Council - Regular Meeting

I saw your mom.

We have We have you guys. I think he's leaving. Echo. [laughter] We're going to call the meeting to order. This is the regular city council meeting for November 17, 2025. The time is 7:06. Madame Clerk,

Mayor Douglas Lawson, chairperson Charlene Laneir here. Chair Pro Tim Kosamba Miller Anderson present. Council person Bruce Gton here. Council person Glenn Spiritis here. Council person Priscilla Davis Pier here. City manager Jonathan Evans present. Acting city clerk Deborah Hall is present. City attorney Don W here. Madam Chair, you have a quorum. You may proceed. Thank you. We will have a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance by our proim Anderson.

To the flag of the United States of America. to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Madam Chair, please let the record reflect that Mayor Douglas Lawson is present. Thank you. Are there any additions, deletions, or substitutions for the agenda this evening? Staff.

Yes, Madam Chair. I would ask that the clerk read the recommendations from staff into the record. We are requesting to pull what are two items from the agenda and then reposition the agenda to facilitate after awards and presentations uh the presentation uh for the ITN associated with city hall. Okay. Madam clerk, madam chair, staff is recommending item 3B, which is resolution number 17125 to be rescheduled to another agenda meeting agenda.

Also item 11A, resolution number 160-25 to be rescheduled to another meeting agenda. And then also, Madame Chair, staff is recommending item 12A to be moved to the end of awards and presentations after [clears throat] the addition of item 6B with a we're adding item 6B with a presentation from uh Kaufman Lynn. And then following that we will do item 6 C which will be oral presentations on the municipal hall complex.

Thank you. So 6B is 6B is Jeff with Kaufman Lynn to do a presentation and then 6 C will be the oral presentations on the municipal hall complex. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Are there any other substitutions uh deletions or additions for this agenda? Uh madam chair. Yes. Go ahead. I would like to add for a brief discussion of forensic audit.

We can add that. No objection. Chair. Okay. We can add that to um let's uh add that as the last item under 12. Madam clerk. Yes, ma'am. [clears throat] Any other items to be added, deleted, or substituted? Are there any disclosures from staff or from the council in regards to the items that are listed on the agenda this evening? Yes, chair. Yes, go ahead.

Uh I met with uh most of the developers that are putting on a presentation tonight. Madam chair. Yes. Go ahead. I will disclose the same. Okay. Madam chair. Yes. Same thing as well for myself. Okay. Madam chair ditto. Okay. Our next item is the um adoption of the agenda. Could I get a motion to approve the agenda with the changes? So move second. Madam clerk. Council person Davis Pier. Yes. Council person Gton. Yes. Chair Tim Miller Anderson. Yes. Council person Spirited. Yes. Chairperson Laneir.

Yes. Unanimous vote. We are at the consent agenda. All matters listed under this item are considered to be routine in action and will be taken by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a council person so request in which event the item will be removed from the general order of business and considered in its normal sequence on the agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So move. Second. Adam clerk. Council person Davis Bener. Yes. Council person Gington. Yes. Chairp Miller Anderson. Yes. Council person Spiritis. Yes. Chairperson Laneir. Yes. Unanimous vote. Thank you. We move to our next item which is awards and presentations. Madam clerk,

we are on item 6A, emerging leaders spotlight. Mr. Evans. Madame chair, members of board, this particular presentation will be done by council person Davis Paneer. Good evening. Will Miss Sabria Stallings and her parents please come to the podium? Tonight, I am honored to recognize our November emerging leader, a young woman who truly reflects the heart and promise of Rivier Beach. Her name is Miss Sabria Stalins. Sabria is a lifelong resident of our city and a proud graduate of Drifus School of the Arts where she developed her confidence and creativity. She continued her education at FAU and earned her certification as a licensed esthetician. But Sabria did not stop there. With a deep passion for caring for people, she shifted into the world of health care where her compassion truly shines. She is now continuing her education at Bethesda College of Nursing with the goal of becoming a nurse practitioner, blending her love for medicine with her expertise in skin care to help others feel healthy, confident, and whole.

Alongside her academics, Sabria serves in a management role at the Delta Hotel, proving that leadership is not only in her nature. It's her work ethic. She leads with resilience, responsibility, kindness, creativity, and determination, which are qualities that make her an inspiring role model for young people across our community. Those who know her describe her as innovative, forwardthinking, and full of ideas that will benefit the future of Riviera Beach. She is creative, driven, and committed to growth. Not just her own, but the growth of her community that she proudly calls home. On behalf of the city of Rivier Beach and District 5, it is my honor to recognize Miss Zabria Stallings as our November emerging leader. And [applause] and we know just like in district 5 that you will continue to stay people focused, community centered, and purpose driven. Congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you. You all please give her another round of applause.

He needs to get a picture. Look, I I was looking for y'all. Three, two, one.

All right. Davis Paneer. Council person Davis Paneer. Madam Clerk, Madam Chair, the next presentation will come from Jeff with Kaufman Lynn. [clears throat] Coffman Lynn.

Good evening, Mayor Madame Councilman, Councilwoman, the council, city manager, and everyone here from the community and at large, it is my honor and pleasure to present something. You all set a vision years ago that was to reimagine Riviera Beach. One of the first things you did was select our group to help you imagine what fire facilities could be like. We started out with fire station 88 in under two years we designed and built a new station in partnership with you all and the community and that was just recognized nationally at the design build institute of America conference where we won one of the top awards and the only it's says here federal county state andor municipal there was a lot of federal projects a lot of state projects projects, a lot of county projects. There was one municipal project that made the final cut and that was Riviera Beach. So, we're here to give this to you, but we're actually very proud of this, but we're more proud of this one we're here to give you. When we're out there, out of all the projects, not just ones that were similar to ours, not just federal, state, county, or municipal, but every project, whether that be a $300 million or a $5 million project. You, Riviera Beach, was awarded the Trailblazer Award for the efforts that the whole team, all of us partnered together to provide for community involvement, small business involvement in helping out the local and involving the local community within the process and within the results. This award,

which trust me, you all should try to lift it. It's very heavy. It's an honor because this is not because of what we all accomplished and were there. This is an honor and a reward an award because of what the community was able to get involved and the community was able to help us achieve these great results. So it is on behalf of Kaufman Lynn MCO and all are I'm honored to present the 2025 design build trailblazer in inclusive growth award. Inclusive and growth and formally present that to you. Thank you. And we'll now give this I don't know who you wanted to hand it to.

Give it to the city man. Miss McNeel, could you say a few words? Yes, ma'am.

Well, I just want to just on behalf of our team because again um had the opportunity and thank you, Mr. Manager, uh for allowing me along with the council to be a part of the re-imagining what Rivier Beach can look like. And I think that we've already demonstrated that this is just the beginning collectively of what we can do. And not only Jeff mentioned this national award, but last year we also won the state of Florida award for both of these. And so when we went to Vegas, we didn't know who was going to win, but just so that we all know as a community, this is our commitment to continue to lift the brand of the city of Riviera Beach for the world to know. So we just want to thank all of you for allowing us to do this. Thank you. Take a picture. Hey, thank you. [laughter]

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[laughter]

Uh, we do have an another presentation that is for our city hall be but we're going to start with our public comment first uh until we get to 7:30. How many public comment cards do we have? Madam clerk, madam chair, we have five public comment cards.

Public comment shall begin at 7:30 p.m. unless there is no further business of the city council, which in that event it shall begin sooner. In addition, if an item is being considered at 7:30, then com then comments from the public shall begin immediately after the item has been concluded. Please be reminded the city council board has adopted rules of decorum governing public conducts during official meetings which has been posted in the front. in an effort to preserve order. If any of the rules are not adhered to, city council chairperson may have any disruptive speaker or attendee removed from the podium, from the meeting, and or the building if necessary. Please govern yourselves accordingly.

Madam Chair, we now have six public comment cards. The first speaker is Lori Brown, followed by Cindy March and Michael Jordan. Lloyd Brown, Cindy March, Michael Jordan.

Good evening. I would like to say hello to the council. Uh, my name is Michael Jordan. As as always, I'm going to be respectful and make sure I follow the rules of the quorum. But um I wasn't here last week. So I would like to comment on something that I saw on the TV that was very very disheartening and um it was a sort of disrespect because I feel like if a person is coming, you know, to uh and they they're running for something, you know, like to have a street or something named after them. I don't think my past should reflect on something that I have been found not guilty on. Okay? So if we're going to have rules of decorum, if I have to respect you, I feel like we should respect everybody else. Okay? Because the way that I feel that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. I can't judge you all and you all can't judge me. Now, you don't have to vote for the person, but I don't think you have to dig in a person's past and bring it up to talk about something they did and that's not why you're voting for them. You have the right to do whatever you want to do and say what you want to say. Okay? And I respect that. And like I said, I love everybody up there. And I'm going to speak my peace and I'm going stand firm on what I'm saying. I'm going to always respect you all, but you all have to give the respect in return. And the reason why I said you all because she says to address the council and that's what I'm doing. And I always want to come up and say the same thing. It's been a long time. I still see Miss Deborah as the acting interimm uh city clerk. I really don't understand what's going on with that. You know, that's been a very very long time, you know. And like I said, we have to be fair. People come to the city to try to try to uh do certain things to move the city forth, but we can't move it forward if we digging in everybody else past and we have a pass. And I know sometimes, you know, it doesn't matter to me if you know certain people may not like what

I'm saying, but we have to remember all of us got some stuff, okay, that we're not proud of of what we have done, whether it be in business or whether it be personal. So the only thing that I ask is that we still work together and move the city forward. Okay? Because some of these things that's going on and what we see on this TV, it spells corruption. I'm just telling you what it actually spells and that's that's my point of view. Okay. So, like I said, I respect the council. I love you all, but we all as a team have to do better, including myself. I don't leave myself out when I say we. We all have to do better, okay? Because I think that was uncalled for. It looked very unprofessional on the TV, and this like the second or third time that this has happened, okay? So, I think we need to kind of uh to get it together. Okay. So, like I said, you all have a great night. I respect you all. And that's all I have to say. The next speaker is Cindy March, followed by Erica Davis and Kendra Wester.

Good evening, council. Cindy March. I was looking at my social media p page. And it kind of bothered me because when Lil Ray Ray and Lil Man when they started, they started in the park. They became pro ball players in the park. I was disturbed about let's make the park great again. And then I asked where did that model come from? Just like the model of MAGA, let's make America great again. What's so great about making America great again when people can't even put food on their table because they don't know if they're going to receive their benefits when we don't have healthc care is tripling. So, we need to be mindful what words we choose. I have no problem with changes, but let's all be involved when you all make these changes. What could be put on a referendum for the residents can decide if that's what we want? Not a certain organization. I'm not here to point fingers, but that make the park great again. It doesn't sit well with a whole lot of people and a whole lot of residents. You all going to continue to sit up here and be dumbfounded of what's going on in our city. I'm not about black or white. I'm about what's right. But it's going to come a time and I don't care. I don't need no rebuttal. That whole council going to look like people that don't look like me. You know why? because we sick and tired and we tired and sick because we doing it to our own. We're not going to have anywhere to stay in Riviera Beach. And you all need to look at the bigger vision, the bigger picture. We're being pushed up our own city. What we help

build and grow. It's not about personal vendettas. It's about doing right for everybody and getting everybody involved. That's the only way we're going to move this city forward. And being transparent and honest with ourselves. Transparency wasn't here tonight because a lot of us didn't even know it was a meeting tonight. This not the first time. The last meeting a lot of us did not know. And I want to ask, is there any way? I love kids. Failure isn't not an option. I love to see growth with our young youth because they're going to be our future for tomorrow. But can we take these presentations and all these other presentations and set it aside for another day? That way we're not in a meeting doing presentations and photo ops. We appreciate our youth because we're going to need them in the future, but you all need to kind of rethink how you all doing all these presentations and it it's just too much. It's overwhelming to the people don't even want to come to the meeting or they leave early because it's just too much presentations. Enough is enough already. The next speaker is Erica Davis, followed by Kendra Wester and Margaret Shepard. Erica Davis, River Beach. I want to say congratulations to Kaufman Lynn because you all did a fantastic job. And uh I just want to say before we get into the presentations and the procurement uh decisions on projects that you all be mindful how you all are voting on these procurements. You have to follow the process. We can't have any of this last minute changes when these the administration do their work, their hard work. It takes time to go through those processes and all the all the voting and scoring and

all of this other stuff and it's not fair to them for you to second guess them. That's why they have the job. So going forward, if there's any developer that's interested in becoming a developer in the city, then they need to sign up for it and go through the process because it's making you all look like you're corrupt for real. And I'm just telling you that. So what's good for the goose is good for the gander. So, I hope we're not going to have these problems tonight like last week. If you pick the developer to buy the property on that situation, you have a choice because it's our property to choose who you want to choose. But when you're doing a project, that's a whole different story. Follow the process, guys, because it's making you really look crazy. Thank you. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Evans, congratulations on the fire stations. You came here with the vision, and I appreciate your vision, and I know you go through a lot of things, but you had the vision to get all of these things started with the help of the administration and the board. So, congratulations to you for having a vision about this city, and you are moving it forward with the rest of the the the board. Thank you,

Madam Chair. The acceptance of general public comment cards is now closed. Next speaker is Kendra Wester, followed by Margaret Shepard.

Good evening, mayor, city manager, and commissioners. Um, I'm actually just doing a check-in and a um celebration in a sense to share um my appreciation again for the city and the community grants. um program that was offered. I had the privilege of um you utilizing my grant funds to support 12 Riviera Beach students in a reading warriors intervention program. Um those 12 students are continuing to soar. However, that will end come December. Um, so I really I want to urge our city for ensuring that we continue programs that will support our our children. So I commend um those who spoke came up to the podium and spoke about the needs of our children. Um, as we're listening tonight, I hope that we consider our children who are our future as it pertains to the choices we make and who has the ability to build our city. So, we're hoping for developers that will not just build a building, but they're ready to build a legacy for our city. So, as we're listening, I urge you I urge you to please have a listening ear for that. I know we're not on the item, so I won't speak too much on that. One other thing that I want to share with you about is not only do I have an opportunity to lead um our city as it pertains to education. I'm also working with a group called 4. Any of you heard of 4? to hope 4 has been around forever. We're always speaking about our students and how they need remediation. Our students also deserve enriching activities. 4 allows our students to be enriched

whether it's in STEM, whether it's in civic engagement as well as leadership. So, I also want to let our citizens know that our 4 club is still accepting students from kindergarten to 12th grade. We have about 15 students involved now. We had an opportunity to share um time in a community cleanup. We're partnering with some other city um groups to we're just ready to work. We have children who want to do want to see the betterment of their city. So again, another opportunity for us to listen in to developers that are ready to support our children. I urge you listen in for developers that are ready to support a legacy and not just building a building. That's all I have. Madam Chair, the last speaker is Margaret Shepard. Margaret Shepard. Congratulations, Kendra. She is a remarkable black woman. Um been known a long time with her last two children and uh she's just a role model. She's just a role. I I thank you for being you. I do want to come back and talk about Bishop Masters. I was floored when I was looking on channel 18. Bishop Masters. Regardless of what went on, when our children are shot or killed, when our children have to be buried, they have to go to Bishop Masters, he has to go and comfort families and try to be a part of their life, try to bring them to church. If nobody else deserve a sign on that street, he does. And for those that made these remarks,

you know, those without sin, catch the first stone, and I'll leave it like that. Those of you all that have not signed up for the NAACP, I urge you to sign up. What happened to Attorney Ferguson should never happen to no one with the First Amendment. You have a right to speak. And he just made a comment. I I didn't know Charlie Kirk, so I I I can't speak on who he is. But I know that attorney Ferguson just got a bad bad deal, I think. But he he's a great man. I want to go over to another thing that happened Sunday. The men's of distinction. I think that was a wonderful wonderful uh program they had. I see my baby boy. I always call him my baby boy. That's Sydney Davis. That's my baby. And he I've seen these kinds from little kids. Torian Davis who is remarkable speaker coming up under Reverend Davis. So it's up to us to make sure our children are given that respect and for that Sydney I say thank you for making me proud. Your father was my mentor and he was the love of my life. Thank you again. And as I go Mr. Evans I was telling him I'm overwhelmed Mr. Spiritis. I know um Bry's gone, but I was talking about that street on 22nd Street and every time I go down that street, my little raggedy car just shake and I said, "Mr. Evans, we need if you could pave it over." And I got up the other day, somebody called me and Sheper, go up there, go up there, see it. And they've torn up the whole street. And they got our signs up with our logo up there. And I'm just very proud to be a part of Lake View uh Park. We are moving and without without Mr. Evans and Brandy and Scott Lewis and our neighbors and I thank my neighbors. I know they're listening to

me. They always stop me and talk to me. I want to say thank you and I'm very humbled. I'm grateful to be in that neighborhood. It's a wonderful neighborhood. Thank you,

Madam Chair. That's the end of public comment. Let's move to our next item please. Madame chair, the next item is 6C which was moved from 12A oral presentations ITN 11106-24-3 Municipal Hall complex redevelopment opportunity presenters Forest Development LLC and Sonnen Blick Riviera Beach LLC. Madam chair, initially we had two public comment cards on this item before it was moved to awards and presentation. So I'm not sure if you still want to take the public comments on this item.

Yes, we can. Okay. Um Mr. Evans. Madam chair, members of the board, at this time I'll ask for our procurement director uh director Ammons to share with the board uh what with what's the steps with regards to the rules rules of engagements and how the presentations will be administered and then effectively what we are asking for the board associated with this particular uh presentation. So, uh, Director Ammons, uh, in coordination with Attorney Goldstein will provide you, uh, with a recap and then, uh, get into specificities concerning the presentations.

Good evening, chair. Yes, go ahead.

All right. Good evening, everyone. For the record, my name is Latana Ammons. I am the director of procurement here for the city of Riviera Beach. Tonight we are here to listen to or to hear oral presentations from two vendors Sana Blick and Forest in response to um ITN or the invitation to negotiate 1106-24-2. I just want to start briefly just for the record um some background. On November 3rd, 2021, the city council adopted resolution 131-21, designating the city-owned properties on Broadway as the site for the new city hall and municipal complex to house the city's legislative and administrative operations. On April 2nd, 2024, the city issued ITN number 1106-24-2, seeking statements of qualifications from interested and qualified developers to enter into a public private partnership with the city. The solicitation was issued in accordance with sections 255-065 and 287-055 Florida statute and aims to facilitate the development of a new municipal complex, a mixeduse development on Broadway and a mixeduse development at 600-601 West Blue Heron Boulevard in Riviera Beach, Florida 3344. It is anticipated that the selected developer scope of services will include final planning, design, construction, and potential operations and maintenance of a single and multi-phase project comprising of the new city hall, the city library and administrative building. A solicitation was posted on demand star and advertised across multiple media outlets including the Palm Beach Post and the Sun Sentinel. There was a pre-proposal meeting on April 24th, 2024. And on June 28th, 2024, the solicitation

closed. There were three statements of qualifications submitted. One from Prominent Resources Group, one from Forest Development, and the last one from Son of Blake Development LLC. The evaluation committee meeting was publicly noticed on Tuesday, August 8th, and the evaluation committee meeting was held on Thursday, September 4th, 2025. Two vendors were evaluated. one was deemed nonresponsive. A response guarantee in the amount of $25,000 in the form of a cashier check was made payable to the city and received from Forest Development in Sonoblick. The evaluation committee comprised of five members. They met, ranked and scored the proposals. Forest development was ranked number two at 112.60 points and Sonnlick at 116.60. 60 points as presented at the previous council meeting. It is it was the uh um the wishes of the council for both to present tonight. I believe both developers are here tonight. They have been given instructions and so tonight we will hear from them. They will have 20 minutes to present their presentations. 20 minutes including the time you arrive at the podium and not necessarily to set up and gather. We want 20 minutes for your oral presentation and then we'll allow 10 minutes from council for questions and answers. The first developer to present will be forest development and so if they could begin to come forward. I believe based upon the negotiation um document that was entered in for the record the ask for tonight is for them

to present and for the board to rank and decide who will move forward. Madam chair. Yes. Go ahead. Um quick question. I wasn't at the meeting where the rules were outlined [clears throat] 20 minutes. I'm I'm not sure who came up with that number, but I think that's much too long. Yeah. Um 10 or 10. M said 20.

No, no. I I She asked me when was the last one. It was 10 and 10. But I think that given the heft of this project, this is the biggest project that the city has undertaken thus far and I think that we need to know as much as we can about it. Um especially with the public here. Yeah. To know what is happening with it. This is our city hall project which includes a entire sports complex. Yes. Three different components to this and I think that we need to hear that. Understood. Um I would like to recommend in the future. Go ahead. 15 minutes max. If they can't be concise in what they're presenting,

maybe this not there, [clears throat] but 20 minutes is way too long. Go ahead. I'm rolling with it. Okay, let's roll. But brevity has its place in public meetings. I got you. [laughter] All right. Very good. Let's go ahead and get started. We'll we'll play by ear. Mr. uh Council Madam Chair. Yes. Go ahead. One question for procurement. Um, Director Ammons, we talked about the process and what we're looking to do. Um, did you discuss the selection of these teams and what that looks like after we've heard both presentations? I'll yield to both

because if we're going to be listening to presentations, I want the board to have the clear direction as to what the expectations are. Um, what are the options for them? Because this board also I want you to realize that this procurement process is different than the one we just undertook on the CRA side. We have options of actually selecting both versus what was given direction uh that we didn't have the option of selecting both previously. In addition to that uh the teams were ranked. So uh this is an ITN so if we can have a clear understanding before presentations are made so the entire board is on the same page so that once presentations are complete we can proceed. Chair. Yes. Go ahead.

Okay. So, as um asked, this is an ITN or invitation to negotiate. As such, the board has the option to negotiate with one vendor or the board has the option to negotiate with both vendors. The ITN allows us greater flexibility as far as negotiating and reaching a contractual solution that will be in the best interest of the city. Okay. So yes, what was the difference when I asked the last um last week? Yeah, the CRA meeting about negotiating with both that was that was no. What what have what's the difference? Tell me.

Yes. So last week um with the CRA it was a request for proposal where um you negotiate with the ranked number one and if that fails you could possibly if you wish to go to number two. is by rank is clearly ranking. An invitation to negotiate allows more flexibility where you can sit down and have negotiations with both simultaneously. It's outlined in a solicitation. So that's the slight difference between the request for a proposal and an invitation to negotiate. We have more flexibility with an ITN.

Right. and and I understand that and I think that we may have missed the point in that last um endeavor because it was really basically a a a disposition of property and we kind of brought in the proposal part of it and what we should have really been looking for is we had the best price for the property but I digress. Um [laughter] yes, go ahead. Okay. Uh, Director Hammond, I I I heard you mention Broadway in the invitation in the ITN yet. We're really not dealing with Broadway, are we?

No. As I uh read this was uh some of the language was a little older and so thank you for the uh clarification. It is at Blue Herring um the 600601 Blue Herring Complex. So, thank you. But we chair. Yes. But we have the right to change the location. Correct. Based on even though it was advertised one way, we can because it's an ITN, we can change the location. Correct. Legally. I just want to make sure that everyone understands that that is correct. It's an ITN and we can um change that. Right. Thank you, Madam Chair, if I may.

Yes, go ahead. Uh just to provide some some clarity with regards to the properties that are incorporated as part of this solicitation. It does incorporate what is the city hall proper currently as well as the property across the street referred to as Wells and then the property that the city does own on Broadway. Okay. between 22nd and 23rd that was contemplated for the location of what city hall was looked up was going to be in our first early discussions and then after conversations with the board we said that that land was far too valuable to site a municipal facility. So then allow the discussion to move us towards a situation where the developer can pose what is the optimal location to make the economics work. So as the council person said, this solicitation provides great flexibility as to where the council and the developer think is appropriate to site city hall, but it does incorporate the two acres that the city does have on Broadway. That's directly across from Jimberry Park as well. just answer your question, Dr.

Yes. Thank you. So, Madam Chair, so I'm not sure did that answer the question. So, does this proposal include that parcel of land or does it not? Madam Chair, if I may. Yes, sir. It it does include the parcel. Yes, it does. Okay. So, that Dr. Spiritis, that's contrary to what you said. What what I was referring to, mayor, was that because it's an ITN, we have the ability to maneuver the properties because it's an ITN. If it would have been a an RFP or a strict bid, we would not have been able to do that.

Okay. Uh, thank you. So, any property can be uh included or removed. So, does it mean we can also remove the city hall property as well? Madam Chair, um, that's a question more so for if I may. Yes.

Yes. Go ahead. the the solicitation you you do have the flexibility of citing city hall at an alternative location that that's authority that does reside with the board. What I was mentioning is the properties that were included in the solicitation and originally when the conversation first happened it was anticipated that city hall would be on the property uh that the city owns between 22nd and 23rd. And so then in further discussions we brought an item to the board to say we wanted to leave it open for the developer to propose what is the optimal solution that can make the economics work. Thank you m

okay thank you [clears throat] at this time if forest development could begin the presentation if we're ready. Mer are we good with our clock? Yes ma'am. The clock is on the screen. On the It's on the screen up here to the right. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead, sir. Procedural question before we start, please. Yes. Uh, at last week's meeting, in consistent with your policy, you volunt you asked the other presenters to voluntarily uh not listen to the presentation and the questions. Will you be doing that this time or you have a different process today?

I'm sorry. Say that again. At last week's meeting, you asked the other presenters would they voluntarily excuse themselves so as not to have an unfair advantage. Will you be doing that this week or will we be doing something different this week? What do you think, J? I agree with Okay. the presenter. All right. So, that the the uh members of the second team can uh go across the hall. Voluntary, of course. I'm sure. Thank you for that. Voluntarily. [cough and clears throat]

Yes, across the hall, uh they are presenting and uh that I want you to [laughter] chair chair. We didn't change. We didn't change. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, what did we agree on? We agreed on 20. Okay. All right. It's 20. M it's um madam clerk.

Yeah. Mr. Evans, do you want to repeat what the uh madam madam uh attorney has said about the exit?

Yes, madam chair. Um so it is the uh opinion of of council that um even asking the parties to leave as a courtesy could constitute what is a sunshine law violation as they are able to be able to participate in a properly public notice meeting. And so the act is is certainly voluntary and it is courtesy, but there still is some concerns or some potential legal exposure that in the event that a team does not find themselves on the prevailing side associated with the solicitation that it could lend itself to what could be a a legal challenge.

So what we're going to reiterate that it's voluntary. Excuse me, Madam Chair. To reiterate that it's voluntary. I believe that's what the city attorney may be doing. Madam Chair. Okay. So, it's up to the team if they want to leave or not. All right. Excellent. Let's get this show on the road. Uh, you want to start the clock? U clerk and let's get started, sir. The communications director is running the clock. He's ready when you're ready.

And council members, honorable mayor, and staff. I'm here with Peter Berian, the founder and principal of forest development. We thank you for your time and dedication to the city of River Beach. As requested, we are presenting a summary of our submittal for the ITN. Before we begin, we want to take a moment to acknowledge and agree with council's previously expressed desire to negotiate with multiple respondents. That was very strong last week. As you were notified, an ITN allows for such a process and it may allow participants to develop portions of the ITN, thereby maxing maximizing return for the city and further assuring shovels in the ground. We welcome the opportunity to negotiate and participate with city staff and other respondents and hope you'll consider allowing this dual negotiation to occur. Finally, we also wanted to address a letter we recently sent to staff and we sent to staff and the city attorney. Our outside council who specializes in contracts recently advised us that the CB and RE contract containing the ITN might have significant issues. However, we look forward to moving forward with this ITN, possibly bifrocated, working with both respondents if you so choose, so long as those CBRE issues are addressed. Okay, can anybody help me here real quickly?

Okay, there we go. We're excited to help reimagine Riviera Beach. Okay. Wow.

Please. Uh, Forest Development is a forward-thinking real estate development firm with over 30 years experience dedicated to creating sustainable and innovative projects in the US and Europe. With a commitment to excellence, our diversified investment strategy includes adding value through strategic partnerships. That's key. Strategic partnerships and opportunities with mixeduse, multifamily, luxury condominiums, hotels, retail, and restaurant and marinas. This company is committed to providing outstanding service and quality for investors, residents, and tenants of Rivier Beach. Next page, our development team. Perfect. Forest founder Peter Petarian, Justin Marorrow, and Sam collectively boast decades of unparalleled success in the realm of development. Their collaborative efforts have culminated in the successful development, entitlement, and orchestration of numerous multi-million dollar mixeduse projects actually built. Our team, this is key, our team is dedicated to partnering with and providing value to the communities River Beach in which we invest. Although we may not have a cast of companies behind us today, we absolutely promise to exceed your expectations with regard to community involvement. Should we be allowed should be we be awarded this project or a portion of it, do not be surprised when you see familiar faces working and thriving on forest projects. Now, relevant projects. Thank you, Peter. Nautilus 220 closings have started and the certificate of occupancy will be given to us this month of November. We have a budget there of $367 million. That's not correct. We're at $525 million right now.

Sellout.

Sellout and we're sold out. That's a mixeduse project. We have 30 close to 36,000 square feet of commercial, almost 800,000 residential and we have parking utilities. A little lower. This project consists of 330 two and three-bedroom condos and two 24-story buildings. This project was financed, next page, with $30 million of partner equity, $269 million construction loan, and $68 million of deposits. Now, what are our our team? Thank you. Perfect. Uh you know about Nautilus Oculina. We are so excited about Ocul Oculina. We have $14 million of partner equity in that cash there. There are no mortgages at all. The sales center will be open within 90 days. We have two projects in Lake Park we're working on. And look at Cape Coral a little lower here. We're building on seven islands mixeduse similar to this. Condominiums, apartments, hotel, fish houses, lagoon resort, community center. $800 million project significantly underway. Then we have the 302 Lake Park project. Now our financial capacity, the city hired PFM financial advisors. Bottom line, they went over our numbers. They met with Dun and Brad Street. They said that we had strong financials that our our history suggests that we can build this and move forward. So thank you for that. City of River Beach, our team. uh further lower lower down the architects that we're using uh dwell architects that's uh and net architects local companies we know Waltman WGI uh yours truly is doing legal work for the team Sophia Nelson person we all know very well we should know very well she'll be doing community outreach we've

used her before we have Brian Electric we all know Bonnie Electric Kina and Vincent Brown uh now I'm going to speak about one-stop housing in a moment Maurice Campbell. He has he's probably the largest workforce housing developer and he's a happens to be an African-American here in Florida. Phenomenal partner. We mentioned earlier that we partner with groups. We don't do this all ourselves. We find the best in class and we work with them. The economic impact trying to go faster. I know we want to keep this under 20 minutes. We view this at a minimum a $635 million project. Close to 3,000 jobs will be involved. The team next page. Yours truly. Next page. Maurice Campbell is he has a signature background in affordable housing, possibly the largest in Florida. We'll speak later about the hero's hometown and that's where we envision having workforce housing for sale units one, two, and threebedroom and he has significant success in in developing those those uh workforce housing projects. We have Brown Electric the next page. We know Vincent and Kina Brown there at most of your meetings with us for a while. We know and love Sophia Brown. She'll be our community outreach person and community outreach. Next page is significant. Wow. We're going to have significant community engagement. We'll have a series of public meetings where we will share detailed plans, visual renderings, opportunities. Number two, we'll conduct targeted surveys of the citizens to gather valuable data from residents in the surrounding areas. We are committed to fostering strong relationships with the local businesses. Once again, we may not have a cast behind us, but they'll be with us and they'll be put to work. Our promise, we pledge to maintain transparent communication and ongoing dialogue with

the community and this council. There will not be a week that you do not hear from us or you do not see. How our method little lower. How do we how actually how will we do this? We're going to have a project website, dedicated project emails, dedicated project telephone line, community mailers giving updates, there'll be signage, there'll be French wraps. This community will know what's happening at all times and how to get engaged without fail. Our commitment to local is that me or you?

It's doing itself. Commitment to local, small, and minority enterprise. Thank you for that. We understand River Beach mayor and council and we know how committed you are to these uh significant uh desires. We we will speak with them to understand how they can work with us and we look forward to helping them grow. There'll be early and ongoing collaboration. There'll be a comprehensive hiring and procurement plan. We will develop a detailed plan to source and prepare a qualified pool that's supported of local subcontractor suppliers and and workers. There'll be outreach and awareness. There'll be mentorship and support. That mentorship is critical here. Resource allocations. We will ensure that local businesses have access to the available resource they need to participate in this project successfully. We spoke about stakeholder engagement, transparent communications, and this is important. Evaluation a little higher evaluation, continuous improvement. There'll be rigorous monitoring and evaluation framework that you will be involved in to assess the effectiveness of our community engagement efforts. There'll be performance metrics, clear metrics to measure the success such as the number of hires, participation rate of local subs and community satisfaction levels. There'll be regular reviews and audits to identify areas for improvement and make necessary judgments. By integrating these comprehensive strategies, we are committed to ensuring that the development project not only meets the needs of River Beach, but also leaves a lasting positive impact on the community. Let's talk about the plan. This is truly exciting. [clears throat] We broke this down into four pages, mayor and commission and audience. phase 1A and 1B, that's the current city hall site. We

will prior we will prioritize the city's needs and we will phase the development in a manner that aligns with your public interest. Uh if when it comes time to demolish the current city hall, they will either those workers, those critical office workers of the city will either be moved into a new building on that site or possibly to the Broadway site. We're going to have close to 30,000 square feet of commercial which includes office space on the Broadway site. It's not just residential, it's mixed use. It's restaurant, retail, office. So, if the city hall employees uh need to be housed, they can go into phase 1 A or B on Broadway or we will build a building on portions of phase 1 A and 1B. Uh phase two, very exciting. Phase 2 A and 2B. Why do we say A and B? They can be done at the same time or we do the north side or the south side of phase 2. First, this is a mixeduse multif family uh uh development. This will be a food, family, and entertainment hub. This would require us to relocate the athletic center currently and move it after careful review. We think the Dan Callaway site makes sense. So, we would combine the athletic facilities over at Dan Callaway. And what does that do for you? It gives you, and you're going to see this, a phenomenal uh development of of of of residential food family. It'll be better than City Place right there on the south side of Broadway. We don't think there's a we don't think you need to have two or three or four different athletic facilities. We can maximize everything over at Dan Callaway. Uh phase three, workforce housing. That's the that's the orange area in the top. That's his current schoolboard site. That is our hometown hero site. Those

will be for sale workforce housing residential units right there. Those we will support our educators, the first responders, healthcare workers, marine and tourism workers, for sale one, two, and threebedroom uh workforce housing in phase three. And a little bonus, the bottom right, that's the phase four. We're looking at once again combining recreation facilities uh over on the Dan Callaway site and I'll go over that quickly. Now, a little more detail into phase 1AB. Uh once again, that would be a mixeduse relatively high-rise building. I have eight minutes left, right? Uh uh that's mixed use. Um we will foster a sense of community. Broadway. The the entire city is important to us, but right now we have a particular love for Broadway. You know that Broadway is so critical to making sure that that corridor is walkable, is alive, and vibrant. We want you to stroll along treeine avenues, savoring the aromomas coming from the diverse eeries. We want you to engage in the public art that sparks conversation and fuels creativity. There'll be market rate and workforce housing on Broadway. There'll be dynamic commercial and dining spaces. There'll be, yes, there'll be public parking, green space and amenities, local art and culture. Now, City Hall, this we envision a sevenstory mixeduse complex for city hall. This is a new revitalized government center. It's a dynamic destination where the convenience and community converge. We envision a transformed library space, interactive information kiosks. There'll be public parking, green space, and amenities, and comm community meeting

rooms at this new sevenstory mixeduse governmental complex that will not close at 4 or 5:00. We envision this being a vibrant uh destination that that that stays alive after 5:00 p.m. Uh, wow. This is phase two. This is where uh Wells is now the south side of of Blue Heron. Now, we're not not the tall buildings in the back. That's just there for for coloring, but the buildings in the front and on the right side right side. We envision a sevenstory maximum uh low lowrise buildings, um high-tech virtual office space. There'll be uh multifamily there, food, family entertainment hub, basically bed in the city place right here. So you can live, work, and play without getting in a car right there on the south side of of Blue Heron. Uh, next page, please. Now along along in that area, we'll have mixed use housing market and workforce units, and these are for rent. So on the north side, we had Hometown Heroes, Hometown Heroes. We had we had four sale units on the south side with this bed and city place. We envisioned uh four rent units uh along the railroad. We're planning to have a separation wall. We'll have an outdoor water feature and all of this was submitted. You have all this in our submitt packet, but this is a much abbreviated version. Look at this hometown heroes. This is the most excit This is This gets me excited. This is where our first responders, our educators, our medical professionals uh will live, work, and play. And it is on the north side of Blue Heron uh just north of City Hall.

One, two, and threebedroom town homes. Ownership, ownership, ownership, ownership. A community pool, a community room with state-of-the-art wellness and entertainment amenities. And this is the extra. This is the uh phase four, maybe a re-imagined parks and wreck haven. Uh over at the Dan Callerie site, there'll be a comprehensive communitycentric athletic complex. We're looking at having programs and classes there, multifloor gymnasium, uh possibly a splash pad, miniature golf, interior gaming, basketball court. Um truly a phenomenal location that we can maximize at Callaway, which allows us to do significant development on the uh on the Wells Recreation site. Well, I think I'm going to make one commissioner very happy because I'm going to wrap up early. Once again, thank you for this opportunity. Uh as we wrap up, I wanted to thank you and reiterate our thoughts of bifurcating or selecting more than one developer to negotiate is a winwinwin. One entity might have strengths in the current area, the other somewhere else right now. It allows you to maximize and make sure you get shovels in the ground and not have uh delay, delay, delay, delay, delay. So, we thank you for this opportunity. We're here to answer any questions you may have. Peter, did I miss anything that you want to thank you? Thank you, Chair.

Yes, go ahead. Hey, uh, Mr. Richards, [clears throat] hold on one second. Is there is that for you? All right, go ahead. Okay, Mr. Richards, can you start the time for us for the questions? Yeah. Ready? Yes. Okay. Can Can you tell me what the total cost of this development is? Well, we we said the total hard cost of land, we're looking at $450 million. Soft cost and finance $1855 for total of close to 650 million. I will tell you though that we've looked at numbers recently. This was submitted and we can't deviate from our submitt, but the numbers have gone up since then.

So, so you're probably talking about close to a billion dollar development. That's correct. So I I assume you're going to do this in phases. I 100%. Uh I have I do have slides for that which I didn't hit because of time but yes this would be a phase and that's why we have phase 1 A 1 B 2 A 2B 3A and 3B and then four. All this will be done in phases but phase one phase one would most likely be city hall and Broadway. That's what I was getting at. I wanted to make sure city hall was in the front end in the first phase number one. Okay. Thank you. And the ability to locate the workers are also in phase one. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, go ahead. the um and I know we're just entering into negotiations or we're doing this to select someone to negotiate with on the areas where there is no public building. Are you all buying that property from us? There's no public building on the areas where there's private development for in May I yeah go ahead for saying for instance um the Broadway piece yes I think that's one of the pieces or any where there's no public building for heroes yes and the hometown for heroes as well

I'm sorry yes and the hometown for heroes that's the north side the schoolboard site where we're going to put the workforce housing for sale we have to purchase those yes I mean I just want an understanding All of this is [clears throat] the people's property. Yes. And I want to understand whether those properties that do not have public buildings on them, are you going to buy that property from us? Yes, we are. Okay. That'd be negotiated 100%. Okay, sounds good. Um, what property is that? Uh, Commissioner G, I'm sorry. What property is that you're asking about? I'm asking for all of the properties that don't have public buildings. I see. We we own all this property,

right? So So those properties that don't have public buildings. I I want to get an understanding that we just not giving property away. No, no, we we understand you are correct. Okay, we're good. You're correct. Um the the other issue was um you you told us how you're going to finance a lot of this. Uh you said that how much equity did you say that you have to put up?

Uh currently out of Nautilus we have $30 million in equity. We have about uh $14 million into Aqualina. We've recently done about $80 million in sales in Nautilus that we've closed. So uh our money is coming out in the next 45 to 60 days. over and above that uh we'll have some uh private equity come in you know to this this project but okay we have a significant amount of capital coming out. Yeah it's important that we have those asurances that when these projects start you can finance them through completion [clears throat] not just for phases. So um madam chair that's all I have for now I know that commission madam chair

yes go ahead just a few questions um first question that you know with locals I know that you said that you're worked with you're working with locals what was your percentage of locals on your last project most recent and closest to us um I would say nautilus yeah we we don't have that figure um just because it wasn't a requirement but uh I actually I made the commit to get it from Cass I will get to that information and I'll get it to the team and we're work, you know, cast obviously that commitment was not there, mayor. Um, but now we have owner buildouts significant whether it's restaurant, retail, or office space, tens of thousand square feet, right?

And we're working with people in this room uh currently and we're looking for more. So, who whatever team that we choose, I want to make sure that that understands that's priority number one. uh making sure locals and Wayne when we've had many conversations about that so you understand that about 10% of my conversation because how we know how critical and urgent and important you have made that in this council

thank you next question bond we talked about moving the location um for the parks in Rexville there's a concern that I have I don't think that's uh feasible with the fact that we did have a bond for $45 million that was allocated or defined for the site at Wells Gym the current Wells and the site for the bond that we approved through the voters has to stay at that location. So trying to relocate our parks to all exclusively at Tates I don't think is going to work based upon the money that we have to invest into it. So that means we would forfeit that bond money if we decided to go with this proposal. Um so of course this is ITN that's negotiable. Uh but I that Hometown Heroes I love the idea of the housing but I don't want to lose our parks and wrecks because we've already taken too many parks out of our community. We have to continue to build back into them. So I don't want to consolidate them into one versus expanding and building out the two would be my concern.

Understand this this this project is flexible as you see. We have four phases and we have we have four phases and we have two parts of each phase. Um clearly we would sit down with staff and go over that. It was our goal to maximize all available lands.

Understood. But maximizing it for us though does include making sure that the parks are addressed and that needs to be priority number one. That's why we included it into this ITN. So trying to consolidate it. I don't think Callaway was a part of the ITN. So I like the idea of redoing and renovating, but this ITN is exclusively based upon 22nd Street and the Wells site. And I want the board to realize that we have to just focus on that with the money we have and the partners. But what I do like is the capacity, the fact that you're in our community already and that you're currently building. But I want to make sure we're clear with what our expectation is. So when we go into negotiation after we've selected the builder that our team outlines the expectation and direction from this board. Thank you mayor. Thank you madam chair. Chair.

Yes. Go ahead. Uh just in in response to the mayor's uh concern about the bond and moving the location. I assume that that bond was done the same way the police station bond was. And if it was then the city council by resolution can change the location. Uh but now my main my main question right now is you're going to do this in phases. Would you be willing to give the city a performance bond on a phase basis naming us as an additional insured? Yes, we would. Okay. Thank you.

Let me ask a question about you know leverage of debt. You got the Yakunia project going. You just received the 1857. You have the Nautilus that you are 90% on. How do you manage to how are you going to manage to be able to leverage this amount of debt that's and that's just the projects that are in this surrounding area? You have projects you know out west meaning you know on the uh Gulf Coast. So how are you going how you going to do that? So, our team is expanding, but over and above that, u in all of our projects, we take on partners who are specific to what we're building, whether it's a hotel, a marina, uh a boat storage, and we remain the point person. We oversee the whole process, but we work with a a team of uh professionals, experts, and that's how we're able to, you know, get these projects done.

Okay. So you you're telling me that this is in phases. What are you look what are you what are we looking at in terms from start to finish in terms of the timeline? How long will the entire project run? Seven years. I think I think and I know this is a lot but I still need to have an idea. Is it two years, five years, 10 years? It's about five to seven but this is something that you know we have to work through together. Five to seven years. Y and that's for all phases. Correct. And there could be some overlap if we need to accelerate it. And you did say the city hall project would be first. What does that timeline look like?

That is start right away as soon as we have the permit. That's between 24 and 30 months.

Madam Chair. Yes. Go ahead. Just one more comment question. I I just want to be clear. the direction of the board. Um, uh, Dr. Spiritis, I think that we have a legal opinion. We can't actually move that bond by resolution. So, we have to keep it within what we voted on based upon the legal opinion that we've received um to council. And attorney Win or Mr. Evans, if you guys could kind of um, clearly articulate that. So, when the board makes a decision, that's based upon the information that we have. Yes. Go ahead. So, uh, councelor, can you tell us was this bond done the same way? Was the verbiage the same in this bond issue as it was in the police department.

Who's that question to to our legal counsel? Okay. I don't have that opinion. I haven't seen it. Is there a bond council here? Madam Chair, if I may. Yes, go ahead. They they literally left when the other item was on the agenda. You could. But while they're while they're reviewing, Madam Chair, if you want to continue with questions so that we can get through this and then we can address this bond concern.

Okay. We have about a minute or so. Any other questions for far left for this project? Okay, very good. Thank you, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, go ahead. The bottom line of the opinion or the conclusion was that um by selecting an alternate location, this is this is as it related to the police station, but the premise is the same that it would jeopardize the legality of the of the use of the bond proceeds. So, you'd have to start over.

Chair, let's go ahead. Uh, I read the bond. I I would, you know, I took it out of my briefcase, but I read the verbiage in the bond and there's a sec. It refers to the resolution. The people didn't vote on a specific location. They voted on a resolution. The resolution gave the board the opportunity uh to change anything pertaining to that bond by a resolution of the board. I'm not talking about the actual bond that was approved or the negotiations done by bond council and the city right now. I'm talking about the actual verbiage the resolution passed by this board which was used which is what the people voted on was that resolution madam madam chair if I may.

Yes go ahead. I I think one of the other components associated with the opinion is that we also went through the bond validation process whereby we followed a lawsuit against ourselves, presented evidence to the court as it relates to the bond. And so by going through that bond validation process where the court said yes, you did everything consistent with the process. That's what also that that's probably the stricter component associated with that that we do go through a bond validation process. the chair. Yes. Go ahead.

Yes. But we would be following that same process if we followed the the results of the of the verbiage in the resolution itself. So it would be the same thing if we if we just did a resolution, you know, identifying a change and we all approved it. That's what the resolution said we had the authority to do. And that's and there's a reason for that. We do that all the time with bonds. I've done a lot of bonds over the years. I'm a little older. And when we do bonds, for example, when you uh do a bond on a piece of property, you don't know whether or not you're going to find, you know, uh environmental hazards on the property. You don't know what's going to happen. You know, anything can happen that could make you have to move it. And you don't want to have to do a new resolution, a new a referendum with the people. You want to give yourselves the ability to make that move if necessary or there may be a construction problem or something. You want to have the ability to change components of the bond. So you give yourself that ability in the resolution which we did by the way. We did it properly. We said that if there was a component in that uh in that bond issue or or with anything we had the right to change any component of that bond uh and that referendum based on a a resolution of this board. Okay.

All right. Very good. Let's move to the next one. Yes. At this time, if I may um call up Sonnlick to present. All right. Introduce yourselves and you can get started. I have one quick question before we start if we can. My name is Robert Sonnen Blick, chairman of Sonnen Blick Development. We have available, I don't know what your procedure, what you would like, but we have available of what's coming up here if you're interested. clerk, she'll give it to us. Okay, Jonathan, I'm not sure. Give it to the clerk. She'll give it to us. Oh, okay. These are

miss the clock. Our communications director is running the clock whenever they're whenever they're ready. All right. So, you want to start? Are you guys ready? Okay, we are ready. All right. Let's go.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you. My name is Robert Sonnen Blick. Our team is Sonnen Blick Development with Leo Dailyaly Architects and Kaufman Lin Construction and MCO Construction Sports Facilities Corporation. Greg Cardona uh residential and RDG Residential. Very quick background on us. We are a 132year-old real estate development company. We've opened offices here in Jupiter just north of us. And our main business is very different than our friends at Forest Development. Forest has done a lovely job building the Nautilus 220 project that we all know north of us. We are not residential condominium developers. We don't build $4 million condominium projects.

Okay. What we do build are government tenanted buildings, things like city halls, things like uh uh offices for the federal government, the state, the county, buildings like that. We have a project here in phase one we're showing you right now that is a city office for a city hall, a library, administrative offices, etc. That governmental building is our specialty. And I'm going to jump around for one second and just show you something. These are some of the buildings, governmental tenanted office buildings that we built and we still own today. Approximately 1 million square ft of government tenanted buildings similar to your city hall complex. The one on the right, we were chosen in an RFP to be the LA Los Angeles headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security. They give us what they wanted and we build it and lease it to them. The building on the left, as you see, is Los Angeles County Department of Social Services. There is another one on the left, Department of Social Services. The one on the right there is the Department of Children and Family Services. And if I leave you with one concept, it's that governmental entities choose us through a very rigorous RFP

and vetting process to build them governmental office buildings. We are not here to talk to you about $4 million condominium projects. that is condominium uh uh sales in a project. That is not what we do. We did something else very important when we talked to you about this project and we've been working on this for about a year and a half now. I'm going to just go down. This is a list of governmental agencies that have done RFPs that we have responded to similar to this ITN who have chosen us to build them their facilities. This is what we do. These 16 departments have all chosen us and we are their current landlord and and developer of these buildings. So I really want to stress the differences between us and our friends who we are competing with on this project. We also develop hotel projects and we can talk about that for further things you have later on in this town. I'm going the wrong way here. Okay. The other thing that was asked about before was our ability to fund projects. This is among the $2 billion of commercial projects that we have funded. This is not proposed. These are existing buildings that we have funded. Uh I want to just go back to one other thing and then we're going to introduce

uh the rest of our team. This gives you an idea of the the project itself. Uh Glenn, you mentioned before about bonding. One of the things that we do on all of our projects is a 100% bond which guarantees delivery date and price of construction before we start and we make the city a beneficiary of that bond. It's a bond from a $6 billion insurance company who is rated AAA by Standard Empors in Wall Street. And what that does is make sure that you get a building on time and on budget. And our proposal to you on this project does exactly that. Two more very quick comments. No, no. Two, two more very quick comments. We have chosen a partner on this deal. Actually, two partners. Sports Facilities, Inc. is the best group in the state of Florida, maybe the country to do our sports component. We are partnered with them and you're going to be seeing information on them. And equally important, our venture with Kaufman Lynn and MCO. You all saw a half an hour ago their commitment to local hiring and community hiring as well. And SPE and maybe now we'll we'll uh Arena if you want. Oops. We're going to go the other way and I'm going to hand this over from our architects. There you go.

Thank you, Bob. Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to be with you. Uh, I am Arena Savvakova, global design principal for Leeway Daily. And a very brief overview to what we do. We're an engineering and architectural integrated practice. We do both interiors, master planning, you name it. Most important of all is we specialized in all these different typologies. We revitalize places. We create places and memories. And placemaking is truly our strong suit. So think of us as the 110 year old startup. We have been in Florida alone for over 60 years. For us, you the decision makers, the community, all of you. You're part of our process and we look forward to be working with you every step along the way. Few projects in South Florida alone, otherwise I'll run out of time. These two projects, the Rosemary Tower just won a AA design architecture design award few days ago. Uh, and one project that is really dear to my heart. This will be currently under construction the new gateway works for housing in Winwood uh north of downtown Miami where culture and art and every aspect of what workforce housing will be so everybody belongs is really happening and it's in place. So from day one our process is collaboration and engagement. So when you see all of us around the table, uh it is just the beginning of a thought process. What I heard really touched my heart. For your children, the ones that want to be part of a process and realize what architecture and design is, you'll be part of that process. Every step along the way from design all the way to construction. It's a it's a process of discovery. I'm going to be real fast because we got limited time and you all heard me speak

way too much today already. But Kaufman Lynn, you know what we've done for you? We've done it for other people as well. And what you're looking to do here, city of Coral Springs City Hall, all South Florida projects. Town of Jupiter, we did their municipal complex and their town center city hall. We're doing Davies Town Hall right now. All unique projects unique to the community. Cutler Bay, we're doing their mixeduse city hall police headquarters and park. We're doing all that currently. the multif family or mixed use whether it's hotel like aloft or redoing the downtown plantation walk in plantation Florida were the ones that built that mixeduse parks we talked a lot about the community and parks we've done it from blue parkar regional park sports park like inbokea dal central park I'm going to let this go about 30 seconds so you get an idea this is probably the largest park to have just opened up in South Florida to 104 you see the track in there It's got a gymnasium. It's got an aquatic center both for kids and for competition. This is the kids side, the other competition. It's got sports field. It's got the amphitheater. It's got a kayak launch. It's got a boardwalk. It's got environmental center. And it's got all the components. So, not going to let this play. You could just Google Deralsa. We only got nine minutes left and we got community focus. We're going to go because this is what it's about. This is what we achieved on 88. These are not hey we we're going to tell you what we think we can do here. This is what we did. And actually on 87 that first number at 37% is well over 50 to about 60%. So we're not only we learned on one and we're getting better as we keep working with you and get to know because it is as I started earlier about the community and with that my partner is about the community.

Uh good afternoon again. Good evening. I just want to say something that's very different here for me. My name is Ann McNeil and I am Riviera Beach, born and raised here. First black female contractor in the state of Florida operating at the level that we do. This is my home and these numbers are not even comparable to what we can do for the city. Next slide, please. This is one photo of the presentation we made earlier. Next slide, please. What makes us very different is that we don't just build buildings and somebody said it earlier. We build people that build businesses that build communities. That's what we do very differently. And as a part of this team, um raise raise. Yes, sir. [laughter]

Mr. Randolph and myself and Kaufman and this entire team has committed to the city to do everything that we can. The next slide please. To demonstrate what teamwork does, which makes the dream work when it comes to envisioning what the city can be. And I'm going to stop there so we can continue this uh presentation. But this is just a another photo of what we're doing in giving back with our backpack program. Thank you,

commissioners. My name is Greg Wisecar. I'm with the Sports Facilities Companies, Florida based out of Clearwater. Uh we have worked with over 3,000 communities to plan sustainable operational sports complexes that integrate into the fiber of the community. It's important how you build all of this, how this is developed, but it's even more important how it's ingrained and becomes a central hub of your community for the next decades to come in a sustainable fashion. That's our commitment. That's our part of the team. What we do is everything from programming to operations to running events and making this a central hub of the community, not just in sports. It's a sports complex, but it's so much than sports goes on there. It's events, it's trade shows, it's community activities. It becomes the central fiber of Riviera Beach. The place that everybody's checking the calendar of what's going on there before we make our plans this weekend. That's what this place is going to be. And all we do is sports and entertainment complexes, making them sustainable, making them meaningful, making sure as part of Project Play, you can see we've partnered with Major League Baseball, NBA, Nike, you can see SFA, SFM, that's my company. We have made a fund. You've seen Dick's commercials about uh No Child being able to not play because we're here. part of this. My commitment to you and our com company's commitment is that no child in this community won't be able to participate in organized sports recreation activities because of financial reasons ever as long as we're involved here. And we plan on being here a long, long time. We do things in Florida up in Naples. We operate at Paradise Coast and we're expanding that facility for them and brought a USL soccer team to the community. We do Cape Coral, a large racket complex. Panama City Beach, we operate that. Melbourne up the up the street too. So many things

that we'll do and we'll do that much more uh for you guys. It's about all this being tied together. That's our commitment. Proud to be a part of the team. Good evening, commissioners and residents of uh Riviera Beach. Um I appreciate being here this evening. This is going to be a very brief introduction given the fact that we've got 5 minutes 27 seconds left. But uh my role on the uh the investment project that you have envisioned for the Brooks Municipal uh uh governmental I'm sorry governmental center and reinvisioning that campus along with the school board. Uh our role with my partner Randall, step up there, Randall, is to bring the capital as well as the design working with Arena, uh to bring approximately a thousand new residences uh uh into the community uh for a range of household incomes from workforce to senior uh and mix that in with retail uh on a selected basis um uh to activate the campus that results from these 80 acres. And I really would like Arena to have some time. So I'm going to cut my remarks short so she can share the master plan vision uh for the blue heron site in the U Broadway site. Can I take the

Thank you. And now I'll focus our attention to what you have been able to see on all the boards. We're here together with you. I think of this as our first design discussion where we present some initial ideas and vision about how to reinvent, how to create an inclusive community, how to create a place for everyone, how to create this economic engine that translates and generates more work, more uh opportunities and I will start with a general overview. We want to have a synerggetic development that brings much neededed need for housing, incredible sports facilities that speak to the wellness and what needs to be part of this whole envir environment, but most of all the center of civic engagement in civic community. And that is city hall a cohesive integrated type of uh entities that are places where pe people connect where they engage where you can see the vibrancy of public process happen. How we can create that that will be what we do together. Each one of these buildings will be a gateway. There will be a portal to how people engage and how students engage. So take a look at uh the development opportunities. We will be creating places buildings are and places are where memories are made. So it's about shaping things together with you with the community in very interactive forums and we will we have numbers but it is not the focus of our discussion right now. It's all about what we can do together. And a very brief glimpse at the site on Broadway and 23rd. So the community commons will accommodate workforce housing that is at a different density and vibrancy with retail. We also are offering

30,000 square ft of office space there that we can actually be able to pres present opportunity to offset needs that you might have. So this is very brief but I will take all the time that is necessary together with my partners and I have been working with these partners for decades now to respond to questions that you might have. Not yet.

We're going to go ahead and wrap up for the sake of time and the community benefits that we want to make sure that's very clear. We've pledged and committed uh $200,000 to local community benefits. And these funds will sponsor support initiatives that strengthen the community and promote long-term impact. Uh there's a listing here as you can see. I'm not going to read them all of commitments that we're making to support these organizations. And go to the next slide, please. And this is our uh team commitment to Revier Beach. And we're out of time. I just want to go ahead and finish so that we can be open for questions and answers. Thank you so very much. One other thing just in closing,

we would like to request from you as a city council. We disagree with Forest on one major point. We would like you to consider choosing us tonight. the idea of having two teams going out and negotiating and adding on another year to the process. We don't really uh like that idea and are very hesitant to participate in something like that. As you know, we've been involved in this for a year and a half with you and we would very much request from you respectfully that you do in fact vote on this tonight. Thank you. Oh, go ahead. You want

Okay, that that's our proposal and and if you want to do Q&A, we're we're happy to talk to you. Okay. U Madam Clerk, could you start the clock for the Q&A? Madame Chair, the communications director will stop the 10-minute clock. All right. Very good questions. Chair. Yes. Go ahead.

Okay. Mr. Son, uh you mentioned workforce housing in this project and you're aware that there's a substantial uh tax deduction uh in workforce housing. Will you be willing to do a payment in le of taxes uh with the city where eventually you'll be paying 100% taxes? We've done pilot payment in le of taxes on other projects and we're very comfortable with that deal structure. We did that in New in our big New Jersey project. Okay. I had two other questions. One is uh how much input are you going to permit the staff to have in the design of this project?

Tremendous. The whole thing from the master planning to the actual architecture of the of the buildings. We're ready to sit down with staff a and the council immediately. We don't have any rigid design concepts at all. Okay. Chair. Yes. Go ahead. So, there were two uh two renderings. I one of I think one of the buildings was built already. I'm pretty sure I know it was 5,000. I saw 5,000 uh North Ocean on there. Did Did one of your team participate in the development of 5,000? 5,000. I think that was you. Yeah. Yeah. This is Randall

Randall Graham RD RDG development group. I participated on that project with 5000 um North Ocean um with Coulter Urban. I I did the entitlements the engineering site plan and um landscape plan design. I also saw I I think this was part of yours as well or maybe not Saudi. I saw Saudi. No, no, no. That's was me. Yeah. So where did where did that come in? I'm speaking the mic please. Come come over. Yes sir. You're asking me where does Greg Cardona come in?

I sorry I didn't hear the the Saudi group. Uh is that is that from Saudi Arabia? Is that from Saudi Arabia? Is that actually that's the last name of one of my partners. He happens to be from Morocco though. You're not far off. Okay. Um, but the name of our company is Gra Cardona Saudi and that's where you saw the Saudi. Hey, thank you. Yes, sir. Madam Chair. Yes. Go ahead. My first question is to the gentleman who's building the sports plant or proposing to build a sports. Sir,

you made a comment that as long as you're involved, kids would not be denied because of financial situations. What did you mean about that? Art

means we uh as part of sustainable operations and I think the ITN mentioned that you wanted sports assets that are sustainable beyond media. First of all, the planning has to be done right. But when we want to offer programs and events out to the community, there's a pool of money that that Aspen Play Institute, those companies like us, Nike, Dick Sporting Goods, there's a pool of money that we get to distribute out. And so we would any facility that we're involved in, we get to bring that money to bear to the table because that's in essence we want to improve the communities we're involved in.

So um just better clarification. So does that include registration fees, clicks, if they need clicks and things that it would be defined based on the programming of that facility, however it's best used. I mean, it's it's not a bottomless pit for sure, but we want to determine the need specific to the area and meet the need. Yeah. I know you threw it out there, but I want a better understanding. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. There's no certain limitations, but yes.

Okay. Uh my next question is I'm glad Mr. Spirit has brought up the pallet. Um, a lot of times in P3s, um, some in the private sector take that to be the public sector or give up a lot of land. You all go build buildings, you getting income for generations to come, but we don't participate in any of that benefit on the profit side, but public private partnership. We never talk about what we get from the profit side, but we always giving up land. There was a deal in here the other night that I just thought it wasn't good. We we gave up property for work cost development. Then they get a portion of our auror taxes. Then we gave them a reduced cost on the um other land that they too much too much.

I agree with you. I'm saying I'm going get right to the point

that we need to see a benefit too on that private side of this public private partnership. So I don't want to stop on we just giving up land and you do workforce housing and then you give us a little pilot. It's going to be a prophet side eventually and it may be 20 30 years down the road, but I want to make sure that it's in writing that we participate on that prophet side. We agree with you 100%. And in several of those government buildings that you saw up there, and I'm very pleased that you brought this up, and this is on the record so that everyone can hear this as part of our lease to you on the city hall building at the end of 30 years. Exactly what what you mentioned, Bruce. [clears throat] The city has the option in writing to buy the city hall building back from us for $1. So, Bruce, no, no one knows 30 years from now about what values are. You're correct. But let's say we build a $70 million city hall. At the end of and by 30 years from now, that building may be worth $200 million. You get to buy that building back from us for $1. So that you're going to be the ones making the equity in that city hall building. And that is part of our deal. It is in the lease document and recorded. So even if none of us are around here in 30 years,

Madam Chair, somebody's gonna know if we can save some time for the commissioners because I know that they want to get to the points, but we have a few other questions. One last question. Um time frame completion. Yeah. When would you all be able to start shovels in the ground and how long it would take to Two years of construction for phase one? Phase one being the city hall and the sports complex. And we're working right now, hopefully through the cooperation of the city, we would like to start January one uh a year from now. I have. Yes, go ahead.

Thank you. Uh quick question. I saw that we have a lot of locals here. My concern is that um I've always hated the dog and pony show. How many of these locals actually have contracts executed with your team? Our team has negotiated how many contracts? He wants a number. What's the Could you repeat the question? The teams that we've negotiated, these locals that are here, um who do we have executed contracts with these teams? Because I entrust and I've seen Cauin firsthand. I'm hopeful that Coffin Lynn, MCO, they've are partners at this this table. Absolutely.

They will be consistent with actually negotiating and bringing the locals to the table because they are proven commodities. So, I want to make sure this is not a dog and pony show. Priority number one is all the locals from our community benefit because you told us about your promise. You know that that doesn't carry any weight. I need executed documentation. I need contracts. I need to make sure that our land that we own, as my commissioner said, my councilman said, we hold you accountable for what you're telling us you're going to do because if you're going to build these land and resources, we thank you for what you're saying, but I want to execute these contracts. So, we'll start with the promise, but then we'll get documentation. So, that's why I want to make sure number one, they have contracts. Yes.

Number two, the timing. You said two years for construction. We didn't get much to your presentation because you did a lot of introduction of the team, but I didn't see what was on the south end of the um Broadway corridor. What is the vision of the plan for the south end south of the municipal complex? Blue Heron. I'm sorry. Uh yeah, Blue Her and then also to the Broadway corridor. I'm not sure what what is that building? What is that rendering? What is your vision for that? Yeah. And we only have a minute left because uh

I will go to uh your question about what is on the on the side of uh south of Bluehair that is workforce housing and that is a residential community mixuse. So we go from a highly higher density to something that actually works with the context and creates something that is cohesive. You can see that there's a center for the community that

that's one of our longest standing communities. So we have to be very safe and with that development as my counciloman Mill Anderson has said. So I wanted to hear a little bit more about what you guys are going to present it. You talked a lot about the teams but I don't know what actually the project looks like. So I can go back through this but I really don't have a vision. Madam Chair, if anybody else wants a question very very good just quick. Um on the community benefit slide you had 200 $200,000. How did you choose because I saw different programs and initiatives. How did you choose those programs and initiatives? We the firms that's from the community in the in addition is in addition

200,000 plus it's in addition. Okay. But I just asked how you selected how did we identify the firms in the bullet? Yeah, the ones in the bullet. We did research within the community and those are just some of the firms and not all. This is not limited to just these firms. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Go ahead. That that my I I like what my colleague just brought up. The question is this. Would you be willing to let the city sit on a committee with you time to make those make those decisions? Yes, absolutely. Next question. Go ahead. Go ahead. Yes, absolutely. Thank you.

His question was, would they be willing to have a community member sit or us sit on the committee to choose these projects? All right. Excellent. Madame Chair, yes, we do have two public comment cards on this item. Okay, go ahead. We'll start with the public. Are we going to have chair? We're going to have questions again after because there's one very important question that we didn't bring up.

Let's go to public comment first. The first speaker is Erica Davis, followed by Kendra Wester, Erica Davis, Rivier Beach. First of all, I want to say again, great presentation, different partnerships, specializing in these projects that we need built. Great collaboration. That's what professionalism is all about and that's why they were scored 116. I am very concerned about forest development. I'm going to say it. They have Nautilus Lake Park one year behind. They have Ocul Oculina that hasn't broken ground yet. They just purchased our property under market last week and they just said they had two other projects in Lake Park. Um, to me that sounds like Steven Ross syndrome. We are allowing all of these buildings and all these properties to be bought up by them. And that's concerning to me because when you own something, you control everything. And we don't want anybody controlling the city of Riviera Beach. This is the only black city from the north to the south. And it's time for our people, and I'm going to say it, to build our wealth. We have West Palm, Miami, New York, all of these developers

going up there, coming down here, just building up like crazy. Tall buildings pushing us out and we're not going to have it. So, I think Forest, they need to work on what they have right now because it's just a little too much and it's not even a reality that they can do this project. These people won. Their project is beautiful. Their collaboration is beautiful and I think they can deliver. So I think you need to do the right thing and go ahead on and vote on these this these people. Thank you. Um Madam Chair, uh we got one more public comment. I know I I want to I want to make comment about someone just said.

Um there were allegations made about Forest is behind on something. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but these are people reputations. And if you're going to make a comment like that, just bring the data, documents, and evidence. No, I'm not looking for anything. I'm not going back and forth. But I'm just saying for people to come up here and disparage companies and don't present any evidence, I have a problem with that. All right. Excellent. Go ahead, ma'am.

Good evening again. Kendra Wester, um, city of Rivier Beach resident. um, educator, mom. Um, as I mentioned before, I asked that our board really pay attention to both presentations. I didn't know what they were going to share tonight, but I'm very grateful to know that Son and Blick shared information about how they will support the youth in our community. That to me is important. It's important to me not only as an educator, but as a parent in this community. So everything that we do, we should be thinking about the future of the youth in this community because at the end of the day, those same 30 years that we were talking about, guess who will be here? Your kindergarteners, your first graders. So we need to ensure that not only are we thinking about the future of our children, but we also need to ensure that our children have some hand in how we're shaping their future. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Madam Chair, this end of public comment.

Okay. Yes, you have a question. Okay. Uh, this is for Mr. Son. You there? I have I have a question, Madam Chair? Yes. Go ahead. Before we go into additional questions and overtime, um, I I would probably want a legal opinion as to asking additional questions to the team outside of the time frame that was dedicated. Um, if we're going to give them additional time, we need to give both teams additional time, but I would want the legal opinion to appine before we go into questions directly to the teams. I'm sure we can talk to staff, but I I I don't want to just uh cause any confusion within this proposal. I didn't know it was going to be too the the the pres presenters. Uh, our time for questions to the presenters are over.

Well, can can we I mean, this is a pretty important question. You're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars right now. I understand. And we're going to make a decision. If I'm going to make chair, can I just finish? If I'm going to make a decision on hundred hundred maybe $500 million billion dollar projects I I happen to be able to ask questions based on their presentation right now and I think it's going to benefit the entire council if we ask these questions if we give them each another five minutes. I think it's important that we get this information. I think that what we can do is ask both teams. Yeah, we could ask both teams. Okay, very good. We'll ask both teams. Yeah, we can ask both teams.

All right. Excellent. Go ahead. So based on and the question is for both teams right actually uh the city hall complex and basically this is a a build rent project 30-year rent what if you know I I have a problem with with rentals you know uh for municipalities uh my question is if we wanted to bond for that city hall within five years or 10 years could we come up with a clause that would give us the opport opportunity because I don't know what you what are you basing what are we going to base this rent on?

We we base this on what you would be borrowing as a city on a 30-year borrowing. We are able to borrow taxexempt rates which is lead to a below market occupancy cost. But the direct answer to your question is that we could prepay our bonds after year 10. So, if you wanted to buy the building anytime after year 10 of your 30-year flat lease, you would have the option written into our lease that you could buy the building after year 10. It would not be for a dollar. That isn't until year 30 when the bonds are paid down to zero, but you could certainly buy it after year 10. Yes,

we come up with a sliding scale. Sliding scale is exactly right. way to the 30th. That is correct. Tied to the mortgage balance, the bond balance at the end of the 10th year or the 20th year depending on your desires. Yes, that's my question. Okay. Where's forest development? Could you come and ask ask that uh answer that question as well? We have to be fair and asking the questions.

Can you ask it again for or Okay. All right, Peter. So, my my question is if when you build this city hall, are you planning on leasing it to us? Are you planning on selling it to us? And what would be the terms? We would lease it to the city based on a 30-year lease, and there would be scheduled points where um you could sort of take it over. Thank Thank you. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. Right. Uh that's both teams now. Okay. Um I just need some clarification about take it over or what what does that mean? We can take it over. So uh you would have to pay off the remainder of the lease and take it over.

Pay off the what? The remainder of the uh the mortgage amount and take it over. Okay. I just want clarification. Okay. Thank you. Um, Director Ammons, where are we?

Thank you, Sher. First, I would like to thank both organizations for their presentations tonight um in response to ITN um ITN 1106-24-3. Um at this time, I will um yield to Attorney Goldstein to provide instructions. Good evening, uh, Madame Chair, uh, board members, Mr. Mayor, uh, Joe Goldstein from Shutzen Bowen, your outside council for the procurement. I I think a question was asked at the start that we might not have answered for you. What are you all to do to decide um, your next steps? So, first, let's clarify what your decision tonight is. Your decision tonight is whether to take one or two or none. you know, you could reject all and start over to the next round of negotiations. During that next round, you'll be determining who's the best value, whether it's one or both of them, and you'll you'll select one. That will come back to the commission for approval. after the negotiation team uh uh does that and then you'll have another vote to move forward to uh draft an interim or a comprehensive development agreement. But tonight it's really just deciding who do you want to negotiate with. And so you have a couple options of how to handle that. But all of these options should be within the prism of the evaluation criteria in the invitation to negotiation document. And that's that's in your package. The criteria is pages 41 through 42. So in making your decision, you don't have to score like the evaluation committee did, but you still but but you could if you wanted to do that, you could do scoring. Um but in my experience, most elected

officials don't want to do that option, but you could. But regardless in making your decision in your minds, you should be looking at those evaluation criteria. And that's how you should make your decision as to whether you invite one or both or none to to uh to to to negotiations to determine best value. If you're not going to score, then I think you have you have at least two options that I can think of. One is you could just buy motion. One of you makes a motion. and I make a motion to do X. Um, get a second and then have a vote on it. That's, you know, the the simplest way to do it. The other way to do it, and I think this is how we did it way back when for the, uh, the the water management, the water plant. Um, each of you wrote down and gave a number. Ranked number one, ranked number two. Then you add those up. Uh, and you just who's ever got the lowest number. If you're only going to take one or two, those are the two most common ways to proceed. if you're not going to score just a pure motion in a second and a vote or with some type of ranking agreeing how you're going to do what's the best. Is it going to be the lowest number and uh uh uh but so those are your options. I'll I'll pause there and stop and see if you have any questions. Thank you.

Um I think that we have an evaluation that was done by an evaluation committee. I am a stickler and I have always voted in favor of the evaluation committee's recommendations. That is how I look at it. We have looked at these proposals. We have people who are dedicated who are who have the background to be able to articulate this and also to be able to see it for what it is. We look at these development deals. I get it. I do. But we have people who have taken out their time to be able to uh evaluate these proposals and make recommendations to us and that is the way that I am going to go.

Madam Chair,

yes. Go ahead. I'm as we enter into negotiations um in any negotiation um one try to have as much leverage as possible in negotiations and I'm wondering by having only two respondents are we going in with as much leverage as we could have if we did like we bid on that property where there was only one responder. Um, and it was an unsolicited bid. We went back out and we got five more proposals. So, I'm wondering if we going in with the best leverage to negotiate because we only have one to

Yes. I I I agree with that in a sense that we started this a year and a half ago. Yeah. Things have changed. If we had if this was something that went out three months ago, then yes, probably. But this has been in the city. Uh we've been going back and forth with uh evaluation of these proposals. We even had to pay for a third party to review these proposals. So, we want to make sure that if we're going to do it, we're going to do it tonight in terms of moving forward. If we when we choose that particular outfit, if it doesn't work, then we will do that and go to the next one. That is what we do. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Okay. I'm sorry, M. Um, my my last point is are we going in with the best leverage? That that was where I'm going with this. And I understand you're saying leverage it. It's wide open. We we we This is a city. They give us what we ask for. Well, no, no, no, no. They don't they don't tell us. We tell them. I I understand that, M. You know, I pull in. I've been up here for a minute now.

But my point is is when you have different options, they come differently to the table with their office because they see other offers like waiting in the wing. So, I'm just trying to think. I mean, make it through. Madam Chair, I mean, you know what? That what that would have really made sense um Commissioner Gayton if we would have did that for that project that project last week because we were talking about strictly money in that. Wait, so you mean the one that you say you always vote for the recommendation? Did you vote for the recommendation that Oh, no you didn't.

You know why? You know why? Because we were talking about money. We were talking about a disposition of property and it was about money. It wasn't about that proposal piece of it. And that is where I got the stickler was because I cannot get past that. Correct. Yes. Go ahead, ma'am. [laughter] Okay, Madam Chair. D uh Miss Ammons, the point differential was how many? Forest development 112.60 Sonnlink 116.60 fourpoint difference.

Okay. I'm just asking cuz I hear my colleague down there. I don't think we should go out, but if you want to have any leverage, we negotiate with both of them or we go with the highest. I'm saying that that's the only way if he's looking for le can I thank you. If he is looking for leverage, the only option would be to negotiate with both. What I'm saying is I do not want to take this back to add more people to this. That's all I'm saying. And I'll say the presentations were good and there was one that was great and I don't have a problem.

I I I am under the mindset that um if we don't, as I said before, we negotiate, we are the city, we tell the the developers what we want, what we need, what we won't take, what we will take. And if we don't get that from them, then we go to the next one. That is how it works. And I'm looking for a motion to mad. Yes. Go ahead. Sure. These are two very different projects. No, I know.

You know, uh I I think we we can't say that they're the same project and we're negotiating to get the same product because you're not. They're two very very different uh you know developments and providing different uh benefits to the community. One is more of a sportsoriented uh community type project. The other is a high density uh development project. So and so we have to make a decision which way we want to go. Do we want to see the sports and the community based uh programs or do we want to see high density more taxes? I mean it's it's an option that we have right now but they're not you're not really negotiating for the same thing. You know they're not negoti you're not going to get the same product. So, whatever mo whatever motion is made tonight, we'll be and if it's approved, we'll be picking a type of development that we want to see here for the community,

right? Because we're looking at new city hall, we're looking at a new library, looking at u a sports athletic complex, the blue haron redevelopment, we're looking at administrative building, Avenue E reconstruction. That is a lot and I think we need to get started. Can I get a motion on the floor? MJ. Yes. Go ahead, sir.

Um, I know you're looking for a motion. I think that with this project, we need to move forward immediately in an expedite time frame. We have development all over the city that we're doing, and this is probably the biggest, most important project that the city's ever done. It's a city hall complex and and sports complex. Uh, the community has been telling us for uh years, we're taking all the parks out of our community. We need to start rebuilding them. So I think with a project that was intentional, focused on the the solicitation that focused on the ITN and that's building it now, I would recommend we go forward with this team um recommended by staff. One, two, I don't recommend doing two um different negotiations or two teams because we've done that and we've gone down that path before and we ended up not getting the project completed.

I say we I say we get you're right, Madam Chair. I say we get this done. We begin negotiations. We go in with the team and we keep moving the city forward. We have another ITN that just we have another solicitation that closed today. We're going to keep this ball rolling. We're going to keep development going. We saw the presentations and we saw what was presented to us. Let's just keep moving the city forward and and I would be supportive of this team that came to the table because they did a great job focused on the actual solicitation. I think we need to just kind of get this done. Madam Chair, this has been a year and a half and I just want don't want to keep kicking the can. There you go. Mr. um Evans.

Yes, Madam Chair. Um once the board does take some official action, what I would like to bring to you at your next meeting is a resolution whereby the board um certifies or actually um appoints what is a negotiation committee. Um I would like to bring some names for your consideration in a resolution that actually sets forth the negotiation committee. Once that negotiation committee is formulated, then we can get into a workshop with the city council so we can get direct from the board as to what are some elements and things that you want to make sure that we negotiate as part of the conversations with the uh with the development team. So I just wanted to make sure that you know that the subsequent step is me bringing forward a resolution with negotiation team both internal and external persons on that negotiation team and then we would facilitate what our uh meeting of the board and then individual sessions with you all to get some direction concerning uh elements to negotiate.

Yes. For clarification I know you spoke about the IT end being different. So if we start negotiations with one and they collapse, we can go to the second one. Yes, ma'am. Okay, Madam Chair. Yes.

And to follow up on the negotiating team, we spoke briefly about the the team, the dynamic in the buildout, I want to be very clear with being intentional about who's on that team and also consider a commissioner um or myself sitting on that team. Um, being that the board does vote on the item, I would like to volunteer for sitting on the negotiating team uh to participate in negotiating with them to really hold them accountable to work with my staff and to support uh the growth and development if my board and my colleagues be amanable to that. Okay. Um I make a motion that we move forward with this negotiation with Sonnen Blick as recommended by the evaluation committee through the city's procurement department.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Um Got a second where the discussion. Yes, sir. Yes. Are we going to address um which elected official? I think that we No, not tonight. I think chair. Yes. Go ahead, sir. I I don't think any elected official should be on the negotiation team because we're it's a conflict of interest. We'll be voting on on the final agreement and that would be a conflict. So we can we can make that decision when it comes back in a excuse me when it comes back in a resolution. We can make that decision at the time who's going to sit on that on that committee. There's a motion and there's a Wait, Madam Chair. Yes. Go ahead. It's still on discussion.

I was referring to the mayor. The mayor doesn't vote. That's the elected official that I was speaking of. I guess people thought that one of us was trying to get on. No, no. He just made a suggestion and he doesn't vote and he has a good business mind and I was moving forward in that direction. So everybody who thought that we were trying to get on the board, I'm not trying to get on. I understand and and I think that we can make that decision when it comes back. Right. There's a motion and there's a second. Madam clerk, could you call the question, please? Council person Davis Pier. Yes. Council person Gon. Yes. Chair Tim Miller Anderson. Yes. Council person Spiritz, yes. Chairperson Laneir,

yes. Unanimous vote. Um to the team of Sunny Glick, uh we uh and the team of Forest Development, we thank you for your presentation. For the team that won, just know now that if we do not come to an agreement, we can go to the next person. Mhm. All right. Very good. We need to go to our next item. Madam clerk. Madame Chair.

Uh Madame Clerk, we're going to take a fivem minute recess, please. We take a five minute recess.

Well, no. Well, they put in We are about We are about to start our meeting. We are about to start our meeting. Please exit the building. If you're not a part of this uh last part of this meeting, please exit the building. Please be quiet. We need to finish this meeting tonight. Thank you,

Madam Clerk. Madame Chair, we are on item 88, ordinance number 4284, an ordinance of the city council of the city of Riviera Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, approving a future land use change from recreation to community facility submitted by CORE and PGAL, Inc. on behalf of the city of Riviera Beach for the purpose of constructing a new police department headquarters at 1621 West Blue Heron Boulevard and the city of Riviera Beach providing for an effective date and for other purposes. Madam Chair, we have one comment on this item. The acceptance of the cards is closed. So move second. Mr. Evans.

Madam Chair, members of the board, this item is before you on second and final reading. There's been no changes since first reading. staff recommends approval on second and final reading and director Surmans from development services is prepared to answer any questions the board may have. Thank you. Let's do our public comment, please. One public comment. Erica Davis. I believe she left, Madam Chair. Okay. Are there any questions for this uh second reading of this ordinance? We heard this the last meeting. Madam Chair. Yes. Go ahead, sir.

Um I wanted to know for Mr. Evans. Uh, have you had any correspondence from the county regarding the $1.5 million that they gave us for that building and we only have two years left on it. Have you got any commitments as it relates to what we would have to pay back? Madam Chair, if I may.

Yes. Go ahead. Uh currently this item is slated to go before the board of county commissioners at their December 2nd meeting uh for a modification to the agreement. In the event that the city chooses to get out of the agreement versus the options that were profered by the county, it would be the assumption pursuant to the conversations that we had with county staff that they would be asking for um a payment of $1.5 million. Okay. So we would have to pay everything back that they they gave us 1.5. Madam Chair. Yes. Go ahead. If we were to choose that out of the options that they presented,

what were the other options? Sorry, Councilman Gton. I'm sorry. I just the other items were. Okay, Madam Chair. Yes. Go ahead. The other option was that they would and the option that we worked out with their legal and our legal was that they would add what are the remaining years onto an agreement with the city once the new pool is constructed and fill and complete the term which they've done that with other municipalities. That's the option we went with. Madam chair, if I may. Yes. Yes. Okay.

Okay. Um I'm going just put it on record. I think we moving prematurely before having something in writing from the county that is definitive. I've said it before. Um, we doing a lot of development. Uh, we have bonds floating out there and I would hate to see us at the end of an agreement with the county have to pay back 1.5. Maybe that's something else can be worked out, but I think we're moving prematurely. Um the other thing that concerns me is that we are we would have to use other people pools and residents. I mean different complex I this is just real premature in my opinion but it is what it is. Um I think that we could have waited until we worked all these issues out. Thank you madam chair.

Thank you sir chair. Yes. Uh in response to my colleague uh Commissioner Gayton uh I do agree in what you're saying the concept except that we were uh asked by Commissioner Pal of the county to vote prior to the county making a decision on this. So it isn't like we put the cart before the horse. We we were asked by the county to do this first by our county commissioner to do this first before the county took on the uh action themselves. Okay. Council person Davis Bener.

Did you have other questions? I I I did, but it's it's okay. Um Well, can I Is it Can I Yes. Okay. Hold on. And the only reason why is because um I I don't agree that um Commissioner Powell wanted us to vote. He was unsure when I spoke with him last about if this had gone through or not. Um so I I just had a little discrepancy with that. But then I I was also wanting to know what are the other options like do we have any other options if we did something again you know if we did not vote for this what is is is there another option madam

which I feel like we've been talking about this for a long time I thought it was a done deal then I now this up again and so I'm I'm confused right now well we voted on it once but this is the second reading of this because it has to go through two meetings okay right go ahead

madam chair um we did have a a conversation with um Commissioner Powell and that was what facilitated uh a community another community conversation. We did have previous community conversations about the pool. Um one of the things he he did want to hear feedback from himself and then we you know told him that we were taking the necessary steps on the city side to help facilitate and bring that item before [clears throat] uh the board of county commissioners for consideration. We have been working with their staff and we have put forward what are some of the the programmatic aspects associated with our program. But the options that that would that you have right is that in the event that you're not to move forward um the police station invariably will be delayed. Um if if it is delayed um and said that that site is not selected then you put at risk the bond proceeds. The other side of it is if you look to relocate the police station somewhere else, you have to go through some element of design, redesign for the police station, which the cost will go up. And the intent behind us relocating the police station off of the city hall site is because we wanted to maximize the available land to be able to defay the cost associated with city hall. that could be anywhere between 70 to hundred million dollars depending on the size, scale, and scope of that. And so with our development partners, that's why we wanted to take as many things off of the site as possible. So if the board was not to move forward with this, it would at minimum delay the construction of the project and then you would see situations where cost would would increase uh with the construction of that. The other side of it is um Lake Park actually paid the county the full freight of the bond proceeds that Lake Park received from the county when they

did move forward with the development of the Lake Park Marina and the Nautilus project. They actually cut the check from to the county and paid back those bond proceeds. That's what that's not a recommendation that staff has put forth. That's why we worked with county staff to come to terms with an agreement that they did with Wellington that will allow for the remaining two years to be in agreement with the city that we will operate our pool for the term for two years to allow for the agreement to uh sunset. Okay, Madam Chair, follow up.

Okay, I I'll accept that. I you said that he wanted to know I mean about the pool because I we talk about it a lot and that's one of the things that I haven't heard where it's going to be if we're going to have it or what have you. All of those things are still up in the air and he I mean I have not only him asking me but I can't tell him where it's going to be relocated to if it's going to be relocated. So madam chair if I may.

Yes go ahead. So, um, you the board did approve an item that would allow for us to get approved an item where a 2G 2G ho um, George Gentiel's group to begin the community sharets and the design process for a municipal aquatics facility. Um, so we are going to have community conversations. In our public meetings with the community, there was a lot of public sentiment that they were interested in possibly seeing the pool return back to Callaway. And so we want to have more conversations with the community and then if that in fact is the desire of the community have additional conversations with the board to facilitate what is the construction of the aquatics uh element. Now you still may have aquatics facilities at both locations. It just may be for different groups. But one of the things that we are going to do is move aggressively to bring a new aquatics facility to Rivier Beach in a two-year period because that's what our agreements with some of the HOAs and the agreements that we have provided for with the Rapids and the other municipalities uh contemplates.

Okay. I'm sure. So, in regards [clears throat] to the item with core and the police station, um we talked about this earlier, but let's be very clear. Can we move this or would we have to go back to the um voters to change the uh bond proceeds or would we need a new referendum or can we just pass a resolution based upon a legal opinion? That was a discussion earlier, but I think it's prevalent now to this item. Madam Chair, if I may.

Yes, sir. um consistent with the the legal opinion that we've received from bond council that you would put into jeopardy the monies the bond proceeds if you altered the site and we went through the bond validation process like I explained earlier where the city filed the lawsuit against itself to ensure that we did everything appropriate and we did put in the project descriptions some elements that identify what the what the location is. So just follow up madam chair and then another concern the I I think that was addressing some of my colleagues concern when he said we put the cart before the her the horse because we went and got the bond proceeds knowing or not really knowing about the um the 1.5. Now we're hopeful that the county uh I'll be advocating for them to at least give us a a grace of two years waiting for us to rebuild it at the county meeting as well to support the staff but we want to have all the information. And so when we went to the bond market, we wanted to make sure we knew what the cost or concern would be at the time. Um, and that may have been a discussion. I I just it was it was a long time ago. I I don't have all that information in front of me, Madam Chair. Uh, but being that we're here now, I don't want to delay this any longer. Our police deserve a facility. Um, I I know the concern is is the dollars, and my other concern is where are we going to get the money in the event that um the county doesn't approve it? that needs to be addressed because Lake Park actually just had the developers contribute those funds because they didn't have the money the developers paid for it. So we want to have that information as well for this ordinance so we can be clear where's this 1.5 going to come from if they don't vote in support of us. Of course wishful thinking we want to make sure that we get the support but we've also given them clear idea to start the sharetses but our commissioners still have some some unreiness when it comes to where the pool's going to go. They just want to make sure that we put the parks back into our facility. That's why I'm glad that we move forward with the project today because that at least starts the negotiation terms to build our parks out.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. Go ahead. Who who you saying? Go ahead. Dr. Spirit is a visual.

Okay. Uh with respect to uh the reference to whether we can change the location. I'm still 100% convinced that we can change the resol we can change the location based upon the resolution that authorized the referendum itself. Would that jeopardize possibly the bond that was already negotiated? Yes. We may have to go back and get another bond. By the way, the interest rates are going down right now. So maybe we would get a better interest rate. But I'm not advocating that we change because it probably would require design changes and would add time onto the project. You know, we are paying $700,000 a year to lease a location right now. That money would be better in the pockets of the of the city right now rather than going into some u some somebody's property. So that that's my concern. So, I mean, if we were starting from scratch, I would say maybe my my preference would have been the old location, but we're not starting from scratch. I walked in here, you know, with designs were we already started the design work when I walked in here. We picked the architect. Uh, we're too far gone, I think, to change the location right now. So, I think it's in the best interest of the city that we move forward with this project uh as quick as we can.

Yes. Go ahead. Um, just let me say for the record, we're here because we move prematurely. This a self-inflicted obstacle. I live by this. A lack of planning on someone else's part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Somebody didn't plan and we need to call it out because we can't continue to run a city like this. we go get bonds before we satisfy an an agreement that we had with the county. It makes zero sense. We move prematurely and now we're sitting here trying to decide whether we going to pay 1.5 bag or if we going to have our kids go to apartment complexes and swim and we need to call it out and and this was a huge mistake to go and get bombs before we satisfied that agreement. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you madam clerk.

Council person Davis Pier. Yes. Council person Gen. No. Triple Tim Miller Anderson. Council person Spirited. Yes. Chairperson Laneir. Yes. That item passes with council person Gen Dentu. Next item.

We're on item 8B. Ordinance 4285 and ordinance of the city council of the city of River Beach Palm Beach County Florida. approving a request from CORE and PGA, Inc. on behalf of the city of Riviera Beach to abandon two unutilized right of ways to allow for the construction of a new police headquarters located at 1621 West Blue Heron Boulevard providing for conditions of approval providing for an effective date and for other purposes. Madam Chair, there are no comment cards on this item.

So move second. Madam Chair, staff is recommending approval of ordinance 4285. There's been no modifications and changes since first reading. Staff recommends approval on second and final reading and Director Surmans from our development services department is prepared to answer any questions the board may have. Any questions? Sure. Yes. Go ahead.

Uh I happen to be involved with an abandonment project right now uh outside the city, but we all come under uh FS166.041. Uh that's the state's requirements, the state statute uh for abandoning a right away. Uh did we meet the 10-day requirement for publishing this service? This has been noticed in the newspaper. Yes, we did meet the minimum of 10 days before adoption uh that it was noticed to the public. Great. Thank you. Yes, sir. Cler Council person Davis Pier. Yes. Council person Gener. Oh, coun chro Tim Miller Anderson. Yes.

Council person Spiritz. Yes. Chairperson Laneir. Yes. Item passes with council person Gaiton dissenting. Next item.

We are on ordinances on first reading item 9A. Ordinance 4298. An ordinance of the city council of the city of River Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, amending city code of ordinances, chapter 31 on behalf of Rivier Beach Community Redevelopment Agency for approval of a text amendment application to allow properties within the downtown general zoning district to develop to a maximum height of four stories when the project contains a mixeduse component. Madam Chair, there are no comment cards on this item. Evans, I'm sorry. Second. Second. And Madam Chair, do we actually need a presentation on this?

Uh, it's up to the board. Mr. Evans, you want to introduce it? U, Madam Chair, um, our development services director, Mr. Clarence Surmans, is prepared to make a presentation, but these are items that you have already seen in your capacity as CRA commissioners. Um these are some of the um approvals that are required through uh the city to help facilitate that. Director Surmans. Madam Chair, do we actually need a presentation? If the board is in agreement, we can move forward. No, I don't think we need one. All right. Very good. You said you you said you saw before. Madam clerk, council person Davis Pier. Yes. Council person Gait,

yes. Chairperson Miller Anderson, yes. Council person Spiritz, yes. Chairperson Laneir, yes. Unanimous vote. This is just text. We don't need

We're in item 9B, ordinance number 4299. An ordinance of the city council of the city of River Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, the River Beach Community Development Corporation, and the Riviera Beach Community Redevelopment Agency to abandon a 100 ft portion of an existing 15t alley that bisects the properties located at 1116 Wright Street, 1117 Avenue E, and a portion of 1129 Avenue E. and to abandon the approximately 42 feet by 73 ft um approximately plus or minus 3,66 ft portion of the West 12th Street RO that dead ends within the project site providing for applicability conflict severability and codification and providing for an effective date. Madam Chair, there are no comment cards on this item. So moved.

Second. Uh Mr. Evans, but but Mr. uh Surus, tell us what project this is so that we'll remember this from our CRA days. Yes, madam chair. Again, for the record, Clarence Surman, director of development services. This is the Villa's phase 2 project. It is connected to the previous item that you just approved. This is the associated abandonment for that project. Thank you. Any questions? Yeah. Wait, wait. Let's back up that last um ordinance for the abandonment. [laughter]

Oh. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I'm thinking about the one before that when I saw it was dealing with the pool and I voted against it. No, the one that we just had that we didn't hear the presentation. That's what this relates. Same project. That's correct. All right. All right. I want to make sure I voted the right thing. All right. Very good. Madam clerk, council person Davis Paneer. Yes. Council person Gon. Yes. Chen Miller Anderson. Yes. Council person Spiritis. Yes. Chairperson Laneir. Yes.

That's a unanimous vote. Madam Chair, we on R 9C, Ordinance number 43000, an ordinance of the city council of the city of River Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, amending the city code of ordinances, chapter 31, on behalf of Marina Annex Housing LLC, approving a land use amendment application to change the land use from community facility to downtown mixed use, a plus or minus 3.62 62 acre site generally located at 251 West 11 Street providing for applicability conflict severability and clarification and providing for an effective date and for other purposes. Madam chair we have one comment card on this item. The acceptance of the cards is closed.

So move. So second madam chair members of the board if I can have the director of development services to make this presentation. Sorry. Uh just tell us what's the property what's the project I should say this is the judge Rogers center project uh known as Marina Annex and uh yes you have seen this in your capacity in the CRA board as well if the uh board is desirous of a presentation staff is prepared as well as the applicant team and we are all here for any questions there may be any presentation needed by the report. Madam Chair, did we want to entertain a motion to extend the meeting?

I'm sorry. Do you want to entertain a motion to extend the meeting? Oh, okay. Do we have public comment for this? We have one public comment. Okay, let's just do that. Marggo Shepard.

No, they did it at the CRA meeting. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Then I didn't have to speak. What? Madam clerk, I didn't have to speak if they did presentation. Can I uh I want to make a motion to extend to 10:15. Second clerk. Council person Davis Paneer. Yes. Council person Gen. Yes. Chair Miller Anderson. Yes. Council person Spiritz. Yes. Lineer. Yes. Unanimous vote. Miss Shepard.

Marcus Shepard. River Beach. Uh I was not at the last meeting so I was unaware that they did a presentation. Um but as you know we're coming down to the wire for this project. The Judge Rogers site is a very prestigious site that will uh enable the city of Riviera Beach to showcase that the housing authority is in the making of make this city wonderful and beautiful and affordable to people that really cannot take care of themselves. I think as we move forward, um, Judge Rogers, the office, everybody in that particular neighborhood, the Boys and Girls Club, uh, different buildings is being built that they will fit in. And because they have struggled so hard, I think that this resolution should be passed so they can go on and proceed, get the funding, get started, and get moving and let people understand that there is light at the end of the tunnel. We have the big developers coming in that has the money. We have the housing uh authority that's going to uh I assume get the funding. They have some of the funding. Uh but let us not stop this project. Let us uh abandon this piece of land and let us move forward because I think that we're going to be very proud of this project. It's uh really a known fact that uh the housing authorities do not do projects like this. Unthinkable. Unthinkable. But we're now proving that they can do it and they will do it and they're ready to do it. And with that, I ask for you to pass the resolution. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Any questions in regards to this item? Madam Clerk, Council Person Davis Paneer, yes. Council person Gen, yes. Chair for Tim Miller Anderson, yes. Council person Speares, yes. Chairperson Laneir, yes. That's unanimous vote. Next item.

Madam Chair, we're on item 9D, ordinance number 4301, an ordinance of the city council of the city of River Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, amending the city code of ordinances, chapter 31, on behalf of Marina Annex Housing LLC, approving a resoning amendment application to change the zoning classification from community facility to downtown core on a plus or minus 3.62 62 acre site generally located at 251 West 11 Street providing for applicability conflict severability and qualification and providing for an effective date and for other purposes. Madam Chair, there are no comment cards on this item. So move.

They already voted on this. Madam Chair and members of the board, I can have the director of development services to make this presentation. Madam Chair, this item is the second of three ordinances associated with the Judge Rogers Center project, also known as Marina Annex by the application title. Uh this is the zone change associated with that property, which you just approved on first reading was the land use. And then the third ordinance after this is the text amendment required for this project. So again, uh staff uh does not have additional presentation materials unless the board desires it, but this is the second of three ordinances needed to move this project forward.

Thank you. Any questions? Council person Davis Pier. Yes. Council person Gen. Yes. Chairp Miller Anderson. Yes. Council person Spiritis. Yes. Chairperson Laneir. Yes.

That is a unanimous vote. Madam Chair, we are on item 9Ee, ordinance number 4302. In ordinance of the city council of the city of River Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, amending the city code of ordinances, chapter 31, on behalf of Marina Annex Housing LLC, approving a text amendment application to the downtown core zoning designation to remove the building stepback requirement for developments west of Avenue E to provide for workforce housing, providing for applicability, conflict, separability, and qualification, and providing for an effective date and for other purposes. is madam chair there are no comment cards on this item so move second madam chair yes go ahead

I have a question for Mr. Sur yes go ahead this is to remove the setbacks madam chair yes go ahead no not the setbacks but the step back in the downtown zoning districts okay buildings over a certain height have to step back over the certain floor Council person Davis Pier. Yes. Council person Gisen. Yes. Chairperson Miller Anderson. Yes. Council person Spiritis. Yes. Person Lir. Yes. Unanimous vote.

Madam Chair, we are on resolutions on regular agenda. Item 11 A. I'm sorry that one was deleted. We're on item 11B. I'm sorry. It was rescheduled to another agenda. We're on item 11B. Resolution number 151-25I, a resolution of the city council of the city of River Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, approving a site plan application by Paradello Burgess Design Studio to construct eight two-story affordable apartment residential units on the property located at 109 West 14th Street in the city of Riviera Beach, providing for conditions of approval, providing for an effective date, and for other purposes. Madam chair, we do not have any comment cards on this item.

So move second. [clears throat] Madam chair, members of the board, if I can have the director of development services, Mr. Surmans, make this presentation. Thank you, Mr. Man. Yes, gentlemen, could you please step outside? We are still going. Thank you, Mr. Service. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh this uh project is for a multif family development uh that is located in the downtown districts of the city which means yes you have also reviewed this under your capacity as the CRA commissioners staff is here present to present as is the applicant and uh we are here for the desire of the board. Thank you. Ready for the question.

Madam clerk had a question. Council to have one. Madam clerk council person Davis Pener. Yes. Yes. Council person Gon. Chairperson Miller Anderson. Yes. Council person Spiritis. Yes. Chairperson Laneir. Yes. That's a unanimous vote. Um I want the public to know that we did not just sail through these items. These were items that were brought to us during our CRA time. We have had presentations on them uh at least two or three times and also to having private conversation, not private, but one-on-one conversations about these items. We did not just sail through them. Thank you. Uh, next item.

Madam Chair, we are on item 12 under discussion and deliberation. There is an item added by council person Gaiton. Forensic audit discussion.

Uh, Madame Chair, I put this on because we have a lot going on in our city now. Um, we're about to ask our residents to um, support bonds that have already been floated. So, um, one of the things that I thought about, and I can only speak for me, if someone actually asked me, how are our finances? I have no real information to other than that surface audit that we do. They check the receipts and so I I I would like to at least every time this comes up, somebody says this 250,000, it's a million. So, what I wanted to ask the council and and certainly I've already done my research too that that is not accurate, but but I would like to ask the council just to go out and get um some prices on doing a forensic audit just on our finances in the finance department. Um I want to be able to tell the residents that we are actually going above and beyond to ensure that um we are monitoring and um um being good stewardist of your finances. So right now I just want to get proposals because everybody talk about it's a million dollars or or it's $500. That's not true.

So So let me ask you this. Um a forensic audit implies fraud, embezzlement or criminal activity to be used in a court case. Are we talking? Yeah, that is the purpose of a forensic audit.

We are having a internal auditor come on board. Are you willing I mean we can get prices for forensic audit but but when I tell you that that is what it implies. It implies criminal activity. That is the purpose of it. The purpose of it is to do it because you have a suspicion of criminal activity and to use that information that you discover in court. Um, we have an internal auditor coming on board um, soon like she's been offered a job. So maybe we're looking at a audit on all our new projects. We could do that. um because that's not implying that there's some kind of crop fra fraud or financial crime happening.

But if we want to be want to be specific to our new developments, we can do that. Well, this is what I want to do. Okay. A forensic audit digs much deeper than an outside audit. Some of that information is used for criminal activity. I grant you that. But my portion is is they they look deeper than just the surface. No, I understand that that. So, I don't want to imply that there's criminal activity, but I want a deeper dive into our finances. That's all. I I totally agree that we have the right to do that. I'm just saying that when you say I'm not implying anything. No, but that is what it means though. I mean, I'm just just giving you the definition of a I understand. I understand. And I understand

and I also understand that it just takes a deeper dive than just that surface order. I get that. Could you uh Mr. Evans bring back to us the uh forensic audit information in regards to how that works, what it cost, and also into a Wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm sorry, not to interrupt you. No, I'm asking for us to sub uh to ask for proposals, a request for proposals through one department and see what they say from the outside, what they're charge us. That's all I'm asking. Chair. Yes. Go ahead.

Yeah, I agree with uh Commissioner Gayen. If you remember about a year and a half ago, I asked for a forensic audit and it's not necessarily stating that there is criminal activity. It is a more indepth audit and can be used to help this city, you know, so maybe we made mistakes in the past and help us not make the same mistakes a second time. Uh it'll give us a a better idea where we stand financially as as the commissioner stated. And I think it'd be healthy for us to have a forensic audit. I'm not insinuating, as I as I said before, that anybody did anything criminally. I [clears throat] just think it it's time for us to do it. We're doing billions of dollars worth of work right now. I think it's it would put us on a on a really good uh platform to know that everything is in in the right spot right now financially for this city.

Madam Chair, yes, go ahead. Um somewhere around 2016 or 17, I did request that as well. They did go out to get um some quotes. Um I do recall one department having one department done at that time was about $500,000. Um so it's it's been brought up before, but of course the amount is what kind of pushed people away. But um yeah, I I asked for it back then when we had a whole lot of stuff going on and no building going on. So, um, agreed. I'm pretty sure it cost much more than that now. So, I'm pretty sure you're wrong. I don't know. Wait, and I didn't mean to interrupt.

No, no, no, no. You're good. But I went and got some numbers. Okay. Well, maybe I don't really ask questions that I I know you already got the answer to. I already know that. Yeah. But I'm telling you that that's what we had back then. But I got I just want I just think that when you say forensic art, and I know what you want. I just want a deeper dive into the finance. But when you say foric audit, any auditor, a CPA will tell you what that actually means. That means that that is the definition of it. But I mean that's what it means. I agree with you, right? But I understand that is what you want. Yeah. I just want a deeper dive into our financ uh council person Anderson also asked for this previously. So what we can do is this.

Let's just get some proposals. Now I've gotten some numbers. I think I know it doesn't cost that much. Listen, I think that we need to get it done, but I want to have the city administration to bring to us what a forensic audit looks like because what's going to have to happen is that we're going to have to say what department. It has to be very specific. So, we got to agree on that. Okay. Then we find out how much it's going to cost us. you bring that back to us so we can at our next meeting you can bring that back and tell us what that actually means and what it looks like and we can decide at that time what department we want to focus on.

Madam Chair, I I'm I'm already telling you where I'm going with our finances. That's what I want to focus on. No, but finances mean what? Finance department. In the finance department. Okay. So, we're talking about the finance department. All right. in the finance department. I think we should take a deeper dive and give our residents some consideration. And right now, like I said, all I'm asking is to go do an RFP and get some numbers. And that doesn't necessarily have to go through the city manager's office. That go through procurement. That's I just want to request for Listen, I I understand. I I want us to all agree on this. We have to all agree on this. We have to Well, well, three of us need to

Yeah. Right. three of us have to agree that we have to look at the department which you we've already said and we want to look at what that actually means for that department. Um and he's saying that you he wants to go out to get bids already but I don't think we not bids just proposals just asking them what they would charge us. That's all we're asking. We can do a a madam chair we can do that uh uh through procurement. We don't have to go and put proposals out for that. We can find that out easily madam. Okay. Chair, however you want to handle it, but I think it's best just to go out in the market, chair, and get proposals. Yes. Go ahead.

Yeah. I I I think we should do an RFP. And in the RFP, the way it's written, we can say one department, two departments, three departments. We'll get a proposal based on different uh different and we can look at different different well different concepts based on what we might need. So, I think we should do an RFP. Let procurement uh put together a nice RFP. Well, we can we can have on our next meeting agenda, we can have procurement to bring us back what that looks like a proposal. Sounds good. All right. Very quick. Are we in agreement? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes, we got three. Yes, Mr. Evans.

Um M madam chair, if I may. Um before we bring that item back uh for you all to consider, would you like for us to also run it through the audit committee and get their input as well? Yes. Okay. All right. Okay. Now, how long is that going to take? No, we next meeting. We coming to the next meeting with this sir. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Quick question. When the audit meeting when how when would the audit committee see it? Before our next meeting December. December. Yeah, I think it's in December. And we Madam Chair, I really don't want to hold up this process. Okay, let's let's um

go through procurement. We going through procurement and we're going to get bring us back what that looks like. Madam Chair, yes. Just real quickly, I you said something about the internal auditor and she's about to be offered like when did that happen? Did we choose it? I mean, who chose the internal auditor? We were supposed to be choosing Mr. Evans, you want to speak to that? Yeah. 13. Yeah. Madam Chair, if I may? Yes. Yeah. The internal auditor position that is provided for in the budget that is for you. Yes, madam chair. And we said we were going to have one outside of that one. Okay. Correct. I'm correct.

Okay. Okay. Thanks for clarification. That's why I Okay. All right. Excellent. You got one minute. Any questions from the board in regards to tonight? Madam Chair, not in regards to tonight, but just a question I need from the board for some clarity for something. I got sorry, just some questions um in regards to an event for this weekend that the staff wanted. We had um Miss got about 30 seconds. Miss Alia wanted support or confirmation that we could proceed with the Jamaica Festival. Um in regards to a fundraiser relief, we've been doing very well with that. But in regard in regards to relief efforts, if staff can proceed, I agree. If we can get a consensus for it. Staff has worked on it

with a release a release effort relief effort for a concert this weekend. But I need that's quick. Wait a minute. Hold on. Can we get an extension of five minutes? Madam Chair, uh yeah, I I have some information on that. I can't just vote on that. Where's the fun? I understand all of that. Um any other thing because we can't vote on that right now, sir? Madam Chair, time is expired. Our time is expired. This meeting is ajourned.