City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everybody. This is your Boca Raton Community Redevelopment Agency. We're here for our regular meeting. The date is Monday, August 24th, 2026. The time is now 1.34 in the p.m. First thing we'll do is pledge our allegiance. So if everybody could please rise. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Miss Siddons. If you could please do the role.

Very good, thank you everyone Mister director do we have any amendments to our agenda today.

Very good that means we can move on to our minutes, I believe we have one set our minutes from the regular meeting of July 2720 26 are there any revisions or corrections to those minutes if not all entertain a motion and a second to approve them as presented. Some of thank you, Mister.

Thank you, Ms. Sybil. All those in favor of approval of the minutes, please say aye. Aye. Thank you. Ayes have it. We have no presentations today. We have no quasi-judicial or related public hearings. We also have no resolutions in regular public hearings on our CRA agenda, so we can move to public requests. If you all, anyone in the audience, has something they'd like to be heard on relating to our downtown area, the Community Redevelopment Agency area. The time is now yours. Please step to the podium, state your name and address, and you will have up to three minutes. Last call, public comme

We're setting records here. We can move on to commissioner's reports. I'll start on my left. Ms. Sipple, do you have a report today? I'll go towards me and we'll pretend Mr. Perlman is here physically. I see you're on the video, Mr. Perlman. Do you have a report, sir? No report. Very good. Ms. Drucker?

I, too, have no report. So I think that means that we can conclude our CRA meeting in record time. The time is now 1.36. Stay tuned. Don't touch that dial. We'll be back in just a minute for our regular council member meeting. back in just a moment. welcome back everybody thank you for your patience we are here now for a workshop yes i said it right this time workshop meeting of your boca raton city council's day is still august 24th the time is 1 37 p.m the first thing on our agenda for our workshop meeting is board interviews we have a series of boards that have some vacancies the first one

Thank you, Mr. Ironman. Do we have any questions for the applicant?

Our appointment will be made tomorrow night. Last board we have on our agenda today is the Sustainability Advisory Board. We have no applicants there, but if you're interested in applying and interviewing, please do so. You can come back tomorrow night and interview with us then. That concludes our board appointments. We now can move to proclamations and presentations, of which we have one, a Vision Zero update. Mr. Sohaini, who will be making the presentation on this matter?

Thank you, Mr. Beer. Members, do we have any questions for staff? Ms. Sybil? Go ahead.

We were given 300,000 and then we put in $79,270. Of that $4 million in 2024, what have we spent that on?

So we've identified high-injury corridors, intersections, whatnot. But a lot of those aren't BOCA. They belong to FDOT County, like you were saying. So are we going to use that money for those roads? Or are we going to ask for something written from the county, from the state, to provide additional funding to make those intersections safer? since this money is given to the city for our roads?

Okay. If we go ahead and adopt this, how are we going to gauge success? let's compare it to Fort Lauderdale because Fort Lauderdale is the only person that's the only city that's has some robust data they've it's been since what 2015 that's generally yes and the first year they claimed it was a success and now they're at their highest rates of serious accidents since it was implemented and I know that correlation isn't causation but When we're adopting this, I think we should have something that we look at this yearly. Is it making a difference? Because you can put anything you want up to try

roundabouts, people don't even know how to use them. And if you look at 18th Street, they actually just stop. It actually almost creates more of a chance for a crash. So I'm concerned about that. So how will we measure success?

I mean, I think it would make sense if we identified the top 10 intersections that are city roads or, you know, and then focus on them and see, you know, like pilot program for those. But that's my opinion.

Okay. Thank you, Ms. Sipple. Any other questions for Mr. Beer? Ms. Grau, go ahead.

Yes, I was just wanting to know if we are taking a look at e-bike regulation and how we can incorporate this into our plan. We've seen a tremendous amount of use of e-bikes and speeding. We get a lot of emails about it. I'm not sure if there's been any fatalities, but I think that's something that we also need to look into.

May I just add to that I believe the county is undertaking a study as well to determine if they should have and we I think we were hoping maybe to see what the outcome of that was to see if those kinds of regulations might make sense here too is that right Mister beer that's my understanding is okay. Good struck her.

Thank you. If I could just add to the e-bike discussion, there's going to be a presentation or there's a seminar coming up in September. I'm not sure the date, but I can find out by tomorrow's meeting on e-bikes. So other cities throughout the county have started to adopt e-bike ordinances. So, for example, I think last week Wellington passed one of their ordinance, which I don't. know how they're going to enforce because they have age restrictions it's hard to know like when someone's on e-bike what age are they are and you know there's a bigger conversation piece so i'm looking forward i thi

Thank you, Ms. Drucker. Any other questions, comments? Go ahead, Mr. Kaler.

And Net Zero was also an internet service provider in the early days, weren't they? Only people of a certain age remember that. Any other questions, comments? All right, seeing none, I think we can conclude our presentations and proclamations, and we can move on to public requests. So now's the time, if anyone in the audience wants to be heard as it relates to the Boca Raton city generally, not just the downtown, please step forward, state your name, and you will have up to three minutes. First card I have is Mr. Starkoff is on his way, must be seeing the future. Go ahead, Mr. Starkoff.

Thank you. No problem. anyone else for public requests relating to the city at large please step forward state your name and address and you will have three minutes more or less anyone else last call all right we will then close the time for public requests we can move on to our next item which is future agenda matters does anyone have any questions relating to any items on our regular agenda tomorrow night No?

Thank you, doctor. Any questions for Dr. Bernard? No? Okay, Ms. Sipple, go ahead.

Why did we use such a small number of interviews?

Is that the normal confidence level for a survey?

Can I interject for just a second, Ms. Sippel, to say that 300 responses seems to be the customary amount for even much larger areas when you're polling. I've seen samples of 300 used for counties, even states. Is that right, Doctor?

Any other questions? No? All right. Thank you for your time, Doctor. We appreciate the results here. Thank you. Anything else in your report, Mr. Sahany? Very good. Mr. Kaler, City Attorney Report.

Great. We'll go back around the horn again, if you don't mind. Ms. Sipple, do you have any report?

Thank you for the presentation. The only thing I would say is I do stand behind what I presented to the Council over the last several months and. It was a small sample size and I believe that the downtown location would be favorable for the city. And beyond that, I just want to thank you and. For thank you for the work and the presentation.

Yeah, just go over a couple of things as we have a little bit of time. So our last MPO meeting, they presented the 2026 annual report. Deputy Mayor Grau has a copy of this. I have a few samples here if people want them. It's also online. Just wanted to bring to everyone's attention. One of the things is that we got a tip, which is a transportation improvement program allotted to Boca Raton for FY30 for our traffic signals. So again, it's important to track these projects. Infrastructure projects are costly. They take time and they're earmarked years in advance. So we're always working together

YES, I JUST WANTED TO DISCLOSE SOMETHING THAT I LEARNED AFTER THE LAST MEETING ON JULY 28TH. WHEN WE WERE RANKING THE FIRMS FOR THE MEMORIAL PARK MASTER PLAN, WHEN WE RANKED CHENMORE AS NUMBER ONE, FIVE TO ZERO VOTE, I LEARNED AFTER THE MEETING THAT CHENMORE IS A CLIENT OF MY HUSBAND'S COMPANY WHERE I'M AN OUTSIDE EMPLOYER. I WAS COMPLETELY UNAWARE OF THE CONFLICT WHEN WE RANKED THE FIRMS, BUT I REACHED OUT TO THE CITY ATTORNEY.

and as full transparency i will be upstanding for voting on awarding the contract okay does that conclude your report all right thank you ms grau i have no report so that means that we can conclude our business today at the boca raton city council at 2 40 p.m see you all tomorrow night 6 p.m