Village Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening. We're going to call to order the meeting of the Wellington Village Council for Tuesday, September 22nd. I'd like you all now to please stand for the invocation by Deacon Pete DelValle from St. Therese to be followed by the pledge.

Loving Father, thank you on behalf of all who are gathered here tonight. We thank you for your many blessings and your abundant graces to us. Thank you for life itself, for the measure of health. Thank you as well for the freedom to embrace you or the freedom to even reject you. Thank you for loving us. In the scriptures, you have said that citizens ought to obey the governing authorities since you have established those very authorities to promote peace, order, and justice. Therefore, I pray for our mayor, for the various levels of city officials, and in particular for this assembled council. I am asking that you graciously grant them wisdom to govern amid the conflicting interests and issues of our times. A sense of the welfare and true needs of our people. A keen thirst for justice and confidence in what is good and fitting. the ability to work together in harmony even when there is honest disagreement, personal peace in their lives and joy in their task. I pray for the agenda set before them this evening. Please give an assurance of what would please you and what would benefit those who live and work in and around our beloved village. And we ask this in your holy and venerable name. Amen.

Amen. Would the girls guys like to come up and read the pledge? Come on up. Just come up. Come to this side. Come around. Come all the way up.

Move all the way down.

Just go down this way and turn and face the flag. Anyone wants to start? Go for it. I give my greetings to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Awesome. Thanks, guys. Thank you.

Mr. Barnes?

I'm very gracious to the approval of the agenda, and staff recommends approval of the agenda with this following amendment, which is postponement of item 9A, resolution number 2026-36, which is a fee waiver for affordable housing projects at 1661, 16651 Van Gogh, and 16651 Velazquez Road. And with that amendment, we recommend approval of the agenda.

I'd love for meetings to get shorter. Is there a motion to approve?

So moved. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. The amendment

Mr. Barnes, is your mic on? It is on, but I wasn't speaking directly into it.

Okay. I'm going to start over.

Just tell people what we took off the agenda.

Sure.

Staff recommends approval of the agenda with the following amendment, which is postponed of Item 9A, Resolution No. 2026-36, which is a fee waiver for affordable housing project at 16651 Van Gogh Road and 16651 Velasquez Road. And with that amendment, staff would recommend approval of the agenda.

Which we've already done. So it's approved as amended. Takes us to our first item.

Brings us to presentations and proclamations. First item, Ms. Kramer will be coming up to present recognition of Girl Scout Troop 24241 and 201A3 for their bronze award project.

Hi, good evening. So we would like to recognize the Girl Scout Troop 24241 and 20183 for their Bronze Award project, From Seeds to Shade, helping make our community greener. The Girl Scout Bronze Award is the third highest award in Girl Scouts and the highest honor a Girl Scout junior can earn, challenging girls to work together to make a lasting difference in their community. For their project, these troops chose to give back to the outdoor spaces they love, including the Wellington Environmental Preserve, as we also know it as Section 24. After learning about native trees and their importance to the local ecosystem, the girls worked with the village to identify the area within the preserve where they could make a lasting impact. Indian Trail's native nursery donated 11 trees, and the girls cared for these trees until they were time to be planted. A plaque marks the area so that the girls in the community can watch them grow for years to come. This planting was part of a month-long environmental sustainability project, and each Girl Scout dedicated over 30 hours to complete their bronze award project. At this time, I'd like to go ahead and have their troop leader come up and say a few words if she would like.

Come on up.

Hi, I am Stephanie Alongo. I am the troop leader for 24241. These girls, I am so proud of them. They have been working so hard on this project. It was their idea to plant the trees here in Wellington because it means so much to them. They also grew mangrove seeds that we also donated back to plant in Jupiter because they also love, obviously, the water around here. And so we're just very proud of them, and we're so thankful that you guys are recognizing them.

Well, congratulations on your award. Thank you. I was at the preserve a few weeks ago, and I was biking through there, and I saw that little plaque that caught my eye, which I hadn't seen before. I was like, what is this plaque doing out here? So I had to pull up and take a look at it, and I saw it was you guys planting the new trees right by the front of the preserve. So it was awesome. I was excited to see that, and I'm even happier that you're here tonight so we can tell you how proud we are and thankful of your project. It's going to be fantastic for years to come. So thank you so much for your hard work.

you want to say anything else thank you guys for what you're doing i know and thank you to the troops i my daughter used to be in girl scouts i know how much work it is to find all these special things for them to do and for you guys to dedicate this extra time when you're busy with school and sports and other stuff we really appreciate you taking the time to make wellington better so thank you so much i just want to say thank you for setting an example

Because of all of you, you have now set an example for others to follow you. And that is a really, really important thing. And I know you enjoy it because you've done a very good job. So thank you.

It's exceptional to see such young ladies recognizing how important the environment is and how important our trees are and the sustainability of it all. So I applaud all of you for doing what you can to help our environment.

Same. Thanks so much to the troops, 24241 and 201A3. It's so great for you guys to be involved in the community like that. Really excited to see it. Thanks so much.

And I think we're going to come down and take a picture because I see our photographer lurking back there.

I saw you on TV.

Yeah. Interview with the boss on TV.

Sounded good. We're all going to stand right here. Right here. Right here. Right here. Right here. Right here. Right here. Right here. Right here.

Oh wait, you need to be in the front because you're shorter.

I don't know anyone's name, I'm sorry. All right, here we go. You ready? One, two, three. Big smiles. We're happy. One, two, three. And three little cookies. One, two, three. Cookies. Awesome. Yay.

And you're welcome to stay, but you're not required to stay for the rest of the meeting.

Girl Scouts just want to hear about the budget. They love that stuff.

Okay, we're going to vote while you're gone. Mr. Warren, do you want to tee up the next item while the Girl Scouts are filtering out?

Certainly. So the next presentation item, second public hearing to adopt the fiscal year 2026-2027 military and annual budget for Wellington. Ms. Hall will read the resolutions for both the military and the budget, and Ms. Corker will be presenting this item.

Resolution number R2026-49, a resolution of Wellington, Florida's Council adopting the tax levy and millage rate for Wellington for the fiscal year commencing October 1st, 2026 and ending September 30th, 2027 and providing an effective date. Resolution number R-2026-50, a resolution of Wellington, Florida's Council adopting a budget for the village of Wellington for the fiscal year commencing October 1st, 2026 and ending September 30th, 2027 and providing an effective date.

Good evening. Good evening. We're here tonight for the second and final public hearing on the millage rate and budget adoption for fiscal year 2027. At our first public hearing on September 8th, Council tentatively adopted a millage rate of 2.47 mills unchanged from the current year along with the tentative fiscal year 27 budget. Tonight, Council provides final action to approve the fiscal year 27 millage and budget. Thank you for the opportunity to present the final fiscal year 27 budget for your consideration tonight. As we have shared previously, the foundation of this budget begins with Wellington's five fundamentals, neighborhood renaissance, economic development, protecting our investment, responsive government, and respecting the environment. Built from insights gathered during the 26 Directions Workshop with Council, the budget priorities supporting those fundamentals are fund operations and maintenance of expanded facilities while minimizing tax impacts, responsibly invest in Wellington's innovation and safety, deliver essential services efficiently, and support community priorities. These priorities have remained throughout this budget from the Directions Workshop as well as over the years for Wellington all the way to tonight's final vote. Tonight's budget for final adoption totals $150.4 million across all funds and was tentatively adopted at our first public hearing. That reflects an overall reduction of $5.5 million or roughly 3.5% from the current year's total budget. The $5.5 million decrease is primarily due to reduced capital improvements, elimination of positions, leasing of major equipment, and no election expense. This budget funds all of our recurring operations and rising fixed costs. insurance contracted services and utilities with no change to the millage rate. And importantly, it does so without drawing on general fund reserve balance. Every dollar of recurring spending in the general fund is covered by recurring revenue, not reserves. That is a meaningful marker of fiscal responsibility and health as we bring this budget to you for final adoption. Here we see the $150.4 million total budget by fund. Wellington maintains four special revenue funds, ACME, building, gas tax and road operations, and SHIP, alongside two enterprise or proprietary funds, water and wastewater and solid waste. The general fund remains our largest single fund, supporting the day-to-day services residents rely on most, public safety, public works, parks, and general government. These eight priorities reflect how residents ranked service importance in our 2026 budget survey, and next to each one, we've shown what's built into this budget to address it. Law enforcement consistently tops the list year after year, and tonight's budget maintains our PBSO contract staffing level. The 3% contract cost increase continues commercial vehicle enforcement and our community policing program and keeps Wellington's crime rate among the lowest. Community and special events ranked second, funding for our holiday and events calendar, amphitheater programming, Thursday night markets, and the staff needed to run them safely. Infrastructure maintenance came in third and is addressed through our inspection and proactive maintenance programs, public works major maintenance funding, and utility renewal and replacement projects. Parks and athletic facilities ranked fourth, reflected in new and expanded facility operations, our athletic field renovation and maintenance program, and neighborhood and community park capital improvements. The remaining priorities, traffic initiatives, roadway improvements, flood control and surface water management, road and pathway maintenance, landscape maintenance, round out the list. And each one has dedicated funding in this budget, as shown on this slide. The takeaway is what residents told us matters most is what we funded first. This is the second and final public hearing considering the Advalora millage rate and budget. No change in the millage rate of 2.47 mills is proposed. This will require a two-thirds majority vote to adopt. The 2.47 millage rate is the average for the past 18 years. The Acme Improvement District budget, the Solid Waste budget, the Saddle Trail Special Assessment, and the Utility Rates and Budget were adopted at the August 11, 2026 Council Meeting as shown. The budget is key to our municipal operations, setting our organizational goals, expressing our values to our stakeholders, and allowing our municipal operations to proceed from a financial perspective. Today, there are many hazards and situations needing attention you as the leaders of our community face. We use resiliency-focused budgeting to consider residents' needs and wants, environmental concerns, safety and health concerns, and of course, the regular cycles of weather-related emergencies. Our focus on budgetary resilience, which is the practice of planning, collecting, allocating, and distributing revenues and programmatic spending in support of long-term sustainability in our municipality, in essence, keeping Wellington viable and ever improving. Council encounters effects from many demanding pressures that must be identified, planned, and provided for in our budget. More specifically, impacts from hurricanes and the climate population growth, availability of water resources, and many other matters support our strategies of new revenue creation, cost savings, exploring in-kind opportunities, and utilizing partnerships of all kinds while providing value to the communities we manage. It is no small statement that we have maintained our high levels of service and remained financially sound, all while proposing a lower overall budget this year. Here we see various revenues included in the budget leading with charges for services, which include water and wastewater charges and recreation license fees. With the 14th conservative year of increased property values, ad valorem property taxes represent the second highest revenue source, followed by transfers in and allocation of reserves third. Fourth is non-ad valorem assessments for ACME and solid waste. Fifth is permits and fees. Sixth is utility, fuel, and communication services, with sales and fuel taxes, grants, and intergovernmental revenue seventh. And lastly, road and recreation impact fees and fines and investment income. This fiscal year 27 budget is about collaboration, resiliency, and sustainability. We are here to support council as we work to provide information for sound decisions. We listen very closely to each of you on council and strive to incorporate the variety of challenges into this budget. We also listen closely to our residents. Maintaining services means focusing what our community wants and needs from us and how we can improve the services we provide the public day in and day out. We have worked to continue our overall outstanding customer service in all our departments, and we strive to be responsive and to work through the challenges. We are continuously evaluating efficiencies throughout the village's operations, and all of this with the overall filter of improving outreach, transparency, and accessibility for residents. Now looking at expenditures, we start with the highest areas of transfers, debt service, and non-departmental, with public works followed closely by utilities and solid waste. Capital projects and public safety are neck and neck. And then governmental is sixth, with recreation and culture coming in seventh. And we close out eighth with planning, zoning, CDBG, and ship expenditures. Now we see various millage rate impacts based on different home assessed values. The impact on a homesteaded property valued at $450,000 is a $30 increase. The impact on the same non-homesteaded property is a $111 increase. Some other potential millage rate impacts are presented here as well. It is important to remember that while the millage rate is unchanged, homeowners may still see an increase in their taxes if their property value increased. In this slide, we bring together the key numbers behind tonight's millage vote of 2.47 mills, which is 4.72% above the rollback rate of 2.3587 mills, a difference of 0.1113 mills. In revenue terms, 2.47 mills generates $32.7 million in ad valorem tax revenue for Wellington. Each hundredth of a mill represents $132,000 in revenue. The 0.1113 male difference between the proposed rate and the rollback rate translate to approximately $1.47 million in additional revenue compared to what the rollback rate alone would generate. On the taxpayer side, using a typical taxable value of $411,480, The proposed 2.47 mil rate equals $1,016 in Wellington ad valorem tax for the year. The portion attributable to being above the rollback rate, that 0.1113 mils, comes to about $45.80 per year, or roughly $3.82 a month. Each .01 mil, or hundredth of a mil, works out to $4.11 per year for that same taxpayer. 18.7% of the total tax bill goes to Wellington. The largest portion of the tax bill is paid to the school district, followed by Palm Beach County. Wellington receives 12 cents per tax dollar for the typical homesteaded property with a $411,000 taxable value. ACME receives 3 cents, and Wellington Solid Waste Collection receives 4 cents. That leaves 81 cents for the other taxing authorities, which include the county, the school board, and fire rescue. To further put all these dollars in perspective, Wellington's general fund budget of approximately $72 million provides an average $2,900 in spending for each of the 24,500 households in Wellington. That spending is supported by revenue from property taxes of approximately $1,173 per average home value, of $475,000, or $98 per month. That is almost 2 and 1 half times the services and programs expended per dollar of property tax revenue. This is the sample tax bill showing 18.7% of the total tax bill goes to Wellington. The largest portion of the tax bill is paid to the school district followed by Palm Beach County. The sample homesteaded owner will pay $33 more to Wellington in ad valorem taxes and $5 more to Wellington for solid waste. The total annual increase for all Wellington and Acme services is $33 in this sample. Ad valorem tax revenue of $32.7 million represents 46% of general fund revenues for fiscal year 27 and fund the multiple expenditure categories used to support and maintain the Village of Wellington. The two top areas are public works and facilities and public safety, both of which are top areas of concern from budget outreach. The fiscal year 27 tentative budget adoption presented includes the annual funding of $95.8 million, excluding increases or decreases to reserves and balances brought forward. This is the decrease from the fiscal year 26 adopted budget of $7.8 million, resulting from reduced capital improvements, elimination of positions, leasing of major equipment, and no election expense. Now we focus on specifically what we cut. It's easy to talk about a budget in terms of what it funds, but it's just as important to show what was trimmed to get there, because every dollar that is not spent is a dollar that we don't have to ask you for. Council is committed to keeping Wellington's tax burden as low as possible, and this budget reflects that mandate. Staff didn't wait to be told to find the savings. We built this process around finding them. Across our governmental funds, this proposed budget is $7.81 million lower than where we started. That is not a rounding adjustment. It is staff going line by line through every request and asking whether it reflects what Wellington actually needs right now, not what would be nice to have. So where do the savings come from? Capital funding. $4.6 million lower. The single biggest cut is from several of our major capital projects that are simply finished. We're not scaling back work here. We're not refunding work that's already done. What remains is targeted at ongoing, ready-approved programs. Four vacant positions are limited. These are positions that were open, not layoffs, not cuts to anyone currently serving Wellington. And in several cases, we turned an opening into an opportunity. Our finance team absorbed the vacant accountant position by leaning further into automation and reorganization using technology and improved efficiencies. The other three, strategic planning, public information, and community events, mean a modest, deliberate scaling back in comprehensive planning activity, public communications, and the number of community events we run. These are real trade-offs, and we're being transparent about them rather than pretending there's no impact at all. Major maintenance is right-sized rather than reduced across the board. Road and pathway overlay comes down by $1 million, six fewer lane miles this cycle. Every road on our resurfacing schedule stays on the schedule. We're pacing the work rather than cutting it. Building maintenance and neighborhood parks funding drops by $400,000, largely because we're rolling forward funds already sitting in reserve from projects that carried over, not by shrinking what gets fixed. Athletic fields and fields funding is down $600,000. Focused now on village park repairs, the highest-use facility gets the priority dollar. Surface water management comes down $350,000 in inspection and swell canal work, a deliberate monitored reduction, not a walk away from flood protection. To bring this home, cuts in quality together. None of this is required, touching the services residents rely on every day. Public safety is fully funded. Our parks stay open. Our roads down schedule. Our water and sewer systems keep getting the investment they need. What is changed is the pace and discipline behind the spending, not the commitment behind it. That is what responsible budgeting looks like. Not a single dramatic gesture, but dozens of deliberate decisions, each asking the same question, does this dollar need to be spent this year? Where the answer was no, we said no. Where the answer was yes, we made sure it was funded well. That's how we hold the line on our tax rate while keeping Wellington the community you've come to expect. One final area that is important to highlight before we close are Wellington's commitment to grant funding. This year we have $9.68 million in active grants, either newly awarded, pending, or received, spread across environmental resilience, housing and youth support, Parks and Recreation, and Public Safety and Infrastructure, with Public Safety and Infrastructure grants representing the largest share at $6.6 million. Going back to 2013, Wellington has secured a cumulative total of $27 million in grant funding, $17.3 million in completed grants, plus this year's $9.68 million in active grants. Every grant dollar we secure is a dollar that doesn't have to come from ad valorem taxes. Thank you to our engineering, OFMB, public works, parks and recreation, utilities, planning, zoning, and building, emergency management, and legal teams, all that work with our grant consultant for the work that makes this possible. We conclude with a summary overview of the largest revenue sources for the Village of Wellington. Charges for services at $43 million. Ad valorem taxes at $33 million. Local taxes, state revenue sharing, and franchise fees at $19 million. Permit fees and special assessments at $28 million. And the expenditures these revenues provide, drinking water, water used in your home and garbage pickup, $47 million. Roads, facilities, parks, and landscaping maintenance, surface water and flood protection, $38 million. Major capital projects involving traffic, roads, parks, pump stations, and utility system improvements, $19 million. Law enforcement, emergency management, building permits, and code enforcement, $19 million. And athletics, aquatics, and community programs and events, $18 million. This budget is truly a collaborative effort and to address our community needs while focused on resiliency and sustainability. Thank you for your consideration. This proposed budget funds Wellington's high levels of service and includes great projects with the fourth year of a stable millage rate. Special thanks to you, Mr. Barnes, Mr. De La Vega, Ms. Fisher, Ms. Acevedo, Ms. Cabret, and our amazing department staff who prepare the annual detailed budgets and business plans. We are happy to answer your questions.

Ms. Quiggle, thank you again for your presentation, and thank you to your staff for all the hard work that goes into this budget, not just the last month, but all year long, to get us to where we are today. This is a public hearing item, so I'd like to have our public go first before we start commenting and asking questions.

Is there a motion to open public hearing? Second.

All in favor? Aye. Public hearing is now open. Madam Vice Mayor, we have some cards.

We do. If I may call Ms. Brody up to the podium, please. And Mr. Tooman, if you want to take this podium over here.

You both know the drill. Name and address, three minutes.

Lauren Brody, 13015 La Mirada Circle. So first, I think it's very impressive how much work goes into presenting the budget, doing it and then presenting it. So I don't think we can take away from that at all. But and I don't claim to have read the budget line by line or done a lot of work.

What I have heard, and not just tonight, is a bit of a contrast.

We want to save Wellington residents as much money as possible. We want to save them. We want to decrease taxes. We want to save them. And then on the other hand, I hear that small amounts aren't that important. And I hear that both at the same time. And I think that bears paying attention to. The whole thing about the millage rate, we all know that as your property taxes rise, they're rising because of your underlying value. You didn't do anything. Your property tax may rise. Your income may not rise, but your property tax rise. And for us to say, well, the millage rate has remained stable, okay, but we're making more money. We're also making more money because we have a larger tax base. We've taken a lot of empty land that paid one version of a tax. We've built on it. We have another version. And I think it's important to look at all of those things. At the same time, we're not, and I'm not saying you are, poo-pooing a small amount of an increase. When we do the math and we say, well, this change will be this much per household, and it doesn't sound that big, when I look at the screen and I look where the money comes from otherwise, it's vastly funded by the residents. When she put those numbers up, where are we getting other money from? It's money that the residents are paying for other things, taxes, fees, impact costs, building permit costs, water, other things. And I just think that, especially in today's time, if there's a way to look at not just the budget, but an overall view of what can be done. We have a lot of great committees. Maybe it's time to have a committee that has something to do with finance, an advisory committee that looks and speaks to the residents, because we all look and see. Every one of us is out there every day, and I'm sure we all see things that we think about. Maybe this is a way to save money, or maybe this is a way to increase money. So quick example, I now go to the dog park every day. And people talk all the time at the dog park. The number of people at that dog park that don't live in Wellington is very, very, very high. And that dog park is not cheap to run. So I just, maybe there's an opportunity to have a committee that gets together like all the other committees and advises.

Thank you. You're welcome.

Oh, was that the final?

That was your time was up. Oh my gosh, sorry. Why don't you finish your dog park thought?

Thank you.

Mr. Tooman.

Yes. Good evening. My name is Bruce Tooman, and my primary and homesteaded zero-lot line property is at 752 Lake Wellington Drive in the village of Wellington. Quote, the proposed millage rate is 4.72% above the rollback rate of 2.36 mills. End quote. But this is still increasing our taxes by $1.49 million to $32.6 million for adverum tax. It sounds like you are increasing our taxes. As a commissioner, I always felt that any expense that I voted for is coming out of my pocket. But lately, we've been spending a lot of money, $12.5 million given to the school district for a football field. And by the way, who's going to be paying to replace the artificial turf on that field? Are we going to be paying for it? $8.5 million for phase two in our town center in the village of Wellington. We lost half our say trees, and we got porta potties that nobody uses. Half a million dollars annually goes to our school teachers. But only to those school teachers that are part of the school district. Charter schools and... So our schools and private schools' teachers don't get that. And how much do we pay for an aquatic center without adequate parking? Now, I believe the reason for the state referendum is because of wasteful spending by our local municipalities. And I wonder how many people were involved in the budget review from giving their opinions. I just wonder. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Madam Vice Mayor?

We have Paul Quince. We do. We have one. Miss Lauren?

Different Lauren.

Yes, different Lauren. And Maureen.

Maureen.

Oh, Maureen.

Lorene Capone, 1385 Pampas Way, and I want to thank all of you for your service to our community. I know it's not easy, but I'm here as a resident because I'm concerned. I'm seriously concerned with the decisions that are being made on this council to enrich developers. There's plenty of evidence to suggest it's happening, and this item that got taken off the agenda is really concerning me. And As it pertains to this budget item specifically, our taxes just keep going up and up, and our quality of life is going down. We don't have the drainage that we had. When you do these zoning changes, you need to do an impact statement of what it's going to do to the other people around us. And I'm a fiscal conservative. I run a business. I don't get the opportunity to work eight hours a day. Sometimes I work 18. Any of you running a business know that. And we rely on you to be our voice, to be... It's your job to... make sure that the expenditures that are being expended are fiscally conservative, that they're not wasteful, that they're not enriching private people. And I'm just asking in the future if other people can be involved in the budget, how we can get involved, how we can see numbers. I see people showing up with jackets, with logos, with Wellington, more clothes than my daughter has. And she's a shopaholic. So we really need to ground ourselves and remember that we have struggling families, moms and dads, single moms and dads. They're not all horse show people. And I know you're all in Newark. And I've seen not this crowd, but several others from the last commissions at the horse shows, chugging beers, at the clues, with the people. We need to stop that. We're watching. And you need to be fiscally conservative, please. And the tax and spend mentality, I'm asking you to stop it. Just we need to stop tax and spend, tax and spend. Ask questions. When you are allowing this development that you want to cross the street over in Southern, we don't want you over there ruining our quality of life on the other side of Southern. I own a home in Fox Trail. We don't want you coming over there and putting Section 8 with no parks, no police, no services. That's not fair. That's not fair. I'll support you every day if we do the right thing. So please just do the right thing. And nice to meet you all.

Thank you, ma'am. Any more cards?

That is it, Mayor.

That's all we got? That's all we got. All right.

So anyone else want to speak on the item before we close public hearing?

Move to close public hearing.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Public hearing is now closed. We will go to council comments, and I won't go first this time. So who wants to start with comments, questions, observations, thoughts?

I hear you, and I agree with you, the two speakers about, you know, We should be doing whatever we can to decrease the burden on people out there because things are just continuing to get more and more expensive. So I, for one, believe that we have the ability to decrease the millage rate. I propose 2.40. As you probably don't know, it was voted against at 4 to 1 the other way to keep it at 2.47. But I agree with Ms. Brody's comment that if it's such a small number, then why aren't we saving the taxpayer that small number just to save them something? And I think that we have enough that's in reserves. I know we want the best bond rating possible, but if we're paying cash for things anyway, does it really matter? So if we can save the taxpayers, the residents money, I'm all for it personally.

Anybody else? Sure, I'll go. Last time I suggested going down in small increments instead of more or less taking a sledgehammer to it. Let's take a scalpel. Maybe we do small reductions over time. I did meet with Ms. Quickle and Mr. Barnes to kind of go over some ideas because if we're going to recommend lowering the millage rate, we should also be recommending what we're going to cut out of the budget to make that make sense. So, Ms. Quickle, you had mentioned a few things to me in the meeting. Would you like to share those again of things that we could make that make sense? And then I have one other comment on that.

Are these your suggestions or Ms. Quickle's suggestions?

They're our suggestions after our meeting.

Okay.

So on Thursday, at a gender review on consent, one of the items was the village's annual property casualty insurance and workers' compensation insurance. We budget for that every year. We get the amount. just like you saw at the first part of September after the budget has already been put together. We generally have an increase in those lines, which is not surprising. I have a saying that usually there's not good news with insurance. So we had budgeted approximately for a 10% increase. And if you recall from the meeting on Thursday, The increase, I believe, was 4.2% overall. So we have approximately $200,000 in budgeted funds that will not be necessary for the property casualty insurance. That was one suggestion. And then the other is we are reviewing the events and schedule for our events and activities pursuant to statutes that will go into effect January 1, 2027. And we can, through condensing and combining some of these events and some reallocation of things, we could make additional savings in that of approximately $60,000 from what we have currently budgeted.

That's cutting down the number of events we do?

Some are combined, some no longer functioning as they should. So, yes, that's reviewing some of those. Thank you.

Obviously, that's something that we could consider, and then we need to always keep an eye on what's going to happen with Amendment 3. But I would like us to make a plan that we're going to look at reducing it another 0.02, maybe for the next two to three years, because we could get this down by 2029 to about 2.39. If we stop at 2028 and we feel like we're good, we're at 2.41. So we are essentially saving our residents some money. As you see, it would go up. a small amount here per year. And then I know we like to say it'll be $8 a year, but it's really $38 a year because it's going to go up as it is. So if we want to look at that slide, if you want to pull it back up. There's other things that we could look at cutting. If we're comfortable just to go to 2.45 with those, I'll leave my suggestions for later. We also have to keep in mind, while some of our residents are very disappointed with the school zone cameras, we are bringing in additional revenue. So this is a way that we can show our residents, hey, you're actually getting a perk from this and we're a little safer. So we have to keep these things in mind as we're bringing in new revenue is a way to reduce costs for our residents. And I can go further, but I'll open that to discussion first.

Ms. Quickle, what was a 10% budget increase for insurance expected to be? Because we saved $200,000 by not going up 10%. What if it goes up next year?

The one thing with that is the 10% is spread across multiple funds. As you heard described, we have multiple funds like utilities, ACME are separate. The general fund portion of those savings is the $200,000, so that portion.

And if we don't realize that same savings next year, our insurance will be higher.

And that goes back to my saying, there's usually not good news with insurance.

This was a surprising year to have it bump 4%.

We did a lot with that, so yes.

Unusual in that we went back to market and so forth.

Well, and again, it was still an increase, but it was not as what we had been expecting. And in past years, the last six to eight years, property casual insurance has been a challenge. We have been very fortunate in the strategy we have used with that.

So first I want to thank you and applaud your team's effort for the diligence in sharpening the pencil and finding those changes. I know both Councilman Meyer and myself campaigned on reducing and saving and eliminating wherever possible. It seems like we're definitely getting better at grant writing, where we went from $9.6 million in active grants in 2026 from $17 million over the previous 12 years. So definitely getting better at that. I don't believe it's not an argument about millage not going down ever. I think it's a scary, scary, scary thing to think about millage going down now, especially with property tax as a very uncertain constitutional amendment to the state of Florida in November and what that could do to impact the village. $10 million plus in the first year, $20 million in the second year in a significant way. If that comes, we're looking at eliminating services. Right now, the hundredth of a mil equals $4.11. That's on this slide. equals $4.11 to the average taxpayer in the village of Wellington on ad valorem taxes. Per year? Per year. Per year. So if we reduce the two hundredths of mils or seven hundredths of mils, seven by four, it's $20, $24 in savings for the year for the resident. And the impact to the village is far more significant. And we've already reduced $7.8 million in budget. So I don't think it's a fair thing to say that there's no reduction. I have read. I have studied. I have done the work. I have attended the meetings. I have voiced my opinion. And I am a business owner that's looked for ways to be thrifty in my spending as we're looking to produce the best services in my business the same way as we do for the village. So again, applaud for the effort and the activity. And I'm excited about where we are.

Thank you. Madam Vice Mayor.

Yes, thank you. These are hard conversations. And I want to be very clear to the audience very clear that I'm a residents of Wellington and I'm I'm like everybody else if I can save a dollar I want it. But when I look at what we've done think about what we've already decreased to 7.8 million that's already shaped off the budget. Ms. Quigley, the budget, when you show the screen that you have now, that is not necessarily limited to this, is it? That's correct. So we have gone above and beyond what you've already disclosed here on this screen with budget cuts. I have very legitimate concerns come November with Amendment 3. If we cut today and Amendment 3 passes, We're looking at a whole different scenario that no one's going to be happy with because no one's going to win. That's where the problem is going to come. Because if we have to cut more than what we're doing, that amendment passes, there's going to be changes in Wellington, Florida. There's going to be changes in infrastructure and roads and our water, our canal drainage, everything we do every single day in this village to make sure that our residents are safe, are having quality of life, And of course, there are, and to your point, one of our residents that came up to the podium, that's in every community. People are struggling across the country. It's not just Wellington. But we focus on Wellington because this is where we live. And if we don't start focusing now and getting ourselves prepared for what could hit us, I am very concerned because it's not going to be a win-win. It's not. And I commend you and your staff for the hard work you've put into this because this is not something that's just done around the table with a cup of coffee in hand. It's just not. You put a lot, a lot into this. And you do it to make sure that our residents are taken care of and that our village continues to be one of the best villages there is, or city, whatever we want to call ourselves. But at the end of the day, I want to make sure that everybody understands my own. And the other concern that I have, what happened two years ago with the tornadoes that hit us? Think about what we had to span up front. What we, the funds we had to use, and we're still, and correct me if I'm wrong, we're still waiting for some of those funds, right, to be reimbursed. So think about that. If that happens again, God forbid it doesn't, but we weren't expecting that to happen two years ago, were we? And here we are. Now, all reserves could possibly deplete to a certain extent. Anything that we have will have to be put into that because we have to keep going. We have to fix our homes and we have to help you continue your life. There's so much more. And it's not a matter of saving $8 a year or $40 a year. It's a matter of the big picture of it all. It's about where we stand for the future. And if we don't do it now, and I'm not opposed at all in the budget of 27-28 to bring this back regarding the millage. But I think with the factors we've got right now going on in this county, we have to be very, very careful with what we do.

Thank you. Mr. Barnes, can you explain in detail small words so everyone, including me, will understand, because sometimes you have a habit of making things more complicated than I think they need to be. Maybe I'm just simple. The cumulative impact of amyloid rate reduction over time and on an annual basis.

I'll try, and Ms. Quickel will correct me where I digress or go wrong. Basically, particularly based on the last amendment that went through as part of the companion bill,

with the language that was passed for putting Amendment 3 on the ballot and the corresponding Senate bill that accompanied that, is that traditionally when you calculate going forward for your coming budget year where you're at in terms of what your rollback rate is, and the simple definition of rollback rate is what the rate needs to be for you to collect the same dollars that you collected the prior year. And then you calculate based on, again, that rollback rate. There used to be a provision where you could look at personal income growth in the state. That was part of the equation. And to arrive at basically a maximum majority millage. And what that means is that the millage that the governing body could pass with just a simple majority vote. And you used to have a window that you had rollback, you had the majority millage, and anything beyond that required supermajority. Based on those changes that were passed this past session, basically, you have rollback, which would be able to be passed at a simple majority vote, 3-2. And everything above rollback requires a supermajority vote now. And then once you hit the upper threshold of that, then it would require a unanimous vote. And the documents we have reflect the rollback rate we currently have at 2.36. And anything above that requires a supermajority. So the cumulative impact ends up being that once I had to do the context, and nobody stopped me. So the cumulative impact becomes then if you lower it today, as far as any, whatever reduction that is, whether it's 1 100th or whether it's more than that, is that basically then that becomes the level that you start at going forward for the coming year. So you don't have the ability anymore to be able to revisit that. That sets your new base. going forward. So you're already starting beyond that. So then what that ends up happening is at some point you get to a rollback rate and a maximum majority that is going to be lower regardless just because of already what you've lowered it today. So anything going forward, if natural disaster, catastrophe, economic conditions change and you have an increased requirement, you're already facing whatever revenue has to be raised, you're already facing either a supermajority or a unanimous vote in order to bring that millage to where it needs to be.

I think that was mostly clear. Thank you. I think this is my 11th budget, my 11th year. So I've done this 11 times. And I've seen this budget many times. And again, I appreciate the effort that goes into it. And I understand the push-pull on the millage rate. And we've held the millage rate at 247, because that's the number that is fair to our residents, and it provides us the revenue to provide the services that our residents enjoy. And that's why they live in Wellington. And I looked at what other municipalities in Palm Beach County do. Wellington has the second or third lowest millage rate in the county. Third. Okay. I said second or third. I didn't remember which one it was. And it was one of the two. Based upon the trim notices that went out, I think six other municipalities are looking to raise their millage rate. Three who are non-comparable, like Lake Clark Shores and South Palm Beach, are looking to lower their millage rate. You know, I think especially in light of the potential of Amendment 3 passing. I mean, I've believe we should be as efficient as possible in how we spend every dollar. And we shouldn't spend any dollar frivolously around services that our residents don't use and enjoy. And I don't think we do. There's always ways to cut. But I do think that what we're facing at this time, with the potential of Amendment 3, causing us a drastic cut in our ad valorem. And our ad valorem is $32 million, of which $14 million alone is the PBSO contract. So if you take that off the table, you've got to cut a big slice from other pieces of the budget. And I think we are very efficient. I think we do run very lean. I think when we have a storm event, you know the streets are not flooded. If they are, it's momentarily until the drains are cleared out because we don't have the problems that one of our neighbors had where their streets were flooded for days after the storm. People couldn't get into their neighborhoods. We don't have that in Wellington. And we don't have that because we spend money wisely on infrastructure. We have these pump stations that are hugely expensive. When we see the numbers, the new people realize, my God, these things cost a fortune. And they do. But they serve a purpose. They keep our streets dry. They keep our homes dry. This is where all the money goes into. And I do think we need to look with an eye whether Amendment 3 passes or not. I think the charge for next year is to look for ways to see if we can bring the millage rate down. Because, again, we've had council members in the past who always wanted to make some sort of symbolic. They wanted to go from 247 to 246 so they could put on a flyer, lower taxes. But when you've lowered my taxes by a dollar a month, it's kind of insulting to tell me what a good job I did by lowering your taxes when you saved me a dollar a month. So, I mean, it's a factual statement, but it doesn't create meaningful savings in anyone's budget. There's no one that's going to benefit from a dollar a month. I don't care who you are. So I think, like I said before, I think in the current climate we're in, I think it's fiscally irresponsible to lower the millage rate this year, whether it's a big rollback or a small rollback. I think we should stick to the 247 because we've had months going through this. We've planned this out. I think it's a realistic and reasonable amount to charge people based upon the services they get. And I think this charge for the staff next year would be look for ways to try to bring that millage rate down, whether it's 0.1, 0.2, 0.3. But with an eye towards, I think you said you wanted to get to 2.39. I don't know where that number comes from, but that was- I was just doing 0.02 a year. Oh, that's simple enough. OK. But to look for a way to do that. Again, those cuts might not be meaningful to people. They might be more symbolic. But people might want the symbolic, you lowered my taxes a dollar. Maybe that means something to some people. But for me, the same motion I made last meeting two weeks ago, I'd like to see us stick to the 2.47 for this year, and then with the charge that our staff to look for ways to reduce millage in a responsible manner going forward for the next fiscal year. Any other questions, comments from folks?

I can understand where you're coming from. I can. I think that we're not in that current climate. The current climate will be after Amendment 3 passes, and I think that this is something that we can do. I certainly would never do anything to be symbolic. This is just, in my opinion, an easier way to get to a number that makes sense. I don't see if Amendment 3 passes that next year we're coming in with some bigger millage rate cuts. I don't really think that that's happening. I think we're just going to, if we did, we would just be approving 2.47 and then we would move on with our lives and next year we'll see what happens, probably nothing. So I think that this is a time to do it before we see what happens with Amendment 3. There's plenty of other things that we could look at cutting if we really needed to. Ms. Quickle gave some great ideas. I will bring this up. I don't care what we do with this, but We have 13 employees that get a car allowance. And with that car allowance, that is $600 a month. That's $93,600 a year. We are a small municipality. They are driving to and from work. We can replace that with mileage reimbursement. They can use cars from our fleet if they need to, if they don't want wear and tear, if that's a possibility. I mean, that is something, that's a significant amount of money. It's $93,600 a year. And we can find a couple little things like that and reduce the millage a little bit.

Fireworks. Remember the fireworks conversation?

Please stop. No, we're not talking from the audience.

I wasn't saying get rid of the fireworks. I was saying reduce it considerably whenever we were discussing it before the Fourth of July. But I agree. Sorry to interrupt.

Right. I just think that there's things that we could look at. I think that our staff is treated wonderfully, and I don't think a single one of them would go anywhere, and I think that they would understand that we're looking at things that don't take away from our residents. That is not a necessity. That's a perk to the job. And I'm sure we could find a couple other things like that if we really needed to in order to make it make sense to cut the millage. So I would really like us to consider going down just because I think that we really need to show our residents that we're trying to go in the right direction. We're trying to do it in a responsible manner. And if we just say, oh, we'll wait until next year. I mean, I haven't been in all your budget meetings, but I'm sure that's been said before. So I would really like to see us go in a different direction. We do need four votes to approve this. We all have to agree to approve something tonight. And I would like to see us take a little bit of time to consider going down, even if it's 0.202.

I agree with Amanda, or with Councilwoman Silvestri. Call me Amanda. Sorry. I agree with you. Call it symbolic. Call it whatever you want. It's going in the proper direction. I was voted to be here as a fiscal conservative, and by not doing what I can to be fiscally conservative, then I lied to everybody that voted for me, and that's not me. Even if it's saving a dollar, and it doesn't matter, it's a dollar, whatever, it's still showing that we're moving in that direction. And maybe it's $2 next year. Maybe it's $3 next year. But at least it's not the same thing, status quo, which I bless you all for not raising it. I love that. There's always going to be something. Next year, it's going to be some other reason why we have to keep it at 2.47. And then the following year, it's got to be some other reason. Over and over and over, there's going to be this excuse to keep it at 2.47. It's time to lower it. It's time to lower it. We just raised water. We just raised trash. Your property value is going to continue to go up because people want to live here. Why do they want to live here? Because it's awesome. But if we can save a little bit, symbolic or whatever, we should do so.

Let me just address, sorry, I'm not comfortable discussing cutting staff benefits at the 11th hour of a meeting when this is what they're going to rely on. That's something that should be a longer discussion and people should have brace for a glide path and possibly have their benefits cut. So that wouldn't be something I would want to cut today. Maybe we can discuss that as a going forward thing, but that would not be my solution to find the 0.01 millage rate savings by telling everyone suddenly we just cut your car allowances tonight. I think that requires a discussion with staff that might be coming. I don't think anyone would appreciate finding their benefits cut when they wake up the next morning. So that's not something I'm comfortable with doing this year as a cost savings. I understand your point, but I've just, I got it. I understand what you're saying. I'm not saying that was what you wanted to do. That was something that you pointed as an example of something we could cut to find $93,000 in savings. Sorry, you wanted to go. Go ahead.

Thank you. I do want to bring something up because I think that is to a certain extent. We had no problem raising the council salaries in March, and that raised it to $81,000 a month.

I didn't vote for that.

I understand. Okay. But that's... Please stop, Bruce.

You're not... You don't get to talk for the audience.

If we're going to compare apples to apples here, then we have to compare everything. And no one had a problem... Now, what we're trying to do here is to protect this village, to protect the unknown. And we're saying the 2728 budget, that is a hard look for us now that we're going through this exercise tonight. That is a very hard look for us for the 2728 budget. And when I see, there was no problem then. We weren't concerned about reducing the budget. But we're not going to get into that, to the mayor's point, because car allowances is standard. It happens in every municipality. They don't drive just from here to home. They drive everywhere. And if they don't do the car allowance, there's going to be mileage. So where are we going to do this balancing act at? I'm done, Mayor. Thank you.

I have to be done. You can tell me as long as you want.

I think the point, though, is that Councilwoman Silvestri was making is that we're going to have to find cuts somewhere. Supposedly. Maybe not. Maybe we just make more revenue in other places to fill those gaps. Because we can also do that. We can actually make money on things and charge for free under 65 years old. Put a fence around the amphitheater and charge non-Wellington residents to come in to our different events that we all stroke the check for them to enjoy. That they get the freeload off of. There's multiple other things. We can look at investments. I know we have some. We can look at others. So there's other ways to make up shortfalls. But just because Councilwoman Silvestri is saying that we have to cut the car allowances doesn't mean that's actually what we have to do. It's just an example. Just like if Amendment 3 passes, we're going to have to figure out ways to cut things.

Yes. It's an example that has been brought to the table. Okay. And now it's open. And I agree with you and I want to be very clear on this again. I am not against cutting the budget at all because it benefits me as a resident of Wellington. What I don't want to do is risk anything that could possibly hurt us this year. until we know what's going to happen with this amendment. If you don't know about Amendment 3, please go home tonight and read. Read it so you can see how it's going to affect.

Costs go up. We look at consent agenda items for mulch and chlorine pellets for the pool and so forth. It's not frivolous spending to make sure that our beautiful village maintains itself as a beautiful village. And those costs go up, whether we see a consent agenda purchase for a 3% increase that's contracted or a 5% increase. Those costs are rising. And that drives the property values. People want to come here to freeload on our events because we put on fabulous events. I spoke with some folks at the unbelievable 9-11 memorial this year, and there are fewer of those across the county because the fewer of them were done in a much better way with so many men and women in uniform representing such an incredible community. an incredible memorial. We pulled $7.8 million out of the budget against rising costs. The property values are going up because our village doesn't have a drainage problem. The pumps and pump stations, the swales, all of those things are functioning the way they should, and that doesn't happen everywhere in the western communities. We saw plenty of examples in the last few days, and the rain may not be over. I'm not opposed to reducing budget, and I don't want to confuse patience with inaction. It's important to see what happens in November with Amendment 3 before we do irrevocable damage to the graduated future costs of rollback budgets by reducing millage now.

When we get done making comments, we need to start making motions. So I'm not telling anyone what to do, but that's the next step after everyone's made their comments and said their piece and asked their questions.

I'll make a motion to make the millage rate 2.40.

Is there a second? Motion dies for lack of a second.

Well, then I'll make my motion, which I know I'm not getting a second, to lower it to 2.45.

I'll second it.

Motion and second. All in favor of 2.45 say aye. Aye. All opposed? Aye. Aye. Fails 3-2. Okay. Getting closer.

Well, here's what I will say. We have a job to do here tonight. We have to approve this.

We have to pass a budget.

We do. This has to happen. Obviously, you've heard my arguments. You know I want to go down. We are going to do the job tonight. I will vote for the 2.47, but I really do want in the next year for us not to just say it. I want us to look at a serious reduction, and next year I won't be the fourth if we don't.

There's no guarantee for that, though.

And I will tell you, being here 11 years, we've never told staff to lower the millage rate the next year. We've never given you that charge. We've had a plan in place to hold it steady for five years at one point because we saw the cliff you had drawn for us on the charts and how we were going to have a problem with some things. So we budgeted for the 2.47. And then we've kept it there historically because we felt that was the right place to go. But we've never directed staff to find a way to cut the budget. So this has not been a we'll do it next year, we'll do it next year. We've never told you before. to find a way to come back to us next year with a lower millage rate. But I think you're hearing that from us, from everyone up here now is telling you, next year we want to see a lower millage rate than 2.47.

And based on our discussion, you guys don't like the idea of multiple reductions. So this would be a more significant reduction, not 0.02, because we're not doing it this year. So this is not a... What did you call it?

Symbolic?

Symbolic reduction for next year. If we go that route, I want to see a nicer reduction since we are not doing it this year. So it'll almost be the placeholder for what we didn't do this year.

And because we have so many budget meetings throughout the year, we should have more robust discussions in those meetings about what we would like to see cut and not do it when we get up to the dais for the first time. Because we have plenty of time to talk to staff all year long about things in the budget that we'd like to see cut. The budget is public. The staff, the... the residents can pull out the budget and look at it and tell us what you would like us to cut. You can send us emails. Everyone sends us emails all the time. Look at the budget. It's a public document. It's not a secret. Tell us what you think we're spending too much money on. We do a budget challenge every year where we give people the opportunity to look at the budget and make changes where they want to prioritize money and where they don't. And we take that into consideration when our staff puts together the budget. The budget reflects the priorities our residents told us were priorities. But again, we can do all of that Next year, we can come back with a lower millage rate. It could be 245. It could be some whatever number we think is a sustainable number. I think we'll know better come November 4th what that could look like. But I think that's the charge from us to you all to look for for next year.

I understand. And along with that, since the mayor brought up that you guys have never been asked to lower the budget. I would like to ask you to lower the budget. You did a great job this year already lowering the budget and continue to do that.

I wouldn't say we've not been asked to lower the budget.

They've been asked to lower the budget, not the millage rate.

So with that being said, I'd like to make a motion to approve 2.47.

Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Aye. Passes 4-1.

You do need to pass the vote on the resolutions that are before you. There are two resolutions.

Okay, we'll do it properly then.

One is the millage resolution and the other is the actual budget.

Okay.

Madam Vice Mayor?

It's at tab B. You want to read them off? Do it one at a time. There are two motions, right? Right? Two motions. It's going? Okay.

Motion to approve resolution numbers R2026-49, millage rate 2.47.

Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Passes four to one. Same page. Roman numeral two.

Motion to approve resolution number R2026-50, Wellington budget.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passed 5-0.

I have the mandatory to read statement. The 2.47 millage rate is 4.72% higher than the rollback rate of 2.3587 mills. The rollback rate is the rate that when applied to this year's total assessed valuation of $13.93 billion yields the same ad valorem tax revenues as the previous year or $31.19 million adjusted for discounts. Adopting the proposed rate of 2.47 mills generates $32.68 million in ad valorem revenues adjusted for discounts or an increase of approximately $1.49 million from last year. The proposed millage rate of 2.47 mills for the Village of Wellington governmental budget, including Acme Improvement District and increases to reserves, funds a 7.2% decrease in the operating budget over the prior year. The proposed millage of 2.47 mills for the Village of Wellington governmental budget, excluding Acme Improvement District and enterprise funds, a 7.5% decrease in the operating budget over the prior year. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Quickle. Thank you to your team. We appreciate all of your hard work this year, and we're going to make you work harder next year.

Ms. Fisher is on Zoom with us, so thank you very much. We appreciate your work on all this for months. The positive here is we're giving you a year. We'll be starting on it soon.

Just a reminder for everybody, Ms. Quickle's year starts in eight days. It starts 10-1. Thank you, Mr. Bond.

Thank you.

That takes us to... Staff recommends approval of the consent agenda as presented.

Do we have any cards in the consent agenda, Madam Vice Mayor? We do not. We do not. Oh, look at that. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Moved.

So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, consent agenda passes 5-0.

Taking us to... That brings us to our other public hearing item, which is Resolution No. 2026-45, Wellington Village, formerly known as Cape Park, conditionally used for building height. Mr. Stillings and Ms. Kramer are here. Ms. Kramer will present this item.

Resolution number R2026-45, a resolution of Wellington, Florida's Council, approving a conditional use for certain property known as Wellington Village Mixed Use Plan Development, totaling approximately 71.27 acres, more or less, located on the southwest corner of Stribling Way and US 441 State Road 7, as more specifically described herein. To amend the maximum building height for Building D1 and D2, of Pod B, approved by Resolution R2026-08, from 42 feet to 48 feet, to allow a maximum building height of 37 feet for Building E1 and 39 feet for Building E2 of Pod B, providing a conflicts clause, providing for severability, and providing an effective date.

This is quasi-judicial, so if you intend to be heard on this item, would you raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Yes.

Okay. And ex parte disclosures, please. Starting with Councilman Meyer.

I spoke to no one about this proposal for increasing the height. So that's easy. And I can be fair and impartial.

I have none to disclose.

No disclosures.

No disclosures.

I have no disclosures. Actually, I did speak to Lauren Brody. Okay.

And can you summarize generally what you discussed?

So she is my appointee on the PZAB. So she said that they were meeting with them about this particular proposal and that she was in favor of it.

And you can be fair and impartial. I can be fair and impartial. Thank you. Take it away.

I forgot about you. Sorry. She's staring right at you. I was wondering why she was here.

Good evening. Corey Lynn Kramer, Planning and Zoning. Before you tonight is petition 2026-003-CU, a conditional use request to amend the maximum building height of the previously approved buildings D1 and D2 from 42 feet to 48 feet, shown in purple and yellow, and to allow the building height of 37 feet for building E1, shown in blue, and 39 feet for building E2, shown in brown. Wellington Village, also known as K-Park, located on the southwest corner of Stribling and State Road 7, for which I would like to enter the entire file into the record. And the agent, Urban Design Studios, on behalf of the applicant, are here to make their presentation, and then staff will follow up with a brief presentation.

Thank you, Corey. Good evening, mayor and council members. with Urban Design Studio on behalf of Related Ross. As Corey mentioned, here before you tonight is a conditional use height request, specifically to request a slightly increased building height on buildings D1. and D2, and then for building E1 and E2 at 37 feet and 39 feet, respectively. To give you guys some context, we actually were before your council in March, I believe, to get conditional use height approval on the hotel building, buildings D1 and D2, and then building G4. Building G4 actually has since reduced from two stories to one story. So now it's under that 35 foot threshold. While D1 and D2 are growing roughly five to six feet. And now E1 and E2 are included in the request partially because of a pitch roof condition. that makes the height exceed 35 feet. For some additional context, we were before the ARB board on September 1st, 2026, and we got approval for the full design of all buildings on Pod B, with the exception of the hotel, which was, of course, approved prior. And then on September 16th, 2026, we got a recommendation of approval specifically for these buildings subject to the condition use height request tonight.

Before you roll on, are D1 and D2 three-story buildings? Yes, correct. And E1 and E2 are two-story buildings? Yes. Okay, just because the height is varied. I want to make sure that's a number of stories. Absolutely. Okay, go ahead.

And we're all familiar with the site at that southwest corner of Stripping Way and State Road 7. And I'm going to take the moment and the time now to introduce Kevin Ryan with Related Ross to speak more to the design ethos and the specific buildings and programming. Okay. Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Ryan. Good evening. Getting a little bit late, but still a good evening. Early for us. Yeah. So I think everybody here is reasonably familiar or pretty familiar with this, but I will still take you through a little bit of a tour to orient you to some of the specific topics this evening. An aerial photograph. Again, I would just call attention to, in general, this project is very low scale. It's a significant number of one-story and two-story buildings. Just several, a couple that are over this two-story height. Again, this is the site plan. I'm not sure how well you can see the different letterings, but D1 and D2, they're actually two buildings. D1, D2 is actually one building. They're connected on floor 2 and floor 3. There's just a passage. And E1 and E2 are also effectively a single building with a sale that runs through them, a bridge over in both cases. This actually is where you can see more clearly the more pinkish one is E1, E2. It's specifically a fitness tenant, one that is under lease negotiations, so we're not dealing with hypotheticals. It's a specific tenant. And the purple building that's immediately down screen from that, that's D1, D2. That's a three-story building. It has two office floors. One of the office floors, the top floor, is also under specific lease negotiations with the coworking. IT'S A SINGLE TENANT THAT WOULD HAVE SORT OF A WORKFORCE TYPE OFFICE OFFER. AND THEN THE ONLY BUILDING THAT'S TALLER THAN THAT IS THE HOTEL WHICH HAS BEEN PREVIOUSLY APPROVED AT SEVEN STORIES. AND A QUICK WALK THROUGH. I WILL CALL ATTENTION TO A COUPLE OF IMAGES IN PARTICULAR. THIS IS A STRIBBLING EVENING LOOK. WE ARE ADVANCING DESIGN ACROSS MANY COMPONENTS INCLUDING LIGHTING AND SO WE'RE NOW STARTING TO SHOW SOME EVENING LIGHTS. This is the Stribling entry coming off Stribling heading into the project. This is, again, a promenade. You can start to see in the background that the building that has a fitness center does have a pitched roof in some locations. The pitched roof is what's causing the slight height over the 35 feet. Again, you can see that this is a sale heading west and you can see the building on the left That's a fitness center space on the upper left and you can see there's a pitch roof That's again what's causing this slight increase over 35 feet and that was not previously This is the first time we've come in for a height restriction or height.

So it's more of an architectural feature It's an architectural feature.

Yeah And that evolved since the last that's a recent evolution that has that slight increase the pitch roof was always there I think the angle changed Oh, I'm sorry. Let me go back. So D1, D2 that's on the left is the three-story building, ground-level retail, second and third floor of office, coworking on top. The height increase of about four, four and a half feet is spread across all three floors. WANTED TO INCREASE THE RETAIL HEIGHT A LITTLE BIT TO HELP ITS APPEAL TO CERTAIN TENANTS, PARTICULARLY RESTAURANTS, SO IT'S A LITTLE TALLER. THE COWORK SPACE, WE WANTED TO REALLY HAVE ANOTHER FOOT OR SO. SO IT'S ABOUT FOUR FEET RIGHT ACROSS THREE FLOORS FROM WHAT WAS PREVIOUSLY APPROVED. SO AGAIN, THIS BUILDING WAS APPROVED PREVIOUSLY, BUT THEN WE ADJUSTED THE ARCHITECTURE AND WE ADJUSTED THE HEIGHT SLIGHTLY. AND THIS IS THE NOW CURRENT DESIGN DAYTIME VIEW. AND THERE'S A COMPARISON HERE. I know it's not an architectural issue, but I do want you to see that we actually worked on the architecture. You can see on the left is the more recent, which has better massing, better stepping. I think generally ARB and PZAP both felt that was appealing, more attractive, and slightly higher by that slight dimension. This is one portion of the E2 block. Again, you're seeing a fitness center on the top. The spaces that are in the foreground, the trellises are where some of the major workout spaces in a yoga studio are located. I think in this location. So again, you can't even see in this particular view where the angled roof, which is on the opposite side of the building, creates the slight height increase. This is completely alleged illegible Basically what the green is telling you is there's a piece of the roof that's slightly higher than 35 feet and that's what this is why this building's been added to the council agenda Let's see how you take over

Thank you, Kevin. So now to speak to the conditional use and the supplemental height requirements. Your council may remember that in December of 2025, you approved the code text amendment, again, requiring these buildings over 35 feet to go to your council. And with that, having to comply with certain setback regulations and landscape regulations to essentially soften the impacts of that increased height. So just going to go through our property meeting those requirements here. We meet the minimum size requirement of two acres, as Pod B is 24 acres. We are within 500 linear feet of a collector road, that being State Road 7. We do meet the conditional setback, where for every foot above that 35 feet, we have to provide an additional foot of setback, and we significantly exceed that setback requirement on the proposed buildings.

That includes this variance?

Yes, correct. And we are also meeting the requirements, although we're not technically adjacent to single family, if we were still to work on those setback requirements that are assessed for buildings over 35 feet that are adjacent to single family, we significantly exceed that setback from Farming Estates to the south and then Oakmont to the west. And this is just a table specifically. You can see numbers between 700, 260, 355 that significantly exceed that setback. Again, the design ethos of the site is that the external line of buildings that are fronting State Road 7 and Stribling are that one-story product, while as you get more to the central portion of Pod B, that's where you get more of the height with the hotel and buildings D1, D2, E1, and E2.

And you'll only see that height when you're on the site generally because you're driving by. You'll see the earlier stuff and you won't see.

Correct. Also, as part of the conditional use request, we have to meet three of the following five design criteria. The three that the Wellington Village is meeting is providing electric vehicle charging stations, pedestrian streetscape enhancements, and we will be building to a Florida Green Building design certification of silver or higher. And this just shows the proposed building setbacks for E1 and E2. And similarly so for D1 and D2. We also have to comply with certain landscape requirements for the foundation planning of the buildings over 35 feet. Specifically, those requirements are that 25% of the palms within the foundation planting have to have a gray wood of one third of the building height, and then a separate 25% of palms within foundation planting have to have a gray wood of at least 12 feet or higher. So it's effectively 50% of your palms that you're planting in your foundation planting have to have some sort of height increase. And just to give you a refresher, as part of the initial master plan deviation approvals, we got a deviation approved to allow foundation planting to not necessarily be immediately abutting the building, but to still count towards it when you're considering planters that still have that same effect of softening the architecture, but allowing that pedestrian pathway in between. So of the proposed foundation planting areas in building D1 and D2, where we're proposing seven palms in the foundation planting, we're providing three of those seven as Mexican fan palms with 22-foot graywood height, and then two date palms with 22-foot graywood height. Again, the requirements here are 15.8 feet in graywood height and 12 foot in graywood height. So again, that's being significantly exceeded. And similarly so for building D2, where three palms are planted in the foundation planting, we have two date palms at 22 foot in graywood height. For buildings E1 and E2, where the requirement of graywood height is 12 feet minimum and 12.2 feet minimum, and we're proposing seven palms in that foundation planting area, we provide three date palms at that 22 foot graywood height and one Mexican fan palm at 22 foot minimum graywood height. and similarly so for building E2, whereas nine palms are planted in the foundation planting area. We provide four date palms at 22-foot graywood height and two Mexican fan palms at 22-foot graywood height. And you can just see on the right, it's kind of hard to see, but just some of the applicable foundation planting areas that still meet that square footage requirement otherwise. That concludes our presentation. We are here to answer any questions you have. Thank you. Great.

This is a public hearing item. Is there a motion to open public hearing?

So moved. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Public hearing is now open. Madam Vice Mayor, any cards on this item?

We do. If I may call Ms. Capone up, please. Thank you.

Any card?

That's it.

Okay. Hello again.

1385 Pampas Way. I think I've lived in this village longer than most of you. And I don't mean to be a pain, but I want to just express my concern. I drive around the village. I see neon signs, taller buildings than we ever should have. And for your safety, we have hurricanes. And so what's going to end up happening? Your building's going to fall down in a hurricane or we're going to have problems because we aren't immune to those things, although we haven't had rain. So everybody's filling in every puddle they can find. I'm concerned about the height. I'm concerned of the precedent that it gives. We've given a height estimate. Increase to something along South Shore Boulevard, although it hasn't gone up it's there and now this one and it just keeps going There's just never a developer. We say no to so I just if you Can it seems like this one is a done deal? I Wish they weren't a done deal before they came to you and you guys had open minds Please preserve the character of our village. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other cards? No. Hey, well want to make a comment? Move to close public comment. Second. All in favor? Aye. Public comment is now closed. Any questions for staff or the applicant or a motion on the item?

Counsel, can you just reaffirm that your decision in this matter is based on the evidence that was presented tonight?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Ms. Kramer, you're...

Sorry. You sat down. No. We closed public comment.

Ms. Kramer, the staff report indicates that the height variance on one building is two feet and another one is 12 feet, that those are all well in excess of the setback requirements. They're buried inside the project and they're central to the project, not visible from Farmington to the south or Oakmont to the west.

Absolutely.

We are 500 feet from Farmington Estates and 1600 feet from Oakmont Estates and the applicant is Increasing the foliage and the trees and the height of those to further Obscure the height variance.

Yes, sir. They have they have met the requirements that are additional requirements for the height consideration

And I'll say to you, gentlemen, Mr. Ryan, the drawings have been, the artist's renderings have been replaced with what is now a conceptual drawing for that specific building, and they look fabulous. The lighting, the architectural style that went through ARB, that went through PZAB, I think we're building a great project that complements the village style, the walk, the pedestrian, the feel. and puts the traffic where it should be on State Highway 441. So thank you for that.

Mayor, can I make just one clarification? So these aren't variances. These are conditional use. Conditional use changes. Because, so essentially that means it's permitted but requires a higher order of approval, which is why it comes to council. And so these heights are allowed. They just have to meet certain standards and go through this review and consideration. Word choices matter. Okay.

I just want to thank you for putting together such a beautiful project. I will say when this first came before me, I was, you know, we went through the motions on this one, but honestly, I'm very proud of this vote. I'm so excited to bring this to Wellington and I can't wait to see the finished product. I'm excited when you come back to us and you just want to make your buildings more beautiful. So thank you so much. I'll move to approve resolution number 2026-45. I have two questions.

the motion. You're going to be first if there's a motion or a second on the motion. Second for purposes of discussion.

I'll second the motion. Okay. For discussion, go ahead.

Now you can talk.

Mr. Ryan, do you anticipate any additional changes regarding any of the heights of the buildings?

No, we don't. At the moment, just to be clear, I don't know how everybody understands architectural progress, but you move through the process. We're very advanced in construction documents at this point. We're almost 100. We're about 75%, 100% complete by the end of this month. So no, we aren't changing. These are the existing final heights.

Okay. Thank you. And Mr. Stillings, you are comfortable that they have met all the requirements that were necessary and were required?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other discussion?

Call the question? All in favor?

Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, passes 5-0. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. Was it groundbreaking?

I'll let you know.

I know. All right, Mr. Barnes, what else we got?

That concludes our public hearing item. We have no regular agenda item. It brings us to public comment.

Do you have a form, card?

We do.

Who's in front? Mr. Tooman. Mr. Tooman, come on down. Three minutes. Oh, different podium. I was going to say, you switched spaces here.

You look different sitting on that side.

Good evening. My name is Bruce Tooman, and my primary and homestead is Zero Lot Line Property at 752 Lake Wellington Drive in the Villas of Wellington. A couple of week meetings ago, I complained about a unprofessional email demanding payment without an explanation. Was it for my business tax receipt? Last week, I read my professional renewal notice from the county and noticed that there was an exception for people over 65. No fees. I had a problem logging on to the village website, so I called and talked to a very professional staff member who knew about the exception. She handled the exception over the phone and emailed my new license. The village website did include an exception, but it was really hard to find. Almost like you don't want to tell the people about the state law and the exception. However, both parties failed to ask about the number of employees I had and my capital, which is required to be for this exception. Of course, I do meet the exception. Now, last Thursday concert, the amphitheater supervisor stated that we have a new rule. A new rule. When lightning warning system activates, go to your cars. This is a new rule? A couple of weeks ago, a Miami-Dade County deputy was struck by lightning in his patrol car. Cars are not a safe place to be. He should have asked them to go to the community center. And if I did not raise this issue, would this policy ever be followed? Again, I request my counsel to waive my lien, my fees, penalties on my property, except my landscape plan. Staff does not always follow policies. And when will this counsel define the front plane? Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil is poor characteristics for our elected officials. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

All the cards you got?

That's it. Yes, sir.

We have another.

Yeah, sure. You can speak first and turn your card in afterwards. I'm sorry. Go ahead and make your comment and turn your card in.

Oh. Lorraine Capone, 1385 Pampas Way. I just wanted to give you some ideas of things that we could cut from the budget. The crowd strike that you have in the consent agenda for this month, if you noticed. I'm getting some puzzled. But the cybersecurity services, do we really need to be tracking everybody and sending it to wherever it's going? The CrowdStrike, some of the other things, giving tax breaks to developers. Again, Section 8, housing across the road, building permits along winding trails, no fees, no impact fees, 90 cents, dock stamps. That needs to stop. needs to stop. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you. And that is it, sir.

That will complete with public forum. Mr. Barnes, back to you.

That brings us to attorney's report.

No report this evening.

Excellent. Mr. Barnes?

I have just a couple of quick items. Next agenda review meeting will be held on Thursday, October 8th at 4.30. And village offices will be closed on Monday, October 12th at Observance of Columbus Day. Next regular council meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 13th here at 6.30. That's all I have.

Councilman Levin. I'm looking at you. Councilman Meyer, whoever you are. Guy in the green. You've changed.

Great meeting. And just happy to be a representative of this great village and our amazing residents.

Now, Councilman Levin. That's you, right? Thank you. That is me.

It's been a long day. I've said it a couple times. I've been so proud of the village and the staff and the infrastructure and how we've handled the six inches an hour plus of rainstorms during the last week and avoided flooding and having our water held in swales and roads and immediately pumped out, getting our water levels back to where they're supposed to be. been tremendous. Some of the neighboring communities have not been so fortunate. So kudos to the village. Proper planning breeds good preparation.

Thank you.

Councilman Silvestri.

I'm going to say hi to Rick in the back. Hello, Mr. Fields.

Clearly there's no concert tonight. He'll be outside.

And his beautiful wife. Thank you guys for a more robust conversation tonight on the budget. It's always good to have these open conversations. So thank you. I'm so proud of us that we have different opinions, but just keep it classy. So thank you. And thank you to the residents that came out to listen and give their input. And that's it.

Madam Vice Mayor.

I will absolutely echo Councilwoman Silvestri. I commend my colleagues with what we accomplished tonight. And I do appreciate and respect that everybody's opinion, everybody has an opinion in that we accept those opinions and respect those opinions because I think it's very important with that being said I just want to say happy Hispanic Heritage Month and I would like to give thanks to the man back here Rick who is in charge of our amphitheater that does all of our events yay we had our Hispanic Heritage Forum It was very well attended, and it was very informal, but very, very well received. And I want to also commend the person that stepped up and took the place of someone that could not make it that night, Mr. Garcia. Thank you so much. We appreciate you, and you did a fantastic job that night. Yes. And also I want to come in again, the village, because this is what diversity looks like is when we do these kind of events. And we actually recognize all of our diversity at the village. And we also had our Hispanic Heritage opening Friday night. And that, I understand, after the rain went away, it was a solid event. And I'm very, very happy about that. And just, I'm sure we'll say it again in October, but October 16th, we will have Tito Puente Jr. that is coming back to the village of Wellington. And I know that we had so many in attendance last year when he came to visit the village of Wellington. So thank you.

Great. I'll echo the comments of my colleagues. And I do enjoy the robust discussions we have. If we all have the same opinion, we just need one of us up here. That's why there's five of us, because we all have different backgrounds, different thoughts, different beliefs, and different ideas. And it's nice that we can disagree but not be disagreeable and then get along and then go out and have a drink afterwards and talk about anything else except what we do here, because when we're done with this, we're done with this. I do want to commend the vice mayor on doing a great job moderating the Hispanic Heritage Month panel. That was a phenomenal event. And Chief Garcia, I said, are you on the panel? He said, no, I'm not. And then I look up, and you're on the panel, because there was an empty chair, and you got drafted. You did a great job. Welcome to Wellington. This happens a lot. So always be prepared.

The best part about it is how quickly we reacted. Mr. Barnes immediately put his picture up, and it was seamless, right? It was flawless. It was like you belonged there all along.

And you did a great job. And I do want to commend our staff on a fantastic commemoration of the 25th anniversary of 9-11. It was a hugely successful event. Nicole Coates worked her tail off to put together a really impressive ceremony. It was well attended. We had a lot of different fire departments here. We had PBSO here. We had military here. We had FDNY. Police Department of New York. It was just a great community event to commemorate a true tragedy in our country, and I think we should all focus more on, we've said it all, how we all felt on September 12th. We've lost a lot of that. We need to work our way back towards that because we're very divided people right now on way too many issues. We should look for what brings us together in our commonalities instead of just finding ways to divide ourselves up. So with that, everyone have a great rest of your week, and we'll see you all back in October. This meeting is adjourned.