City Commission - Regular Meeting

30 court hearing that this one case just keeps setting Friday morning at nine 30 hearings. So Ms. May, you'll have to take over for me when I cut out at eight 25, nine 25. Yes, ma'am. And I have, so I'm going to go first. I have a couple of things I want to bring up.

Madam mayor, it is nine Oh one and we are live.

Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. And welcome to the June, what day is it? 12th. 12th, June 12th, sorry. We've had so many meetings this week, I've lost track. The June 12th pre-agenda meeting. Can I have the roll call, please?

Mayor Betty Resch.

Here.

Vice Mayor Mimi May. Present. Commissioner Sarah Maliga. Present. Commissioner Christopher McCoy.

Here.

Commissioner Anthony Segrich.

Present. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Like I said earlier, before we went on, I have to leave for a Zoom court hearing at 825. So I'm going to kind of go first with a list of things. In terms of presentations, Deborah Roberts works with a group called Veterans. There's a name for it. She'd like to do a presentation. It's a program with veterans with PTSD working at the Benzitin Center. It's a whole program that they do in terms of treating people, you know, veterans with problems.

They also got the Impact 100 grant for that.

Great, great. Yeah, they did. That's right. So she would like to do a presentation about that, and I would like to get approval from folks to do that.

Is she having the agency come directly and do the presentation so we know what they're doing?

She's a representative of it, and she's going to have Benzeit in there. Yes. Yeah.

It's called presentation. That's not my question. I'm saying, is the people who are running the veterans program, is one of the veterans actually coming to help do the presentation? Oh, I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would like to hear from one of the veterans if we're going to hear it. I support it.

Can I clarify a little bit, Sarah, about that?

Yep.

She hasn't, they haven't started the program yet. And one of the reasons she wants to come to us is because they'd like to open it up to veterans in Lake Worth beach first. But they are working through the VA, so she wants to have veterans to be at this thing and to be at the presentation. But it's also because they just got the $100,000.

Okay, well, obviously I support that, so thank you for the clarification.

Yeah, no, she definitely will have veterans here that will be involved with it for sure.

Thank you.

We can do that?

Is this for Tuesday? What? What? Is this for this coming Tuesday?

No, no, no. It's to be scheduled. We're doing the first meeting of the month now. So it's July. Thank you. And then Emily Gregory would like to give an update. Who's our state legislator? We'd like to give an update on the save our homes legislation. Any problem with that?

We should have to wait for the first meeting to hear from our legislators. I think we should be able to if they want to come, we should be able to get them in.

I could not agree more. I would agree with that too.

My hand is up, ma'am. Okay. Sarah? I think that we should hear from Emily Gregory and hopefully Jarrett Rothenstein at the exact same time because we lost all of our appropriations and I would like her to be there to address how she's going to carry forward working for the City of Lake Worth Beach. Unfortunately, we didn't have representation last year and we had a representative from another district that was carrying our appropriations that was looking like we were going to be good until the special election. And then we weren't good, but I would like to hear from Emily and have her and I don't know how everybody else feels, but have her and our lobbyists there at the same time to make sure that they're both on the same page about putting Lake Worth beach as a priority.

Oh, that's fine. We, we all sort of know why we didn't get any money this year, but yeah,

I have to say I was very shocked and put back that the person whose projects were affected was not aware until I brought it up yesterday.

Well, all right.

And Jared should have, since he contacts that person for information on the projects, I feel that he should have also emailed her and said, hey, just so you know, I know you're going into budget, but your projects weren't approved.

I was sort of hoping she'd find out not in public, but that's okay.

Well, it doesn't matter. I mean, we glorified that we got the appropriations. We were excited about the fact that we were on the list and the public needs to know what's happening. I thought that she would have already known. So I just think that Jared, I want to have a conversation with Jared about being a little more, you know, communicative with our staff, that's all.

Yeah. So does anybody have a problem with trying to get them both here? But see, the thing is, we're now at July. It would be the next meeting to schedule them would be, are we too late for the 30th?

No, so they could come on. No, we're not.

Okay, so.

If they're both in town or even if he did it by Zoom.

Right, he's in town. Jared's back in town, I think. So Madam Clerk, can you see about organizing that and getting them on the next agenda?

Yes, so I actually had an update that I've already been in touch with all of them, but that's prior to hearing what the wishes are. So just to make sure they... We're going to try to get them on for the June 30th meeting.

Right.

Okay, so I will reach back out to Jared's office and to Tom, who is Emily's assistant, and also to let you know, Representative Deborah Tenrich wanted to do a legislative update. She had asked for August 4th, and would you like me to see if she could come as well, or we just want...

Either that or the first in July. If I think before August.

Okay. She may not have been available. I think I gave them the July 7th and the August 4th dates because...

If we come to consensus that it doesn't have to necessarily be the first of the month if they're elected, then it gives you some more options for scheduling, Melissa.

Right.

Oh, 100%. I'm going to now reach back out to them and let them know. I'm going to ask if they could come the 30th and then give them all the dates in July so we don't have to wait till August.

Right. That'd be perfect. Thank you. And I'm going to keep going because I really am time crusher. Let's just get my things. Chris, did you have your hand up? Anthony?

I do. I can't. My phone is not cooperating.

All right, so just go ahead. And then Anthony.

Just very quickly, I had two items also that I would like your valued input on, Madam Mayor, so if we can fit them in before you leave, that'd be great.

Okay, that's, yeah, I'm sort of like, but thank you. I'm rushing. Mr. Segrist?

I was just consenting to allow electeds to go on the first meeting. Okay. When somebody asks for consensus, can we please not all talk over each other?

Well, I was trying to do that, but everyone seemed to give themselves. So if you're elected, you get to come, even if it's not the first meeting of the month. Okay. Okay. Another, I have two more things, three more things. The public comment viewer, when you go for the website, Mr. Perry, it used to be when you hit government agendas and one of the items you could hit was public comment viewer. And now you have to sort of dig for it. So if we could have our people put it back where it was, whether you could just, it's right under the commission stuff. So you don't, I would, I think that would be helpful. Okay. We had talked about a camera at the beach. I just would like us not to forget about that. I don't know what's the status of finding out what that would be, but I would like to continue talking about that because I think that would be a wonderful amenity for our city.

A webcam for the beach.

There's a lot of talk about how WMOTA is ruining our city and all that. I've mentioned this to quite a few people who are opposed to WMOTA that If you're very, very concerned about the historical nature of the city, and I've suggested this and no one has picked up the ball on it that from the community, the west side, west of Dixie Highway, when the decisions were made to historically preserve the city, there was apparently a conscious decision not to include anything on the west side of Dixie, west of Dixie Highway. If you drive, and I'm sure we're all familiar, there are lovely cottage communities in there. There are more rentals than we have maybe on the east side. But I think that right now, hear me now or listen to me later, a developer could come in and buy everything from 6th Avenue South to Lake Worth, to Lake Worth Road, to Lake Avenue, knock it down, and put up a 100-foot tower. So if we want to actually be honest, you know, I hear all this noise about Wemota, and I've said this to the people that have talked to me about Wemota and about how it's destroying the nature. Well, there's a whole side of our city that you could be working on or coming to the city to say, we think that's an important thing and we want you to do it. So I'm just putting it out there. Because right now, the west side of our city is not protected historically. So we could end up theoretically with a cute little downtown core of cottages, which I'm resident of, and west of Dixie Highway, have it be completely different. So I'm just throwing that out there into the ethos. If anybody's really, really concerned about the historic nature of our city, stop concentrating on one property downtown and look, as I have suggested to these people, look to the west side. So I just want to put that out there. I think that it was a political decision at the time. And I think that we need to revisit that because we really do want to conserve the historic nature of our downtown. Go to C Street, go to D Street, go to E Street. Those are adorable little cottages that I think should be preserved. I'm not looking for a comment right now. I'm off my soapbox, but I think that's something that, you know, everybody gets walled. twisting their pearls about WMOTA, but there's a whole side of the city that's unprotected, which I have brought out. So I just want, I'm just going on the record. So that's sort of what I have. If we could get an update on the beach cam, that would be great. And if the public comment viewers, that's Mr., I'm going to call on you then, Mr. McFoy, because I'm looking at the time.

Yeah, thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you very much, Madam Mayor, and I appreciate your conflict with the court cases. I have two items. We learned at the quasi-judicial hearing that there are a number of things that we could not discuss and won't be able to discuss at the second reading relating to the proposed K Street public parking garage. So I'm asking for consensus from my colleagues to put a robust discussion on the June 30 agenda of our role, and this came from discussions with the attorney prior to the last hearing, in our role as applicant. We are the applicant, we are the city, as far as I understand. And so I'm looking for consensus to put that discussion on the June 30 agenda. So I'll pause for that, and then I have a couple of things related to that.

Okay, anybody? Mr. Segrich?

Thank you. Mr. McVoy, are you asking for like the attorney to give us an educational session?

No, I'm asking for a public discussion and maybe it'll be a little clearer when I ask for what backup I think should be there.

Could you be more clear now? Because you're asking for consensus to put it on the agenda. So what topics are you looking to discuss? Are you basically saying we as the applicant need to have a meeting about the direction of the project? Or are you saying we need to get educated about our role in a quasi-judicial hearing?

No, no, no, nothing to do with the quasi-judicial.

If you could clear it up, Cruz, that'd be helpful.

Yeah. Clarify is a discussion of where we are going with this project, public discussion, and the backup that I'm asking, which might help I think for any public project that involves a substantial investment, not for little things, but a substantial one, basically the public deserves to understand from their elected officials in black and white their return on investment. So that means I'm going to ask that the backup for this discussion, for us to discuss publicly, we've been suggested that we should have one-on-one discussions, discussions with city staff that's fine but that's not in the public eye we need to discuss as a body what are we doing with this and the backup that i'm requesting and as part of the consensus is in order to understand the return on investment you need to know the total costs and specifically i'm looking for the total construction costs hard and soft total cost of building relocation any legal fees any interest or debt service land acquisition costs living wall costs contingency costs, the inflation, basically the whole package and anything that I didn't think of. And then part two to do a return on investment. I'm not explaining anything new to most of the commission here. You're all business folks. What are we getting for it? How many spaces unrestricted guaranteed are we getting? Because we heard discussion at the quasi judicial when it was proposed that that we might want to be proactive of thinking of safety in the garage, that let's put a gate that closes it up. We were told by William Warren, whoa, don't do that so fast. We are planning to make spaces available for lease to residents of new construction that will be coming, not even stuff that's already there, So I think the public needs to know in writing what is the guaranteed number of fully publicly unrestricted accessible spaces. And then the other piece for any project is what are the operating and maintenance costs and what is the dedicated funding source for those? So we now have a living wall on the thing. We have WGI studies that say that things are gonna get paid for out of paid parking or not out of paid parking. There's a lot of uncertainty on that. So I'd like the backup to include in black and white all of these items. And then we discuss, where are we? We heard a lot of concern from the community of not having this information. And if you think about it, if I get stopped in Publix, And somebody asked me, well, how much does the garage cost? And how many spaces, net spaces are we going to get? I'm not in a position to provide solid numbers on that. And I think we should all have clearly in front of us, these are the numbers. It's going to cost this amount, all the costs, nothing hidden, everything in.

Mayor, I don't mean to interrupt, but you said you have a hard stop at 930. We hear what you're saying. Yeah, Chris, you're really going...

Okay, that's my request for consensus, including that backup.

Mr. Secretary, I see your hands up.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Be quick as possible. We can't do the hard costs or max costs because the consultants haven't actually produced that yet. However, in terms of the number of spaces, we already know that answer. You can go back through and calculate it. No decision has been made as to whether or not things are being leased or not leased. And I suspect that would happen based on utilization. Are there spaces available? Great. Then we can lease them out to try to maximize revenue. However, I do think... a conversation does have merit in that we have not decided the actual use of 17 South M that's getting moved. And that could potentially be a cost that's already baked in, or it could be an additional $2 million. So I, for one, would like to have that conversation of what are we intending on using that for? We need to have that answer before we can actually get our maximum cost. So Chris, I would be in support of having the discussion on 17 South M and what it should be used for. I think you're premature on the total building costs until we decide as a body what that's going to be used for.

Anybody else? OK.

I agree on the South M conversation. I mean, I had some ideas about the parking department and I brought that up the other day at the meeting, the parking division using that building, which would give us minimal build out. But I think that having the conversation on South M is important for the design as well as for the total cost of moving retrofitting minimal or whatever we decide to do. I agree to have that conversation.

Do we? I do, too. I don't know that it, I mean, I think it's separate from the issue of the second reading because the reading doesn't have, the quasi-judicial thing that we're approving doesn't have anything to do with that exact thing. But I agree with you, Chris, and I do think that it is important for us to be transparent. I think some of those numbers have been put out, but I do think it would be nice if Chen Moore, our consultant, could give us a one-pager.

Yep.

with the answers that we know so far. I mean, if we don't know yet, put TBD, because as Anthony said, there are some things that we just haven't discussed yet and we won't know until we look at the need in real time. You know, I think that there are suggestions on things that you can do. Now, as far as leasing spaces, I think we should go forward and do that in the Bohemian. We should leave spaces in the Bohemian if we can, because I know there are people that are looking for safe places. At the Bohemian Rites. The Bohemian Rites, their second cars or their, you know, I don't know who else is over there, but. I don't have any problem with that because we do realize that we could utilize that to a greater extent, at least the portion that we lease. So we would really be subleasing because we don't own that garage. We are lessees.

I think Chris meant leasing. I think it was referring to this. I know.

Mayor, I know.

Okay.

And as I said, we don't know what we're going to do regarding the K Street garage because we don't know if it's going to have the capacity to to have the usage that the city needs in addition to leasing but we do know that for the bohemian right now and if people do want to leave spaces not necessarily because they for any reason i think we could have that conversation because we do know that there is that space right now um but a one pager makes sense and i do think that i i don't think that we're being um anti-transparent i just think some of those answers haven't we haven't made those decisions yet you know when it comes to paid parking um i we don't know right and and the difficulty is you know i think it's pretty simple with the project what does it cost to build the project

What exactly do we guaranteed get? Not what we might get because nobody's going to buy a project.

Madam Mayor, I'm calling point of order. You said you had to leave at 930. We're all trying to get your call.

Yeah, thank you.

You already know those answers.

Yeah, yeah. Let's put it all in. I'm going to stop you, Chris. You know, if there's consensus to have, you know, to have some. review not to stop, not to hold up the second reading, but to get an informational page. I think that's fine.

No, no, I didn't say hold up the second reading. I said a additional discussion, or maybe I didn't say, but that's certainly what I meant, is a discussion, a robust discussion with solid backup in black and white. What does it cost? What do we get? How are we going to pay for it going forward? Chris, you got consensus. Let's move on. Okay. My other item relates to... We can't hear you, Mayor. It was a little unclear. We couldn't hear it very clearly, Mayor.

Okay. Can you hear me now?

It's fuzzy. I don't know why.

Oh, a new laptop. It's driving me. That's my, okay. My other thing, if you can hear me, is on nuclear.

It's in and out, so we only get some of the words. It's not that it's dead altogether. It's weird.

How is it now?

Good.

Okay. My other thing is on New Business B, which is the extension of the lease for Vennies. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. I think I've spoken with the... the tenants from Kilwin's and the t-shirt shop and Mamma Mia's, who's the same person. They're all, I don't think, I don't like, I don't like, I was expecting that we were going to be talking about extending leases on all the properties, not just Benny's. So I would like, you know, again, I have to leave now, but I would like that to be addressed because all the tenants, because of the uncertainty of what's going on up at the beach, would all the tenants would like to have their leases extended.

And why didn't they reach out to the city? Well, I, It does. I'm just asking this.

I reached out to them. I reached out to them.

I understand that, ma'am. But as a leasee, they should have reached out to us. That's my opinion.

I'm doing it for them.

I mean, that's I said I would do that.

I don't know why. You know, so I would like to have that included. in that conversation is is the three i'm asking that the three leases the four leases be um be considered not just the uh not just benny's i think they all need that certainty i would consider them but not without backup in conversation because we don't i don't even know what the original leases are i i don't i would consider them but not all at the same time okay anybody else yeah i'm good with that including them

Including them. I mean, I don't think that the staff will be ready to do that on Tuesday. But I agree that what's good for one should be good for all.

Right. I'm saying is just, you know, we're talking about this one and I know, staff is. So I would just like to have that added and have included whether it's on this. Okay. Mayor, I had a comment on that.

Real quick, please. I'm absolutely against that. These are tenants. They need to make this request. You don't run their business, nor do you have the right to request their extension on their behalf. We don't have that right. I'm just telling you they're interested. That's all I'm doing. We're the landlord. Yeah. So if they want an extension, the proper procedure is they request an extension and then staff spends time on it. We can't say, hey, you know, we'd like the Killens to extend their lease. Let's go and spend the time on it and then ask them, hey, do you really want to do it? If they want to extend their lease, they come to you. It's not how the world works.

They had no idea that there was a conversation about extending Benny's lease, and it seemed like what was good for one would be good for the other.

It's great that you let them know, and if they choose to extend their lease, each of them has a different lease, different lease terms, different options, and then they can make their request. They're all business owners. If they want to extend their lease, they should extend their lease.

All right, I'm fine. I disagree, but that's fine. I am going to cut out because I'm going to be in court in three minutes. So Mimi, will you take over?

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you very much. Take care. Have a good weekend, everybody. Chris, I see your hand.

Anthony, I see your hand, but I'm going to call on Troy.

Good morning. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Question. I just want to get for clarification. Commissioner McFoy and Commissioner Segrist both had two requests for that June 30th meeting. I'm just trying to get a clarification on what we're bringing back because I heard Commissioner Segrist say that we have consensus. So I just want to make sure staff is understanding.

On which items?

reference the garage project and the 17th South End project. So what exactly did you want staff to bring back on the 30th?

If I could list that, I'd be happy to do so.

It's we, cause we have your list, Chris, you've said it, and we also have that in email.

And we didn't, I didn't consent to any conversation about WMOTA. That's not the conversation right now.

That was a mistake on my behalf. I meant the garage.

And I don't know that it has to be on the 30th. That's the point. I mean, these are discussions that need to happen, but they don't necessarily have to happen on the 30th if staff isn't prepared. What I think you should do, Chris, is to send your list over to the city manager. They can get with 10 more. We can get the conversation on the books for the things that we do know or can decide now. But that's where I am on the consensus. So I'll let Chris talk and then Anthony.

Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor, for the suggestion. I will do that. Send the list. And I would suggest that We de facto are moving forward with this or have made a decision, but we haven't really fully publicly made it. And if there are numbers that are unclear, we should at least have the best available estimates and some guarantee of what is guaranteed going to be available in the way of Parkinson's. But I'll send that over. To come back to the other item for the Tuesday with the Benny's lease, I don't want to do pop quizzes to staff.

Hold on. Let's stay on your item so that we can tell staff what they need for this conversation. Christopher, are you adamant that this conversation needs to happen on the 30th or would you be okay with it going into July?

I'm okay with it going into July as long as we have solid background and only as far as the first meeting. I think we need to have this. We've had a lot of public requests for information. It clearly, we don't have, I think the one pager idea is a good one. you know, what do we, what's it costing? What do we get?

Put that on. So if it took them, I mean, the 30th is fine, but if it took them until the first week of July, which is only another week and most of people are on vacation anyway, we, you would be okay with that. I just, I don't have a problem having the conversation. I just want to make sure that staff is prepared for it and that we give them time to be able to do that. Anthony, go ahead.

I would just make sure whenever the meeting comes, it's after the second reading of the site plan quasi-judicial. Otherwise, it's just one big ex parte communication party, and that's problematic. Yeah, that's fine. I don't have a problem.

Troy, does that help you?

So we're reporting on the 17th of September and the garage cost. That's trying to get a clarification. That's all. And you're all right.

And if there are unknown things, let's say that. We just don't know yet.

That's fine. I just want to make sure we want to build the same page. We don't want to expect something that we don't deliver. That's all. I just want to make sure.

And then so, and as Chris says, it could be on the 30th or it could be the first week of July, as long as we... We have some more. Whatever information we have, we should share with the public. I don't have a problem with that for sure. Thank you so much. Anthony.

Thank you. I've got a couple of things.

Hold on. Then let's go back to Chris so we can finish the topic that he was just talking about, the lease thing.

Yeah, the Benny's lease, like I started saying, I don't want to do pop quizzes for staff on the spot. I don't think that's, you know, I try to avoid that if possible. So I'm looking for consensus that in bringing the request forward, one thing is we need some information from legal. Do we have to terminate the current lease in order to start a new lease that extends this? And Some people weren't on the commission at the time, but when we got to the 10-year point of the 20-year lease, we were very explicitly told by legal that the only thing that we had any leeway to do something with with that lease was the rate for the final 10 years, nothing else. And so I'm concerned. I need an opinion from legal. Is that not the case now? We can make adjustments. Could we put it out to bid? because we've made a lot of suggestions that we want to be responsible with public funds and we want to get the best possible situation. Obviously, the best way to do that would be to terminate the lease and put it out for bid. I don't know whether we have the legal ability to do that, but that is an option. The other thing that I would like as part of the backup to avoid pop quizzes is a clear list from staff of what are the responsibilities at that location of the landlord, us, And what are the responsibilities of the tenant? And then clear, verified documentation of what the tenant has in the past done on those lists, you know, relative to those lists. So that's my request for information that be included as backup for the meetings. A clear list of responsibilities.

I heard you. Is that an appropriate ask? I'm asking my other... I don't know. I don't do tenant leases. Anthony?

I don't want to step on legal's toes, but I can answer some of that.

Elizabeth, do you want to answer that as our city attorney before Anthony does?

I don't need an answer right now, but I do know... No, I'm not asking for the answer to your question.

I'm asking, does she know that?

So these are your leases. So if a tenant comes in and is asking for an amendment, they're basically opening the lease up and you can negotiate amendment of any of the terms of the lease. The lease can always be put back out to bid at the end of a lease term, but not in the middle of a lease term. The landlord and tenant responsibilities are often written into the terms of the lease, so we can certainly get those. And I'm not sure if staff has kind of an idea or can put together information on what each tenant has done for their space, but it's possible.

Well, and I don't think we're asking for each tenant. I do agree that we can't add the other in on Tuesday.

I don't know that we would have all that information available for Tuesday.

Okay, so whatever you have available, we'll take.

I do agree with the mayor's situation that I'm uncomfortable with the idea. Okay, hold on.

Chris, it's not your turn. And we hear you. Go ahead, Anthony.

Well, I'm uncomfortable with extending one lease but not offering that to all.

I know. Me too. Anthony, go.

Okay, so the idea that we'd be pushing to bring all of the tenants in when they have not requested this is completely asinine. There's no other way to put it. It's not how these things work. These people own their businesses. They have the right to conduct their businesses. They have the right to ask for an extension or ask for an amendment of their lease. It is not our responsibility to drive this down on them and make them think that they have some sort of obligation to do this, nor should we be spending any staff time on something like that. In terms of the list of responsibilities, you can read the list, the lease. I don't think we need staff to go and pick out the paragraphs where it says tenant responsibility, HVAC. It's explicitly written out in the lease what everyone's responsibilities are. So if you want to do your due diligence, read the lease. Very frustrating for me as a resident watching the last go around. With Benny's, where several commissioners admitted on the dais after stringing them along for eight months, they haven't even read the lease. So to all my colleagues, if you haven't read the lease, study it, because that's our job.

Thank you. Hold on, because Jamie keeps popping his hand up, and if he has something about this, I'd like to hear it real quick.

no commissioner segret shot actually he just covered it um because this original request came in through me from benny's um for the extension and i was going to mention that um you know we had not gotten any other requests from any other tenant up there which is why that wasn't part of the initial conversation so if they do request then we will we'll do the same thing for them if they do request and we're just putting it on record that we are open to that however we are not going to As Commissioner Segrist said, we were acting on what was officially requested from a particular tenant.

Right. Okay. Sarah.

Oh, sorry. Anthony, go ahead. And the item that's coming before us, it's very subtle because we already gave direction to staff to say, go ahead and negotiate this. Staff has spoken to the tenant, I assume, and it seems like there's two directions we can take that that's outlined. One is a very, very straightforward, here's an extension. The other is going back and negotiating more terms. So that's basically, I believe, what we're being asked to give direction on, those two options. So I think we're making a little bit of a mountain out of a mohill in terms of what we want to see. We're basically being asked, are we comfortable with keeping all the lease terms the same, giving an extension, and talk about rate escalation? Or do we want to, if we're granting an extension, do we want to go back and dip in all the other terms and have a full negotiation round like we did previously? So I am 100% against asking staff to do anything on a lease where it hasn't been requested.

OK. Thank you. Sarah?

So I have to agree as a tenant myself, if I go before my landlord and ask him for an extension, I do not expect him to knock on my neighbor's door and ask them. Everybody has to run their business. And I'm not saying that I wouldn't support it. I just don't think that in my opinion, that it's, that it number one shows good faith that somebody from the city is knocking on the door saying, Hey, do you want an extension? I think that that's something that the business should take up. I think that it should come separately. Each lease is its own entity and its own business, including Benny's isn't asking for us to extend Oceanside at the same time. So I think that, you know, those are two businesses that are connected that if we were going to do it, those will kind of make sense. But I am not in favor of lumping them together. I am, however, in favor of if they want it, put them on the agenda. Let's have the conversation. You know, they have been businesses there for 30 plus years and I support that. I mean, I actually support the businesses themselves, but I just, I'm a firm believer that this needs to be separated.

Okay. Thank you. Anthony, do you have more to bring up? You're muted.

I have different topics.

Okay, before we do that, because I didn't do this, I wasn't running the meeting, so I didn't do this, but is there anything from staff that you guys want to add to the agenda for the pre-agenda for Tuesday? Anything specific that you want us to hear?

Not for the manager's office last year.

All right, seeing none, go ahead, Anthony.

Thank you. So at our previous meeting, when I was giving my comments, I talked about my town hall and it kind of got hijacked a little bit and I felt very uncomfortable with the discussion. I felt a little pressure to turn that town hall into a fully public meeting for the commission. I did a lot of thinking about it. If you guys want to do town halls on that topic, I feel like you can. And I do not think I will get the conversation that I want with my constituents. With it being a public meeting, I also think Just given some of my colleagues' inability to respect the speaking order and timelines and talking over each other, I'm not comfortable doing that. So I know I had previously said, sure, we can go ahead and do that. We have not noticed it or anything. So I am not going to make it a fully public meeting. It is going to remain a town hall for myself and the constituents. So I just wanted to let you guys know that. I did get a call and I think several of us got a call from Mitch, the proprietor over at the golf club. He was asking that we potentially postpone the discussion of the ITN. And I'm just interested in my colleague's thoughts on that.

Okay. I'll go first because I talked to him. I think regarding that conversation, the only thing that we're doing is putting out an invitation to negotiate. Actually, I'll go last. Go ahead, Chris.

Yeah, thank you. I have not spoken with Mitch, but I did get an email or something or other. And the indication that I had in that was that it's his, that date that we have it on the agenda is his anniversary. He was planning to be out of town with his wife and could we please, and he would like to be there for the discussion, which seems pretty reasonable as the person who's been there for a while. And I think it's a reasonable courtesy request that we, you know, simply move that to a different point. More broadly, Um, I'm puzzled, you know, just, I'm, I'm, I'm puzzled. Maybe it's something I don't understand about business, or maybe it's something I don't understand about the policy inclinations of, of my colleagues. But I've heard a lot of talk recently that, that we need to do better at negotiating leases. Um, maybe we staff shouldn't be involved. We should have a professional. you know, concern about it. And we have two restaurants in buildings that we both own that we lease. And in one case, we're saying, how about we just hand them an extension a long way into the future of an already long lease? And in the other, we're saying, sir, we're kicking you out and you got to reapply for an invitation to negotiate. I'm really puzzled at the difference in how we are handling what to the uninformed eye or informed eye would seem to be very similar situations. And I'm concerned that, I don't know. And particularly concerned because it's been frequently expressed in the community that in the case where we're saying we're kicking you out and we're doing an ITN, it's been frequently expressed that look, we kind of informally at least ask the operator to make this a family oriented, relatively low cost, accessible with activities.

I'm going to cut you off because you've already said this before and I don't disagree and we've heard that and we're running out of time. So as far as let's just keep focused on do we want to move this from the agenda on Tuesday because that's the request.

I very much him in favor of as a courtesy and just human decency for his anniversary. Move it to a different date so he can be there, Anthony.

I would be fine with moving it to the next meeting.

OK, Sarah.

Can we just recap what we're moving? I'm sorry, can you recap what exactly what we want to move?

So I unfinished business B is an invitation to negotiate for the golf club restaurant lease.

No, I'm not in favor. And here's why. So when we, when we redid their lease, they didn't even bother showing up or coming on zoom. And that shows to me intention of the business owner. And I support the beach club. I go there. This isn't, this isn't a personal thing. We are running a business because they cannot attend. That does not mean that we don't continue business. They should have been there the day that we first had this conversation and they didn't send a representative. The owner wasn't there, their real estate agent, their lawyer, and they didn't even attend on Zoom. Now, all of a sudden they have a petition online that they're trying to get people to sign. They don't, I just feel as if they don't want to pay their fair share and they're going to do whatever they can to rally the community to say, oh, they're a great, you know, family friendly business. Yes, they are. But that doesn't mean that we as elected officials, don't have a fiducial responsibility to our city. I am not in favor of moving this off the agenda.

Okay. My conversation with him was also that I hear that and I understand the request, but we're not negotiating his lease. All we're doing is saying is that we're going to put it out for bid. That doesn't mean that he can't bid again.

Correct. I completely agree with you. And this is an open process.

Okay, so we're two to two, so I guess it fails. And so we're going to leave it on for Tuesday. Sarah, you haven't brought up anything. Before I get back to Anthony and Chris, is there something you want to add?

I would just like to know that, you know, that we gave direction at the last pre-agenda to have a conversation with FDOT. And I want to make sure that that, that conversation is moving forward in regards to Lake and Lucerne. I know that there are a certain couple of staff members who may not be in favor, but that's not the conversation. The conversation was have a conversation with FDOT and bring it forward. Um, so I just want to make sure that that's going forward. Otherwise I don't have anything else, ma'am. Okay. Troy.

I see Jamie has his hand raised. I just want to follow up. As directed, staff did make contact with FDOT and had a conversation. And I think that they want some reassurance before they go through that entire process from the city. before they start doing a whole bunch of research or whatever the case might be. So one of the things we suggested is just to have a conversation with each commissioner about the process and explain to you, you know, what we'll be doing and what they're going to provide, that type of thing, just before we put all this in a formal document. So before they start doing all the research. But staff, you know, staff has moved forward just as directed with BayContactWeb. But this is just something we believe commissioners should have an opportunity to just hear. what are the things that FDOT had to say on the conversation before we did make contact last week.

Jamie?

Yeah, I actually just sent an email to all you guys, just forwarded an email of correspondence with FDOT just ahead of our conversation. And I had literally sent right before Commissioner Malega had brought that up.

I had not even looked at my city phone, just so you know. I didn't see that.

I thought that's why you brought it up. Yeah, so we'll go into that next week, though, and just give you guys some background. And you can see on that email thread I just sent you, it goes back nine years to the original email when we were having the conversation back when Bornstein was here. But, yeah, I've already reached out, and I have a little information for you, I guess.

Okay, thank you. we are we is that something we would need to consider in lieu of the um or in regards to possible tax situations i'm sorry impossible what was that like if we have um a decrease in our property taxes is that i i just want to know how that would affect this transition and if it would be something that we could even afford to do that's all i'm asking

Well, that's going to be part of the conversation because we would also have to take on stormwater and everything underneath the roads as well. So it's just something we need to discuss before I move forward. And as you'll see in that email, they do a full assessment and everything. But I just want to make sure before we have them doing all this legwork and everything that this is something everyone's on board with because there is a good amount of work that goes with this. And I agree. given the relationship we built over the years with them, don't want to have them putting all this effort and stuff into something and us just kind of be like, yeah, never mind. So I just need to make sure everyone's on board. That's all.

Thanks, Anthony. And then I see you, Chris.

Thank you. I just had a general question on the Safe Streets and Roads grant, all for it. Why are we approving it after it's already submitted? Was that just like a timeline thing it couldn't get on our meeting?

Jamie?

That's correct. That was one of the things that we had to get that submitted. I couldn't get it in front of you guys on time. So in speaking with Yannick, he said, I needed to put this on to kind of get approval just official after the fact. Again, if it's something that's awarded and you guys are like, yeah, we're not in favor of this, it's something we wouldn't have to accept exactly. But obviously the idea every time is to get this in front of you guys before it actually has to get submitted. But unfortunately, some of these, you know, with some of the tight timeframes, it's just not feasible. Okay. Okay.

Well, and I appreciate you getting that in because that would be wonderful.

As to not surprise staff, on the lease extension for 1900 for the little containers and so forth, did the lease for those containers come before the commission separately or was it all bundled into the total project? Do we know that? Um, or maybe we can get some, I can get some information on that. Um, um, it doesn't have to be right now, but I w I was curious as to how that came about. Um, and, and why our community sustainability folks were kind of left out of the original 16, um, month lease or whatever that was.

Um, commissioner and I'm sorry, somebody was banging on my door. The original design for 1600 was to include the planning and zoning staff being able to stay in their original locations. As a project got underway late November, early December, we realized we were going to have to take the ceiling out of that area and the floor and also do some significant upgrades to the HVAC system by wrapping the ductwork. And the contractor was not able to figure out necessarily how to improve an area that was going to provide bathrooms where there was an office before. So the planning and zoning staff effectively had to move out. The original contemplation was they would be back in the space by June. We've had some delays. We'll hear about those probably on June 30th. And so we need to extend the fourplex for planning and zoning staff until they are able to get back into their space, which should be sometime in August or September.

Okay. Thank you for the clarity on that. And then just on the ordinance about the VTR, I'm glad to see that coming forward. I think the big question, I just want to know if I was reading it correct, it seems like there's going to be no more internal use and occupancy inspection.

That is the direction we're going if we were going to rely on interior inspections for commercial properties through the Palm Beach County Fire Rescue. If property owners would like us to come inside or tenants would like us to come inside, they can invite us and we would provide that service to them.

I guess we can talk about it at the meeting, but I'd like to explore that, you know, just in terms of are we missing out on anything by not going inside. I know we said we would cut down on things by just doing the first use and occupancy and then not doing the three-year. But that's definitely a topic I would like to explore.

Legal issues with doing interior inspections. And so we wanted to clean things up. Elizabeth and I can prepare a little bit more to talk about it on the 16th, but the interior and there's more legislation appears coming that would limit our ability to get into properties unless the owner or the tenants invite us inside. Okay. Thank you.

Chris, before you go, cause I haven't, I haven't brought up anything. I just want to ask, And this is because I can't remember, um, and this might go to Troy or Jamie because when we 1st, we're talking about the lease with, um. Mitch, did we did we try to renegotiate with him to extend his lease? Or did we decide that we wanted to go out for bid?

Give me 1 answer. Uh, well, we, we did. We'd meet with him several times prior to extending the lease. And some of the terms that we discussed were brought back to the commission to discuss. But we met with him a few times to discuss some of the issues over there and how we wanted to proceed with the lease.

Okay. And so we were unable to come to terms with him at that time?

Well, the terms had to come to the commission anyway. So that's why it was before you guys. And at that time, that's when we received some comments from the commission.

okay and that's when we decided that we would extend to april and we would go out for bed correct because i don't want this i don't want the um that we have an issue with the beach club but it does seem that that is um remember his lease was coming up for renewal at the time so we were trying to decide if we were going to really we were going to go to bed okay okay um I think Anthony's done, Sarah's done, staff is done. All right, Christopher, we have five minutes.

Yeah, thank you. My understanding, and I can't remember where it came from, but my understanding was that, and I don't know his last name, so I'm just going to call him Mitch because I don't know him personally. Mitch Riel. Mitch Riel. was not aware of the meeting the last time that we discussed it or would have been there. That's my understanding. I don't remember where I got that, so I can't vouch for its full accuracy. But I do have to say that to me, it looks like amazing double standard. We have a clear indication that we have to look out for the city's best interest. And on the one hand, on our most valuable property, we're just willing to extend the lease but not put it out for bid. And on the other one, we are complaining that a current business owner is putting out a petition. I don't know whether they put it out or whatnot, but I would point out that one of our commissioners was head of a golf cart parade as part of a petition of the other lease. So I... The double standard here seems really concerning that on the one hand, I don't know, it just seems very odd. Okay.

Anthony, go ahead.

Yeah, so it's actually not odd. Benny's has approximately eight years left on their lease. They are a tenant in good standing that has invested significantly in the infrastructure and build out of their property. So they are a tenant who's very much in the middle of a lease, seeing if they can extend to their maximum term. On the other hand, we have a tenant who is at the end of a maximum term lease. So there isn't the opportunity for extension, I believe, that it would have to be a newly negotiated lease. And I believe staff had begun the negotiation process and that's where we are at. When Benny's came before the commission the last time, they were put through a very aggressive rate analysis and adjustment to their lease. And basically, that's the same process that the Beach Club is going through right now. They're going through a rate adjustment and an analysis of the lease because they're far under market. So, you know, Chris, maybe it'll help you understand it. Think of it as what Benny's went through the last go around. The Beach Club is going through now. And there's nothing to stop them from trying to extend or participate in the ITN and so on. But that's the major difference. You're dealing with a tenant in good standing in the middle of their lease who already went through a significant rate adjustment to bring up to market versus a tenant who's at the end of their lease, not necessarily in good standing with the code violations and some of the stuff going on. who is going through that market adjustment.

All right. So we can discuss the rest of this on on Tuesday. Um, so I, it is nine 59. We're going to end the meeting. I just want to remind the community who's watching that on Saturday, um, unless they're super fast, that starts at 10, but I doubt anybody's going to be landing at 10, but there is the crossing for the cure for cystic fibrosis. The, um, Piper's angels will be set up at our beach and they will be coming across. They are leaving. I think it's, tonight from the Bahamas at midnight. And they're going to paddle across the ocean and land on our beach tomorrow, somewhere between 10 and 4. And the entire community is welcome to come and come on the beach and greet them as they land on the shore. Some of them are doing it by themselves, where they're doing the entire paddle alone, and then others are doing it as relay. Either way, it's quite a feat, and I think having some friendly faces at the end would be really helpful. And for those of you who aren't going to be able to go, I believe Piper's Angels is live streaming all day. So as commissioners, we are invited to go at any time during the day.

And it's a fundraiser. We're trying to fundraise for cystic fibrosis.

I'm sorry?

It's a fundraiser. It's an incredible athletic feat, but the purpose is as a fundraiser to help combat cystic fibrosis. Correct.

Okay. And where are we? It is 10 o'clock, and I don't know if we need a motion to adjourn, Melissa? All right. Then the meeting is adjourned.

Real quick. Are we still having the interdepartmental meeting that's scheduled at 10, or was that really canceled?

That's a Troy.

Yeah. We talked about it being canceled yesterday. I'm getting emails and texts as to whether or not that meeting is taking place next.

As discussed in the department director's meeting, we canceled it.

Okay. Well, it wasn't pulled off the calendars, I guess, for some people, so they didn't know. All right. Thanks.

Thanks. All right. Have a great