City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. Welcome back to the Boca Raton City Council. We're here for our regular meeting. The date is Tuesday, August 25th, 2026. The time is 6.01 PM. The first order of business is the invocation, which I will deliver. Heavenly Father, we're so thankful for the many, many blessings that you've given to us. Included among them, though they are many, are the beautiful city of Boca Raton, the chance that we have up here to help shape its future. We pray for and are thankful for all the men and women who give themselves to this city, whether in the form of public safety or any of

Very good. I had spoken to the applicant and they had indicated their desire to postpone to me as well. So I think we can entertain a motion to postpone. I believe you said it was item 11A? 10A. 10A. I beg your pardon. To postpone item 10A. I remember If you were speaking about the late September meeting, that might be a busy one for us. So I think the applicant is here. Are they okay if we roll it into October? Is that acceptable? So what are the dates of that meeting? Is that October?

October 13th. Okay. So members, are we willing to put... Mr. Rucker, do you have something?

Yeah, October 13 is also a combined meeting. Just keep note of that.

A.K.A. a marathon. Congratulations. If it's the will of the body, I'll entertain a motion to postpone item 10A, and I think it's all of 10A, yeah, to October 13th meeting. Is there such a motion?

Very good. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. VERY GOOD ALL RIGHT ITEM 10A WE'LL SEE YOU BACK ON OCTOBER 13TH ANY OTHER AMENDMENTS TO THE AGENDA MR MANAGER NO MR MAYOR OKAY THEN WE CAN MOVE ON TO LET'S SEE HERE WE HAVE A COUPLE SETS OF MINUTES FOR APPROVAL THE WORKSHOP MEETING MINUTES FROM JULY 27TH AND THE MINUTES FROM OUR REGULAR MEETING ON JULY 28TH ARE THERE ANY REVISIONS OR CORRECTIONS TO THESE MINUTES IF NOT I'LL ENTERTAIN A MOTION TO APPROVE THEM AS PRESENTED SO MOVED Very good thank you miss simple all those in favor please say aye aye aye all right

thank you all for that we can move on now to an important legislative update because today we have our two state senators senator lori berman and senator tina polsky so please step on up and the floor is yours ladies

thank you senators do we have any questions for our yes go ahead miss trucker so thank you very much for being here um before i do my conclusion remarks so just staying on the same topic of property taxes we've had you know we had a lot of discussions by the way this is a governor initiative and he now has moved away from this initiative so whatever that informs the public i sit here every meeting and i give a little property tax update but um a lot of the the fire um you know and the counties and throughout in the state and police have come against Amendment 3 I think it's important to contin

Okay. Well, Senators, thank you again. Thank you for your service to our city and our community for so many years, and we were blessed by your representation. Thank you, guys.

That concludes our presentations and proclamations, and we can move now to board appointments. We have four boards on our agenda, but only two of them have applicants, and by that I mean the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, the Community Appearance Board, the Financial Advisory Board, and the Sustainability Advisory Board do not have any applicants, so we don't need to worry about making any appointments on those. We'll keep those vacancies open. But we can address the two boards that do have applicants, those being the Community Advisory Panel and the Marine Advisory Board. So let's sta

If that is the will of the body, sure. Am I sensing that as the will of the body? All right. Well, then we will hold open the vacancies on the community advisory panel and we invite Mr. Ferris to come and interview when the opportunity arises next meeting. The last advisory board that we have on our agenda is the Marine Advisory Board. We have one vacancy and one applicant, Mr. Ironman, who did interview with us yesterday. So members, what's your pleasure?

Mayor Thompson, I move that we appoint Mark Ironman to the Marine Advisory Board.

I will second that nomination. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye.

Very good. I believe the eyes have it. So Mr. Ironman has been appointed to the Marine Advisory Board. All thank you for your, well, I guess Mr. Ironman, and to a lesser degree at the moment, Mr. Ferris, thank you for your interest in serving. We hope to have as many residents involved on our advisory boards as possible. So we have a number of vacancies. If anyone in the audience is interested, please submit an application. We would love to have you. that concludes our board appointment so we can move on to our consent agenda so let me ask first is any member of the council wish to remove any

Thank you, Ms. Paschke. Anyone else wishing to offer public comment on any items on the consent agenda? Mr. Warner.

Thank you, Mr. Warner. Anyone else for public comment on any of the items on our consent agenda? Last call for public comment on the consent agenda. All right, we'll close the time for public comment on the consent agenda. And now I ask for a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda as presented.

Very good. Second? Nobody jumping into second? Second. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Perlman. It's a consent agenda. There's not really time for discussion. So Ms. Sittons, please take the roll.

Yes. simple no Thompson yes motion passes three votes to two very good and let me just add uh it to the extent the concern there was relating to the cemetery provision which is a perfectly valid point in the future why don't we just pull that one item there's no reason to in my view for the rest of the consent agenda to be uh held up as a result of that

no true but that's how the procedure works in our there's not really the whole point of it the consent agenda is not there's not discussion i understand okay mayors yes mr can i just just make a comment um because i meant to pull it earlier but the firefighter agreement was in here um thank you for your service and that the collective bargaining has been approved with a consent agenda

let me offer this then in the future if there's a pending motion in a second you can move to amend it to withdraw it and look I'm I'm new at this myself so I think that might be in the future how we handle it which is again a perfectly valid thing to do everybody with me I realize that I actually skipped over that little section that mentioned the settees and whatnot and just realized it now so that's why I voted no okay well how about this at the very least let me just before we move on if there is additional revisions that might be appropriate to that particular matter i think you whoever fe

that is the ordinance um and the resolution the uh the direct citation uh fine for this violation would be a hundred dollars um and i am here to answer any questions you might have thank you mr shadd any questions for staff here i have a couple questions um mr shadd how much time has staff spent uh preparing this ordinance from your staff time and the time of the and legal as well to prepare this ordinance

So we've had conversations with pretty much every council member agenda reviews. Staff has been present to discuss this ordinance, correct? Yes. And this ordinance was brought without the sorry, I got to put on my glasses without the Iguanas, rats, and mice. It was brought about maybe two and a half years ago. The pigeon law, we called it back then, or ordinance.

And I believe the council went, it was, I think it was a zero to five vote.

That's my beginning questions. I'll have a few more as we go along. Thanks.

Very good. Any more questions? Ms. Sibyl. Okay. Ms. Sibyl.

I have several constituents that have sent me emails that are concerned regarding feral cat colonies that are being fed that are mostly under trap, neuter and release programs. Also, just having a bird feeder in your yard. Seriously, is that going to be I mean, I understand just a regular size bird feeder. I mean, I'm sure if you're putting out a drum of bird food, that would be a little bit different, but they just want to verify that those will be excluded from this ordinance.

Thank you. I just wanted to assure them that that was the case. Thanks.

Yeah, just a few comments, but I wanted to find out if this was basically responding to a documented community-wide problem or whether this ordinance is effectively being created to address the conduct of one person or a neighborhood dispute.

I have to say, when I saw this ordinance come back, I had to really, I had to contain a lot of the comments that I had to say. First of all, this is very hard to enforce, which we've had this discussion in the past. Second of all, why are we wasting time with everything that's going on in the community, property tax reform, development, We want to get the Memorial Park done on something that is a one single issue. I find it that we're wasting taxpayer dollars by bringing this up because we discussed this ordinance in a different capacity a few years ago. And the fact that we're back here again

Well, thank you, Ms. Drucker. I appreciate your respect on that. A couple comments. One is the old ordinance where you were on the council, I don't think anyone else was, is different in kind. Is there some overlap? Sure. But is it as broad as the last one? No. It's actually quite much more limited. You mentioned that is a waste of our time. This isn't going to come as a shock to anybody sitting in the audience, but some things that we deal with here have real significance to them, and they feel like they have universal significance, but there are other things that are smaller, admittedly. Bel

Thank you Thank you. I think that's all the cards. I have in this item. Does anyone else want to speak on this matter? Please Paschke. I

Thank you. Just to respond briefly, Ms. Paschke, the system in place would be the code enforcement procedure, which is why we're having this discussion now, and it would be reported to the city, and so they would investigate. And ideally, warn the person if they're feeding people to the extent that it's creating a nuisance. Start there, and if they continue to do it, then we have to use the code enforcement process, unfortunately. I don't see that as being wasteful or unnecessary or below us. In fact, I don't believe there's anything that's below us. Anyone else who should be heard on this? Go

I'm gonna pause the clock here. We can't have interruptions. Allow her to speak. Please, Mr. Stahlbaum, allow her to finish.

Mr. Stahlbaum, I'm gonna warn you one last time. Please do not interrupt the speaker when she's speaking. Ma'am, continue.

Anyone else wishing to be heard on this matter? Last call for, oh, go ahead.

Last call for public comment on items 11A. OK, we'll close the time for the public hearing. And I will ask for a motion and a second to adopt ordinance number 5792. I will move to adopt ordinance number 5792. Is there a second? Second. Very good. Any further discussion beyond what we've articulated already? Go ahead, Ms. Rucker.

Oh, yes. I've got more to say. So, again, I think I alluded to this earlier. And Mayor Thompson, we're going to disagree on this one. This is one resident complaint against another resident complaint. It has no room for us in this discussion. in this area, we should not enact policy for one party or for neighborly fights. We have to be better with our governance, better with our time, and better with our property taxpayer dollars. If this was an issue with multiple residents throughout the community, we would have heard about it. And what we've heard, I've heard, I could say from my emails, is

Thank you. Any other comments? All right. Ms. Sittons, call the roll.

Okay, very good. We can move on to item 11b, resolution number 88-2026. Madam Clerk, could you please read the title?

Thank you. Mr. Soheni, who will be making the presentation on this item?

Great. Do we have any questions for staff? Seeing none, we will open up the public hearing. So if anyone wishes to speak on item 11B, resolution number 88-2026, please step forward, state your name and address, and you'll have up to three minutes. Ms. Paschke.

As it relates to annexing that area, it's more complicated than it sounds because there are adjoining properties that would have to be annexed before we could get to it because you can't annex an island, chief among them being the Costco property, which has its own ups and downs in terms of the benefits or I guess the consequences of having that be part of the city. There's no active effort to undertake that. remember when that gift was made back in 2020 there were many desire many requests made of the city by the residents in Boca Country Club to annex them but they also opposed the golf cour

Second, very well. Any further discussion? If not, Ms. Sittons, if you please.

Great. We can move on then to ordinance number 5793. Madam Clerk, could you please read the title of that ordinance?

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Mr. Suhaney, who will be making the presentation on this matter?

Thank you, Mr. Zervas. Are there any questions for Mr. Zervas or other staff? Seeing none, we will open up the public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on item 11C, ordinance number 5793, please step to the podium, state your name and your address, and you'll have up to three minutes. I don't believe what I'm seeing, Ms. Paschke.

Thank you, Ms. Paschke. Anyone else wishing to comment on item 11C? Seeing none, we'll close the time for the public hearing. I believe Mr. Zervas may have an answer to your question. Ms. Paschke?

Thank you, Mr. Zervas. We'll now entertain a motion and a second to adopt ordinance number 5793.

Sippel with the motion. Very good. Who's the second? Ms. Drucker is the second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Ms. Sittons, please.

Very good. That concludes our regular public hearings. We can move on now to public requests. I have a couple of cards and even if you didn't give me a card, that's fine. Now's the time for you to speak up regarding what you have to say about your city of Oak Raton. The first card I have is Jim wood, Jim woods. So please step forward, state your name and address, and you'll have up to three minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Wood. Great to see you again. Next card I have is Mark Griffith.

Thank you, Mr. Griffith. Next card I have is indicates that Lily Perez will be speaking.

Okay, thank you, Ms. Perez. The time is concluded, but I can report that. I believe, Ms. Zabrone, don't go away. I believe that you did meet with Doug Sheedy, one of our code enforcement, the head of our code enforcement department, and then I'm told that Brandon Shad, who runs development services, is gonna be in contact with you to follow up. So we are tracking this. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. Next card I have is Jose Herrera.

Thank you, Mr. Herrera, for bringing these matters to our attention. We'll get on them immediately. Last card I have is Richard Warner, who declines the opportunity. If anyone else wishes to be heard during public comment, now is the time. Please step forward, state your name and address, and you will have three minutes. I'm glad I'm sitting down. Ms. Paschke.

Thank you, Ms. Paschke. Anyone else for public requests? Mr. Bell. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else for public requests? Ms. Parker.

Thank you, Ms. Morrow. Anyone else for public requests? Ms. Heckwist.

All right, we will close the time for public requests, and we will move on to item 13, which is introduction of ordinances. We have three such introductions. Madam Clerk, could you please read the title of ordinance number 5794?

Thank you, Ms. Sittons. I will introduce Ordinance Number 5794. So we can turn then to Ordinance Number 5796. Madam Clerk, could you please read the title of that ordinance?

Thank you. Council members, who will introduce this ordinance?

Mayor Thompson will introduce ordinance 5796.

Thank you, Ms. Trucker. Ms. Siddons, could you please read the title of ordinance number 5797?

Thank you. Councilmembers, who will introduce this ordinance?

Very good. Thank you, Ms. Sipple. That concludes our introduction to ordinances. We can move then to city manager recommendations and report. Mr. Sahany, what do you got?

Thank you, Mr. Sohaney. City Attorney Report, Mr. Kaler. Great. We can then go on to Mayor and Councilmember reports. Why don't we start to my right, Ms. Drucker?

All right, he can. Very good. I, too, have no report. Thank you all for your patience. We will then conclude. If there's no other business before the City Council, I don't believe there is, we will conclude our meeting at 7.50 in the p.m. Good night, everybody.