City Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the City of Delray Beach regular commission meeting this Tuesday, September the 8th. If the clerk could kindly call the roll.

Thank you very much. If you could all please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you very much. We have the agenda approval. Is there any items on the agenda you wish to pull? Yes, go ahead.

I have one item, 6F1, the appealables. And the item is the SPRAB 8-26, 120 Southwest 3rd Avenue, please.

So you want 6F1 to be the appealable, which will become 7AA. And which is the other?

That's it. I was just being specific about the item. There's two in that category. Oh, fine.

OK. Are there any other changes? Then I need a motion to approve the agenda as amended.

Motion to approve his agenda as amended.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That's it. That's adopted. All right. We're into the proclamations at the moment. So the first is the proclamation of Constitution Week. Marjorie Ferrer is here somewhere.

So there we go. Okay. Whereas, in this 250th anniversary year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed to the world the revolutionary self-evident truths that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, And whereas in this 239th anniversary year of the drafting of the Constitution of the United States by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, which created the enduring governmental foundation of we the people securing these self-evident truths, and whereas

Why don't we do the photograph and then I'll give you two. We're just going to go right to the front with the American flag right behind us.

We now have the recognition of the beach keepers. Commissioner Casale will present this item.

Oh, great. Thank you. And this is a good thing to be presenting at this meeting because we are also approving the proclamation as September 19, 2026, as National Cleanup Day. So, totally appropriate timing to recognize the Beach Keepers here in Delray Beach. And I will read the recognition. Beach Keepers Inc. is a Delray Beach-based 501c3 nonprofit environmental beautification organization that has been active and in good standing since February 2017. The organization coordinates volunteer cleanups through Delray Beach and South Florida, focuses on beaches, parks, city streets, waterways, and

If you want to say a quick 30 minutes, 30 seconds, excuse me, not minutes, I apologize, Mayor. No, that's fine. And then we'd love to take a picture with you so that you can have a photo. Okay, great.

Great. OK, the next item on our agenda is the School Board of Palm Beach County Educational Update. I am pleased to welcome a member of the board of the School Board of Palm Beach County, Mr. Edwin Ferguson.

I would say thank you for coming. It's always a pleasure to see you. And I think we were just, I was just talking to Kay Johnson about the children rating and how important it is in that scenario where we need some improvement with the younger children. And I would be remiss if I didn't say we did have our education roundtable, the first ever. Nice. And it was... Quite a great experience, and I would say very productive, I think, outcomes for us in how to move forward and help our children get a better quality education and also young adults moving into the workforce. So thank you very much, a

Any other comments? Just a big thank you for what you do. Oh, absolutely.

You know, what people don't understand is that the kids at reading level by the third grade, their chances of success or doing anything and not ending up in jail or worse is just multiplied by exponentially, and it's just unbelievable. So keep up the, you know, I love your initiatives.

Probably too heavy for a quick question, but like how do we reach the three-year-olds? For somebody like me, my kids all grown, my grandkids, I helped them out. Now how do I help out some three-year-olds? And the second one is some of the people that are afraid to bring their children to school, can people like us that aren't afraid take those kids there?

The wraparound programs, right? That's why we're advocating for those programs, right? So that by third grade, kids can read.

Thank you for the recognition. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Okay, 4D. This item, by the way, was on the agenda last week, which we moved it to here because we were running late last week, so we moved it to here. This is the city manager's annual report from the city manager about accomplishments that the city has done this past year, just to put on the record so that everybody knows that we're just not up here not doing anything, that we actually are moving forward in a lot of different areas. So, Mr. Moore, I turn it over to you.

thank you very much and the report is part of the record so if you haven't had everyone you have a chance to read it and they're out there with this part of the record and it really articulates all the different things that the city is doing including the major projects and it's it's where it's a good read it's it's good to see what we're doing um to get things done thank you mr moore our approximation national forensic science week Whereas forensic science is a critical component of the criminal justice system, providing crucial tools for the investigation of crimes and the identification of

Great. Thank you very much. All right. We are now to the comments and inquiries on agenda and non-agenda items from the public. And I'm going to read the rules as it relates to public comment, and then I'll be turning it over to the city manager for any responses. The meeting is now open to the public. Any members of the public wishing to comment on any topic or agenda item other than a quasi-judicial item or public hearing item should come forward. Members of the public have an opportunity to speak on quasi-judicial and public hearing items later in the meeting as those items are called. For

Oh, you go first. I'm sorry, Mr. Richwagon, you'll have to stand by.

One of the issues is I think that's extremely important, but I also, you know, some of the criticism has been about the day-to-day maintenance.

well yeah i agree but it seems to me that the maintenance component is something that should be ongoing and current as opposed to just seeing how it's going to you know end up on summer and that's the case as well okay all right you're finished now i am thank you we are now opening it up to the public i've given you all the instructions mr rich wagon albert rich wagon 33483 two years on subculture coffee no sidewalk still a bob's barricade sign for two years

I will say that the water plant is not complete. It's going to be complete in a couple of years. And the water rates had not gone up for almost 10 years or so plus. 15. 15 years. And we're finally raising the rates in order to pay for the new water plant so that hopefully in two years from now, when you turn it on, you're going to get a nice, clean, great experience in your water with no, you know, little floating around plastic pieces.

and also can i say something we don't have plastic pieces no sir no but i'm just saying i'm just i know we don't and i want can i add something to that sure so also the new system that is working a lot of people will build for 42 days 43 days so look on your and as opposed to the 30 days and it it did make the bill go up a little more But once the cycle clears itself, then you'll go back to the 30 days. Go back to the normal.

Because I had a lot of people come to me and that was the case.

By the way, for the record, what I was trying to say is that we have all this PFAS, the PFAS things, they're all going to be cleaned out in the new water, in this water treatment. We're going to be a state-of-the-art. With the new system. We are going to be a state-of-the-art thing. With the new system.

No, I don't mean that. Or anything else. I wasn't referring to, I was exaggerating. Obviously, there's no plastic in the water. Yeah, the mayor said, yeah.

I'm talking about the PFAS filtration system, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you very much. Two weeks. Excuse me, two weeks.

I'm sorry, the name was what? Billy Roach. Oh, yeah, Billy Roach.

Thank you very much. By the way, we did not give ourselves a raise. Employees had a contractual raise. Yes, they did.

Thank you. We don't get anything for inflation. Noted.

Thank you very much, Dr. Spindler. Are there any other members of the public wishing to address the commission? Seeing none, public comment is closed. We now go, what? You don't like noise? I now need an approval of the consent agenda as amended.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? It is approved. OK. We are now going to item 7AA, which is former 6F1. Commissioner Casale, you had this pulled from the agenda to be discussed. Yes.

I turn it over to you. 6F1 is the appealables. The second item is the SPRAB 826 decision on 120 Southwest 3rd Avenue. We look closely at what SPRAB is doing, because sometimes those projects don't come back to us for review. And in this case, I think we should just give this. This project deserves our review up here. It's 120 Southwest 3rd. The project density proposed exceeds the base allowance, according to the report. It's five units on 0.46 acres. There are street tree reductions and questions about performance standards. I have not fully seen the presentation, but I do believe that we sho

So you would like to have a de novo item on this to be brought to the commission? Commissioner, Mr. Orris, did you have you? He's on another thing. He's coming for the next one. Oh, you're on the next thing. Okay. So it's up to the commission if we would like to do this. Is there a consensus to bring this back for a de novo review? I think we should. OK. That's fine. Then we are. Do we have three? I need a motion. I need a motion to what? We're going to think that this is going to be appealed by the commission? Yes. OK. Would you make a motion to please appeal it? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No. Fine.

We need to approve the 1231 South Congress. So moved. All in favor? Aye. Fine. We're unanimous. Thank you for that consideration. 1231 South Congress is approved, and 120 Southwest 3rd Avenue is coming back to the commission for a de novo review. Yes, sir. Perfect. We are done. Okay, 7BB. Excuse me, 7A, which is an update on the opportunities of outside agencies and grants from the Karen Foundation Settlement Funds and Opioid Litigation Settlement Funds. Mr. Orris.

Can you clarify what you're saying? I apologize.

You're talking about Karen and opioid. We need to keep them separate because they're two separate things.

OK, the other slide said Karen on it. OK. So let's go back to the opioid money. We're getting how much money annually from the opioid litigation? It shifts around. $62,000 to $92,000, I think you said last year. Right. Listen, guys, and I was going to wait on the budget for this. I am extremely concerned about how we're handling this money. We are committing to increasing our staffing in our highest paid jobs in the fire department, which we were going to be using some of this funding and some of the Karen funding. But now we understand the Karen funding is probably coming to an end. And we de

No, it is, but it kind of is because this may be, I understand, but the grant program we should take, I've said this before, you're using a portion of this grant money towards this program.

Right, but I'm saying we should revisit that decision. In this current fiscal situation, I don't know how we could possibly be doing that and go to prevention.

There's a bona fide point here, which is that we are relying on the settlement agreement to derive these benefits from the counter foundation. And that's as a result of their ownership of one particular property in the city. Right. Should that property be sold for some reason, and I don't know that it is going to be sold, but should that property be sold for some reason, this money dries up. Meanwhile, we will have committed, I'm sorry, did you have something to add? We have committed.

No, you understand, Mayor, what I'm saying.

Excuse me, Mayor. Thank you for accelerating my thought. Because in the opioids, we have the same issue. In both of these categories, we have the issue of funding that is not assured. Certainly the amounts are not assured. Yes. But not assured for a period of really greater than one or two years, maybe.

And we're getting into financial commitments with the hope and a prayer that all this money always comes in the way we want it to come in, but we'll still be short. And I have argued up here about doing programs where I can't fund them, and then I've got to rely on going to the trough to get paid. I just think that is not...

We're going to the trough in the next fiscal year to get paid because we don't have the money. Well, I want to clarify why I brought this up. Because in the beginning, we had talked about potentially having the Karen be somewhat supplemental to this. And then what Mr. Moore said to me is that right now, in our current budget upcoming, we have allocated $251,000 to start the program. 50% of it is not covered, and we need to go to outside agencies to look for coverage. No outside agency is going to give the city of Delray Beach taxpayers money to fund a program. And I don't say that this program

This has already been discussed. The Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee, which were 11 to 13 volunteers that worked very, very hard They are in the addiction community. They're the ones that said that this is what they thought the people needed. We talked about the education, and then we said, well, you know what? There's enough money for prevention in the CAREN fund, and there is. So the program that I think is a very good one can be funded. But the opioid money is a separate set of money. It's not enough. And when we discussed the, what is it called when they go out? Paramedical. Yeah, the

We agreed on that at the last meeting. It cannot overlap to the elderly.

That's why it was presented to us. that we would have to come up with $110,000. It's way more.

And when the fire chief stood up here, I went and watched it the other day. It's $251,000 right now. And that's at the base with one individual. And what the chief said, plus there's the retrofitting of the fire station, which is a $700 charge according to that document.

And this is not giving us even the lowest level of service. The chief said, once this program begins, I am going to be coming back in front of you and asking you for more money. That is what Chief Martin said at his presentation. And my concern is, I brought up over $3 million of cuts last time. I don't know why that gentleman said I brought none. 2.954 million of the cuts that I brought up are going in this budget. And that still only takes us down a tiny bit. to give the residents relief. I don't say this isn't a good program. I'm just telling you I don't know how we can begin down the road

We agreed to it, but the thing that's in front of us now is not that.

Right, but some portion of that money we were talking about using for it. So I just want to have, I'd like to have the full discussion now because I think it's important. It's all working together.

I'd like to have all the facts in front of me before I have the full discussion now. Because I'm prepared for what we're discussing, but not for what we discussed, I think it was two months ago.

Well, I'm going to bring it up at the budget because I do think it's in our current budget that we need to revisit it, Judy.

I really do. So those numbers that you and I are speaking about right now are in our current budget that we're going to speak about.

The $251,000 is in our current budget. $251,000 is in the budget. Is it $251,000? Yes, it is in our budget.

What amount was coming from the opioid? Because I remember $110,000. $125,500. I'm sorry? $125,500. Okay, $125,000, which is one half of the $250,000. So the other part of the $250,000 was coming from the funds. Is that accurate?

Well, yeah, the $251,000 in the budget is going to get half the money from the opioid fund and half the money from the general fund. Understood.

So we're talking about $125,000, not $250,000.

That's how we arrived at our decision when we made that decision. I recall that discussion.

You can't start a program and then pull it.

Okay, may I read this document? Lowest level funding is $412,000. Level two, three minimal funding, $424,000. That's minimal funding. Okay. Mid-level service funding, $619,000. And highest and best service funding, $1,541,568. And facility augmentation estimated at $712,500.

I remember that document, but I also remember Chief Martin's presentation on that evening. depicting the numbers that we're talking about now at 250. So it wasn't as extensive of a program as the numbers in the initial document presented.

But he said with this price, you can only do one person and you're not really going to have... In other words, it's like you're not even half doing it. It's putting in a little bit of an effort. And at the end of the day, we all know once you hire somebody in that department, in that job, it's a commitment. It's a long-term commitment. And I just don't know that, I don't know how we sit here talking about the finances and say we're going to make that commitment. I don't think it's responsible. I think we should use the opioid money to...

that repeat trips that these people with problems are creating.

He talked about a guy going 50 times or something to, right? But the hospital has these services. I mean, we're duplicating efforts that are being provided by other organizations. We're a city municipality. I mean, this is providing a service that, to me, is great if we had a ton of money. But I don't know why at this point in time, well, when the taxpayers are asking, you know, why are costs are going up? That's all I'm saying is it's these votes up here.

Well, this is money that we were deciding where it could best go to the people that were most at risk. Right, but we're going up to supplement it. And it's prevention of death. It's, I believe in prevention of addiction, but this is prevention of death. And that's what was presented to us when we made the decision.

And I don't, I definitely don't want to waste... Well, actually what the person is doing is not preventing death. They're following somebody through their services. It's almost like a social worker. So the Delray Beach is going to essentially have a social worker that is going to be helping somebody with their recovery process. That's what it is. And it's going to become a larger department, depending on how successful it is. And listen, if we had a ton of money, I would say we should do it. But the fact of the matter is, which agencies are you speaking to that are going to come in and help fu

Which agencies repeat this effort? The hospital. We already have them.

Delray Medical has this. The county has a whole paraprofessional unit. Like, I just, I don't know that cities are really doing this.

Mr. Orr, you said that we committed to one year? Yes. Okay. Thank you.

I mean, when the board appeared in front of us, they did make a rather compelling argument, and using the word death was repeatedly used. Right, that's true. So I acknowledge what you're saying with respect to the others that are doing this. My whole concern is that we are creating an infrastructure that we may not be able to pay for in year two and three, but meanwhile the employees will be in their jobs, and I won't have the money to pay for them. So that's kind of what my concern is. Putting together an infrastructure and a structure that I can be reasonably assured that I can pay for. And

He said, I'll be back asking for more money once it gets started.

Have we found any of that money? You've been out looking for money for over six months to help cover this. Can't even get that, Judy. That's the problem. Sorry? He hasn't gotten that yet. I mean, that's the problem.

Well, I can't hear him because you keep talking. I'm sorry. Well, I mean, but we don't have the money. I just have to hear one person.

Well, so... You're just giving, Cindy, you're not asking for a direction here today, right?

I had one comment about that with the provision of substance abuse training and education programs. Is that the one that I saw something in? No, that's the education. It's confusing.

No, it was the other one. Yeah, the job assistance had housing in it, and I was confused about that.

Oh, but I mean, we separately have the housing.

The two grants for the opioid money I think are absolutely fine as they are. I was a little confused about that housing going into the job thing, but you've explained that. The Cameron money grant week, have it we know there might be an insecurity about that money on a continuous basis and We have a three-year grant.

Perhaps we should look at making that a one-year grant I think we should push it doing well that I agree with yet. We shouldn't make it for three I think it's or what because I don't know what's gonna happen to the Karen.

I Mean we know we have what nine hundred thousand so three three-year grants or we could make it stretch out if we only did a one-year grant and um right that's a consideration that's so current that's on the current side on the care yeah i think that they maybe should have been yeah are we speaking of any specific organization are we talking in general in general okay because the this grant is for um up to three years right that somebody would and it's very specific guidelines i'm i don't know why we're discussing them in the same

I know. If it were separate, my brain would be better.

I think given, we certainly heard in public comment today, a desire to try to keep our expenditures and our costs as low as possible. And I think we've been all trying to do that. And that's been a lot of work up here. And we're making progress. Probably not where we need to be, but we're getting there. I think we have to be very short term in our thinking here, given the uncertainty. around the money. And I would hate us to build an infrastructure that is very hard to disassemble if the grant winds up going away. And infrastructure can be hiring a couple of people or a person. That's an ongoi

Well, I'm wondering, would it be appropriate to take the Karen money and put it back into our budget for if we're insisting on starting this new program, and by the way, you're going to have one person doing it at this cost, then you're not going to have two people for $150,000?

I think what Mr. Marker was saying, which I agree with, is we want to make sure that this money is going to be used for this year, not to build the infrastructure.

Could I just finish, please? Two people, one single certified paramedic, $155,100 a year, one fire paramedic assistant, $185,000, and then the various equipment, the total cost is $412,600 for two people.

Well, this is his document that he sent to us on this memo city fire rescue department.

So he took that down by half. We can just go across the board and take it down by half the cost of the program from what was presented to us. That concerns me greatly. We are seeing a lot of things that can just be cut in half randomly. Which makes you wonder, how much padding is going on around here? Because that's really strong. Now, I'm just saying, one minute. So maybe we take the $155 from this for this moment, put it back to cover the cost of the paramedical program, and hold off on the grants until we understand what the long-term funding is going to be for the Karen. how much we're act

not sure we can use it i'm not sure if you could use it for these programs why couldn't you use it but i will say that if he sharpened his pencil and it's not the four hundred thousand dollars education and training i'm sorry i'm sorry too many people are talking i'm sorry i was trying to hear what the city attorney was saying hi

Yeah, that was my point. We're building an infrastructure that we're going to have to live with. Exactly. You know, down the road, year two, three, four, five, and –

I don't have complete recall, but I feel like the chief indicated that that would not be a case, that they're not creating a new position. But I don't have 100% sure.

Are you referring to the opioid fund? Yes.

Do we scratch these two things also? The workforce and the... And the job program?

Even though those two would be fully funded with the amounts offered.

And so these suggestions came from the opioid committee? Yes. Okay.

Commissioner Casale, you wish to be recognized?

Sure. You know, from the beginning when we started talking about using funds, how we could use the funds, I support a lot of these programs, and it's a fair amount of money. I think you could eat it up, I mean, in the housing sector. Quickly, but I am really thinking we need to be in our schools working on prevention with our children I've been to Miss Spencer's facility. It's right down the street here She serves Delray kids in Delray schools and Delray families and now Delray adults with her latest Adventure and it's really impressive so I would ask you all to go check it out and I do believ

We said we were to the RFP at the last meeting.

So just to be clear, the care and funds of 947,566 is for preventative education, correct? Correct. And then the separate pot of money, which is the opioid money, is what the Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee suggested that we do those two other grants for, and plus the mobile unit, correct? Yes. So they're two separate things. Yes. So yes, with prevention, with the care and funds money, we can decide whether it's a three-year or only a one-year grant. I'm not sure exactly where the scholastic fits in. Is it scholastic achievement? Junior achievement. I'm sorry.

I mean, I think that's easy. It's only $50,000? $50,000 a year for three years.

Do they have time to go through this process?

I thought they'd gone through all the process they needed to go through. That's the way I thought.

Okay. Junior achievement is a pretty well-established... Yeah, I'm very happy with it. I mean, many of the criteria that they...

If we're going to do a funding request, then we're saying, you don't have to go through that application. We're giving you that. And then we're going to make everyone else go through the application? Right.

So why does Ms. Spencer have to go through an application if we can just allocate the money?

I would vote for I just think that I do think we don't want to ignore the procedure because if you ignore the procedure for when you got ignore for everybody So I mean I but in the case of juniors you I think the them filling out that application would be enough This is a suggested procedure.

And they're two separate procedures. One is the cash money procedure. The one thing that I think that we need to do is I've been on this commission now four years. We have not spent a dime. We need to start getting this money out in the community and get it being used for what it's supposed to be used with. Every other city, they're using their funds, the OPI funds for West Palm Beach. They're using it. It's out in the community. It's being used. We're sitting here talking still four years later how to give the money. Like, enough already. Let's do this.

I'd be okay to agree with the Junior Achievement getting the portion that they need for the program that was presented in the two schools, right? And for the, is it Dr. Suzanne? I'm sorry. Spencer. Thank you, Dr. Spencer. Getting an amount for her program. I'd be absolutely, without the application process. What was Dr. Spencer's amount?

Yes. I have consensus for the Karen money. Now let's work on the opioid money.

Now we're talking about the opioid money. Okay.

I think we should move forward with those two grants that the group agreed were very, very important and try to get funding for the other half of the mobile unit.

Can I ask the assistant fire chief? Travis, I'm sorry, I don't know your last name. I don't mean to be disrespectful. Chief Franco. Oh, well, no. Travis and I are on it. Thank you. Can you speak to the different amounts? Because I know that the chief came with a sort of a condensed amount for this operation. And we determined...

Thank you. Why couldn't those positions be contractual, like a one-year contract? So then we're assured that we don't have to deal with that personnel issue after year two. Unless we want to. If it's year two, if we don't have the money in year two.

Is that legal under the terms of the contract, Lynn? Are we allowed to use these funds for contractors?

No question about it. My inclination would be the contract's not going to allow us to do that.

But assuming it does, I would be more comfortable with doing it on a one-year contract. That's why they exist. They're looking at these things longer term than we are. Right now we're playing a short game, which we've all been talking about. I don't know. I'll read the contract. Lynn can read the contract. But there's a part of me that says they're not going to want that. No, I'll put your cookie. I hope I'm wrong. I could offer you a free one.

Mr. Franco, excuse me. This is a March 3, 2026 estimated mobile integrated health program memo. So if there is an updated document, would you have somebody get that to me?

what we're going to do come back with the funding for the for the karen foundation dr spencer's thing for junior achievement those and those things and we have agreed to come back with something we're going to be doing this money on a con on a contract basis it's a some certain that we have and and assuming we can do it on the contract basis on whatever the scope of services that they have to provide in order to comply with the use of the funds then

I'm going to agree that he can move forward on the grant application for the $135,000 for jobs, $135,000 for workforce.

The people seeking the grant would be under a one-year contract. It would be a contract for a year.

No, this is a separate thing. But yes, you're right. It would be one year. Absolutely.

So are we all in agreement on that? Everybody? Yes? I am.

Yes, it's just we need confirmation from the city attorney with respect to that.

Obviously, it's contingent upon you coming back saying we can do what we just said we would like to do. Correct. Okay, I'm done. Thank you. I hope you are, too.

No, but I mean this is just a one-year grant.

Thank you very much, Chief. Thank you very much, Mr. Orrish.

Next up, Allie Berman is going to be up here talking to you about the Special Events Manager. This is Resolution 131-26.

Thank you very much. I'll start off because I've always been critical. I believe in second chances. I believe that this woman has done a good job while she's there. She's taken responsibility for the action. She's given us assurances that it's not going to happen again. She's going to have the requisite insurance. My inclination would be to say go ahead and do it. But that's just me. Commissioner Casato.

I agree. She apologized profusely and was very kind on social media and didn't engage. Some people were, you know, looking to do that, and I think, you know, yes.

Commissioner Malika? I would move forward on this. Commissioner?

Yeah, I'm also in favor of this. The applicant was very remorseful, and, you know, this won't happen again, I'm sure, on her watch, so I'm okay with it.

Commissioner Burns yes I'm in favor of moving forward with it I need a motion to approve resolution 128-26 I think it's 131 131 motion to approve resolution 131 131-26 thank you so much I mean second

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? It is adopted. Thank you very much. Now we're moving on to Resolution 128-26.

Thank you. Great. To the commission, any comments? If otherwise, they need a motion to approve.

Motion to approve resolution number 128-26.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? It is adopted. Thank you, Mr. Dockowitz. You're not leaving, I understand, but that's all right. The next item is the resolution for the first as it relates to setting up the millage for the city. I'm going to ask you to pass that down. Can I read this? I've got artwork. You can go ahead and read it if you like.

Thank you very much. I have passed out to my commission, which I'm going to actually send some letter in to somebody on this. But I am still of the position that we should not be raising the millage over and above where we are this year. As it is, if we just keep the same millage, it's going to be a 6.9% increase at what taxpayers are going to actually pay. At the recommended rate of 6.3501, that's a 10.2% increase in what they're going to be paying. I'm just not prepared to layer another 10% taxation on the people of Delray when they're paying for increased insurance, increased groceries, inc

That's a different one. There's more. Trust me. Yes. I'm turning it over to, I've got more to say, but which, you know, I'll wait to my.

Do you have a presentation that's going to show that we're not going to pay 10.2 in additional taxes?

Great. Thank you very much. I want to ask you a question because, and I looked at all your figures there, and you're very good with showing what all these other cities do. Do you know offhand what the taxable base change, when you apply your millage rate, it has to be against what your taxable base is, right? I mean, we all agree on that. Do you know what the taxable base change was, for example, for Boca Raton for the last five years? No. What percentage? No. I do. It's 47%. Boynton Beach is like 51%. Do you know what Delray's is? What? 57%. In the last five years, 57% increase in our tax bas

I'm happy to answer that question. Starting from 2015 to 2025, okay, we increased our budget from the 98 million.

And when you know something, when companies are. Excuse me, let me finish. Let me finish mine. When you're in a company and they're dealing with inflationary issues, they don't sit there and they don't pass it on to the customer. Because there's only a certain amount that you can pass on. Don't they look at what their competitors do? Of course they do.

We have negotiated contracts. Then you need to deal with personnel issues.

Then you're going to have to learn how to deal with staff. What does that mean? Gentlemen. Let me just say one thing. That's on me. Our budget in 2013 was $98 million. Okay? I'm just going to go up. It goes up to $190 million. I had the same question asking me for the press. Well, when you add inflation. Yeah, we did. We did a whole inflation analysis. It would have been $140 million. We were still. 100% higher than the inflation rate in terms of what money we were spending. When you have a 56% increase in your taxable base and you give an 11% relief, The inflationary component was about $22 m

That's not a zero-based budgeting under any analysis. You're just, well, be honest about the zero-based budgeting process, because it was not a zero-based budgeting. Well, it was an element, but it was called. Modified zero-based budgeting.

I think I've made my piece known. So who would like to go next? Commissioner Burns. I'll go next. Thank you.

I just want to say thank you Mr. Moore for the presentation you've done what we asked you to do here we sure did thank you and thank you mayor for this you know We do have to be very mindful of our taxpayers with, you know, everything has increased, and that's for everybody, and things are compounding. And so, whatever millage rate we adopt, I want it to be the lowest rate that allows us to responsibly operate the city and maintain, and as you said, we didn't lose any level of services by remaining with the 6.1. The lowest that we can go that allows us to operate the city, pay the bills, and m

Okay, you're comfortable leaving it where it is. I'm very comfortable with leaving it where it is.

It's our spending collectively, us, prior commissions. The costs have increased. If you go back and look from 2016 to present, the cost of our fire department has gone up 112%. Our police, 91%. But you talked about surrounding areas, and I just quick checked. I'm using AI, so I'm hoping it's accurate. But comparing our budget 2016 to present general fund, Boynton has gone up 90%. Delray has gone up 97%, and Boca has gone up 83%. And the other two have assessments. We are consistent with what's going on. It's not like, what is Delray doing so horribly? The thing that concerns me, I sat here the

With respect, that's not my job. That's his job.

You wanted the workshop. OK, you have to give him some direction.

I think you picked up a lot of what I was talking about with the overtime, which is fine.

You weren't talking about it. I talked about it. Well, you went first. OK, you're right. Maybe I'll go first next time. And I met with Mr. Moore and told him about it.

No, the point is, where are you going to cut? Last year, you sat up here and said, or sorry, two years ago, perhaps we drop one person off the ambulance. The chief explained to us, we would save $2 million. But at the end of the day, You can't pull the trigger because what they say is life safety, health, response time, and the like. You're just talking about $4 million that you need more to just keep your current level of employees paid. Well, if your amount, you were $4 million in the hole, so do you want to dig into the reserves, use another $4 million, and drop them down to 10? Is that you

My plan is that the city manager will figure out if we have to address

numbers of personnel then we have to just every other city is doing so you want how many people are we firing everybody else is doing it no but which departments are we losing people are we going to drop down the police i'm not going to i don't want to know it is your job in a sense because you voting you're voting for these contracts that are costing the money all year long Then you're sitting up here after you voted for these. No, we voted on police and fire.

Every consent agenda is a contract of some sort. Everything we're approving is a contract, an increase to the contract.

Not the salaries contract. Not the personnel contract. We don't vote on those. So we don't vote on those. Those are his purview.

problem is you don't with sticking where you would like to say stay and everyone would like to you think we all don't want to cut taxes and you're the only one who wants to yeah but you never it last year same thing you didn't present anything viable to take it down so you wanted to wait where you mayor We cut the fireworks. You got a text about the fireworks. And you wanted to put the fireworks back on at the last minute. The idea of cutting sounds great. But when we get right down to it, what are we cutting? And you can't say nobody experienced any loss. We stopped our road paving program. I

Agreed. But we're not talking about the capital improvement budget. Making decisions about here is- We're not talking about the capital improvement budget.

I'm talking about things that- Well, you're talking about it. General fund money goes into CIP, so don't say it doesn't. So if you're cutting and you're taking money out of the general fund, then that's some money that may not go into CIP. So it is connected.

Projects may get delayed. No question. It's correct.

So you are okay delaying. Right. But I want you to say to me today here, which projects do you want to delay?

not my call his call i'm not going to second guess i'm not going to become city manager part of the issues that i've had is that we we i am not the city manager okay why don't i take he gets instructions he figures out a way to make it work and that's the way it works and and the taxpayers who i work for

Well, I mean, I don't know who you're talking to, but the ones I'm talking to certainly don't want to have a 11% tax increase this year.

They don't know that we are raping their reserves and we're taking all the money for a rainy day fund. They don't know. They know what they're experiencing in their household, but they don't understand we're experiencing it here, too.

It's going to go down below 18% at your cut. It'll probably go down way lower at this current rate. Now, if you go down to the 6.4.

If you don't want any structural changes in your city, you may be right.

Well, then you keep calling workshops, but you can't list out one of them. List them out. We're here, right? It's 8 o'clock. We don't have a heavy agenda. List them out. What's your structural changes? Do you want to cut police? Then say it. Do you want to cut fire? Then say it. What do you want to not do?

Yeah, but across the board, it doesn't work. You can't just say, pull this out of this department, pull that out of that department. You have to know what you're cutting.

I just want to ask a question. The PFAS funds, is that earmarked for a certain thing? Can we use that as part of the budget? How is that? It's earmarked for utilities.

Yes. So was it because we just recently got another payment, correct? Yes. And so any POS funds, we've allocated that.

We agreed to use that to pay for our water treatment facility because we need that money for our water treatment facility. How we cost it out, our water treatment facility was in part dependent on that money being allocated. Yes, it is.

Would you like me to open up to the public?

Would the commission like to hear from the public now?

Commissioner Cassell and I have already spoken. The other two didn't get a chance to speak, so maybe they want to speak. Would you like to speak before we speak to them first?

No, I mean, I'm happy to come up with this mysterious several million that would keep us at the old millage rate. I know that police and fire, we already know that takes up a portion, and that is a contract that we have to agree upon, and we have agreed upon, to pay them. And the rest of the departments are scrimping to get to the numbers that they got to. They're at their bare bones. We act like there's some big fluff money sitting around that I didn't see, you didn't see, you didn't bring it up the other day. And I thought about the PFAS, too, but we're really borrowing money from Peter to p

Lower, lower, then we went way low, then we had to make up. I don't have the numbers.

I don't have the numbers. No, I didn't say any service was cut. But we had to make it up. We had to make that money up.

And then I have a response for you. Go ahead.

All right. First of all, Henry, I want to say thank you for all the hard work. I know, having been in the corporate world for a million years, the work that goes into setting these budgets up is monumental, and it's the hardest task, and it's a relief when it's finally over. We're not there yet, clearly, but we're trying to be. Thank you. I was relieved to see that we're not really out of step with the other cities around us. When you do the math the proper way, as you pointed out, I mean, we don't have – A fire assessment at some point, maybe that's something we should be considering. You kno

I just want to make one quick comment. I understand that you addressed Commissioner Gasol's issue with respect to the fund balance.

But I do recall that Commissioner Burns also said that if we're going to do any reductions, further reductions, she wants us to inure to the benefit of the taxpayers.

That's not what that has done. And when someone says it only costs us $43 or $50 a person, a $3 million bad expenditure doesn't become a good expenditure because I can spread it out over 47,000 people. I know we're saying we have fat, that's fine, but you can't have this kind of growth And it's telling me that there's no structural changes that can't be made. And maybe they have to do with some restructuring some personnel. Maybe it has to do, I don't know. That's your job.

And we have the money. We certainly are going to be making more money next year. We have more things coming online. I mean, there's already $77 million worth of property that's not reflected in this, that's going to be reflected in this on January 1st.

Automatically. COs have already been issued. They have not issued the COs yet on Sunday Village. So that increase in value we haven't even seen yet. They are operating, but they're operating under TCOs, which means the property appraiser hasn't gone in to reassess. They have on Atlantic Crossing to the tune of almost $300 million, which we get about $4 million of it or so, right? You know about $4 million of it. From that, thank you for taking a penny or two. Thereabouts. The other lot there, which is currently under construction, is not yet on the tax rolls. So we're pretending, and one of th

It's a rate. If we have to deal with creating special taxing units down the road, if we have to deal with these things, we will deal with them as we are presented. You don't budget with the expectation there's going to be some legislation passed and you're going to be trapped.

I think this budget is about a number, not about padding it for the 10%. It's about what they were able to crunch down to. I don't see any. Maybe if you can find it, I'm happy to look at it. And I know that's his job.

It was 6 o'clock in the morning we spoke. So I made a 9.30 instead. That's OK. Can I make a point of order, please? We're going to get an extra 15 minutes sleep.

Can I make a point of order before you open it up? What we're getting from the Edwards Company in Delray Beach operation is $1.3 million debt.

Yeah, that's right. The $4 million bill, we get like 40%.

$5,000, and the DDA is getting $200,000. It's not $4 million. Right. But the point is, and we've had this conversation last year. You said the same thing. All this stuff's going to come on, and we're going to find this money. And you said it the year before. Until it's there, as Ms. Malika said, it's not reliable. And it's not $1 million for that. The cost that that costs us, when you're talking about what we have to provide back to the taxpayers as a result of that large increase in population, that $1 million does not cover it.

So we can't argue that all this new development is going to pay.

I'm just saying we have additional stuff coming on, which is why the millage rates, when you look at these things, it's all related to what their increase in taxable value. I understand, but then you have an increase in. Yes, sir. And then we'll go to the public.

All of that is, I'm acknowledging, all of that is true. I still want to know why, you know, for example, this 10.2% tax increase is not what the taxpayers, I mean, we work for them. I work for them, too. Gentlemen, Mr. Mayor.

I know it's going to be hard. I never said it's going to be easy.

I said my piece. Great. Gentlemen. I'm going to open this up to the public. Are there any members of the public wishing to speak on this? non-controversial matter please come to the lectern you'll give your name and zip code for the record and you will each have three minutes unless I really like what you're saying then I'll give you more time just to keep going on Greg page 33444 thank you okay what I didn't mention earlier was the overvaluation of all of our properties

Last call. Seeing none, public comment is closed.

I was going to answer Commissioner DeSalle's thing about some of the recommended, but go ahead.

And that will help us get there. I'm going to say that you keep saying about this adding to the fund balance. I remember specifically in this chair saying at the meeting, we're not going to worry about the fund balance. Get us the lowest you can get on the millage. And what you've done is you've kept your 3.5 and the additional reports you could have applied against the millage reduction.

Everybody said, yeah. We were going to be able to, Commissioner Burns said, if you can find additional monies to save, We're not going to deal with the fund balance. We're going to add that back to the taxpayers. That was said.

But at the time, any additional savings, we're going to go to reduce the millage.

I do not agree to continue to take money from the reserves. Okay. Rating the reserves we will not have FEMA support and as mr. Dawkins pointed out to us We are going out for for big money on four different big projects and our reserves are Declining quickly and we are well below at this point our own Procedures and practice.

But aren't we going in the reserves with either rate that you're asking us?

It doesn't matter. Yes, but we have a 21% policy.

But the 21 went to 19 according to that.

Right, and you want to go lower and lower and keep going? I mean, we're rating our reserves.

But just curious, you keep mentioning about ratings. What percentage of the rating calculation is based on your reserve? We got a study saying – No, no, no. I'm sure Mr. Dockowitz knows this. Anywhere between 20% to 25% of your rating is what the reserve of a – It depends on all the factors.

The reserve makes a big difference. But the good news is they're not weak in Delray Beach today.

In those scenarios, we still have the ability to raise taxes.

I certainly understand that, but that's when you would be deciding whether or not you want to be having special taxing units that cover different portions of your element.

The Moody's people will say that really depends, again, on the line that you're missing here, which is what is the increase in the tax base? Because if you have an increasing tax base that exponentially increases beyond your millage rate, then you are not really doing a reduction. You're trying to, when your taxes go up, your base goes up 10% and you take off one mill, you still get a 9% increase. We still have, if we do nothing, we still have a 6.4% increase.

It is. What would it be if it was reserved for 18%, like they were?

All right. Are you checking my hat? Is something you want to share with the class?

Well, right now we know the following. If we didn't try to increase the reserve and we kept it at the original 18 that was talked about, we would be going down to a millage of 6.229. Is that correct? 6.2249. 6.2249. So I know that there's already a lower number.

Hang on, if I may, because you talked about the rating.

And that's without doing anything else, right? For my colleagues, if I may. It could be 6.2249 right now without making the adjustment, the upward adjustment that personally I don't think is necessary because we have more than two months of operating expenses and we still have the ability to raise money and our taxes don't stop because of whatever. I suggest that be the ceiling, a 6.2249, which is better than 6.114. I'm 6.1611.

Moody's report, rating methodology and scorecard factors. The fund ratio is rated. It was measured at 136%, and it's rated at 20%. There's only one other thing weighed 20%. Everything else is well below that. And that is, if you look at this, a factor in why we got our AAA rating. And it seems like, based on this rating methodology and scorecard factor that I'm looking at here, it's heavily weighted. Compared to the others. The others are all 10, though.

So if it's 20% compared to a whole other bunch of things that are 20.

Where does the reserve put us at the 6.2249?

I would hate for the process to make the decision for us instead of the commission making a decision together. I hope that we can come to some consensus on this, ladies and gentlemen, and not let the process make the decision for us. Absolutely not, yeah. Thank you.

He pulled the 1.4 from the overtime off of the regular budget and took the remaining 1.454 and he pulled that out of the overtime.

Out of the fund balance. Or apply it towards the fund balance. Correct. Because that's what we asked them to do at the last meeting. When I found the $3 million.

Well, you can say no. But let's put it forth and see where we're at. I'm going to put forth an operating millage of 6.3501 with a debt service millage of 0.0289, total millage 6.3790.

Okay. And I want to thank Mr. Dakowitz because your last comments, that last... Information you gave helped me move from the six point one one to where we're gonna go now. So thank you for that No, it just what makes sense and I respect who you are You we hire you for your expertise and I trust your expertise. So thank you very much so

So if I want to try to go to the lower one, to the rate that we said if we wanted to take all the money and give it to the taxpayers instead of adding some to reserve, that's not this number. So I have to vote no? Okay, just want to know. So do we call the roll?

Do you want me to state the more clearly motion to approve resolution number 140-26, general fund operation and debt service proposed millage rate? an operating millage of 6.3501, a debt service millage of 0.0289, with a total millage of 6.3790. I'll second that.

No. The motion passes. I wanted all the money to go back to the taxpayers. I want to make it 6.224. Well, we can't do that.

Well, yeah, we can. We can do 6.224. Are we next? 6.249. No, I'm just saying, you want to increase it.

But we can still go down. We can still go down. I understand that. I'm not fighting you. I'm just saying. This is government. I don't take things home.

Do we have to be, you make your presentation?

Great. Thank you very much. This is a public hearing. Any members of the public wishing to address the commission on this item, please come to the lectern. You will each have three minutes. You can name and address with the name and zip code for the record. Seeing none, public comment is closed to the commission. No comments. Commissioner? No comments. Commissioner? No. Commissioner?

Now, would you like me to make a motion? Motion to approve resolution number 141-26. Second. Thank you.

It's public hearing, so call the roll, please.

All right. Now is the adoption of the fiscal year tentative budget beginning October 1, 2026. I mean, are we ready for this? Yes. Let me read the speech.

Yeah, why don't you read the resolution number?

Okay. This is not a public hearing, is it? Is this a public hearing as well? Oh, it certainly is. This is a public hearing. Have we read? Did you read the... She did. Okay. Any members of the public wishing to address the commission on this item, please come to the lectern. You will have name and address for the record. Each have three minutes. Seeing none, public comment is closed to the commission.

Yeah, I have a couple comments. You know, we all got this, the email from Mr. McNamee, but I will say that the document online is, really detailed the printout I originally got was 300 pages but this is very detailed but there's a couple things in here that are interesting to me and just if you could make notes there's some revenue in departments that I guess maybe it's moving to building but the permits like roof permits are zero compared to last year's And then you've got pool permits and different permits. So I'm just curious about that. And then the other thing is, thanks, Anthea.

Okay. Thank you. And also, there's another thing that I would like to see in the budget going forward, Mr. Moore, because I was talking to the chief about the special events. And in his department, I think you have a lot more costs for special events than we would realize, because we just think. But like even the tennis tournament, we have no idea how much police overtime or regular Cost goes into the tennis tournament or other events There's a line item for the regular play and there's a line and I'm just speaking generally There's a line item for overtime and there's a special events over ti

Thank you. And that's it. Those were just my general comments about the budget.

Just to follow on that question, Mr. Moore, are we able to estimate those overtime costs and bill those out appropriately?

Because the vendor should pay for it. I mean, where we have vendors, we should be billing them for that.

I thought we just had a question. price for the police. I didn't think because when you and I discussed that, you said that there was just a particular price.

But if we could bill out the known overtime amounts. I know there's always unknown overtime amounts. Something goes wrong. Right.

But I wasn't just referring to overtime. I'm also just talking even general hours, right? Understood. That would be a separate line. And I'm using that as an example. But you see a rotation of officers there the entire time, right? But when we look at the police budget, we don't know what portion of... that operations is attributed to that. So it's not really the overtime that I'm as interested in is in just general the whole cost. I'd be interested in all of it. And when we are reimbursing, are we then reimbursing back to that department? How is that working?

Well, but it's not a fair look to the department if their costs are being offset and it doesn't show in a visual. So people could perceive the costs of that department to be more than they actually are because they're getting offset. Sure. You know what I'm saying? Sure. I'm just saying I'd like to see. No, there is, but I'm.

Yeah, I kind of want to know what we're paying for the tennis tournament event.

I think it would be a good thing for us to see, you know, for people to see. Thank you.

um so any other comments from the commission not from me thank you then we need a motion to approve so moved open up for public comment you did that already i'm very sorry no i did public comment already you did that's right yes i need a motion oh okay i said motion adopt resolution 142 26.

adopting the tentative budget for fiscal year beginning October 1, 2026, ending September 30, 2027. Second.

Mrs. Bubba, could you please call the roll?

Thank you. OK. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Dockowitz. All right. We're on 9A. Are we on 9A yet? 9A.

This is the first reading. So we're not going to have any presentations, right? You don't want to talk just for the, you know?

Hang on. We're approving our whole capital improvement plan to go into the comp plan. I did want to say one thing about the library painting and the air conditioning, because I was speaking with- That's when you thought it was safe. No. Oh, sorry. Well, look, this is our obligation, and the AC is going. When you play tennis at the tennis center, everybody points to it and kind of says, what's going on with the library? And I say, it's coming. But because this is a five-year plan, I do think we have to talk about putting some money into this for the cost. And look, we can say... We can't do it

I will say that the people who are running Sunday Village would like to look at that lot to run to do some of the valet. There's a lot of possibilities for that lot. It is. And I happened to have a conversation the other day with someone at the county with respect to this to see if we could reinstitute what we did back in 2011. and they seem to be an appetite to do it. Right now we're limited on how often we can use that, but they seem to be saying to me, because they're looking for revenues too, that if we can find some way to show them that there would be an economic benefit for us to do tha

All right. So we need a motion to approve.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? And now we're at 9B.

Thank you very much. Ms. Giannotis, you have nothing to say at this point, correct? All right. This is a public meeting. Anybody wishing to? No. It's not a public meeting. First reading. I forgot. It's first reading. Never mind. So if there's any comment, otherwise I need a motion to approve Ordinance Number 39-26. So moved. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great. 9C.

Thank you very much. Are there any members of the commission wishing to address this matter? No? Then I need a motion to approve ordinance 40-26.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? It is adopted, first reading. All right, comments and queries on non-agenda items. I was going to say non-commissioned items. Non-agenda items. Mr. Moore.

Great. City Commission. Let's start with Commissioner Mollica.

Judy Mollica? Okay. Let me get on this. I lost my notes. One of the things that I wanted to speak about is with regard to... Whoa. Are we throwing things, kids? Behave over there.

I know. With regard to the plan for the cemetery, which we've got in place, somebody coming in to take a look at the whole thing, but the thing that seems messed up is... you know, some of the plots, but there's been a lot of work done towards that end. Like the VA came in and identified 500 veteran plots, rather, not lots. So that's there. There's been some other work done, I think, in development services that they had some work done. The historical. Historical, yeah. And there's a body of work that could be collected and sort of put all together. And somebody on public comments said when th

There was also an outside agency that used to handle, because I have relatives that purchase their plots through an outside agency. Okay. I have the name of that agency, but so... The history goes way back. It's a big job.

Yeah, and I think she's more than capable of doing it.

Is there a consensus to have our auditor take a look and see whether she can, you know? I mean, I don't, I think there's a lot more to it.

I thought all along the way, I mean, I know we had some records that we lost along the way, okay, long before any of us were here. But it seems to me, and I mentioned this before, the families will have some records themselves. I mean, when my parents died, I've got all their records hidden away somewhere in the garage. But it's there if somebody needs it. And I think if we work with some of these folks, they can provide some of that documentation. And to Angela's point, I think the funeral homes might be another source. There might be some legal requirements to get all that. But if we could g

Somebody needs to be that person that goes out and gets all this.

I mean, I think that one of the larger concerns right now is the maintenance and space. So we've identified 100 spaces as of Saturday. I don't know how many there are today. I don't know how many, you know, as there were. They're vertical. I think that since we have hired this consultant, we need to let the consultant do his 12 weeks or whatever weeks of works. Oh, six. I like that, half of what I said. Six weeks and maybe that, because I've talked to our auditor as well as about, you know, that might be an area that I would be interested in having audited. But I think that along with some oth

Right on. I mean, maybe she's too high level for that. I just think somebody smart can put all this together. Well, she's already trying. Yeah. Okay.

Thank you. A couple more things. Not done yet. Mayor Carney had brought forward when we were doing Mr. Moore's evaluation that some other alternatives for an evaluation. And I would like us to kind of look at that. It's like I think I don't know how concise that evaluation is that we use to really put our feelings about everything. I think you do everything great, but I think that some of the evaluations that you put in front of us were worth looking at. And I don't know if that would be a workshop or maybe the human resources. Duane could take our ideas and maybe put it together to put it out

reformatting it? I said the mayor has asked for one for the last two years. It's okay. I'm always working to do better. So if it's going to work, the one that we have works for me. Because it doesn't matter. I'm going to answer it based on, and if I have to put it on a separate sheet of paper, I do that. If we can find one that will adequately do it, I'm all for it. I'm okay. It won't hurt.

Okay, so I guess we have a consensus. Yes. And how would we move that forward?

We don't have to accept the form. If it comes back, we don't like it. Exactly, right. There are other forms out there that I got from the International Association of City Managers. Yeah, I read them over, and I like some of them.

That's why I sent them all to you. I sent them all, yeah.

Okay. And last and final thing. When we did our roundtable with the businesses, there was a number of challenges that they identified. And one of the challenges is that they were getting code violation with a fee without any kind of a warning, without any kind of education on how to remediate the problem. And I would like for us to put forward the direction that I guess I worked on some language with Lynn to identify the violation. The officer shall identify and determine whether violation of the code exists and the officer shall make reasonable efforts to educate and assist the property owner

She said they claim that's what they do now.

Oh, that's not what was represented to us, right?

In those instances where they create irreparable harm that you can't undo, there is an immediate financial penalty, correct, Lynn?

Speaking of AFC condensate, It is not illegal. The state of Florida does not deem AC condensate as illicit. Discharge. It does not. The argument is that once it gets on the ground, then all that dirt collects. But the business did not discharge something dirty. It became dirty when it touched Del Rey's ground. So I don't believe that's finable, in my opinion. And neither does Florida.

Anyway, that's a different story. But I hope that we can- How do you cure it? I guess you could make our streets cleaner. I mean, the AC condensate that's coming out of that little drip thing is the purest water there is. You could drink it. There's nothing illicit about that discharge.

Please don't say that. It will cost money, but that water can be directed into the wastewater system. So it can be. It can be fixed. It will cost every business a little bit of money. But the beef that they have is that the grounds, particularly around restaurants, have a lot of grease and a lot of dirt, and it goes into the wastewater system. None of us want that. But I think with a little planning and a little bit of money, you can divert that water in. I've seen it done.

I heard one restaurant. I don't know. But the consensus I'm seeking is that we will educate and warn before we find.

Well, I think we have to let them do their job. And in some instances, as the city attorney pointed out, if someone's dumping garbage into the, ocean like there's no I agree so I think just to give a consensus to that but there should be a policy there should be I think what we're just looking for is for the commission to let us know that yes that is a policy of the commission you do want your staff to do make their best efforts depending on the nature of the violation to always try to educate and assist and if that's not possible then you're going to move on I just thought that's what they we

Commissioner Casale, do you have any items that you'd like to?

Yeah, I do. I would love to show everybody this one year of excellence magazine that we got in our cubby. Thank you, Chief. It's super fun. I will be reading it tonight.

It's suitable for framing. Are you going to sign it for us, too?

It's a quick read. It's lovely. Thank you. It has been a year of excellence, and I appreciate you. And I do think everybody should go check out Ms. Spencer's book. place and see the great things that she's doing, because we may have ideas about things that we can do with respect to prevention for our kids, for our adults. There are so many amazing organizations doing things in our city that we don't even know about, and it's really enlightening. Oh gosh, subculture. Really and truly, I can't, can we just get some understanding? Did his parking lot pass? I mean, there is no side parking there.

From what I read, it wasn't a win. It was really he just redirected and remanded it back for the order.

Great. And then also Delray reads. Well, Jeff is here to tell you about the parking lot. No, I just, that's, I mean.

Okay, so this is going to make me, Jeff, this is not appropriate. We had people, we took it off the agenda. We need to put it back on the agenda and go through the discussion again if they have, this is not, that permit was supposed to be done two years ago. No, two years ago. Before they even opened, they should have had all of that stuff in the parking lot done.

the city should understand that it's not a good look for us to be constantly dealing with the same violation for years with no result. It's not fair to the people who follow rules.

The guy who was at the meeting last year, and he said, are you still giving this?

No, but truthfully, the problem is he should never have had those in-laws. No kidding. I wasn't here. I agree with you. No, I know. It's a disaster. But with that in mind, also the fact is, is maybe we should be creating more parking. I don't know how.

I don't know how we could create it there. And also, he misrepresented what he was doing. He might not have gotten the in lieu. You know, it's not, it's.

At that meeting, Shelly Petrolia said, I watched it. She said, well, what happens if this thing is wildly popular and a lot of people start coming there? And the attorney answered, well, that's where the police come in. So that's kind of what's going on, right? It is wildly popular, and the police have to, unfortunately, be involved. But the truth is, is with that in lieu money and with the desire for us to have businesses in that end of the town, we need to provide some kind of parking.

Right, but it's not just the in lieu parking.

Whether it's 10-minute parking on the street or whatever it is.

Right, but there are, I mean, to be fair, Judy, it's not just the in lieu parking. it's a lot of other violations as well, right? So even if you take the in-loop parking off the table, there were other violations going on the whole entire time. So I just would like this.

Well, he was doing events in his parking lot where there was no parking. They cordoned off all the events on the parking lot.

Yeah, my understanding is that doesn't happen, but I don't know. I'm not.

I mean, the photos we were just shown were recent events.

I didn't see the, I mean, I looked at the photos.

I went deliberately because I said you can't prove it really happened, so I went and had photos taken. That was me.

So Delray Reeds, my last item, I think it's my last, my second to last item. City Manager, I didn't see Delray Reeds as a line item in the budget, and I did the, you know, Control-F search for it, and I couldn't find it anywhere. Are we giving money to Delray Reeds this year?

Could you do that? Because I don't want us to be surprised and not have any books for Delray Reads. It comes out of the education department.

Usually you have a line item, and I can pick it out quick. And the last thing I want to do, in keeping with these recognitions, I would like, if we could, and we could do these two together, Roots and Wings and Bound for College, Especially in light of having gone to the education roundtable, and I thought, and I will compliment you again, and Janai, I thought that was really constructive. I feel really good about where we're going. My group is having a follow-up meeting, and we're working on how to move forward. And in that, I think it would be nice to recognize those two organizations that a

Do you like doing them together? You mean on the same day?

What organization? Roots and Wings and Bound for College. He does the young kids, she does the teens. And they sort of, you know, they both put forth efforts towards education. So I think it would be, if we could do it on one day.

Perfect, thank you. I would agree with that. Oh, yeah, sure. OK, you've got your consensus. Thank you all. That is it. And Mr. Moore, you'll just text me about that other money.

Yeah. Commissioner Burns. Yeah, I have a couple of things. Short-term rentals. Where are we with that? I know that we talked a couple months back.

So this is going to, where these short-term rentals will have to pay a business tax, is that correct?

Okay. Okay. And so, and where are we with, I'm gonna ask a lot of where are we with the audit budget committee. I think that some of this looking for money, looking for whatever we're calling it, budget audit review committee.

All right, it would have been nice if we could have had them work on this.

Because I'm looking forward for them to find all this money that's on the table. Like, you know, they could be looking at contracts, different things like that. Okay, so that's October, November. I'm writing this down, so I'm going to ask again if I don't see it by then, just so you know. And then also... The cemetery budget for in this current, is that part of Parks and Rec or is there a? It is. It is still Parks and Rec?

I just wanted to make sure that there's money for maintenance for the cemetery. To answer that question, it is. Okay, I'll go back and look again and find out. I went through a couple of hundred pages, but okay. Mm-hmm. And then there's one more thing. Oh, the designation, the historic designation of the cemetery. We have said over and over, the survey's been done, the property belongs to the city, Can we move forward with designating? I think it will open up some doors for some grant funding to help out with that, the historic part of it. So can we move forward with designating the cemetery?

That was number one on my list, too. I totally agree with you. Can we?

Yeah. Under goal setting, she said they wanted to do Frog Alley first. Right.

I don't think this one prevents them from continuing to work on fraud.

I think it's a great idea, and I pushed it before. I asked a question before that I still don't have the answer to. I wanted to make sure that if we designated it historic, which I think is a great idea because I do think it will open up some funding opportunities, Will it curtail the ability of the city to redesign the golf course, redesign or redo stuff at the cemetery that they may want to do? It may not. I mean, maybe the portion of the cemetery is here and the other portion, I don't know. I think this is the older portion.

It doesn't happen in addresses. Like there'll be a contributed building and a non-contributed building. Right. And the historic's involved in all of it. So you're saying the cemetery will be separate. It's only a portion.

That was my only caveat. I don't want the city to lose its ability to try to get the place up and running the way it wants it to do it. That was it. And if it doesn't affect it, then it's great.

I've already texted to get a plot, so there's only 99 left.

You have to die first. You can't get one.

What is wrong with the skull at the cemetery? Are you done? Nothing. I mean, putting green on some of the stuff would be great.

Yes. Oh, yes. Yes, there is. Thank you. Thank you. And then lastly, the policy. is there a policy for i mean i have a cemetery booklet that tells people about this but however do we have a policy because people are being told different things so currently my understanding is that the cemetery plots that are available are not available for pre-sale and they are for delray residents only is that correct

See, that's the under, but I need, because people are being told different things. So do we have a policy so that we follow that policy and everybody is told the same thing?

Okay, but until then, we have some, well, six weeks, okay. Because we still have people that are calling, people are unfortunately passing every day, and people are being told different things.

We just found 100 spots. We didn't have any last week.

Right, and that people find that suspect as well.

I'm all for that. I'm all for, you know, ironing it out, doing due diligence so that we can move forward and everybody's on the same page. But I'm also for making sure that we're telling, that it's fair across the board and that we're telling everybody the same information. Of course. And if someone didn't call me and say, well, I was told this and then somebody else said, well, I don't know. Of course. You know, it needs to be the same.

So right now, people have to contact the city, right? They shouldn't have to contact the funeral homes because the funeral homes don't own the property. So they should contact the city and say, I need a plot. Do you have a plot available? And the answer should come from the city. You shouldn't have to go to the funeral home to say, oh, well, does the city have plots?

Because we have pre-need plots and then we have... Because everybody will be in line to buy one. Yeah. I'll go buy one.

I'm just saying, if they're opening them to everybody.

Wait, can I just, I wanted to say one thing about, you brought up the, if I may do, I forgot one thing, and then regarding the auditing, you know, we both know Mr. Ronald Mark, and I had thought he would be good on that auditing committee. So I sent him the stuff, and he said in his area of expertise that we may have missed filled the board with people who are more like marketing, even though they're in finance, they're more marketing people and we may not get the people that we need. And I'm wondering, since we already approved this ordinance, I'm so sorry because I didn't talk to him before.

No, Mayor, the catch-all was what they do. We still have the opportunity to make those changes when it's presented.

The catch-all was for what they were going to audit. We had specific categories. And he was like, you know. I feel like maybe we should. I apologize, guys.

And the last thing is the e-bike ordinance. Wellington has theirs. The city attorney shared it. Palm Beach has not done anything yet. So I think we should just move forward with the Wellington. and modify it according to our own needs. So I'll email it, or the city attorney can re-email it. And can we put it on an agenda?

I got an email today from somebody who said it was nearly clipped by one of them.

I'm telling you, if you're down there at night, it's scary. They're scary. These children are frightening.

Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. And we should all look at that one to see if there's anything. I'll send it to you. Okay, thanks.

Yeah, of course, I'm done. I am. She said she was. I am done. But did you guys see the beautiful rainfall the other day? Yes. The big bubble? It was so pretty. That's just pollution. It was just pollution.

Yeah, just real quickly, the number one thing on my agenda tonight was to declare the cemetery historic, so I'm completely in line with you on that, and I think we should do that. That seems very logical, and I've talked to the people that know more about that than I do, and everybody seems... consensus on the e-bike thing I've done some work on that and as part of the Metropolitan Planning Organization I gathered information from other communities and towns and I would like to share that with you guys I've got what I've got Wellington all done yeah

And you have the work that you put in as well? Yeah.

Okay, I'd love to see it. It's not a one-size-fits-all for every community, I'll just tell you that. I'm with you. Wellington isn't really a city like we are. We're a little bit different. They've got horses up there they're worried about. We don't have those. And then there's all this stuff you have to decide, like what are we going to do in parks? Are we going to allow it in parks? And there's all sorts of issues with policing this. I talked to one of your officers yesterday about what they go through when they pull somebody over who's 14 years old on an e-bike and they have to sit there and

That's it. All right, I got three things. You're only allowed two. First, and this is kind of along the line of what Commissioner Burt said. One of the people called me the other day, and they own rental property. And they have set up each one of these rental properties to be owned by an LLC. Of course. They were told that this LLC does not need to get a business tax receipt.

Why is that because that is a revenue source? The city should they call the Richards you don't need it for an LLC If it's a rental property, I'm just telling you what they were they call the city If you have to file an annual report with the division of corporations, yeah, you are a business LLCs have to file an annual report Does that to be a big even if it's only 50 bucks? If it's an operating LLC and they own a piece of real estate and they're collecting rents.

I know exactly what you're talking about.

Well, okay, they may have talked to you too, but the point is it is a good revenue source, number one, and people will pay the 50 bucks for the BTR.

But I don't think we're allowed to charge business license for short-term rentals. Is that accurate? By the state.

It's not a short-term. It's a business. It's getting the operation.

That's two separate things. You want to register the rental property? That's one set. But the fact that you're an operating business in the city, if you have to file an annual report with the Division of Corporations, if you're a shell and you're not really operating, you have to say, I'm a shell and I'm not really operating. You sign a form. Fine. But if you have an operating business, you ought to pay a business tax receipt. Well, if you show income, Yeah.

Well, you're an operating business. If you show income, you are operating. Right.

So I think we need to look at that. Secondly, the second thing I want to do is to talk about amending the local rules on something that has been bothering me for a while. In the course of my time up here in the last year or so, two years, You know, someone will say, we'll adopt something at the commission level. And then, for some reason, it changes and something else happens. And the remark is, well, I received a consensus from your other commissioners. My view is, if something is decided on the commission, we all give consensus, we want this to happen. If this isn't going to happen... You've

Could I say something? Sure. We used to, that was happening, and then we ended up creating a rule where if you were going to be doing something that was asking for a consensus, you have to get a consensus to put it on the next agenda. Then provide all your documentation and it could be something because what happens is we all say that sounds brilliant Let's do it. And then of course Once you start talking to staff you figure out costs or whatever else something changes and then it may be Everybody gets the same information and then it drops but you're right. It doesn't officially circle back a

All right. So do we have agreement on this? Yeah, absolutely. I'm cool with that. It really should be, if we've decided something in public, any change to that has got to go back to the commission. Okay. And the last thing I want to say. I would like a local rule change. I'd like to see the language. I mean, it shouldn't be that hard. The last thing I'm going to say is someone said last week something out, and they said, well, it was in the weekly report. You put a lot of stuff in your weekly report, but I don't consider your weekly report notice to the commission. If you're going to put somet

All I'm saying is I sometimes read this in the weekly reports, like, I don't remember agreeing to that. Right. Well, understood. Good to go, Mayor. I'm trying to make things transparent, and I have nothing else to say. Oh, my goodness. Except I want to read this speech. Any other things? Then we are adjourned.