffic units to assist with president Trump's protection after following two assassination attempts and active campaign schedule. Juvenile arrests and monitoring, other otherwise known as JAM. The JAM monitors juveniles exclusively for the village.

He focuses on early intervention, outreach, curfew checks, works closely with the DJJ and school board. In 2024, our JAM deputy our detective handled 90 juvenile cases with 32% clearance rate. He also is assigned other duties. He's attached to our detective bureau, so he handles detective cases as well, specifically those that are juvenile related. Citizen observer patrol, Unit one.

The overall PBSO volunteer program has approximately eleven thirty five active volunteers. The village of Wellington, known as unit one, has 23 volunteers. The unit was responsible for fourteen thousand fourteen thousand five hundred and ninety nine volunteer hours all within the village. Volunteers were in the neighborhoods, parks, school zones, you name it, they were there. They're all over the place. They also conduct parking enforcement. In 2024, Unit one wrote three seventy seven tickets and warnings. And I'd like to take a moment just to recognize two very special members of the volunteer program for Unit one. Their contributions extend beyond Unit one. They were recognized across the entire program for their outstanding service.

We have volunteer captain Howard Gross, who was honored with the 2024 Volunteer of the Year, and volunteer captain Ken Finkelman received the distinction of the twenty twenty twenty four Volunteer Captain of the Year. So you had the volunteer and the Volunteer Captain of the Year both within this unit for the entire volunteer program. Home Away and House Watch Program. There were 40 extra patrol requests, 23 home away watch submissions. And we encourage residents to go to this site and report these home away and house watches because it's really good when they travel.

They get an extra set of eyes on their house for us to be able to drive by and check things out for them. Here's just some comparisons. All right, as you can see, the graph on the left is going to be the population. And that's going to remain consistent over the next few slides. And you can see residential burglaries per 100 residents. Wellington is in the red. It's at the bottom three. When you compare it with Delray Beach, Boca Raton, Green Acres, Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter, and Royal Palm Beach. Here we have vehicle burglaries. We're second to the bottom, which being at the bottom is a good thing.

Robberies. We're at the very bottom. Accidents and hit and runs. And finally, shoplifting. Not all these other cities have malls, but we do along with Gardens and Boca.

So in summary, Wellington continues to benefit from the strong proactive policing, declining crime rates, and active community involvement. Despite challenges like golf cart safety and resource allocations for national events, the village remains one of the safest communities in Palm Beach County. I'll take any questions.

Okay. Thank you. I mean, I think we probably saw recently in the, I think it's a national paper called The Town Cryer that I think goes I'm just kidding, it's not national, the local paper. We saw a write up recently that said it went down and it was a good article about the department also. So congratulations on that.

Thank you.

And obviously keep up the good work and the press on that is good. So any questions?

I've seen a lot more the enforcement of the commercial vehicles, you know, quite a bit on Forest Hill. That's awesome.

Yes.

Has there been an increase in deputies over the past few years as well?

We have the same number of deputies. The last commission meeting or council meeting, they approved the budget for next fiscal year. And they increased one of our sergeant positions in that.

Thanks. For the folks that are watching at home, how do they go about notifying PDSO if they're going to be away from their home for a couple

of weeks? So we have a website. It's on our page, pbso.org. They can go right on there under the village of Wellington. And do you guys have it on your website as well?

:We do, yes. If you go on the village of Wellington and you go to the PBSO tab, it's

:There on go. There as

:And it links direct to exactly what the lieutenant's saying.

Anything else? Thank you.

Thank you very much.

You're

welcome. Next is the Palm Beach County Fire Rescue report.

Afternoon. Amanda Vomero, District twenty eight with Palm Beach County Fire Rescue. Nice to see you all this slightly rainy afternoon. Hopefully it passes quickly. I'm going to keep my report short because I have Mrs. Anna Stewart here who's going to present from Drowning Prevention. So for the response time report for the last quarter, it was for June 10 through yesterday, September 9. We had a total of sixteen oh three emergency response calls in the village of Wellington. The average dispatch handling time was forty five seconds. The average turnout time was forty five seconds.

The average travel time was five minutes and nine seconds for an over, a total overall average response time of six minutes and thirty nine seconds. We had just about 75% of those calls were medical calls, medical in nature. So I have Mrs. Anna Stewart here. She's with the Drowning Prevention Coalition. I thought with the opening of the new aquatics facility, and although it is at the end of summer and we're starting fall, however, I thought it would be pertinent to the opening of the new aquatics center. So without further ado, I would like to introduce Ms. Sanna Stewart.

Thank you and welcome.

Hi, everybody. Hi. How are you?

Good.

Okay. I think I already ended the program, and I didn't even start it yet. Hold on. Okay. Rock. I appreciate the fan favorite. All right. I am Anna Stewart. I am the manager of the Drowning Prevention Coalition of Palm Beach County. Have any of you ever heard of us before? Yes?

You're at the fair, right?

JULIE Oh, yes. Seventeen days of my life is at the fair every year. So yes. What am I doing wrong? Oh, this is very fancy. Okay. So I'm the manager. My coordinator is Bambi Fanto. We are two people for all of Palm Beach County. Two people to educate 1,500,000 people about water safety and drowning prevention.

So we certainly need all the help that we can get. Basically, what do we do? We offer a free reduced cost swim program for children ages two through 12, which I'm happy to report is now being increased to 17 years of age. So it's not two through 12 anymore. It's two through 17. And the immediate caregiver, we will provide free reduced cost swimming lessons as well. Because we find that adults themselves don't know how to swim. They want to get the swim lessons for their kids, and not necessarily for themselves. But we know how important it is to be water safe and water smart. Because everybody is susceptible to drowning regardless of your age, race, gender, socioeconomic background, and swimming capability.

And I've been doing this for twenty one years, twenty two years. In December, I will be with the Drowning Prevention Coalition. So a long time I've been here. I am actually a non fatal drowning survivor. I almost drowned chicken fighting when I was eight years old. If you remember what chicken fighting is? What's chicken fighting? If you would be so kind. Could you

do that?

I'm not sure.

I get an issue.

Right. So you have somebody that's on the bottom, somebody that's on top. And you just try to knock, you know, each other over, which is not very safe, as I learned when I was eight years old. My mom thought my dad was watching and my dad thought my mom was watching. And guess what? Nobody was watching. So don't chicken fight. We offer free land, virtual water safety presentations for audiences of all ages. So we go to elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, HOAs, businesses. You name it, we will go for free.

Free being the operative word. Doesn't cost anything. So if you want us to come and we can do the of water safety, my specialty is how to escape a sinking vehicle that goes into a body of water, because that is one of the leading causes of drowning in this county, and a big fear that a lot of people have. But we just want to get the information out into the community. And we also hand out water safety information at health and safety fairs, like the South Florida Fair. And I will be there again this upcoming January.

Come say hi.

Come say hi and grab some goodies from us. We are actually a government agency. Your hard tax dollars at work right here were funded by the Board of County Commissioners. And the Children's Services Council of Palm Beach County. The Children's Services Council, they pretty much fund our free reduced cost swim program. And why should we care about drowning prevention? We're surrounded by water. Right? And I just want to let you know, in terms of our free reduced cost swim program, during the summer time when it's the most robust, we have 18 aquatic facilities that participate in our program. And the village of Wellington, thank goodness, is one of them.

And I'm looking forward to the new opening of the pool. But just so you know, this past fiscal year, our swim program just ended. We had 91 vouchers vouchers that were redeemed at the aquatic facility. Our voucher programs were $60 And since it's $60 charge at the village of Wellington, it's free for people that participate in our free reduced cost swim program. Okay. Basically, drowning is quick and silent. And it can occur as little as two minutes. Irreversible brain damage in four minutes. And this is what's really upsetting. Well, all of it's upsetting.

But most children who drown are, they're out of sight for less than five minutes in the presence of one or both parents or caregivers. And unfortunately, children have a tendency to die that have been submerged between six to ten minutes. And, you know, children who drown, they don't scream, splash, or struggle. So we say, there is no sound when a person drowns. Period.

Because if your mouth is underwater, and you're yelling and screaming, nobody is going to be able to hear you. So some statistics just for your information. This is between twenty and twenty twenty three. I get every medical examiner report from the ME's office where the person dies by drowning. Now, with regards to the motor vehicle crashes and bodies of water, where the ME's office says the person died by drowning, I count that in my statistics.

However, if you go to the Florida Department of Health and check out their statistics, they consider these motor vehicle crashes and not drownings. So you will never see my numbers the same as that of the state. I would like to say that my drowning stats are pristine, right, and most accurate. Because if the Emmy says they die by drowning, I'm going to count it. So, with that being said, between 'twenty and 2023, we had two hundred drowning deaths.

The majority of our drownings do not happen in swimming pools. They happen in open bodies of water lakes, ponds, and canals. I am currently reviewing now our statistics for 2025. And I can tell you right now, the open bodies of water is going to drastically increase because of those nine individuals that perished out in Begley when their motor vehicle went into the canal. And we had five children drown and four adults drown. Which is anomaly, but it's going to increase our numbers. So accidental drowning deaths in Palm Beach County rates by age. So children ages one through four have the highest drowning rate in Palm Beach County. Why do you think that is, in your opinion? Just from

can't swim.

Excellent answer. That's not number one.

The parents aren't watching.

Exactly. You got it. Lapse in adult supervision is the number one reason why children drown. But then you look at that twenty through twenty four age group. Second. And why do you think that is?

Alcoholic drugs.

Very good. Drugs and alcohol. And then our senior population, they're by themselves in a body of water. No one is there to help them in case of an emergency, and they end up drowning. So this is age and location. If you see the look at the baby blue, that's swimming pools. You look at the pink, that's motor vehicle crashes and bodies of water. And we also have the canals, lakes and ponds. That's, like, in the middle in the cream colored. So that and all this information is available.

So if you want me to send you an email with additional statistics, all you have to do is just let me know, and I'll be more than happy to provide that to you. So basically, if I were to come to your community and talk about the ABCDs of water safety, we'd talk about adult supervision and always swimming with a buddy. The biggest thing that we recommend to the public is always having an adult water watcher any time you're in or near water where there's a lot of people. Because, as I mentioned, I thought you were watching. My mom thought my mom was watching.

My dad thought my mom was watching. My mom thought my dad was watching. No one was watching. Well, if there was a water watcher, I have a feeling that I probably would not have had that non fatal drowning incident. So we recommend a sober adult whose sole responsibility is to walk around that body of water without distraction. Without distraction. And do this for like about fifteen minutes. Right? Wear a lanyard or a hat or something of that nature, to identify you as that water watcher. And you're just walking around that body of water.

The reason we say that you need to walk around that body of water is because if you're sitting down, can you see the bottom of the pool? No, you can't. That's why you have to physically be walking around and not sitting and hanging out on a chaise lounge. And being on your phone, looking up, looking down, that's not active supervision. If you talk to a parent who has lost a child to drowning, most likely they say, it happened in like just a second. I didn't even realize what was going on. I just lost sight of them for a minute. Or I wasn't paying attention. I was talking. I turned my head.

It can happen. And you can drown in the time it takes to answer a telephone. So, and if nobody is watching, what do we need to do? We just need to encourage everybody to get out of the water. So B is bathroom safety barriers, backyard, beach, and boating safety. So we talk about bathroom safety, where can you drown inside your home, especially if you have young children, you know, bathtubs, buckets, toilets, washing machines, fish tanks. Take your two pointer fingers for me. I'm doing this for a reason. Thank you. I'll point you out. Okay. Put one above your nose, one below your mouth. Bring your two fingers forward in front of your face and stop. If you see the space between your two fingers, that's all the water takes for you personally to drown. That's it.

So all the water has to do is what? Cover your nose and mouth. That's two inches. So, you know, being, having been here twenty one years and going into high schools, I will never forget, I had a student ask me, dude, can a baby drown in a bowl of cereal? And I was like, does it have milk in it? And he's like, yes. I'm like, well, then, yes, a baby can drown in a bowl of cereal if there's milk in it. He's thinking it's funny. But what is milk? It's a liquid medium. Right? So yes, you can drown. Can you drown in a puddle of water? Yes. What if you fell?

If you slipped? You know, and you hit you. What about can you drown if you're taking a shower? Absolutely. You slip, you fall, and your body covers the drain. Where's the water going to go? It's going to go up. These are things that people don't think about. Right? So we're asking people to be proactive rather than reactive. And then the barriers. Obviously utilizing layers of protection is really important. You have your doorknob covers, your door lever locks, your bath shower mats for slipping and falling, door alarms. And we're in hurricane season. What are we told to do during hurricane season with our bathtubs?

Fill them up.

Fill them with water. Well, if you have young children, is that not a drowning hazard waiting to happen? Yes, but people aren't thinking about that. They're worried about losing their electricity. They're worried about losing the roof. They're not thinking about, oh, my kid's going to drown in a bathtub. So we recommend getting like a storage container, a large storage container, and put the lid on it. Right? And so that way it prevents a child from gaining access to the water. You also have window alarms, toilet lid locks.

There's lots of layers of protection. So if your, you know, supervision fails, hopefully there's another mechanism in place to prevent that that tragedy from occurring. And then outside the home, have the pool alarms, the pool covers, pool nets. I'm not a fan of the pool nets, because if a part of the pool net is not actually placed properly, and a child were to go onto that pool net, it will sink and go in the water. So like, what's the point? But you need to have those layers of protection. Isolation fencing is going to be your best option, as long as the panels are not, you know, ripped. You also have gate alarms, vacuum locks, safety wall fittings, safety buoys, wrist alarms. There's so much stuff that's out there. So how do you save somebody from drowning?

You tell me. What do you do if you find somebody drowning? Your child's drowning. What are you going to do?

I'll grab them right here.

You're going to grab them? You're going to jump in?

Well, yeah. If someone is drowning where, in the pool?

JULIE In a pool. WOODRUFF: I would play water. JULIE college, so I would jump in. And the person's going to grab onto them. They're going to go under. And most likely, you're going to have two drownings now. So we don't recommend that. We recommend reach or throw. Don't go. And we teach children as young as two years of age, reach, throw, don't go. What kind of items can we use to reach a long object out to somebody? You know, you've got the broom. You've got the shepherd's hook, hose. Anything that elongates your reach, right? And you can even throw an empty Styrofoam cooler.

But obviously you want to call 911 right? And be on speaker and let them know where you are. Or say, hey, you go call for help, etcetera, etcetera. This is a big one, too. If you don't know how to swim, you've got to wear a life jacket. Forget the use of floaties. Floaties are the worst things known to man. Because what are they filled with? Air. Right? If they're filled with air, they can pop, they can deflate, they can come right off the child's arm. It gives you a false sense of security. So if I said to you, Mr. Ladd, I want you to go to the dollar store, pick up some balloons, and grab some string. Right?

Go home, blow up the balloon, attach the string to it, and then tie it around your child's arm, what are you most likely going to tell me? You're going to tell me where to go and how to get there, probably, right? You're going to like, you know, Anna, you're crazy. Okay. Well, do you think floaties are? They're balloons. But people who are buying them think that they're doing the right thing because they're not educated about it. Right? So we are telling people to buy U. S. Coast Guard approved life jackets. But life jackets are only good if they fit you properly. And that's why you have to do the shoulder lift test. If it goes above the bottom of the earlobes, then it's too big. Because if you jump in the water, it's going to raise, and now your nose and your mouth are under the water.

So what's the point of having a life jacket? So you have to do the shoulder lift test. The beach flags. Obviously, it's super important to always swim at a lifeguarded beach. Most people don't, and they end up drowning in rip currents. So even if you have to drive those extra ten, fifteen minutes, guess what? Go to that lifeguarded beach. They are there to help protect you, but they are not there to solely watch your child. You are still responsible, right? As a lifeguard, you know former lifeguard?

Oh, yeah. A while ago.

A while ago. But you had lots of people to watch, right?

Right.

Did you notice whether or not parents were watching their children?

A lot of times they don't. Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Okay. They think, oh, the lifeguard's there, so I don't need to watch my kids. Wrong. You still need to watch your children. Rip currents. How do you escape a rip current? We like to say, don't fight, swim left or right. That's what we teach children. Don't fight, swim left or right. People panic, and they end up drowning. Turn over and float. Yell for help. Swim parallel to the shore. It's often very difficult as an average person just to see what a rip current looks like. That's why the lifeguards sit up in their stands, right? So you can visually see where the rip currents are located. But I've got to tell you, you know, a lot of people don't even know what the purple flag is.

Well, Art, to be fair, I mostly did pools. I was on lifeguard at the beach.

Oh, Okay.

So I taught lessons and swam at the pool.

Oh, Okay. That's Okay. A lifeguard's a lifeguard.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay. We won't But I can

deal with rip currents.

Okay, we won't hold that against you. But it's very important, usually you see a red flag when there's rip currents. And, you know, just when in doubt, don't go out. Okay? And when you see a purple flag, that means dangerous marine life, man of war, jellyfish, sea lice. I don't know about you, but if I see a purple flag, I'm turning around, I'm going home. Right? It doesn't, it's not worth it. And then C is calling 911, canals, classes on swimming, and CPR. The reason why we talk about canal safety is, what are we surrounded by?

Wall. Canals, right? And children, especially children with autism and related disabilities, children with autism are 160 times more to drown than their neurotypical peers. And they're oftentimes, they wander, and they end up not only in pools, but in lakes, ponds, and canals. And so when we talk to children, we say, what's in that water that could hurt you? What do you think the most common answer is? Alligators. Alligators. Right? And you know what the kids say to me? Oh, cool. They're dinosaurs. Like, they don't Nothing seems to phase Mhmm. These kids with this water. Mhmm. Right? And I'm like snapping turtles. Oh, I have a turtle at home. Oh, snakes. Oh, did you know that their skin like peels off?

Like, it doesn't matter. But if I say to them, where do all those animals poop? Okay? What Can I just tell you the reaction that we get from the kids? They go, ew. They don't look at that water the same again. Children understand the word poop, do they not? Do you want to go swimming in poopy water, Chief Romero? You. No,

thank you.

Okay. So children understand. So this is what we teach the parents to teach their children: stay out of dirty water. And this is our information on classes on swimming. With regards to being eligible, parents just have to receive either Medicaid, Florida KidCare, Healthy Kids, the caregiver gets food stamps or Section eight housing, or the child is autistic or currently being fostered.

In order to receive a voucher for program, parents actually have to attend one of our educational programs in order to receive the voucher. Because I find when you just give them something for free, they're not as likely to use the voucher versus if they're vested and come and learn from our awesomeness. D is for drain safety and driving safety. Drain safety, we are concerned about people's backyard swimming pools and suction entrapment. These are for older swimming pools at older homes. I'm not talking about newer homes. I'm not talking about commercial pools. Because by law, they have to have the anti entrapment drain covers. It's people's backyard swimming pools that we are concerned with. And we need to know where the cutoff switch is to the pool pump.

Any of you have a backyard swimming pool? No? You know where the cutoff switch is to the pool pump, right?

Yes.

Okay. A lot of people have no idea. So it's very important. And this is what good drains look like, bad drains. If you have an older home, contact a pool professional to make sure that they come out and check to see whether or not they have a good drain or a bad drain. Do you have a good drain or a bad drain? Do you know?

I would hope a good one.

Okay.

Yeah, it's fairly new.

Okay. So then, yeah. If you have a especially if you have a dual main drain system, you probably so we don't have to be concerned about suction entrapment with your pool. But other people's pools is what we're concerned about. And then finally, driving escaping a sinking vehicle. Basically, just talk about the acronym of be sure, which is stay calm, unbuckle your belt, roll down your window, and exit the vehicle. It's much more involved in that. If you want me to come back and do a special presentation just on how to escape a sinking vehicle, I'm more than happy to do that. It's a very popular program. And this is my information.

I do have our Be Water Smart booklets, which is just a really good resource guide, just of general water safety information, and also has a list of where you can get swimming lessons in Palm Beach County. Any questions, comments, concerns?

Yeah, I have one question. So you said the ages for your for this program is two to 17, 17 Is there any possibility of lowering age as well to say on

your chart here, the age is

from one to four. It's pretty high. So I was wondering if they could walk. Shouldn't the one year olds as well be They

should. But in all honesty, when we talk with the aquatic facilities, it's really the parent and taught class, when they start at two years of age, where the children start understanding how to be comfortable in the water, taking directions, and things of that nature. So under their guidance, they said that, you know, you should start it at two years of age. At two, you can get one voucher, which is good for a parent and taught class. When the child is three, they're eligible for two more vouchers.

Each voucher is good for six to eight swimming lessons in the water, depending on the facility that you go to. And if a child is autistic, they can get three vouchers. So that is the reason why is based on the recommendation from the aquatic facilities. But if somebody can't afford the swim lessons or they don't qualify for our program, you know, Wellington charges $60 for eight lessons and so do all the other county aquatic facilities. You know, in Palm Beach County.

Not Palm Beach County, but I'm sorry, Palm Beach County Pools charge $60 for eight lessons. Some of your city facilities even charge less than that. So I am like, hey, what's more expensive, swimming lessons or a funeral? I mean, it's a life saving skill. Learning to swim is a life saving skill.

I have a question. Yes. For the children that have autism, do they still have to meet those requirements? No.

Well, the age, yes, two through 17.

But as far as like Medicaid

and No, They don't. If they're autistic, they automatically qualify. They just have they have to be non swimmers.

Yeah. Thank you.

You're very welcome. And I believe that the village of Wellington does have an adaptive aquatics class Adopt for children with autism and related disabilities. All right.

Thank you for doing this as long as you have. I admire your enthusiasm.

'm very passionate, right, Chief O'Mearo? She is. Yes. I love what I do. I love what I She is. I'm sad that I have to be doing this. You know what I mean? But, you know, we try to make it not like a wah wah wah, you know. We just want people to be educated and to, you know, be safe in and around the water. Because it's a great recreational source of activity, right? You know, being in the emergency response field, Chief Arena, you know, I'm sure you've come across drownings and very horrible. Same thing, right? Yeah. So this is my information. I don't know how many people are online, but feel, please feel free to reach out to me if you have any information.

Thank you.

Want information. Thank you, Thank Thank you.

And we will now turn to staff report.

All right. I'm Nicole Coats. I'm the Emergency Management and Public Safety Director for the village. And I don't have a whole lot to go over, but I do want to touch on the school zone safety camera program. As you all may be aware, that is actually going live on Monday. So any infraction occurring starting Monday will actually be a $100 fine. So we've started the program in August 11. And from the data we're seeing over the past three weeks, we average about 3,700 infractions. So that's roughly seven forty infractions a day. And by the data, it's occurring during that school zone time frame, so during arrival and dismissal.

So as the state law has prescribed us to use these cameras, we're really seeing that most of them are occurring when schoolchildren are coming to and from school. We do have a website dedicated to this. And I did provide you all this card. We're getting a little dual screen here. I'm not 100% sure why that is, but let

me Hold on.

You. So wellingtonfl.gov/schoolzonesafety is where you'll find out information on the program. Hours of when the cameras are enforcing are here. So just to recap, thirty minutes prior to the start of the school breakfast program, continuing throughout the day, and ending thirty minutes when school ends is when the cameras will be enforcing. But obviously during the 20 mile per hour speed limit is when the school flashers are on and the crossing guards are there.

That's when it's 20 miles per hour. Don't speed then. And then during the posted when school's in session, that camera's enforcing the normal posted speed. Other than that, I'll take any questions that you might be hearing from anybody out in the community.

Is this are the camera systems going to be a permanent system in place? Or is it temporary? Because I noticed they're on trailers.

Correct. Right now, those are temporary. These will be placed on the school flasher signs. So they will be permanent. They're working their FP and L process right now.

So does that mean they're only going to check their speed limit when they go past the sign?

Right now it's when they go past the trailer that's located within the school zone. But when they are permanent, they will be past the flashing sign. When you drive past that flashing sign is where the cameras will be.

So when they're first entering the school zone?

Correct. We have signage out. We have everything out there per the state law. So hopefully everyone's seeing that. We have worked with our principals who've done e blasts out to all the parents in the community. We are doing PSAs. We've had some news networks pick up the story. And we actually are going to have them out, too, on Monday, highlighting the program is live on September 15.

And those stats you gave us, those were since it started on August 11, I think?

MS. Correct.

So we're hoping that eventually this program does go away, because we can curb the behavior and not have to have this type of enforcement. And that's the ultimate goal, is that if we could slow the speed in the community and people get the message, that would be a wonderful end result.

Where are the hearings on that if it is challenged? Is it in this building?

They will be in this building. So I have the little section on here. So if somebody wanted to contest, there's an option to request a hearing. They will be held here. We're going to have those separate from the regular code enforcement hearings. So the special magistrates will be the local hearing officer. We'll get that scheduled. We anticipate in the timeline, if somebody's getting one of these violations starting on the fifteenth, by the time you have the thirty days to pay and then there's a little bit of a cushion, because somebody might pay on that thirtieth day somebody wanted to contest in that period, we likely wouldn't have those hearings start till November time frame.

They're not, are they in this room or just a different room?

In this room.

It's going be in this room.

Correct.

And the special magistrates, is that a, the village pay for that, or is that a volunteer position?

Those are paid positions.

SPEAKER Paid positions. Thank you.

If someone doesn't pay that fine and we want people to understand that, too take these violations seriously and make sure you pay them. If they don't pay, that can and will turn into a uniform traffic citation, which is a $2.00 $6 fee versus $100 fee. And at that point, that's like any ticket. It would go through the clerk of court process at Palm Beach County level. So at that point, you're not contesting here. And the evidence that's being captured by the cameras is pretty solid. So to contest, I think it would be

JULIE Will it show the driver as well?

JULIE Correct. It won't show the driver. Now, the infraction is going to go to the registered vehicle owner. But it will show the vehicle. It will show video, high resolution camera footage, infrared footage of the plate in the vehicle. So all that data is collected. If for some reason the registered vehicle owner says, well, that wasn't me. My vehicle was stolen. My vehicle was being driven by somebody else. You can complete an affidavit of defense and transfer that to the responsible party. But at the end of the day, these infractions will go to the registered vehicle owner to resolve in some fashion.

I have a question. When are the cameras physically going to be placed? Because you said right now they're on trailers?

MS. Correct. They're going to be placed on the flashers in the school zones. And we actually have a map here, which

I'm going to just refresh on this.

This will show you the camera locations. And it's in all of our school zones except Palm Beach Central. Palm Beach Central, that roadway, we are actively looking to make that a school zone, because that's, per the state law, is where they are allowed to be. But those roadways, one is a portion is FDOT, and the other portion is Palm Beach County. So we're actively working on that. So that hopefully is coming in the very near future. But right now that is excluded from the program until we can get that.

And I noticed you put in bold print, which I know a lot of parents didn't realize, that these cameras are enforced during school zone times and they're not allowed to go 10 over the regular speed limit, correct?

MS. Correct. MS. For example and this is all per the state law there have been residents say, well, it should be six miles over that triggers the ticket. Per the state law, it's 11 miles per hour or more. So what would happen, essentially, if you were driving 31 miles per hour and the speed limit was 20, then that would trigger an infraction. When school's in session in that midday period, if the posted limit is 40 and you're doing 51, that would trigger an infraction, 51 miles per hour or more. So we're just enforcing what has always been through the use of these cameras.

How about on weekends and in the evenings?

It's not enforcing. So they do turn off. These cameras do have, though, LPRs, which is another great asset. These cameras are at no cost to the village Of Wellington. They're provided by this camera vendor. And the LPR feature is available as well. And those LPRs we have on all the perimeters of the village of Wellington. It's been a great tool, and the lieutenant can probably vouch for that to help with the investigation of certain crimes. But now we'll have them in the interior of Wellington, which is another great safety feature. But they will not be enforcing speed after that third.

Hypothetically, somebody can be going 29 through the school zone and not get a ticket. But if an officer sees them, they're going to get them.

Correct.

And if an officer does cite say somebody was doing 31, 32 miles per hour, but an officer cited at six, we still absolutely want to use law enforcement. And they are in all our school zones. But they can't be there all the time. That would their PBSO ticket would trump this. So there is something on the notice of violation to say, I did receive a citation already for this. So we would waive the $100 fee or dismiss that one. And the PBSO one would stick.

And a fine for this goes to PBSO as well? Or is it

The funds

The fines.

The fines will come to the village of Wellington. And there is a breakdown. Roughly half of that is retained by the village of Wellington. And then per the state law, we have to pay FDLE. We have to pay the school district. And these funds are retained for public safety purposes. And the village has not even gotten that far into what these funds would be used for. But per the law, it's for public safety measures. So really, this program is going to self pay for itself. And hopefully the goal is to reduce the speed.

And it all ties into our Vision Zero, which speed is a contributing factor to severity and survivability of crashes. So if we can all just do the speed limit, you know, we'd be a safer village. And we've seen some pretty egregious speeding. 83 miles per hour in a 45. It's hopefully get the message through.

Any questions on the speed camera program at this time? Well, know where to find me on that if anything does come up. I did also want to highlight we have our top cop, top firefighter presentation to the village council. We welcome the committee and board members here to that. That's going to be on Thursday, September 18 at 06:30 here in the Council chambers. We also have our September eleventh remembrance ceremony. That's going to be next week on September 11 at the Patriot Memorial at 6PM.

Meet tomorrow. Tomorrow.

I'm sorry. That's tomorrow. Tomorrow. Yes. Tomorrow. Sorry. Next week is Top Cop, Top Firefighter. I apologize for that. And then tomorrow, we invite you to September. And then looking forward to October, because we won't meet till December, we have the public safety night out. That's going to be on Saturday, October 4 from five to 8PM. And then we do our national take back day with any unused prescription drugs or expired medications. We do that at the Walgreens at the Wellington Mall, just north of the Wellington Green Mall. And on that, our next meeting will be held here December 10 at 4PM.

And

that concludes my presentation.

Thank you very much. Public comments, have to do a motion for that? Motion or no, it doesn't look like anybody's here. But does that require a motion? Motion for public comment?

Yes. Motion to open.

Motion to open. I need a motion. Someone's got a motion and second.

Motion. A motion.

And then second? Second. Okay. Any public comment? Okay. Motion to close. Motion to close. Second. Second. Have we satisfied that statutory requirement? Okay. Public comments. Staff report, we did staff reports twice? No, you did staff report already, right?

Did, yes. It was on

there twice.

Interesting. Closing comments.

Thank you, guys. No,

closing comment? Anything you want to say?

I would love a copy of your safety report that you did. Is that possible, like a digital one?

It's quite possible. Yes, let

me

look Okay. Into I

would love that.

I have

a lot of neighbors that love to see those type of stats.

Yes. We can send that. We actually did attach it to the agenda packet, too, but I'll make sure you get it again.

Thank you for everything. Keeping us safe.

The only closing comment that I have is, I think if there's anything that you want to say, know staff says this, but I think it's important. We're all here spending our time cutting out of the day and dividing our work day or whatnot. If there is anything that you want, you could certainly email or talk to staff and have them decide if it's something appropriate to be on the agenda. So I always thought it was kind of a group thing and it should come from the group. So if anybody has that ideas, I would suggest to bring that up to staff. Otherwise, I think that would conclude the meeting. Thank you.

Thank you.