evening everyone we're calling the meeting to order thank you all very much if the clerk could please call the roll deputy vice mayor marker here commissioner malica here commissioner cassell vice mayor burns here mayor carney here we have a quorum thank you very much if you could all please rise for the pledge of allegiance thank you very much agenda approval um is there any item on the agenda lynn you talked about pulling something from the agenda so item 6e which is approval of resolution 156-26 he is an edward for the external audit firm selection that should have been on regular agenda okay i would ask to make that 7a all right we'll make that 7a is there any other uh yes okay um item 6i 6i should this be an item for a regular agenda as well because wait is 6i the auditor it's that's the auditor yeah she can make that as a yes so you're pulling that yes so so that will be 7 bb okay that will be the fiscal year of the internal audit plan and is there anything else i'm going to pull 6k uh which is the parking license agreement for valet parking um that'll be 7 cc uh and are there any other item that anyone wishes to have as a discussion item and off consent okay sorry okay wait there's more it's like a ginzu knife commercial well i just wanted to get an explanation so i guess that's pulling it as well 6m the medicaid reimbursement that's a different one 6m sure we'll add that to 60 that could be we'll make that um 7 dd there'll be 7 dd and that will be chief martin will be doing that one so i know he's around somewhere thank you anyway are there anything else 7m 6m there was 6m is it michael yeah 7 dd 6m that'd be 7 dd great then if there's nothing else i need a motion to approve the agenda as amended so moved second all in favor aye any opposed great uh we are now into presentations we have the i didn't see miss whitfield here is she miss whitfield actually announced earlier today that she will not be able to make it today family emergency so there will not be a presentation by miss whitfield okay all right well thank you very much hope it's all football as well um second was this is the proclamation the suicide preservation uh awareness month um we have i will read the proclamation is elizabeth burrow there she is there she is whereas suicide remains a significant public health concern that affects individuals families schools workplaces and communities across our nation and throughout florida and whereas every conversation has the power to change a life and increasing awareness reducing stigma and encouraging people to seek help are essential to preventing suicide and promoting mental wellness and whereas last year alone the compassionate and highly trained specialists at 211 palm beach to excuse me 211 palm beach and treasure coast responded to more than 125 000 requests for helps across palm beach martin saint lucie indian river and okeechobee counties including more than 50 000 individuals seeking help for mental health or substance use challenges and more than 6 000 for suicide related crises and whereas many people in our community continue to face challenges including anxiety depression isolation financial hardship housing instability and other challenges that can impact emotional well-being and increase the need for timely support and whereas beyond responding to moments crisis 211 connects individuals and families to critical community resources including mental health care food assistance housing support health care child development services special needs resources services for veterans support for older adults and caregivers and many other programs that strengthen lives and build resilient communities and whereas 211 palm beach and treasure coast operates the 211 helpline and serves as the region's provider for the the 988 suicide and crisis lifeline offering free confidential support 24 hours a day seven days a week by phone text and online chat ensuring no one has to face a crisis alone and whereas suicide prevention awareness month is an opportunity for all residents who learn the warning signs of suicide check in on friends family neighbors and co-workers encourage help seeking and remind every person that hope and help are always available now therefore i tom carney mayor of the city of delray beach on behalf of the city commission to hereby proclaim september 2026 a suicide awareness suicide prevention awareness month and recognize a life saving work of 211 palm beach and treasure coast and encourage all residents to remember that suicide prevention is everyone's responsibility and that we can all help build a community where every person knows they are valued where conversations about mental health are met with empathy and where everyone knows that health and hope are only three digits away thank you very much thank you thank you thank you thank you so much um before i prattle on a bit about 211 and 988 and suicide prevention i want to just level with the room and make sure that we are all aware of the impact of suicide on our community so just by a quick show of hands if you have been personally impacted if you know someone or have you yourself struggled with thoughts of suicide if you have lost someone to suicide or if you know someone or if you know someone who has lost someone to suicide just a quick show of hands yeah suicide prevention is all of our responsibility because we are all impacted and opportunities like this proclamation are extremely important for awareness not just of the issue of mental health challenges and suicide and the thoughts of suicide but for awareness of the solution awareness of support systems i have the pleasure pleasure of working as the pleasure of working as the pleasure of working as the director of development and community relations for 211 palm beach and treasure coast and i work with an amazing team of highly trained professionals who are answering the phones and text messages and online chats and emails 24 7 every single day all year round to make sure that no one has to suffer by themselves the proclamation had some data points in there that i hope everyone paid attention to and one of those numbers represents a person who reached out for help during a moment of crisis or when they were looking for support during an everyday challenge and those more than 6 000 suicide related calls that we responded to last year represent not just people who were struggling with thoughts of suicide but also people who were calling because they were concerned for one of their loved ones who they thought might be at risk of suicide and so if i could leave you all with the with just one call to action it's please remember two numbers nine eight eight and two one one it doesn't matter which number you call and it doesn't matter why you call our team is there to answer both of those lines no matter what and we're there to help it's confidential it's free and it's available to everyone and i'm particularly grateful to the delray beach city commission um while our agency is building our new corporate headquarters in lantana our team that answers these calls and and requests for help is temporarily housed here in delray beach on congress avenue and so we consider delray beach home base for right now and we are always so grateful for the support and the conversation that happens in delray beach around mental health and behavioral health and you all are incredible partners and we thank you thank you well very much uh i now i have the honor to present the palm beach county tourism review board considering the tourism road show um vice mayor burns you're going to be presenting this one i am no it says vice mayor burns will present oh you're 4d i'm sorry we have we have here the the well i'm going to let them speak for themselves from the tourist development council and and which i read it wrong but if you can answer to me i would definitely do go ahead is this okay it is on okay uh hello hello everyone uh mr mayor members of commission mr city manager uh i am sergio piedra uh associate vice president intergovernmental affairs for discover the palm beaches and yes we are here for our tourism roadshow uh it's considered a quick little trip through what's happening in tourism um not just here in delray but kind of in entire county and plus our organization's community involvement so uh we are like i said we are very happy to be here um and one of the reasons um let me give you uh kind of a quick idea just in case you're kind of not sure who we are sometimes um we are discover the palm beaches part of the tourist development council and i'll note that mayor carney is part of the tourist development council he's an appointee on the board so we see him once a month at those tvc meetings good to have you there um and also we are part of that tourist development council of the cultural council sports commission film and tv commission um the convention center at sports commission and and so forth um but we are a technically we are a private non-profit under contract with palm beach county to provide these services of tourism promotion and marketing but also our community involvement um and we report to a 24 member board seven of which are appointed by the county commissioners so um and delray beach is absolutely vital to our story um it's not just Atlantic avenue but it's the entire community together um but also um the entire community what it has to offer from the beach all the way to the residents and ultimately that's who we answer to the residents of not just this city but all of the entire county and when i say we are community based approach you can see kind of our collection of logos here if you will whether it's love our love the palm beaches campaign our brand new sea turtle capital which is now trademarked for an official we are the official sea turtle capital of florida our sea preserve campaign and our destination stewardship it's all part of who we are and what we do um and to kind of take you to the numbers let me welcome my colleague again thank you for having us uh commissioners i'm gustav weibel i'm the senior vice president of destination technology and intelligence for discover the palm beaches i'm going to go through uh what tourism means to delray beach so here's visitation annual visitation to the city of delray beach you can see that's in the country we have just justommen which isorigish to theолоville kişi of the Seni нами leaving the city of the city of delray area a supply is set upon the city of the city of delray beach and see there there are just uh shy of fourteen hundred rooms across all of these uh properties here then that's about 6% of the total hotel rooms in the total county we have just under 20,000 hotel rooms this is hotel performance uh from the past few years years in there you can see here from from last 12 months significant growth in total occupancy almost 72% occupancy for a rolling 12 months ending July up from 68% will re-ended in 2025 and the rates growing there $7 more year to date or that 12 months is 353,000 hotel room nice and you can see a significantly grown and it's grown much faster than the than the county as a whole and to our south those destinations have shrunk so far and they've had less demand with all that growth here this is a resident sentiments survey we survey all Palm Beach County residents we asked which city they're living in so this is a segment of Delray Beach residents and how they feel about tourism and tourism promotion you can see the orange line the one at the bottom there is the 2026 numbers we just got these numbers a couple weeks ago if we did this survey here in and late August you see significant growth in there so it has actually matched the growth in more visitors more economic impact more spending residents are feeling that and understanding the value they can see their exec as it's grown over over time another thing that we're now we monitor in terms of growth and demand generators is office development so these are some office class a office that's going to open in the next few years we estimate that that office is going to generate 19,000 additional hotel room nights which would be a 3.5 percent impact on occupancy there's no more hotels in the pipeline that we see for the city of Delray so that would obviously go to benefit demand for all for all the properties across the city let's ask your question on the data so so you showed the number of tourist visits do does that also take into account people that are coming here on business and are doing business in Delray they're not here to have fun they're here to conduct business and they're staying in a hotel is that counted in that number yeah so so the so we're estimating so if you go to this office space example that that office those office spaces opening up is going to generate that business traveler so that's about 19,000 for the based on the square footage there of three hundred and thirteen thousand that's great or three hundred yeah thank you now lastly we have a tool a proprietary tool that we have just recently received a patent for called destination demand and this is our forward-looking demand platform so every single week we have forecasts going out on a weekly basis for the next six months every week as a team we're reviewing which need periods are soft and we believe this is our our key to success as we've seen over the last few years some demand going down in the state of Florida we've been able to buck that trend and actually increase in demand in hotel room nights and this this is where we see it so back in 2022 this is where we thought about creating destination demand in 2023 we we implemented it and we were able to grow market share in total room room night revenue that we're receiving in the state of Florida to from five percent to five point one percent of all the room revenue and just recently here on 5.7 percent so we're getting that because we're growing while other our peers are shrinking so we credit that to knowing when we need to be in the marketplace at the right time and who to target and with that I'm going to hand it over to our CEO Milton cigar thank you Gustav good afternoon thank you mr. major commission members and residents as you can see excellent numbers for for the beautiful city of Delray that doesn't happen organically that's that's a plan and it's a tribute to the governance is a tribute to the residents to tribute to the stakeholders of this city in conjunction with organizations such as discover and the others to really position such a wonderful city in the world map and in our case you know most of organizations they have the vision and the mission which is great and we do have one but we were asking ourselves you know what's the purpose why are we doing this which is more profound than just saying this is the vision or the mission of this organization and what we understood and here is this city is a perfect example of of the combination of phenomenal destination performance as Gustav just shared and also the resident sentiment as a strong and in fact in favor of the activity of tourism and when you combine those two you need to come with a come come with a purpose why are we doing this for the rain for the rest of the county and that's what you have there the purpose of this organization this was strengthening the visitors economy and elevating every community we serve through the stewardship and storytelling of the Palm Beach's brand which is one of the most important assets that we have and I will talk about that in a second but we have a really big responsibility and fiduciary responsibility while we get the tax dollars that we invest it's really important to to make a very specific clarification that what we get is tax dollars from tourists that are coming to visit us this is not an ad valorem tax that we're putting on our residents this is the visitors that they have decided 10.7 million of them they came here they pay their rate they pay a six percent room tax and from that six percent we get a portion and we reinvest those dollars in the marketplace to keep bringing more and more visitors that's where we get the funding but for us it's really important to to make sure that we come to the elected officials here and across the county to let them know that we're accountable for that and what type of return on investment we generate for the entire county when we invest every single dollar in marketing and I'm really happy to to share with this commission we did what is called a media marketing model which provide us with the opportunity scientific exercise to determine how much is the return on investment when we invest every single dollar in marketing and for every dollar that we invest on behalf of the city and the county we get $3.55 in bet taxes that's a phenomenal return that's a really good solid and which translate into $133 in visitor spending $9.31 in state and local taxes other than the room tax and $193 in economic impact that's the impact that your businesses and the residents that that that are part of this industry that's that what they see that's the bottom line that's the activity there are really seeing with the visitors and then I talk about the brand and the brand is the most significant asset just to give you an example I work is okay we don't know oh okay I just have one more minute sir just to give you an example the Florida State brand in tourism was valued at $142 billion dollars that it's like a fortune 100 type of level in the tourism business for us is one of the most important assets but let me show you how we look this is a universe of different brands really powerful brands in the county you see the city you see the chamber obviously we work with Laura and and and and her team and many other hotels and partners but that's what they see when they look at the at the at the the pound beaches and and our county so those brands are really powerful and we're not even suggesting they change their logo but I'm going to share with you an example with Marriott hotels you see all those brands all those logos Marriott had a situation in which which logo we're going to showcase as the Marriott are we going to go with the traditional Marriott M in red big letter M but that doesn't fit to the Ritz Carlton that M doesn't fit to the residence in so they came with an idea which is Marriott Bomboy and the Marriott Bomboy's promise is that regardless of the hotel that you select under the Marriott brand you're going to get the value and the benefit and the promise of the Marriott Bomboy so the logos on touch but there is a connecting promise of all the Marriott hotels we need in order to improve and this is our ask to you as leaders of your community that we need to work together because we need to find our Bomboy we need to get that thing that will connect all the brands and will make us better not to change I'm not asking here to change the logo of the city or any of the ones here but I'm talking about the possibility of making an element maybe an element brand element or some sort of promise that is going to help us because at the end of the day this is who we are we have this particular destination statement you know we started as a place people wanted to come and visit then we became this worldwide renowned travel brand and we are and from that point and you can see this here in this beautiful city how everything is turning into a phenomenal economic development a hub for for development lifestyle culture social you name it and it's happening across and that's a beautiful thing that's a superpower that every single visitor that comes to the Palm Beaches here or any of any of the cities they will see the sense of balance which is very different to the rest of the competitors in South Florida the sense of balance that we can provide to the visitors is the big difference and they feel that sense of I would say well-being and prosperity that makes them change and really ignite the the aspirations not only of visitors but as well as locals and that's the benefit of our industry how we impact not only the visitation but as well the local residents with a better quality of place and better quality of life thank you so much for listening and we're here to answer any question the Commission may have thank you very much and let me just say this is a very short presentation he made but it's remarkable every month when I get to go to these meetings and sit around the table with some really really smart people the people that run the convention center the people do all this that work closely with your group just how much you really do in bringing in you bring in film crews you bring in all these people to come into Palm Beach County which people don't even realize and the amount of revenues of this things generate so I just want to compliment you know the work that you do for the Palm Beaches and for Delray Beach thank you so are there any questions for anybody up here thank you thank you thank you very much okay now Vice Mayor Burns the recognition of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity okay yes well I don't they are not here to this evening however I presented on Thursday evening the 17th at their statewide organization so we were we joined the city of West Palm Beach and some other neighboring municipalities to welcome and honor the brothers of Omega Psi Phi and so we recognize their long and distinguished history of service in our community with scholarship mentorship leadership and uplift and so they're they were welcoming at their 25th Royal King the second who is the Florida State representative and they were very appreciative of our recognition of the service that they provide to Delray Beach great thank you very much so noted for the record okay Missy Barletta we have a presentation you all were given prior to you have a old school square needs assessment in front of you so we are going to be having a discussion on the needs assessment and market study for the old school square yes okay that's fine Miss Barletta good evening mayor and commissioners Missy Barletta director of public works and I have with me the distinguished Duncan Webb who comes to us all the way from New York City today to give us a presentation of his findings on the feasibility of uses for our old school square campus thank you mayor members of commission city staff it's a pleasure and a privilege to be presenting our work this is sort of the halfway point in the process so I'm going to take 15 minutes to summarize the work over this past six months that sort of sets us up for a little bit more next slide so I am a management consultant to people who build and operate cultural facilities I've spent 40 years roaming around North America working for cities and schools and arts organizations helping them think about building fixing and running these buildings we like to say that our job is to come into a community figure things out speak truth to power and then get out of the way in this case we are here to present tonight our first thoughts on the vision and purpose of old school square next slide so old school square is a wonderful asset and amenity it is deeply tied to the history of your community it's a wonderful set of buildings in good condition in a great location but now the question is what is the proper vision and purpose of this campus of facilities and what role should you as the city play in advancing that vision so that's what we're going to talk about this evening next so again this is the first half of our study we call the needs assessment which is is there an audience for old school square who are the users what's its competition and how does it align with the broader goals that you've set for Delray Beach so in order to figure this out we did a big set of zoom interviews and facility tours and market research in order to come up with this sort of these beginning ideas the next phase will be the business plan which gets into how do you program govern and sustain the building of buildings based on the vision that we're going to share tonight next slide so first just just to comment on the broader forces and trends our world the world of the arts and live entertainment and culture is changing rapidly but here are the things that we think art centers are doing today to survive and and thrive first of all we embrace a much broader definition of what of what cultural activity is my favorite soundbite is we've moved from Friday night lights to the community living room so a generation ago you thought of a theater and the marquee lights up at seven o'clock on a Friday night and the fancy people wearing their fancy clothes arrive for a fancy performance today our image is trying to create the community living room a building that is always open always active and welcoming to all trying to become that third place after home and work where everyone feels welcome and a part of the community we are now trying to stress the the uniqueness of the live shared experience as opposed to a technology generated one we are doing everything we can to enhance the social experience around going to a performance or an exhibit another important shift is we've moved away from palaces of the arts to arts districts so a generation ago we used to tear down neighborhoods and build giant buildings that glorified the arts we figured out that that was a terrible mistake now we develop districts that are much more human scale they reuse existing buildings they're porous enough to drive commercial development they become significant destinations for tourists and they have a much greater impact on their communities we also support active as well as passive participation in the arts now we're working hard to make sure that creators can afford to access the facilities that they need we have to both embrace and compete with technology in these buildings and we have to bear lower barriers to participation which starts with the idea of public safety next slide so the market just a few things that you know but a few that maybe you don't Delray Beach itself is 68,000 people but we think a primary market area for old school square is about a 30 minute drive time which in this case is a population of 1.35 million people so that is the market area we're going to consider as the primary market for events on the campus and that area continues to grow next slide please so Delray Beach that household income is higher on all these charts the light green is Delray that the blue green is the 30 mile driving radius time and the orange is the national number so you see how you have higher levels of household income in Delray in particular next slide even more important is higher levels of educational attainment and educational attainment is the most important predictor of arts participation and you're strong both in terms of the city and the drive time next slide Delray you have an older population in particular in Delray but also in the drive time and next slide a very important racial diversity a significant African American population locally and also a very significant Hispanic population out into the drive time next slide so here are a few new things we bought this data that tells us if people in Delray and the market area are they more or less likely than the average American to participate in certain things so it turns out that people in the drive time are far more likely than average to attend the theater to go to a gallery to go to a concert or opera performance to go to a museum even to go to a rock concert next slide and then this is active arts participation so what what do they so this says that people in the market area are more likely to sing in a choir to go social dancing to produce video and film so also an active arts participation as well as a strong passive arts participation next slide and the third one of this is of this series is we bought data that says how much people spend on tickets to theater opera and live so you hear here you see again the vertical bar is the national average so Delray and the market area are well over in terms of purchasing for concerts movies museums and other types of attractions next slide but that's just one segment of the market then we add the seasonal population on which by the latest data I could find suggest that it sort of swells the population about 13 percent we know that that is an older affluent population and we also know that that population today is interested in not just passive arts opportunities but active arts opportunities the ability to come and take a class or social dance and so on and next slide we've already heard about tourism tonight I wanted to highlight a point here that it says that recent growth in tourism partly attributed to strong marketing in domestic travel markets targeting to bringing in new groups more meetings and stronger events and here's where I think old school square is particularly important as a venue for fairs festival and large campus-wide events that attract visitors as well as regional visitor regional residents next slide so then we did a big set of these inventories of all the other performance spaces galleries places where people take classes and other meeting event locations next slide so there are 47 active theaters in the market area this is a matrix we use to kind of visualize that each dot is a theater the size of dot is how many different types of activity it supports the horizontal access is seating capacity and the vertical access is quality and we rate quality using eight different attributes what that shows to me is it quite a busy competitive landscape you see lots of venues around the size of the press theater in that three to four hundred seat range I think our opportunity there is to shoot higher in quality we need to get above the others to be a better facility in order to compete next slide and this is the larger capacities and here the the orange or one orange or dots of the outdoor venues and here again we see that your amphitheater surrounded by other venues larger and smaller capacities so it is a tricky competitive position there they can't just try to be bigger and better like venues like Meisner Park and so on because it is a significantly competitive landscape next slide so some key venues I love the Arts Garage next door I particularly love their focus on education and performing arts programs which is a good complement to what you're doing around visual arts education programs in your space the Delray Playhouse is a great community theater but like other community theaters they're very self-contained they live in that building and it suits them well the Kravis Center gives you that one regional performing arts center that that does a lot of the touring programs that really dominates the regional market and Meisner Park an example of an aggressively actively programmed larger capacity outdoor venue so there is competition for all of these old-school square venues and we're gonna have to be careful in finding the right position for them next slide so visual arts galleries there are 22 venues within the drive time area most of them do contemporary work I think the opportunity there is to is to showcase more local and regional artists that's more the gap from these other places and that I think is an opportunity for the museum here next slide there are 24 active arts facilities this could mean dance studios or theater training or music classes or visual arts training again most of them are oriented to older students and dance was the most popular discipline so not many doing what you're doing with this orientation around the visual arts which is good next slide and then of course is very busy meeting an event marketplace 44 the gap in the opportunity for old-school square is that these most of these other venues are either in hotels or in more sort of high higher end much more expensive venues there are relatively few community oriented venues that have this combination of charm and character that you have as well as affordability next slide so who then would use venues so we've surveyed regional arts organizations we think there's a there's a few groups out there who we think might come and make better use of the crest theater as and when that renovation proceeds there are some commercial entertainment promoters active in the area I did have good conversations with fair and festival organizations who are committed to doing more on the campus arts educators love the facilities that you've got there are other regional nonprofits meeting and event planners and broader community event planners who all are seeking access to these spaces next slide so presenting is one activity I want to highlight this is when you book an artist or entertainer you pay their fee you market the event and you hope that you collect enough box office revenue to exceed the money that you put out it is often the thing that is the most sort of glamorous part of these buildings but it's also the riskiest part of this it's where a lot of cities in particular in this business can lose a lot of money so it's a function that needs to be approached very carefully through partnerships and I suspect that there are some good programming partners available for both the crest and the amphitheater next slide so my last task was to connect old school square to broader community plans I spent lots of time reading your comp plan I see a lot of alignment there with your vision for the future of delray and for neighborhoods and for sort of celebrating your history country and also recruiting workers and companies to locate here I also put in quotes on this slide a few of the things that people said to us repeatedly in interviews old school square is our town square old school square can attract visitors and residents and old school square can help attract companies and workers so there is a clear understanding of the role that it could have in the future in your community next slide so on the basis of all of that we conclude that we conclude that there is an audience for various performances and for programs there is demand for spaces on the part of some local nonprofit groups but other educators and community groups there are some gaps in the regional facility inventory around a combination of size quality availability and affordability we see a potential to some additional touring entertainment to delray beach old school square facilities do clearly align with goals for your community and despite recent upheaval it is clearly a beloved community asset and amenity next slide so on that basis we would like to put forward a vision for the future of old school square that's based on these three principles number one we think you should formalize and strengthen old school square as delray beaches town square it is the place where your community wants to congregate secondly that you can lean into arts education programs and facilities across the campus not just the creative arts but bringing education into every space in the campus and third build the skills capacity and to become the best place to put on an event in delray beach so in many of my interviews once things got going i started sharing ideas for a vision and i was really surprised surprised and heartened that there was a lot of consensus around these ideas and people saying to me well in fact we're already we're doing those things you know we really are trying to be the town square we're really trying to be good at events we're really trying to be good at education so i think my job is to just help you formalize that and and move forward a little bit more next slide so i'll say a few things about the individual facilities that the crest theater is a lovely space and you should continue the effort to reanimate it for multiple uses and users with some regional and local non-profits some presenting but i think it should also be um used for other things things other than the arts it should be used for other community presentations it should be used to create access for education programs and it should be used to support larger campus-wide events and festival next slide the creative art school a great set of classrooms that you've got a bit of a pinch with ceramics they're kind of growing the space they're in and i think there's the need to find a better solution for that but i think there's an opportunity to grow more programs for youth and visitors and to build partners with educators like arts garage next slide the cornell museum it's terrific it's well run but it's a it's a precious building that needs a little love to make sure that you can protect it and preserve it as what it is next slide the field house is an incredible space in fact i was talking last week with the palm beach opera folks and they said if there's any space at old school square we would like to come and work in it's the field house we love the character we love the charm so it's a great place for meetings and events it is lacking av there's some acoustical challenges it needs proper catering support areas but it's pretty close to being great next slide and then the amphitheater this is tricky because some people are saying we need to do more events we need to do bigger events and other people are saying it's too much it's too much the grounds are getting beat up we need to back off i think that i think we've really got to find the right scale that uh the the level of events and the number of events that fits this set of facilities that makes sense in this sort of downtown delray that doesn't overwhelm the neighborhoods that doesn't create big traffic problems but creates a space where people want to go for events that's also a space where people will go when there's not an event where it's just a passive park next slide my final slide which is to say what i'm hoping for now in that in these coming weeks that i will get some feedback from you all on this vision if you sort of uh like this direction we're headed and that then will allow us to continue our work which is really how do we program operate and financially sustain this set of facilities at old school square and it's it's going to be tricky because there are many different opinions out there now about who should be operating various pieces but then we have to balance the need for this sort of unifying vision and this opportunity to do things across multiple facilities that would suggest one you know one group in charge but then on the other hand these buildings are very different and they require very different skills and very different sorts of resources so somehow or other this is the puzzle we have to solve what are the specific skills needed for individual pieces but then can you do it all in a way that there is a unifying vision and a purpose that serves you as the city of delray beach thank you thank you very much you have nothing anything to add missy i have nothing to add nothing to add very nice um any members of the commission would comment commissioner casal sure i'll start um i thought we were here to get to that second part you know we each did an hour-long interview i did an hour-long interview i think everybody did an hour-long interview and i was waiting for you know a lot of this information we know we have the residents know it as you've said you're just repeating what we know but what should we expect from you because what i want what was discussed during our joint meeting on um june 22nd 2026 and what we agreed on was a long term plan for operations or options for long-term operational plans what are you going to provide us when you complete your tasks right so again that's the second half of this we took our time to do the first task because we felt it was important to set a vision for old school square and a purpose that you all agreed with and that that would give us the ability to make decisions and recommendations on how these individual pieces should be programmed operated and financially sustained and again it's both the individual pieces and the campus as a whole so you're going to give us a report that speaks to each individual component of the campus and the operation of it as a whole think of it as a business plan for the five pieces and the overall campus when should we expect that uh i think once i'm going to go ahead it's a three-month exercise yeah first of all we're going to have to um contract with them to perform the second phase if commission agrees with the vision that he's presented this evening then we would um we would move forward with the uh second phase well i don't see a vision beyond what we've what we've already all discussed i almost was expecting you to give us something we didn't have and what what i'm getting is what we all sort of know already and i was hoping for something bigger i feel like this is well beyond my skill set or ability to understand what this can be and um that's what i need from you um there was one other thing i wanted to ask what is it though holy moly i hate when that happens mayor um so it'll take you three months did you look at our tourism plan we have a tourism plan and how did that factor into this well as i said i think there are opportunities for old school square to support and drive tourism particularly as it relates to campus-wide events fairs festivals and larger events and that becomes part of the programming plan question thank you very much uh commissioner burns yes um thank you for your presentation um and as uh commissioner cassell said like one of the things i agree with in your recommendations is that these are not new ideas and these are things that we've already known um uh and and the next step is moving forward which i too thought that we were in a position to move forward um some other items that i like in here is a partnering with the arts garage i know that we have received a proposal from uh marjorie the arts garage and i think we need to give it some serious consideration however the second phase uh is that included in the in the field is that more money it's more money it's more money for the second phase wow okay i think i'm done with the questions um i'm just hoping that we're able to move forward because like we already knew these things and we need to move forward with getting this facility um up and moving i think it's been dark five six years now so i thought we were already in a position well this information we already knew so i'm very disappointed that it's going to cost some additional funding to go to the second to the plan portion of this thank you very much commissioner marker yeah just real quick first of all thank you for all the work that you did i'm very appreciative of it and i i view this where we are right now as you you set the table for us um i think it was really valuable to get all the facts on on a concise deck and i appreciate that and it sounds like we've got pretty good agreement on on the baseline of facts and that's where you have to start um and now for me uh the tough part is the next step which i i am in favor of of you continuing the work um because we need to then see what our options are and what your recommendations would be uh it's a complex it is a complex campus there's a lot going on there it is also a jewel for our city and we want to make the best of it and so uh i i would be in in favor of moving to phase two okay thank you uh commissioner um thank you very much for your presentation and as um commissioner cassell and commissioner burns we know like we we knew all this the only thing i would say is i would resist any kind of festival we do not want renaissance festivals or something like that going on in our city um and then one other thing when you were talking about different um components the five different components we're all aware of and it would be an impossibility to have five different operators coordinating the campus in my humble opinion but thank you look forward to that business plan maybe depending on you know how much i i i looking forward to seeing phase two because i think we've been at this for a while um i i hope that you it's done very expeditiously because i mean it has been laying there for i mean we've got great work going there on there now and the different components of redoing the crest and you know the cornell has been doing great and everyone's saying everything's doing great but the concept of having the campus operate as a unified or even you know parceled out to different entities is good but we need to get there so i look forward to seeing something you know a plan that we can actually adopt and move forward with so mr moore could i ask mayor may i ask mr moore what what are the costs what do we pay for phase one and what are we paying for phase two um the cost is about fifty thousand dollars per phase um and i also if i might make a suggestion to you depending on how you're looking at this whole campus it's either a fund fundraising facility right or it's it's money making and it should be two parts parts of both right we don't charge for the museum but in the past non a non-profit ran it and it has a fundraising component that can be successful the dda was running it and i think they were doing fundraising there there there is that option that needs to be considered about what when you're looking at this is it going to be something that is going to be are you looking for it to generate economically are you looking for a non-profit you need to present us with all of this all of the options to make a decision about what this is going to be in the future because we're used to what it was and we all kind of want it to stay like that but we also appreciate the fact that there is endless potential um in this an opportunity for us thank you i want you to come back with what the viable models are and maybe there's two maybe there's one i don't know but that that's what i think we need next is what are what are the viable options and what do they each look like um and they potentially could be very different then i think we're and i think we can move and fast thank you very much for the presentation for all the hard work thank you mr webb thank you comments and inquiries on agenda and non-agenda items uh we're entering into the portion where there's going to be public comment but first we got the city manager's response to inquiries and highlights thank you mr mayor i actually have a couple items and i will ask that we be given the opportunity to be indulged because my contributions this evening are based on input i've heard from pretty much most of you all maybe except one but generally speaking i've heard from just about all of you with respect to a couple topics i'll take what i consider the first item first and that is the recent adjustments to parking fines and this was actually provided to you all via information letter report august 28 in terms of the american with disability act related parking fine adjustments included a listed summary in terms of why we are where we are this was not an arbitrary function of the city of delray beach just simply making adjustments to raise fees associated with parking fines sidewalk in particular that was a particular concern having been raised however this is an obligation of delray beach and virtually all other cities with respect to coordinating with the federal highway administration with respect to americans with disability act so a number of adjustments were made individual meetings were hosted by members of the committee who recommended to the office of the city manager what the fine positions and thresholds should be and what we're referring to are parking for disabled only parking for disabled slash access owl metered expiration overtime parking in fire lane or within 15 feet of fire hydrant parking and marked space only within intersection parking prohibited or toll zone on medians on sidewalk slash crosswalk on railroad tracks or within 50 feet of railroad crossing on paved right of way double parking blocking driveway and facing the wrong way so municipalities have a fee structure in place thus the individual visits that took place with you all going back a number of weeks and this was authorized and highlighted by the end of august thus the information letter report of august 28th of this year advising what the outcome was in that regard the primary focus ladies and gentlemen is this is a coordinated effort involving the federal highway administration not an arbitrary action on part of the city of delray beach we do have a ada compliance feature to get us to get us to where we need to be and those directions were executed accordingly if i may i think it was usdot right u.s department of transportation can i add to that yeah which is part of the federal highway administration same organization so so this all started because the city there was a complaint made that the city was not complying with the ada with regard to public sidewalks right why no i said right right right so the city you know we provided a response to the u.s department of transportation and they found it's almost like they found us so to speak guilty they issued what's called the letter of finding and the letter of finding required the city it gave us 90 days to provide a compliance plan to the u.s department of transportation if they didn't accept that compliance plan we would be at risk of losing federal grant funding because of our failure to comply with the ada so we met internally duane deandre who's here somewhere was he's our ada coordinator we worked with code pd myself public works a group of us met on several occasions and to come up with a plan that would be acceptable to the usdot part of that plan included a notification to the public of the importance of not blocking the sidewalks and also these fines when we looked at these fines it was clear they had not been updated in years it was a 35 fine for blocking the sidewalk and staff's position was that we needed to make a serious effort to ensure that the public complies with this and so we took the handicap parking fine which was 250 and made this fine consistent with that and as mr moore said we also updated all the other fines that were on that list our code allows the city manager to administratively change these fines and fines and so that's why it wasn't brought in a public setting to the city commission but rather the manager was able to do it administratively the the fine and chief hunter can tell you we've we've done a yeoman's job of educating the public we've done a public service announcement we've done door hangers we sent certified letters to all the individuals within the vicinity of uh the complainant location to ensure that everybody understands what the requirements are um it's hard to have a lot of sympathy for this to be honest with you because the ada states that all sidewalks are public meaning anybody can use the sidewalk and so when somebody's blocking the sidewalk you're making somebody in a wheelchair a mother with a stroller a child have to walk into the street into oncoming traffic to circumvent the vehicle so while i understand that the fine is hefty there's a reason for that and it's to ensure compliance our police chief has um directed his staff to warn people to educate people and we've been doing this since i think around august when we sent our compliance plan to the to the usdot we can't change this fine the usdot has accepted our plan they sent us a letter of closure back on august 27th indicating that they accept what we're doing meaning that the case is closed now and so it's up to us to enforce this and again i think when you look at what the ada stands for and what these public sidewalks are meant to do in in the big picture i i don't think that asking people to comply with this is really that complicated move it move the vehicles off the sidewalks and if you recall several years ago staff brought forward a an ordinance prohibiting parking on the swale and for reasons that are very similar to this you know limited parking in certain areas the commission voted down that ordinance and didn't adopt it so we have to take this step we have to take this seriously because our failure to do so will result in the city being denied hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grant or more or more so i hope that explains it thank you i have a question i i heard you but could you repeat so that at this point we cannot reduce that fine no no ma'am we would have to go back to the usdot and explain to them now now less than six months after sending them our compliance plan that we want to change it i personally would not recommend that um i can tell you the department of transportation took this so seriously that they didn't even realize that we had sent our compliance plan to them and the day that it was due they were contacting mr deandre where's your plan so this isn't something that's taken lightly and i think staff staff's opinion was we have to make a statement with this fine otherwise you know a 35 fine even a 50 fine you know people may not take that as seriously as a 250 fine and and the thinking was really just to make it consistent with a wheelchair parking violation because that too has ada complications as well okay thank you so as we were notified by the united states department of transportation federal highway administration thursday august 27 2026 the following day's information letter report did provide a written update to the commission in terms of this outcome full enforcement will likewise commence thursday august excuse me october 1st so a week from this coming thursday will be in full effect however as miss jellin just pointed out as part of our joint dialogue to this effect much education and community education and outreach was achieved in advance so i have no concerns whatsoever and i stand by the outcome as does the united states department of transportation slash federal highway administration so i hope that helps across the board but that information has been provided to you all as of august 28th thank you i have one other item i'm sorry i'm sorry not to belabor this but um in my neighborhood people have little tiny driveways and many multiple cars but they're going to get code violated if they park on the grass too right they're going to get code violated if they park on a sidewalk so are we going to allow for a little more flexibility and where additional cars in a household are allowed to park to park somebody said in the street in the street i don't really think we can answer that question because we've got we've got to we've set a guideline to the department of transportation and you know because they get ticketed in the street too just saying is is there a problem with people extending their driveways for instance widening or extending it make making it curve around is there i mean they would go about the permitting process and we would take under consideration via individual permit applications that it affects striking a balance without the requirements are but residents stakeholders have an opportunity to submit an application for that purpose that doesn't that should not be compromised ways traverse the public right away as you know they go through swales stuff which are public rights away so extending it would require the city to get involved well i mean extending it further up into your yard i don't mean extending it out extending further up into your yard yeah like a you for example it would be a function of a permitting process ma'am right so they would have the opportunity to be considered to that effect as well to help alleviate some of the concerns you just talked about commissioner malica for example as well you're welcome so i continue to ask for your indulgence because the second item and this will require assistance from chief of police daryl hunter speaking to all of you all over the last last few days going back to the latter part of last week during the course of the weekend leading up until really yesterday questions concerns observations regarding rest speed and the fact that a number of people had questions regarding functionality and the appropriate attention and response associated with this endeavor before i ask the gentleman to speak in this regard i wish to further underscore that this all became possible for municipalities to enforce in school zones speed in school zone areas back in 2023 so local governments were essentially empowered by the state of florida to implement school zone speed camera enforcement by way of the authority granted by state statutes and the city of delray beach actually began contemplating this significantly thereafter 2024 2025 time frame of course many of you all will recall the process associated with having res come on board here in the city of delray beach and enforcement recently began so given some of the questions concerns notwithstanding speeding and other infractions have been experienced on part of a number of individuals i've asked mr chief hunter to be here to offer a brief introduction so that we can achieve a sense of clarity and assurance that all is in fact quite well with regards to the program chief hunter if you would please introduce the gentleman okay good evening commission city attorney city manager from my right to my left we have representatives from red speed here uh we have no seller uh we have kevin um millen and we have greg parks thank you uh mr mayor may i proceed you may proceed yep thank you i have a i have a brief presentation what we wanted to do um after um some conversations with the chief and and pd is bring you up to speed with red speed um and what we've been doing uh since this program has started enforcement so as you know the school year started on august 10th and that is when enforcement began and i want to remind everybody in this room and in the community that a violation is issued when a vehicle is going over 11 miles over the stated speed limit when kids are in school and that is very important it's when kids are in school a half an hour before school starts two and a half an hour after school ends oops so since august 10th to september 18th there have been almost 5 000 notices issued you can laugh but that's pretty sad there have been almost 25 citations or novs not citations novs issued uh 2500 at pine grove elementary which is number one and almost 1400 novs issued at st vincent ferrer school that's number two in the city now the good news is that when we did a speed study as required by statute so we looked at every school zone and we did a speed study as to how many speeders were going through that school zone uh back in what 2024 2025 um we are actually down 81 percent based on what was uh studied and and observed uh during the speed study versus what is being found today so uh the speed study found uh almost 930 violations per day we're at 100 almost 175 violations per day so um that behavior we think is already changing based on the flashing lights and based on the times and and the signage excuse me uh the average city-wide speed violation through your school zones is almost 36 miles per hour okay the fastest violation that we've caught is 84 miles per hour northbound on barwick road that's my neighborhood that's your neighborhood that was september 8th the second fastest speed violation that we found was 63 miles per hour on seacrest boulevard on august 28th and the third fastest violation that we found was southbound on barwick road at 62 miles per hour on september 1st those are really fast um the fastest average speed in your school zone is 38 miles an hour and that's for plamosa school of the arts and i want to talk about banyan creek because uh we did have a hiccup uh at banyan creek and i want to explain that so we found an issue where the flashing beacons indicating the 20 mile per hour speed limit were flashing at 720 through 8 10 in the morning and 145 to 235 in the afternoon but the cameras were set to enforce the actual times indicated in the ordinance which were 7 30 to 8 30 and 135 to 235. we found out that the issue was that palm beach county sets the operating times of the flashing beakers beacons excuse me wherein uh the city sets the time for the cameras so pd has issued or submitted several work requests for the county to change the flashing beacon times to match the 7 30 to 8 30 and 135 to 235 on a daily basis when school is in session now i will tell you this all the novs that were issued in error have been dismissed that means if somebody contested one of these novs it's already been dismissed if somebody logs online to pay their nov and it was issued an error they will not be able to pay for that nov it will indicate that it has already been dismissed and for i believe the eight people that have already paid those novs they were issued a refund so red speed is here we are uh very sensitive to the fact that when a mistake was made we're not nobody's getting charged for that mistake so in conclusion the program is working i know all of us have changed our driving habits around school zones whether it's at 8 30 a.m or p.m i continue to go 20 miles per hour in a school zone because i don't want a ticket but you are experiencing significantly high speed in your school zones and that is a problem i think a problem that knowing all of you you want to fix banyan creek speeds are concerning they have the number one and number three highest speeds in their school zone as i said driver change behavior is changing and all the novs that were issued an error will be dismissed if we find errors in the future this company will dismiss those tickets as well we are not here to gotcha anybody we are here to help pd enforce the law uh and we're happy to answer any questions thank you very much um i will say that i you know i have had a neighbor got two tickets on one day actually i think there are two of the ones on george bush below and they called and they said well the lights weren't flashing it's at one o'clock in the afternoon i said well you know it doesn't pick you up until after you're doing 11 miles over how fast are you going well you know they were not doing 11 miles over they were you know probably 15 or 20 miles over and so you know i'm not going to defend that but i guess their point was for your neighbor when they when they no it's just it's not particularly a friend it was just a neighbor because unfortunately i've been around a long time everyone's got my phone number and i got inundated with my voicemail was filled with people calling about these fines so but i guess the question is is are we doing enough to alert the public that even in non-school zone hours these zones are being monitored for speed because typically when you go to a place they'll say you know we have speed cameras and we're being monitored for speed because i think some people think they're only monitoring it during school zone the school hours and i and and yeah i mean yeah before and after before and after and i'm not defending someone doing 15 miles an hour over but i i'm saying that is there something better we can do to alert that even outside of the school zone hours that they they are subject to enforcement of i can i can tell you mr mayor before we even started with this we're working with red speed and as well as pd and working with our communications director gina carter we had a robust plan that we rolled out social media i mean just everything television with this educational component about everything that was coming well before this thing even rolled out remember when we actually paul no i remember we remember going through it so i honestly i really don't know what else we can actually do to educate the community with regards to slowing down correcting behavior in these speed zones before one of our children get hurt or killed again i have no problem during the school zone out during the hours for the school so you know and it may come a surprise to to my children but there are people out there that actually don't do social media and watch tv so i'm not positive i just want to make sure that everyone is fair we've actually we we've actually worked with the schools as well we had flyers go out distributed them you know to parents uh family members um because as we enter into season it's not going to get any better all right i mean we can continue with our education component but it's it's live you know we just rolled that out again just making sure that you know people that know and like i said before when we did this presentation several months ago for the most part the residents of delray beach will catch on to that you know as again where you talked about the season with people that's coming in those would be the ones spend a couple hundred bucks you get to get someone's attention but again it's you know we'll we'll do what we can with that and i just want to remind that at the beginning of the school uh year this year we had a two year two week two year two week warning period where i remember where novs were where warnings were issued instead of the full nov um if it's this board's pleasure we're happy to continue on with the psas um we've added the signage as well we have signage because i do think it's good well it will the people who get one ticket are not going to get well except my friend who got it you know this was on the same day two two twice so but you know he's not your friend anymore well he's not my friend anymore because i can't i can't do anything about it can you speak to can you speak to what the mayor is referring to uh speeding even after the school the way it works is that the cameras are live from whatever it is a half an hour before the school zone to a half an hour after school okay during the port period half an hour before in the in the morning and half an hour they're limited to 20 miles an hour and their cameras are set to catch people you know who exceed 20 miles an hour that's a different fine as well 11 by 11 miles per hour by 11 they they'd have to be doing 30 that's still 11 miles over at that point and the rest of the time in between it's still being monitored 11 miles over except the speed limit would they'd have to be doing 41 or depending on your speed limit in this case george i think it's 30 so the lights are not flashing but the lights are not that's the key the lights are not flashing but the cameras are still live but the signs are posted with the time yep okay but wait one more second the lights are not flashing the children are still in school right this the the speed zone is the same even when it's not flashing right when the kids are in school it's still but people are getting tickets on that basis they have to be doing they have to be doing 11 miles over the other speed limit but the 30 miles an hour right i understand it's 11 miles over regardless but the point is when it is not flashing it's it's it's it's the regular speed limit not the lower speed limit okay because people are getting tickets not flashing understood so we've rectified the situation is what you're saying right the flashing part has been rectified and refunds are being made and okay cool correct they're not flashing for the rest of the time even though the cameras are lost all right we know the cameras are on right it's not the question is i would i would also i would also because we all we all work and travel regionally um boca raton has the same program boynton beach has the same program and they're both run also by red speed and so everything is consistent between boca delray and boynton beach right now what was the abanian creek area the only area that had the issue with the flashing light yes ma'am okay do you do the you do the red do you do the one of southeast 23rd in the federal highway because then i have a conversation about that anyway so i have not received the ticket here that's where i got up here has but i took a left and you know anyway it doesn't matter my car did actually wasn't even in the car um any other questions on saturday i got pulled on saturday morning i'm sorry if this board has any other questions i feel free to reach out to me or obviously chief chief hunter knows how to get to me and we will make ourselves available to you absolutely i would be real curious if you could let us know in a month from now whether or not your you know your conjecture that the it's going to bring the speed limits down and bring people down i'd be really curious to see some stats on that that is that it's working that the whole purpose of it isn't to really penalize people right it's to have people comply with the speed laws and i'd like to if you come back in a month and show us what those statistics are that would be great so we will we have talked about that along with red speed and being able to collect all that analytic and that data to be able to provide to you guys with that yeah the only thing i would ask mr warren gina is that we we keep up our education efforts right now particularly when the snowbirds are coming back i don't want i don't want them to get tickets but they're coming back they haven't been as aware of this and i even think some of our everyday residents aren't as aware of it and i just think it would behoove us to just keep up the keep up the communication effort for a little bit longer and so that everybody's aware of it will do direction is being offered to continue this until at least end of the calendar year because taken under consideration season so here we are today september 22nd we will go throughout the holiday season to get us squared away and that's that should be an ample opportunity to get to the absolute best place possible so we'll do that's the direction on the record so chief hunter gentlemen we will engage across the board we have the template already set up we'll just continue it on a for robust basis thank you very much i look forward to getting the results next month to show that we're working trying to put you out of business so that nobody speeds i know you do okay are there anything i yield at this time thank you you yield this time okay wait can i make a point of order since the room is clearing out mr moore point of order uh mr moore i we had said that the agenda should not be changing and uh and but if it does we need to get a notice of course because sometimes i look at the agenda and then i look at it a second time and it's totally changed and if i come in here and there's one agenda on the dais and i have another one that i've been working off of it's it's not good for the residents understood so we used to send out notifications to say this agenda item changed and maybe a little note as to what the change was could you please do that again because we will endeavor accordingly thank you you're welcome we are now to the portion of the meeting for public comment let me read the uh i don't see anybody here for public comment so we can just move right on the meeting is now open to the public any members of the public wishing to comment on any topic on the agenda item other than a quasi-judicial item or public hearing item should come forward members of the public will have the opportunity to speak on the quasi-judicial or public hearing items later in the meeting as those items are called for public comment please sign in state your name and zip code for the record and you will each have three minutes to address the commission this is not a question and answer opportunity for members of the commission and the commission will not be responding to inquiries from from speakers speakers must address the commission as a whole not any individual individuals excuse me insults personal attacks and disruptions will not be permitted and you'll be asked to leave if you violate these rules please come to the podium state your name and zip code for the record and make sure that you've signed it mayor mayor just um for the public the car wash item which is 7c is quasi-judicial yeah if anybody is here for the car wash item on north federal highway that is a quasi-judicial i'm sure there's a few people call you and then anything related to the millage and the budget should also wait until oh that doesn't say those are public hearings all right if you're here to discuss the the millage or the budget you will have that opportunity to speak when those items are called thank you and the car wash and the car wash correct mr katz mitch katz 33445 um i want to speak to the process of how you got to this 250 fine and again i i get that you can't change it which i don't agree with anything can be changed but this was like taking a shotgun to a bb gun range um and at just another time of the city not doing the right research and and and follow through to do the right thing you know parking spots when somebody parks in a handicapped spot they should get a 250 fine every single time it's an intentional act every single time they see a sign there's a fine price there they park there they should get a ticket but i would say that the majority of the people that park in the swales especially like service people a lot of your plumbers things like that they come do a little bit of work and they just need somewhere to park and those are what we would say unintentional but there are some that are consistently bad we've had them in our neighborhood and we as an hoa have worked to crack in finding them and making them not park to block the sidewalks for that reason so i think it could have been i think number one was there was no enforcement we had the same problem atlantic avenue when i was on the commission with atlantic avenue and the sidewalks not being open so we started enforcing it and to this day code enforcement does a good job you can walk with a with us you can walk or you can use a wheelchair and you can make your way up and down like they have in most cases they the restaurants try to push their limit all the time but we do a good job of that because we did enforcement so the ada said okay good job it all comes down to enforcement and then a way to get to it you could you know our cities in in boca raton charges 35 but they enforce it because not only do they let the police police don't have time to enforce this and now you're going to want them you wouldn't want a police officer to give somebody a 250 fine for this they're not going to want to do that they're going to try to pass on it they're going to just look for the other crime but if it's 35 they might say you know what he can learn his lesson for 35 bucks and they also allow in boca the code enforcement to do that my understanding i've heard that our police department doesn't want code enforcement given those fines there's no reason they can't apparently because they do it in boca so we should be able to do it here and again and then you can make it step you do it twice now it's a hundred dollars right by the third time it's 250 and i think if you did something like that and actually enforce it give that presentation the federal government they're going to accept that and a lot of this also comes down to transparency um i think in this city transparency has become a four-letter word tonight there was a presentation old school square is it on the website no it will ever be on there probably not maybe not because i said something but all the times you guys review your subordinates are the reviews ever posted on the website so we can see what they are no somebody's got to go do a public records request anything that's presented up here before the meeting starts should be posted on the website so then people see and say you know what i have an opinion on that i can make an educated opinion on that and i'm going to come to the meeting and do that but if they don't know what you're saying now they've got to sit here and say oh i heard the presentation i don't need a comment they wasted their time but if they saw the presentation they might say you know what they're doing a good job that's it thank you thank you mr kent transparency good evening daniel rose 3344 um albert was supposed to be here today but i'm covering for both of us so hopefully i can get this done in three minutes so march 31st you gave subculture a list of things to do they've done nothing employees still park there they do whatever they want all they did was pull a parking permit to do the parking lot now they're in the clear work's never completed nor will it be but hey why not nothing's changed in my opinion rules are broken so you tell us go ahead and tow cars here's something for me to submit today tow truck bmw there for an hour he gets out runs almost hits everyone and gets away like you figure you robbed a bank sidewalk parking we could be millionaires every day four five six cars parked in the sidewalk not a care in the world they're just getting coffee so we're going to park there hey why not that's the problem people in wheelchairs can't get by they don't even have a handicap parking space it's even ada compliant and then they have customers that block the ada ramp so if there's someone in a wheelchair that wants to go visit there he can't put his wheelchair through the ramp because there's a car blocking but hey we're back to illegal events no problem um we have the chess club it's been going on for a year every thursday night you're welcome to subculture see terry terry is running this quote unsanctioned event and here's another invitation wednesday um september 2nd you can go to a subculture coffee a few weeks ago and do a um chess tournament um illegal events no problems here's a group called the palm beach indivisibles it's a political action campaign thing well it's like they had an event there on the first saturday of september that was on september 5th and they're going to be back monday uh saturday october the 3rd with a 10 30 or 11 30 event please register mobilize get involved well remember these events the mayor got yelled at oh that's in west palm note september 5th the subculture coffee pop-up book fair um here's actually a picture thanks to the palm beach indivisibles video which i sent everyone there's the sales lady with her book market book fair and here's her posting on social media about how she's back in business but hey who am i here's today subculture delray social media calling vendors who want to pop up at our delray location this season message us the book you'll be the only vendor of our busiest day we love offering a platform for local artists to share their work from the coffee community how is this happening a letter goes out saying you can't have special events um he claims he wins his appeal which obviously he didn't even show up for special magistrate reinstate the fines there was no stay on those fines okay no one filed his attorneys didn't file a motion to stay so those fines have been rolling up so there's there's nothing to see here it seems you know the owner continues to break the rules and i don't know who a city staff is to um respond but it's time for the city to put your foot down enough already we literally send you emails with evidence over and over again and you know how many people have ever replied where's the accountability where's the response how much more of this do we have to deal with because we follow the rules and this just continues he's mocking you laughing at you and everything else please thank you thank you very much mr rose good evening mayor commissioners uh price patent on uh 33483 on behalf of the delray beach preservation trust um i would like to enter into the record a resolution i sent you a draft of all everyone on our board has approved it save one who did not respond to it so it's a unanimous vote of our board um and the resolution goes as follows just to read i have to read it to get on the record right no you don't if you submit it it's in the record good then i got copies for you all and i have to read it don't have you you did a good job reading that other resolution anyway all we're doing in front of me on a red all we're doing is asking um you to go on two tracks you know we've got a consultant coming coming up here he's going to make recommendations the your previous consultant in august of 2024 came up with recommendations clear recommendations about how to maintain the cemetery how to improve the uh the administration at the cemetery can i interrupt you i didn't get an email to my city server price hi um did you i i don't know which one i said you know i typed in i typed in your name and it's okay it's okay you got it okay i just want to make sure everyone else got it and i know i know mrs burns got it because she sent me a nice note um but i'm just asking that you know you take those recommendations but do a double track get get the get the designation of the historic northeast portion of the cemetery um ready to ready to roll and then you don't have to like finish the consultant's recommendation then you start the whole process of historic uh of the application and again the trust is more than willing to help out in any way we wrote the application for old school square for the national district we've written an application for veterans park um we'd be glad to help if if the city sees uh fit that we help thank you very much thank you very much mr pat hi everybody i'm elizabeth chance i live right here in 33444 and i have a proposal to see if we could make the the beach dog friendly from the sailboat north from 6 a.m till 8 45 a.m and then in the evenings at about four o'clock well given that it's going to be daylight savings soon and the sun goes down at seven and in the evenings most of the people that are out there like i am for the sunrise are people that are taxpayers that live that are very healthy in this community versus the people that are living on the beach because i don't know if you know this but there are people living actually on the beach and i have pictures on my phone i did not print them out but i can bring them next time if you want me to but you probably already know this and then we also are using public facilities to pay for let's say the um services at rehab facilities when they have to call ambulances and i got ticketed as a taxpayer for having my dogs on the beach that i clean up after we all that go to the beach in the morning take care of our dogs there's no dog fighting it's all actual people that live in our community that want to be healthy because as you can imagine you have to be pretty healthy to get up at the sunrise every day which i do so my proposal is that it's from this from the sailboats north to where it's already it is that already state facility with gulf stream no gulf streams is north of george bush but that's what i mean north of there like to be able to go on the beach from the sailboats and then up north past gulf stream like walking up and be off the beach by 8 45 9 a.m and then in the evenings starting at 4 30 4 45 because nobody goes on the beach with their dogs anyway because it's too hot anyway during the day can i just ask a clarification question on a leash or not on a leash not on a leash okay so what would i need to do to have that passed because right again i just got a ticket for a hundred dollars which i paid and i would pay a fee i'm not upset of i mean i understand i broke law it says you're not allowed to have i brought my dogs on at the sailboats i admit that i came over i paid my bill but i would pay a fee and i know my friends that are in the audience would also pay a fee for the year to say that we are going for the year i get a hundred dollars a dog i'll pay for my fee to have the dogs on the beach from north of the um north of the sailboats dog beach pass dog beach pass we would all do that and then if people want to come if they're visiting they have to like in new jersey if you go and you rent a house you've got to buy a beach pass to go to the beach so you if you want to bring your dog to the beach while you're visiting delray beach you have to buy a pass don't don't we allow the north of the field on a leash no no no no not even on a leash my dogs were on a leash when i got a ticket so they and the police and how much money did they pay the police to come and show up at like seriously to bust me for my dogs my little dogs that the maximum weighs 30 pounds i'm sure they weren't there for you but i mean you just happen to get your collateral down no there were like five of them i mean there were five police that were up there one of them is high cholesterol he told me and the bugs were riding him but um i would really thank you thank you thank you but what would i need to do to make this happen well we're not answering questions from here but we will take under advisement which so do i need to come back next month uh yeah well yes okay well if i wanted to happen you can it's it's public uh public okay thank you can we speak on taxes now or no no no the millage is later later okay so but can i do that as well you only get one shot up here or you want to get yeah yeah if you speak on it now i can speak on dogs now and talk about taxes later yeah is that cool all right billy roach 33483 um yeah the old school square i was just prepared marks on taxes but old school square has been what five six years it's it's been up in limbo and it's like it's like redundancy i'm sitting here listening to this presentation fifty thousand dollars per per uh whatever you call it section of him study like wasn't the blueprint already doing pretty well before there was a vote against it and there was just stipulation about the way the money was spent or stored or some detail in there the way the money was accounted for so why don't you just go back to the blueprint that was working when i moved here it was awesome there was bands diverse diverse bands there was bruce campbell had movies on halloween it was happening it was full it was vibrant and why would we even think of not monetizing that when this city every year it's the same discussion on raising taxes why wouldn't you just use that asset maximize it and use it to the benefit of the residents of the visitors of everybody like why do you have to drag that out two more you know 100 grand to go through these fancy slides when you just need competent management you need to have events that people you know you can just look at bokeh they're doing it well they're getting national acts there it's not rocket science like if you build it they will come like people come from that 30 minute so why waste 100 grand and just falling all over each other when you can just go with what worked maybe just get the accounting on the up and up and find somebody competent to do it and do it for money do it for profit do it for the benefit of the community so that's all i have to say on that but it seems pretty simple we don't need to spend 100 grand to figure out how to put some bands up there book them make it a good place obviously don't cancel the the the concerts and ruin the relationship with the boogers make it be a consistent thing that people could depend on and come to you know come to the city for a good time it's pretty simple so i'll be back thank you very much martin doro 33483 i need to defer my comments to the millage rate but i wanted to share with you my excitement and adrenaline is now fading and i'm going to restore it from the next session right okay how many how many hours will that be until we hit we should get there around one o'clock in the morning don't worry mr derow i'll wake you up i'll wake you up good evening mayor and commissioners michael tang 33445 reading a statement on behalf of the board of directors sable lakes association this is with regard to the proposed plans highlighted at the public informational meeting on september 16th 2026 for the barwick road north improvement project running from lake ida road to the l30 canal first off our board appreciates and thanks the city for listening and supporting our efforts to keep the school children from bion creek elementary and our community members safe through this improvement project the proposed implementation of a split rail fence to keep children pedestrians and cyclists off the roadway in addition to the proposed curbing and swales are a much appreciated compromise measure the removal of the crosswalk from the proposed plans at the northern and most busy sable lakes road north entrance is also much appreciated our board however has one concern and that is the proposed titan turn radius at the south entrance exit and entrance lanes to sable lakes keeping in mind the multiple curbing issues some already addressed and some still currently affecting residents south on barwick road our board would like the engineers to factor in some some additional tolerance and leeway for the accommodation of much longer or wider vehicles such as bulk trash trucks fire ladder trucks work trailers to prevent damage to both the vehicles and community property such as our entrance monument please also factor in that a turning radius that is too tight may require such vehicles to pull further out into oncoming traffic because in practicality not everyone can drive with you know maximum proficiency all the time and accidents are exactly what they are and hopefully not exacerbated by too tight of a turn radius while the board understands this is for the purpose of moving the ends of the sidewalk pavement closer together for pedestrian safety there has to be a safe and also practical middle ground thank you for this opportunity and thank you for your time thank you very much sir thank you go ahead that's fine oh there we go hi adam greenberg three three four three six and i had a lot to say before everybody started talking mr moore covered the whole speed limit thing i'm wondering if maybe you said a little high um i understand the dot uh accepted it but i'm wondering if maybe uh you said it a little too high to begin with i'm sure you're getting a lot of flack on that you don't need it for me from boyton beach school zone talked with chief hunter and he excuse me the staff is saying you're too close to the mic am i too close a little too close you can't move it you just have to you sound muffled here since it's been in front of a microphone uh there we go perfect all right uh so chief hunter wasn't quite sure on my question uh so lieutenant shefferley i apologize if i'm pronouncing it wrong um lieutenant shefferley and i just had a discussion out in the hallway and uh we talked about the law and the law for the signage is and you can eliminate 90 of your headache probably with this one little thing the signage law is currently it is apparently going to change at some point soon but the signage law is currently either to say school zone or to have the times now take a look at those signs as they're posted right now i just took a look at the pictures one says has the yellow band that says school one has uh school times i remember exactly the the wording but it says the times that school is in session that yellow band on the one that doesn't have it will save you 90 of your headache i'm sure thank you for the privilege of your time and it was nice to meet all of you thank you mr greenberg jim chard three three three three four eight three i've been trying to figure out how to respond to that presentation on old school square and you know it's sort of some combination of deja vu all over again and groundhog day that we have seen all these and more and we keep going back and asking again maybe thinking if we ask enough we'll get a different answer but uh we had a workshop or uh i guess a uh community meeting at uh at the gym and said the same thing uh i just wonder if we really need to do that all over again in terms of putting the plan together i mean we have the knowledge we have the people uh we have the experience we have the history we know how it was done why do we need to spend a hundred thousand dollars for somebody who's very talented and educated up in new york to come and tell us how we could best handle this unique situation of delray beach you know i would think a task force or something uh contact a bunch of senior citizens such as myself uh and sit down and give a proposal i took the liberty of sending each of you uh a relatively brief proposal about how to move forward and i got three very good comments back and i appreciate for those of you who read that and got back to me i think this is something that we can do as a community uh bring everybody together uh all of those things that were in that presentation we've already done including activating uh the the park in old school square there so uh let's just do it i mean why wait why spend more money thank you thank you very much mr chart hello everyone um marissa gatto 33484 and i'm the cultural arts director at the cornell art museum i just wanted to tell you a little bit about what we've done in the last fiscal year um and what we've accomplished in the museum we had nine new exhibitions during that time this is from last october to now we had we featured 358 artists 250 of them were youths with the multicultural youth festival so we're featuring children as well and when you bring in children you bring in the parents and the siblings and the grandparents and everyone else we've we have 32 artists that can sign artwork in the museum store so that's 32 people that would not have an opportunity otherwise we've had 14 375 people through the museum we've collected donations of 25 000 and we've had over 30 tours in the museum so just in case you're wondering what we're doing that's what we're doing it's very good work um now we have we're closed for a couple of weeks we have some maintenance happening walls are being repaired and whatnot and we have three new exhibitions primed to open we have october 1st we're opening river of grass which is in collaboration with the fiber arts of miami association they're very large installations um seven feet by seven feet looms with uh beautiful fiber artwork on them very interesting 3d art you can walk around them and see how they're made they're pretty amazing we have marlene diwali who is doing floral inspired artwork in our spotlight gallery and then we have ron garrett who's doing a 40-year print making retrospective in the upper galleries we still have our mosaics for another couple of months so we are quite busy we have two exhibitions opening october 1st next thursday we hope you'll join us six to eight and then we have the 40-year retrospective is opening october 11th we're also preparing for a fine art show that's happening in november we have about 70 artists prepared to do that that's going to be on the outside grounds and then we're also preparing for another fine art show happening in february and we already have about 67 artists applying for that exhibition just so that you know we're very busy and we're happy to serve and we would love for all of you to partake and join us thank you thank you very much good evening everyone uh laura simon uh executive director of the dda and just wanted to talk about a few things um first something i just want to just remind the audience and those of you on the dais to its restaurant month in downtown dalry beach uh until september 30th we have over 60 restaurant almost 60 restaurants participating and we really encourage everybody to get out there and take advantage of that especially because of september not only helps you to discover new things but it also helps our economy so um and then secondly i do want to thank you for actually um so as the dda as your partner we do have the interlocal agreement as all of you know to operate the campus which is the cornell art museum which marisco marisco is doing an amazing job as a team of building that momentum with the arts community bringing bringing that trust back to the artist and to the community uh turning the lights back on in 2022 as it is on the lights are on it's not dark just so everybody knows we are actively continuing to do that we have a plan we're building out now with budgets in place i think the cycle when we met on january 22nd as a workshop to have an outside entity we weren't sure who at that time and it was suggested by the city to bring the same person from the crest theater feasibility study to find that operator we know what can happen there as you all know we are doing it the center for the arts the center for the arts has been doing it with lots more money than we're doing it with currently and with a lot more momentum after 30 plus years so the key is is really the money the plan the long-term sustainable option you know we have almost 500 000 visitors to all swiss square campus this year that's a lot of people and it is an engine for the downtown which is very very important to our organization and the sustainability going forward needs to are the brand that we did the rebrand that we did is where old school square where the community comes together that's the brand that tagline where the community comes together is their place so for us it's really important and we have touring artists asking us now we have these beautiful pianists that have been touring and been playing the crest theater that want to come back and plan their Florida schedule to be part of the theater the theater is the engine and we need to get that back up and running as fast as possible so the outdoor amphitheater is beautiful we had we welcome 2500 people to our party in paradise the Jimmy Buffett day on August 28th we're always we're seeing that number grow every time we do something out there but that cost every time we do an event out there it's at least 25 to 30 grand just with the infrastructure so it's funding it's funding and that is something that needs to be brought forward is what is that funding model i'm sure the pompeach opera wants to be part of the old school square they want to be paid as everybody does so i just encourage you all to really just think about that we're here we can help with the plan to slip down let's all talk together i don't agree with jim char very often but i do agree we all need to sit together thank you thank you very much i agree with her and i would like to say more but uh i want to rant first about something else so at the end of the last meeting oh dr ala costella big out of stakes atlantic avenue uh at the end of the last meeting two weeks ago commissioner malica mentioned the illicit water violations given out by code enforcement she mentioned the lack of education and the lack of any warnings but that's only part of the problem the statute was imposed not because when it rains the literal deluge of water uh rolls down the street and into the sewer and it's not when someone's air conditioner leaks or drips condensate on the ground and it rolls into the sewer because that's what the sewers were invented for that's why they're there the law was created for egregious insults to the system not for restaurants that pressure wash as required by law and not for the city who pressure washes every day and every night it was not created for the average business it was created for the egregious and detrimental abuse of the system yet uh who can believe that the drip of compensation from air conditioner behind a restaurant or a restaurateur that hoses his mats down at the end of the day behind his restaurant is an egregious assault on our water sewers i don't think anyone agrees with that what is an egregious assault is the institution of a five thousand dollar fine with no warning with no education for a first-time offense after the city has existed with that law for over 30 years and never once violated anyone for such a simple offense the code violation system is to impose and protect the city and improve the city not to provide a massive revenue stream ladies and gentlemen this egregious and detrimental excessive finding of your constituents has been allowed to fester and the toll on the selectively enforced violators your constituents has been enormous and most certainly it has been mostly unjustified thanks thank you very much i am here for the budget later however i will mention uh the item name for the name page 33444 i'm sorry greg page 33444 uh yes i'll talk to the budget question later uh i just want to pass this back to uh have this in the record that's the email i sent you all earlier with everything that we've been discussing since the previous uh but this quest um request is let's just see what we can do about taking care of the short-term rentals all right you're going to look for money in the budget later let's really see if this is doable and on uh some of that information i sent to other places are doing it thank you very much i saw it and i read your email are there any other members of the public wishing to address the commission then i'm sorry what we are going to i i'm going to address to the commission we're going to take a five minute break i don't do two i can't even get out of it takes me that long to get out of my chair a five minute break we'll restart at 20 after seven good evening everyone we are recommencing here at 724 um i need a motion we the next item we need a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved yes as amended second all in favor aye any opposed fine it is gone all right now we have the the 7aa is former consent agenda item 6e which is the approval of the resolution authorizing the appointment of an external audit firm selection committee mr dokowitz please thank you um we are looking to uh do an rfp for a new outside audit firm um i don't think it's been done in many years the state of florida has certain requirements one of which is that a member of the commission must be on the selection committee and serve as chair um i have worked closely with alina george of the auditor she has other people outside the city who might be available to also serve on the selection committee so the agenda item was to help us determine who should be on this selection committee the problem we're having is timing um we have already put this off for a year we're doing this selection now but while we go through this process we will have auditors coming in and doing the audit of our fiscal year ending in two weeks the end of september um 2026 and their contract was extended for two years so this coming year will be the second year of that extension and i've informed them that we're going out for an rfp but it's a little bit awkward that they're doing the work at the same time but there's no other way to do this so the thought was um that we would find out from the commission who might serve on this committee obviously as you are all aware with rfps there's a tremendous amount of time required to be invested we may have six eight ten different firms they each give us hundreds of pages as an rfp response we have to go through that deliberate who do we want to interview it's a long tedious process um but we want to do it properly according to all the guidelines of purchasing and procurement both locally and here for the state so for tonight well there are two aspects one is to decide who from the commission might serve on the selection committee but then also there's an issue that the commission is supposed to approve the entire selection committee i believe the resolution reads that way but we weren't prepared for that i think when i'm not i don't i'm not prepared to appoint anybody i mean i would be delighted would you something you'd be interested in your deputy vice mayor i mean you should pick up i would help absolutely okay so is that is that we got consent yeah that's anyone mind if commissioner martin does it okay i got you to do that how's the pay on this this is yeah you get you okay so what do we need a motion to approve guys we got to move this along so in the past staff brought in the names of the other people and it's typically procurement experts auditors from other cities so we're not going to sign this today okay what we'll do is we'll bring it back once mr dakwitz and georgia speak to their colleagues and other municipalities who are willing to volunteer it it wasn't a problem last time and then we'll finalize the resolution with deputy vice mayor martin's name so this is something we should do every five years anyway with that i mean i'm used to be every for like municipalities like every five seven ten years you you i've i've been an auditor where there's a mandatory rotation yeah um you don't want it to be too comfortable in this case prejudging but in this case there's not a requirement that we change we're just doing an rfp and the current firm is absolutely encouraged to participate but the committee would then decide who they want to select so if if you're the designated representative we will then now solicit those other individuals identified to see if they're willing to serve or they're available to serve and we can put together that package and then get the approval for the entire i need a motion to approve resolution 150 we're going to defer it just a motion to appoint deputy vice mayor marker well i'm going to prove that as part of the second they have blanks in there because oh thanks okay well let's second we got all in favor yes he opposed he may oppose it all right so now can we can we approve 156-26 no 7 bb that was all we're done we're done with that now yeah yeah we're done okay so that's former step a 6k right that's the second one six i six i i forgot i'm not a word it's an audit plan fiscal year audit plan that's that's you um uh miss george f you are just and i pulled this because i i i just want the public to know that we that you know we we have an audit plan and we're going to describe what the audit plan is so appreciate that that's correct i thought i pulled it you did i did yes she did and i put good job well i was going to pull it and i pulled it for different i pulled it because i thought that the commission gets to decide the priorities of the of the audit plan and so that we are aware of what that is but anyway it's george f okay good evening commissioners mayor city manager city attorney um and guests in the audience my name is elena georgiev i'm the internal auditor for the city of delray beach um in front of you tonight is the draft fiscal year 2027 internal audit plan just a quick overview then the objective of going through the risk assessment process is really to identify the areas where limited internal audit resources would add the most value so um i completed the risk assessment over the summer i collected information from my fellow officers chartered officers i spoke to all of you i also spoke to department heads um i also looked at guidance provided by large accounting firms and consulting firms out there and um all of that i took and that's how the audit plan came to be no individual response was taken just on its own merit everything was considered together and that's how the proposed audit plan that you see tonight was developed may i answer any questions commissioner burns no i'm i'm so we are expected tonight to approve the plan i think it's important to point out that this is a draft should the commission come up with a different direction for the internal auditor at any time we can direct her in that fashion which i hope we do because she's kind of without us directing her sometimes so i just think it's important to understand that this is a draft but you know we're accepting or whatever voting to accept a draft audit plan okay okay based on the risk assessment yeah yeah right okay yeah all right yes that's uh commissioner malica is correct while uh one of the objectives every year for my office is to go and perform a risk assessment yes in addition to that i do take direction from the commission as a governing body here i am okay then i need a motion to approve uh item 7bb which is the fiscal year 2700 internal audit second all in favor aye opposed it is passed next is thank you the parking license agreement am i correct 6k now yes 6k which is huh which which i did which you did i would have done that one but i went after you anyway mrs barletta you are up i mean this is well i didn't know if i had to come up if you actually had a question for me well i i mean i'm i'm wondering why it's two years i mean we've had a number of times we've had discussions about whether or not the city should not take this over or did do it and all different kinds of plans and i thought during the process as we discussed this a two-year is is kind of i don't think we've revisited the question in a while but there is that's also a profit center for the city it is a two-year agreement because it rolls around so quickly it when it's just a one-year agreement so in order to to facilitate it for everyone it's a two-year agreement but it still has a cancellation for um convenience clause in it so if at any time the commission wants to revisit the centralized valet and have us reevaluate that and bring that back forward again you can cancel with i think it's 30 days notice correct i'm not interested in that right now can we let's do the two-year and then if we really want to talk about that that's going to take long-term planning i mean us taking over valet would be a tremendous liability or we'd have to work with one of the companies but really this the whole central valley thing i talked to some people in the know i don't know that it necessarily works in our downtown area in fact i think it doesn't if you're dropped off here then you're getting picked up there there's so many different parking spaces let's just for tonight approve this i think two years is not unreasonable it extends it enough for them to know they have a contract for us to start making a plan if we want to do something else and it's two years with that out so to me that's fine do i need a motion to approve so moved second all in favor aye any opposed okay we're finally the last one is i know it's 6m is 70 dm whatever given thought oh yes this is the also commissioner burns yes yeah i just wanted some explanation about the the medicaid reimbursement like the men to do it good evening mayor mr city manager madam city attorney honorable commissioners for the record ronald martin uh fire rescue chief this is the letter agreement that you all approve and execute annually we've been enrolled in the i'm sorry i want to get my acronyms correct the public emergency medical uh transportation p ent this is a medicaid reimbursement from the state of florida what you're signing this evening is a letter agreement as the provider of these services we have to uh transmit a fee an intergovernmental transfer fee this year of 254 462.47 of which we will we will recapture some medicaid reimbursements for our services of 316 uh 465 21 and the increase of 22 percent above last fiscal year uh so this is part of the um reimbursements and offsets of different fees and things that we bring in annually to the city um as the fire rescue department okay what was that figure again what was that what are we what are you getting reimbursed what was that this is uh medicaid reimbursement no i no figure how much yes the uh intergovernmental transfer fee for this year is 254 462 47 which is budgeted every year annually and we will recapture the total amount eligible is 570 927 of which we will recapture 316 465 21 okay an increase of 22 percent over last fiscal year or this fiscal year i'm sorry i'm getting ahead of myself all right thank you all right are there any other questions good i'm good okay thank you for your comment attention so moved second all in favor aye any opposed it is approved all right regular agenda item 7a resolution 133-26 a resolution of the city commission of the city of delvary beach florida amending its budget for the fiscal year beginning october 1 2025 by providing for supplemental appropriations in the amounts identified in exhibit a repealing all resolutions inconsistent herewith providing an effective date and further purposes mr duckling we had a slide presentation for this it's the 500 000 right to neighborhood services budget amendments here we are this is not the correct slide presentation the presentation should reflect the proposed budget amendments or requested budget amendments and it's the 500 000 involving the department of neighborhood and community services so it's fairly straightforward so right unless there's a need for a presentation i would recommend authorization would you like me to make a motion please make a motion so moved second all in favor aye any opposed it's fine great great great presentation thank you i try to be concise right take less is more to a new meaning anyway uh 7b is the approval of the 2027 through 2020 capital improvement program budget that is missy barletto good evening again mayor and commissioners missy barletto director of public works i have before you the exact same presentation i gave you the last time because you did not ask for any changes to the capital improvement budget when when we originally brought it so here is the recap of the different funds that are included and the amount of funding for the um total um fy 27 cip budget if you'd like me to go through the presentation again i can or if you have questions i'm happy to answer them does the commission have any questions or do they want to hear the presentation again i do not but that was great reading the other night i remember it you're welcome great then i need a motion to approve second all in favor aye any opposed that's fine okay uh this is item 7c which is resolution 136 26 do you want to read that in because this is quasi-traditional and then i'll read the uh resolution number 136-26 the resolution of the city commission of the city of delivery beach florida approving a level four site plan landscape plan and architectural elevations and a conditional use for a car wash at 2210 north federal highway as more particularly described herein approving a waiver request of section 469 d60 of the land development regulations to allow one-way traffic flow adjacent to perpendicular parking spaces providing for an effective day and further purposes thank you very much uh this is the quasi-judicial hearing anybody who wishes to speak on this item if you could please stand and be sworn by the clerk by the authority vested in me as a notary of the state of florida do you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you very much if you could please enter the project file into the record good evening anthia geniotis development services director and i'd like to enter file pz 000360-2025 for the site plan and pz 000359-2025 for the conditional use associated with it thank you very much um this is and has there any been any ex parte communication on this adam miss uh miss cassava no i just spoke to mr costello as he walked in well that's it counts yes i briefly spoke with mr costello i also spoke with mr costello i also spoke with mr costello well i spoke to mr costello too so there you go that's all i have and i don't know if there's anything on the server for but it does i incorporated into my remarks um mr costello good evening mayor commissioners jeff costello jc planning solutions 91 delray lake stride delray beach florida um here at this evening representing the applicant for lenny's car wash uh this particular property is located on north federal highway and intersection with northeast 22nd lane currently there exists uh an existing car wash uh built about 20 years ago uh many of you may be familiar with witherspoon car wash um and it's changed over the years um currently a self-service facility uh the land use designation is gc zoning gc it's in north federal highway uh overlay district the surrounding zoning to the north we have uh gc through north and south we have ac to the east it's the bulbo dealership and then we have a west across the tracks r1a and community facilities uh there's extensive background in your backup staff report very detailed um at the august 17th planning and zoning board meeting the the planning and zoning board recommended approval with the condition that the north elevation of the east tower uh include windows so include include include windows so uh these are some of the adjacent properties we have to the north aubry auto and then another office auto zone to the south of course the volvo dealership and then we have the dixie highway federal and then the rears you can hardly see of the the properties to the west proposal is a about a 3300 square foot single tunnel automated car wash facility along with a central vac vacuum system internal to the building to mitigate any noise it's insulated area there installation of associated on-site parking there'll be 16 spaces each one will have a vacuum adjacent to it um there's also some uh five on street spaces proposed along 20 22nd lane right there and then um of course right-of-way dedications and elimination of the curb cut along federal highway uh this is a site plan of the existing site and then the proposed site uh we have uh access of course off of off of dixie highway it's a single traffic circulation there's the tunnel there's the ability for vehicles to to exit if they decide they change their minds um and this is also access for the waste management vehicles and then they egress the site circulation is one way throughout the site so positive findings can be made uh with regard to 3.1.1 the consistency with the land use map uh the consistency the use is allowed as a conditional use in the gc zoning district floor area ratios 0.1643 is allowed concurrency the staff's report confirms the positive findings can be made made with uh concurrency as well as consistency with the comprehensive plan those are some policies i just will not go through those uh the backup you all have compliance with the ldrs uh positive findings can also be made with regard to 246a5 uh that the establishing the conditions will not have a detrimental effect on the stability of the neighborhood within which it is located or hindered development or redevelopment of nearby properties this is redevelopment of an existing car wash facility constructed in 2007 with a new state-of-the-art automated car wash there is a noise study prepared that's within your backup that proves compliance with the code of the city's recently adopted code enforcement i mean code of ordinances um the noise ordinance and then we have a central vac system and just want to restate that so that's internal to the building insulated so you don't have that exterior uh impacts extensive landscaping uh safe traffic circulation and a significant enhancement to the redevelopment area uh this this just kind of shows where the compliance uh both diagrams with the central vacuum with regard to the the um the noise ordinance and then these were the individual um little um you see those at the parka spaces where you have the individual vacuums that also shows compliance with the noise ordinance there's also positive findings can be made with regard to the site plan findings the standards for site plan actions and 3.2.3 development meets the applicable standards and there are no identified concerns with regard to the overall configuration proposed use on the surrounding area and then compliance again with the other ldr regulations there there is one waiver request couldn't get it fast with one waiver request sorry and that is to uh 469 d60 the code requires if you have 24 foot drive out you have to have two-way traffic flow uh the proposal is one way as it shows up on the screen um then it's a one-way traffic flow throughout the site entrance off of dixie egress onto 22nd um this is the way this operates there is a membership where you do have that the the point is to have people come through the facility to use the vacuums not not just to go on a daily basis if you feel like you want to clean your beer vacuum your vehicle uh the waiver findings positive findings can be made with 2411b5 it's not a not a safety concern controls fat flow for customers and business operation does not affect the adjacent uh adjacent area diminished public facilities and is not a special privilege uh measures are taken to uh to formally ensure that there are no issues with regard to that circulation pattern with signage uh the landscape plan meets the the landscape plan standards uh we are preserving some trees along 22nd and it's a heavily landscape on the perimeter of the site of the site positive findings are made with the elevation uh the criteria for board action for the elevations to look at the new building um and then also just to note there was that condition we did add some windows here on the north elevation so as the vehicles are traveling south on federal they'll see more of a storefront facing north uh to address the planning zoning board's recommendation for approval and that concludes my presentation thank you thank you very much to to the city okay and i promise i'll be quick and try to move through the areas where they're the same so i believe they'll get it to me while she's pulling that up i just want a clarification without the rule this is a car wash now so why does this is does it need a new condition because they're tearing it down i understood the waiver brings them here yep i'm just looking at why are we having them come in front yes so it's because he's tearing down a building and doing the whole new application and it will vest with this owner because the use really doesn't change it's still a car wash if this is something i don't know what to tell you it's legally the way that it's written right now this could be something we look at as a minor conditional use if we can establish major minors there's administrative you'd still see the site plan though so you're and because we consolidated processes it's one you know just asking because the use doesn't change i don't you know i know but there's a waiver right the waiver understood i understood the waiver part so we what we do when it's these things that it kind of all comes together under one stop another stop instead of it used to go go to commission get the waiver go back here and then come back for a third presentation we can just move to public i'm ready i just want to go over one thing really quickly just to point it out because it came up so that you're aware i personally think in terms of compatibility this is the right location for this you saw one before that was coming in right next door to someone's home this is not that situation the waiver about the two-way traffic i i actually think granting it is a safety issue that you're preventing a problem because people going their wrong way and trying to access the car wash is a problem however the circulation because there isn't a way out here means that you can't just vacuum i guess you could if you get one of these and then the waiver that was granted by the uh city um uh engineer um there's still excess um queuing because the members only lane and then the general public lane adds up to more than what's required and i don't think i have anything else to add so yeah most car washes are one way i mean let's be honest well the one i go to i can just go to the vacuums if i want to and i can skip the thing so sorry anyway i'm sorry it was calm so it's not you know it's just public comment trying to get to that no you you haven't made your presentation yet so she just finished it so i was just trying to throw anything no i said while you were waiting i had my question no no she didn't we we we don't need the presentation we want to get to the vote do we need a presentation she already did it it's done we need to go to public comment then this is it's a public it's a i'm trying to get to your condition this is a a quasi judicial hearing which means the public can weigh on this if there's any members of the public discuss this please come to the uh lectern give your name and address for the record and you will each have three minutes seeing none uh is there any rebuttal back and forth anyone then i need a motion to approve motion to approve resolution number 136-26 second clerk please call the roll second deputy minister margaret yes commissioner malica yes commissioner cassell yes vice mayor burns yes mayor carney yes motion passed all right okay good we're moving right along here now to the fun part of the show you ready we'll be discussing millage rates so those of you who have been waiting to speak about millage rate we're going to be having a you will have your opportunity to speak should i do the first one i'm sorry please yeah please resolution number 157-26 i'm sorry one second oh sorry resolution number 157-26 a resolution of the city commission of the city of delvary beach florida certified to the property appraiser and tax collector of palm beach county the final rates of millage to be levied by the city of delvary beach for the fiscal year beginning october 1 2026 establishing the city of delvary beach's final general fund operating millage at 6.3501 establishing the city of delvary beach's final debt service millage rate at 0.0289 providing for an effective date and for other purposes the intent of the city commission is to adopt an operating millage rate of 6.3501 mills the rollback rate is 5.8555 mills therefore the proposed operating millage rate is 8.45 percent above the rollback rate the increase in ad valorem revenues is necessary to help fund increased budgetary needs primarily associated with public safety parks and recreation general government community services development services and parking facilities these budgetary needs include approximately 5.9 million for public safety 1.6 million for public works 1.6 million for parks and recreation 1 million for general government 500 000 for community services 256 000 for development services 279 000 for parking facilities these increases are funded through a combination of ad valorem revenues available fund balance and other applicable revenues the proposed operating millage rate of 6.3501 mills requires approval by a two-thirds vote of the full membership of the city commission the city commission also intends to adopt a debt service millage rate of 0.0289 mills for a total city millage rate up for fiscal year 2026 27 of 6.3790 mills remember two-thirds vote is a supermajority great mr dokowitz thank you so we've seen this chart before the green rectangles are the millage rates historically as they've gone down from 6.9611 to the rollback year of 2025 5.9063 to our current year 6.1611 and the proposed 6.3501 for the coming fiscal year 2027 the upper yellow line is the municipal cost index which is it uses a proprietary weighting of monthly consumer price index from the bureau of labor statistics and construction cost index from engineering news record designed to capture the cost of doing business as a local government and you've seen that increase over the 10-year period the orange line in the middle are our actual expenditures in millions of dollars here in delray beach it's very similar in shape to the yellow line we've gone from 117 million up to 200 million for the current year and we're trying to show that we've had decreases for eight out of the last 10 years in our millage rate even though our actual expenditures and the statistic municipal cost index has been increasingly over that time period here are the key numbers we're looking at on the left hand side we're looking at revenues so we start with 206.5 million dollars with an operating millage rate of 6.3501 property tax revenue from the taxable value that's the increase in the value of our properties in the city is eight million five hundred two thousand 795 and the property tax revenue from the increase in the millage rate is 3.88 million that um and then on the fund balance we also have a projected fund balance drawdown which is revenue to the general fund of 4.5 million when we take those three items and add them to the 100 206.5 million we have total revenues of 214.9 million on the right hand side we look at the fund balance calculation fiscal year 2005 audited which was a year ago september 30th was 49.131 i should explain when we talk about the fund balance this is unreserved uncommitted part of the reserves that we have we have a surplus every year and you might have made commitments for certain expenditures this is absolutely it's also known as a rainy day fund mr dacquist may i pause for just a second please mr mayor commissioners youtube is not functioning at the moment granicus is functioning properly so i just thought i'd disclose that so that there aren't any inconveniences moving for it so i think we do we need to to take a break no no i don't think so it's still on granicus it's live in that regard but people can't well on granicus they can now it's back on okay very well thank you my apologies please continue mr dacquist okay fiscal year 2025 which ended a year ago september 30 2025 the fund balance or rainy day fund was 49.13 million dollars we project that the drawdown on reserves for this year which ends in two weeks september 30 2026 will be two million dollars therefore the projected fund balance at that date would be 47 131 the fund balance as a percentage of expenditures as we are required to calculate based on the commission's directives it's 22.42 percent that's the projected fund balance comparison to expenditures minus transfers we are now projecting a drawdown for this coming year of 4.523 million it's in the green on the right hand side right there and it's also in the middle over there the projected fund balance at next year's year end september 30 2027 would be the 47 131 from the current year minus the drawdown of four and a half million which would leave us 42 million 607 731 dollars a year from now using projected expenditures less transfers for the calculation which would be 210 179 465 the ratio of the 42 million 607 to the 210 million is a fund balance of 20.27 percent going back to the expenditure side bottom left expenditures excluding the cra tiff from taxable value is 211 981 960 the cra tiff funding from taxable value is just shy of 2.1 million plus additional cra tiff funding because the millage rate was increased of 840 000 so therefore the total and we pay those amounts to the cra so those are expenditures to the general fund so the 211.98 million increases to 214 921 795 and we have a balanced budget of revenues and expenses at that amount looking at the revenue in a little bit more detail taxes for the current year we're finishing is 132.278 million and next year's tentative budget is 130.711 million a decrease of 1.567 million 1.2 percent permits fees and special assessments went from 9.55 million to 9.63 million an increase of less than 79 000 uh 0.8 percent intergovernmental revenue which is often state uh funding that we get in grants went from 12.167 million to 12.285 million an increase of 117 000 or one percent charges for services again a 700 000 difference an increase 4.6 judgments fines and forfeitures are basically flat miscellaneous revenues going up from 17.7 million to 20.25 million an increase of two and a half million or 14 percent other sources going from 13 million in the adopted budget to this coming year's 6.271 a decrease of 6.76 because the amount that we're planning for next year's drawdown is not included in that line item when we go down below the subtotal to property tax revenues from taxable values we have eight and a half million property tax revenues from millage 5.667 million and the projected fund balance drawdown of 4.5 million so up there the the drawdown was six point other sources went down by 6.7 we replenish 4.5 of that so total revenues 201.1 million this year 214.92 million for fiscal year 20 2027 next year an increase of 13.815 million or 6.9 percent looking at the expense side for the projected budget uh police and fire are our two largest departments police 56.699 million going up to 58.49 million uh it's negative in red because that's an increase of expenditures to the general fund so therefore it's a 3.2 percent increase in that expense fire going from 50 million to 54.11 million an increase of 4.1 million or 8.2 percent parks and recreation recreation and other facilities special events cemetery all in one responsibility center going from 22.95 to 24.52 million an increase of 1.57 million 6.8 percent public works engineering from 10.96 million to 12.57 million an increase of 1.6 million 14.7 percent the other departments all increased less than 500 000 neighborhood and community services is going up by 499 705 11 percent everything else was smaller my finance department went down by 594 947 please look at the footnotes we've reorganized different divisions within the departments purchasing move from under finance to its own department reporting to the city manager internal auditor move from under the city commission to its own department education move from city manager to neighborhood and community services risk move from human resources to finance and pension move from finance to human resources so that's the reason for some of these numerical changes um so human resources went up by 330 000 they gave up uh risk management but they increased with the pension administration um purchasing it's showing all as an increase because it was buried within the finance line item in this current year same thing within internal audit it was originally as part of the city commission so subtotal of expenditures to 211 to 211.6 million an increase of 10 and a half million only 5.2 percent and then you have the increased expenses we have for the cra as our taxable values and our millage rate go up we pay cra more because of their tiff funding as we saw on the prior slide 2.1 million and 1.23 million so that the total expenditures are going from 201.1 to 214.9 uh the increase is 13.8 million 6.9 percent looking at the operating and capital budget by fund type so we're capturing all funds we have the tabular data on the left and a nice little circle chart on the right general fund up 13.8 6.9 special revenue funds are declining by 4.2 million enterprise funds those are funds that are run like a commercial business where the budgeted numbers for revenue and expense are designed to break even and it's usually because we are charging fees to users that's how we get our revenues it includes all debt service related to that going from 140.8 million to 156.6 million an increase of 15.85 million debt service basically flat capital funds going from 224.6 million to 269.7 an increase of 45.1 million 20 percent internal service funds these are organized separately they provide services to all the other departments it could be fleet it could be other types of support areas they're going down by 3.3 million net bottom line the adopted budget we're currently in and ends fiscal year ends in two weeks 648.5 million the tentative budget is 17 715 million point 8 million um and that's an increase of 67.3 most of that are capital funds or enterprise funds and you can see that graphically the general fund is 30 capital projects is 37 percent enterprise funds 21.9 those are the main drivers looking at the proposed tentative millage rates but looking from a taxpayer point of view of all taxing authorities bottom right in yellow delray beach 6.3790 that is the millage rate for the city combined with the millage rate for debt service 34.3 percent a shade over one-third public schools 6.2870 mills that's a shade over 33.8 percent a shade over a third the county 4.5210 24.3 percent and other independent districts 1.4040 for total millage rate of 18.591 mills homeowners pays 3.073 dollars in ad valorem taxes to the city assuming the taxable value of the average home is 481 794 budget discussion growth and taxable property values may slow in the future due to cooling market conditions we have a lot of bubbles out there we have the bond market cracking recently the stock market you have five stocks that are generating most of the value in the stock market indexes and real estate has been declining geographically in different areas at different rates so what we're seeing the so-called second derivative while we still had increases of assessed value in taxable value this year the rate of that increase has been declining and we would anticipate that rate of increase may go down recent tax levy and budgeting changes to florida law effective july 1st 2026 and these were passed without the referendum in november limit the ability to increase millage rates by imposing higher voting thresholds so assuming the taxable value remains flat next year next year's rollback rate would be the 6.3501 we are proposing 10 above the rollback rate or 0.6351 mills this is all for next year would be the maximum increase requiring that two-thirds vote like we have tonight which is four to one with a commission of five commissioners an increase beyond this amount would require a unanimous vote next year if the taxable value increased in addition to staying at the 6.3501 millage rate then the rollback rate decreases so these are some of the features for next here we're keeping our eye on bf8 fund balance policy and procedure policy a this the general fund is the city's main operating fund there shall be a reserve balance in its unassigned i add uncommitted unrestricted fund balance of 21 to 25 percent of the current fiscal year's budgeting operating expenditures excluding transfers we back out the transfers procedure d states annual review compliance with the provisions of this policy shall be reviewed as part of the annual budget adoption process and the amounts of restricted committed assigned non-spendable and the minimum level of unassigned fund balance shall be determined during this review process just for definitions the fund balance is the net position of a governmental fund the difference between assets and liabilities which in non-government would be a balance sheet unassigned fund balance is the residual classification for the general fund that has not been assigned to other funds and has not been restricted committed or assigned to specific purposes within the general fund that's why it's often known as the rainy day fund for something that happens in an unexpected manner that's something we could tap into okay new construction and tax roll discussion new construction in florida hits property appraiser tax rolls as of january 1st each year so if we have new construction in 2026 calendar year anything if the building is substantially complete or has received a certificate of occupancy by january 1st 2027 it will be added to that tax roll which would then be incorporated in the taxable values we use for next year's real estate revenues if construction finishes after january 1st could be january 3rd could be february then the new construction value will not be fully assessed and added to the tax roll until the following january i've been in other jurisdictions where that addition to the appraiser tax rolls can happen any time during a year this is once a year and if it happens by january 1st it increases if not we have to wait a whole year timeline january 1st all properties including new construction and improvements are valued based on their status and market value as of that one day january 1st july 1st the property appraiser submits the preliminary tax roll including newly added construction values to the florida department of revenue to the tax collector and the taxing authority august 24th notice of proposed property taxes and assessments truth and millage known as the trim notice is mailed to owners showing the new construction value and proposed taxes in november official property tax bills are mailed out reflecting the taxes owed on the new construction assessment and revenue collection begins so it's secular these are the dates for each year budget process we're almost near the end september 22nd final public hearing with a vote and october 1st fiscal year begins any questions comments uh not yet but stand by i'm sure there will be um this is uh we're opening this meeting up to the public any members of the public wishing to address the commission on this item now's your chance so please come to the lectern give your name and a zip code for the record and you will each have three minutes thank you martin doro 33483 i want to say thank you for letting me speak i appreciate the very difficult work the management team has put together i think they've done a great job very articulate very knowledgeable i wouldn't want to do that ever i mean i've reviewed the documents as much as possible but i want to say thank you to the staff and the commission for going through this real simple for the few who are left is property value times millage equals the revenue real simple mathematical calculation okay let's remember that because just because my property value went up now you have to times it against the mill rate and if you leave it the loan or raise it it's going to go up just by the fact that my property value went up but everybody in this room their income didn't go up so that means the increase in my property taxes is coming out of another pocket or another budget line item at home so with that said we can play with two numbers here well actually it's really well i'll get to this solution in a minute we're lucky that this is a great town and our property values have increased we're all happy with that it's a great town i think it's run very well it's always fun to go out the beach is fantastic old school square however it doesn't mean that we have to always have a property tax bill increase we could freeze the budget to last year's budget freeze it lower the millage rate slightly to make the tax revenue equal the previous year plus inflation about 3.5 percent or if you look at municipal taxing code or i can't remember the acronym now but that's like a couple hundred basis points higher maybe you know it's so so you could take last year's budget freeze it add an inflation index to it and you'd still have a little money left over you could put into the rainy day fund or you can so you could do that or you do the rainy day fund we have a decision to make as a commission you have a decision to make pardon me the five of you say are we going to increase the millage rate and the home values to kick up a new number for tax taxes that we have to pay or can we look at areas that we might have cut it may be too late for that at this point in time so i respect the work that has been done to put this forward i've also gone through the commission of 14 seconds i looked at the 200 and some pages of the 2026 tax budget the teen center's on it i drive by it every day i don't see a lot of activity there the city pays four hundred and twelve thousand dollars a year for that can't we eliminate that at least that's four hundred twelve thousand dollars that we could reduce something else that's just one item i'm sure there's more thank you thank you very much billy roach 33483 for two years in a row this commission has asked taxpayers for more money while leaving one very important fact out of the budget presentation delray beach's tax base has grown by over 50 percent mom and pop shops on atlantic avenue are being replaced by big commercial buildings this government is taking in far more revenue than it was when the millage rate was actually going down now amendment three is on the november ballot which could mean real relief for homeowners and instead of supporting it city officials are running a fear campaign we're told to expect expect cuts to services and community events delray's own cfo mr dakowitz here was quoted in the local paper warning that if taxpayers get a chance to save some money they'll take it as if that's a problem every official making that argument is a city employee paid with the same tax dollars that they're asking to increase that is a direct conflict of interest and residents deserve to hear it said plainly we're told by mr marker here that the city is cut to the bone i'd ask this commission how many families in delray actually cut to the bone this year how many small businesses on atlantic avenue closed with no safety net while city revenue keeps growing you keep telling us there's nothing left to cut while your own tax base just grew 50 percent that's not a budget crisis that's a government that stopped being honest with the people paying for it here's what taxpayers got for that revenue we had a holiday parade mr marker said oh we might have to cut that that built to the grand finale countdown for the christmas tree lighting three two one and then half of the tree stays dark i looked around like only delray thousands of people and half of the trees dark you couldn't even get the christmas tree lit how symbolic of the city's incompetence a pitiful fourth of july fireworks display two out of the last three years that didn't even come close to boyton or bokeh we watched boyton boom beautiful display bokeh boom delray timu fireworks it was weak two out of the last three years we have an amphitheater at old school square it still hasn't recovered and a pavilion rebuild costing taxpayers nearly a million dollars because of its city's own procurement mistake revenue to the city is up 50 services are flat or worse i believe there's real fat left in this budget and i'm asking this commission to hold the city manager accountable for finding it before squeezing us residents for more when you vote to rate raise taxes again while cutting services and taking no ownership of these failures that vote should not go unchallenged although civic engagement in delray beach is noticeably low two people here to talk about taxes taxpayers outnumber this government by a wide margin please represent the fit the people who fund the city not your own political interests thank you very much okay so i'm not going to repeat everything i said the last meeting uh but you have to miss the page can you introduce yourself name name name and zip code please for the record greg page three three four four four sorry i forgot about that uh all right so we need to get more money obviously we have it at our hands uh i was mentioning the short-term rentals this is real money i know that's not going to fix right now however just by chatting with some of the other residents here i learned that it is easy to collect the short-term rentals we're not doing it but other cities such as flagler beach is i just heard about that i didn't know that it was that easy so we're leaving thirteen percent of the of the short-term rental money on the table and you're asking us to increase the amount that we're paying the other gentleman mentioned the increase in the value of our property that is incredible amount of money sure and you don't have to raise the rate on us as well to reach it because i i don't understand how the budget jumped so much when even if we didn't have a population increase the property increase went up i don't know this stuff i've watched uh uh the gentleman's uh the cfo's uh material on the screen i'm not going to say that i can figure that out without sitting down with it in my hand for a long period of time just like you've done you've done a lot of work on it you know this stuff better than the rest of us do i think that you guys can find a way to take the increased money that you've been receiving and put it to better use uh there's also ways of helping people who have long-term rentals who are suffering you don't realize that uh the tax base on us we our prop uh property tax is going up we can't collect that from our uh tenants routinely it's every year that we can go back and ask for an increase uh so what we have is uh in other areas a homestead uh exemption for our regular properties businesses have 25 000 i think it is or more uh homes of exemptions before they have to put in the amount of money for their taxes maybe we can come up with something for the long-term renter uh rental properties that are going ahead bringing in lower rents for the workforce who we need to live here uh bringing in community uh cohesion it's all in the uh information that i gave you before it is submitted into record is it the uh the emails and everything okay all right well i don't need to hold you up for much more than that thank you very much sir thank you back again twice in the night mitch cast three three four four five um i was when i left this commission my last budget we passed was 118 million dollars it's now less than 10 years later it's 214 million almost doubled in 10 years i can tell you my salary and my home expenses has not doubled in 10 years i wish my salary doubled in the last 10 years i mean it's increased but definitely not almost 100 percent the overall expenses the city when i left was 266 million it's now 715 million that's triple worth spending now i will tell you services has improved over the last 10 years there are a lot of things the city has done to improve services especially in the planning zoning like the building department a lot of improvements police fire a lot of improvements were made but the numbers are just it's like it's like it's people just pulling them it's like give you some money and i will spend it no matter what um in 2012 one of the members here was on the board when the last city manager or mr hardin's last budget wanted to impose a fire district and it was about a three and a half million dollar deficit and they said no and he said well you have to do this because i can't find three and a half million dollars they said no two weeks later guess what happened poof we found three and a half million dollars and not one service was cut the the mayor and i can't address him but the previous meeting said um about making cuts and then somebody else said they shouldn't like where's your cuts that's not his job that's not your job and i applaud one of your commissioners here i saw a lot of emails today when she did the the city manager's job and found millions of dollars in cuts she shouldn't have to do that none of you should have to do that that's why you hire professionals to do that and i agree with the mayor that the manager and the staff need to go back and figure out how did we get here how did we get from 10 years ago 214 million sorry yeah whatever that number is how do we don't how do we get to these crazy numbers over 10 years so every year and then this this drawing from that what really drives me crazy is you're saying you're going to take four and a half million dollars from the reserves well it's no big deal because you're going to change the percentage well what's going to happen next year and so what you're going to do is you're going to i hate to use the word screw over you're going to screw over the guys that are going to take your place in a few years because you're all going to be termed out somebody kind of said well they wiped out our reserves because they couldn't figure out that four and a half million dollars because guess what it's four and a half million dollars this year it's going to be eight million dollars next year ten million dollars that 40 million dollars is gone like that so you got to start figuring out where you're spending this money what where is all this going i mean it's just at some point you know as a family or a city we got to figure out if our expenses can't match what we're bringing in there's something we've got to do to make it more streamlined and more effective thank you thank you very much good evening my name is jason bodnick i live at 407 southeast fourth avenue so to dovetail mitch's comments my background just for so you understand where i'm coming from is finance so having looked at some figures that the mayor provided and i decided to dig in to the financial audits that you file with the state from 2014 to 2024 and look at trends where our money is spent so when you look at those numbers something pretty glaring comes out so if you adjust for inflation and for population the city spends about 40 percent more per resident than it did in 2015 today and looks like in 2026 that's going to grow and when you look at the line items the administrative operating costs are the highest growth line item in the budget year over year so what do you determine from that data what it says to me is when i'm comparing it to other city services that the cost to deliver the service has grown immensely which means we're not efficient means that we should be able to do things with less resources that we should be able to automate more because if you were and at the end of the day you compare delivering services to our private sector enterprise you still have to deliver and be accountable and you have to do it at a dollar figure so what i did was i examined the general fund operating spending between 2015 20 to 2024 we adjusted for population and for inflation and after adjusting for both real operating spending per resident rose 40 percent spending substantially more per person in constant dollars with the steepest increases concentrated in administrative overhead rather than services delivered to residents this is a classic signature of declining operational efficiency um i can provide the i think i emailed to the commission or to the mayor a two-page memo that outlines where the spending has been the the highest when you start to look at 2015 to 2024 and you adjust for nominal dollars there's 157 percent increase in just administrative expenses and the same cannot be said for parks public safety those are much lower so you have to look here you have to look at staff you have to look at operate of your own internal operations and just because the dollars collected goes up doesn't mean the dollars spent should increase the reserves have not increased as a matter of fact they're down 1.8 percent on a year-over-year basis why not increase the reserves why spend it all thank you thank you very much i did get your email by the way thank you i did get your email by the way you had some good fact i wish i'd had them before i wrote my i could have included some of your stuff in what i wrote by the way i just want you it's all public data well no i understand that you spent a lot of time analyzing it and i and that i appreciate it anyway sir my name is check ridley i 33444 have to get used to this new format um so tax relief i'm for that my community needs every penny that it it can save but when we talk about tax relief that money has to come from somewhere and where does it come from my concern is as you make your decisions will you also take into account that there are some communities that need the investment the only that the that you can bring to it with a history of being neglected cra investments mean something to the neighborhood that i call home the neighborhood northwest improvement plan means something to the neighborhood that i call home parks and recreation and what they provide for families mean something particularly when the cost of going out is so high housing repair means something to the neighbors i call home and as you look for all this flush money that you got that i don't know where it is um there are neighborhoods that you need to protect i live in one of those the other hat i wear is for the blue collar workers because as you talk about staff you do not you are not overstaffed on the folk who work the hardest in some of the dirtiest and nastiest jobs that you have to keep this city looking beautiful and you never see them but you'll see them if you start cutting their ability to do their work you don't want sewer backing up on the street i promise you that you do not want to not have these parks look the way they look you don't want public works not to be able to do what they do and these folk are working far below far below what it takes to live in south florida so yes let's make sure that we're efficient but let's remember that it must this budget must not be budgeted on or balanced on the backs of neighborhoods that have been neglected and for workers who deserve much more consideration thank you for letting me share thank you very much you're up leonard searles i don't know what the number is i came here about the mill rate and uh we were on that you're that's what we're talking about so right right right no i know the zip code of your residence mr searles the res the zip code of your residence your home where do you live your zip code okay the property i'm talking about is a commercial property and i bought it from the ninth mayor up there i can't remember her name but i bought it in 72 my my family has been here uh since 1930 and we've paid that property is located in 33444 just to help you out so there thank you uh and most most of my family's gone now but we've paid millions of dollars in taxes and it's going to sound like uh some people have said well lenny you don't want to pay your taxes that's not true i've paid taxes and i've benefited from all the things and and i've looked at other cities and how they're doing based on uh compared to delray beach and i'm happy i'm here there's really no other place i'd like to go and i don't want things to start to fall apart i do have a problem with and i'm thinking about you know uh this one particular property that i bought from that lady and i can't she was in the roofing business and she sold sold me that property at 140 northeast 4th avenue and uh i paid on it for 20 years never really did much with it i was in the carpet cleaning business and uh finally i wanted to build a building there and i went down to the city and they said no we we see that we see that area for boutiques and restaurants we don't want the carpet cleaning plant said i'm not in a carpet cleaning plant i have a store and i set people up i'm not even cleaning carpet anymore i set people up they come here i set them up in business so i have a store that sells equipment chemicals finally they said okay we're going to let you build this warehouse there and when i got it built they gave me an award for it that was great so uh but when i look at the taxes when i built that building uh i i don't know the taxes might have been two three thousand dollars a year now they just keep going up so i'm not in business anymore and because it's right next to the house that my grandmother bought that i lived in the little cottage in the back went to went to old school square here for the first two or three years i i'm connected to it and and i've had plenty of people say to me well if you can't pay your taxes uh why don't you sell your property and i say well i got a for sale sign in the back of my car where do you live why don't we go over and put this for sale sign in front of your house well i don't have a problem i said well i i do because you keep the taxes keep going up up up up up and now i'm at the point where i'm not in business anymore i'm not in the best of health i'm still good but i'm not in the best of health and so i can't keep paying more more more and so the non-homesteaded properties now it's not just me and it's i think it's a universal property problem if somebody comes here you need to wrap this up sir um i will okay if somebody comes here from another state and they buy a house and they go into business uh and they need a place to work but the tap taxes keep going up up up up uh we get into a a situation where eventually they're forced out of the area and i did i did i'm looking at jeff perlman up there uh he was in my building at one point and i i had a property that i bought i'm just getting to the end here yeah i'm getting to the end uh so i couldn't build on it and and it was only too narrow and so they said well the land trust can buy it and i don't know if everybody's here is familiar with the land trust but i sold it to the land trust the land trust is for people that have basic jobs and maybe sir i'm gonna have to cut you off that's fine maybe they work at publics but and so i appreciate sir thank you very much for your input okay are there any other members of the public wishing to speak seeing or hearing none public comment is closed um it's to us now correct correct all right i'm going to start by by i mean i everyone saw that i wrote emails and all this other kind of stuff so talking about what i believe i'm not talking about what anybody else what do i believe because the common theme as we all because i mean we are in a hot political season at the moment reading everything about everybody running the common theme about every single political campaign every single poll that's being taken the number one thing that everyone's worried about is affordability affordability you know we have we have the highest property insurance in the country here in florida highest property insurance in the country price of gas is up price of food is up interest rates there already was an interest rate increase last week by the federal reserve there's going to do another one they think probably it's going to be november if it's not it's going to be december which is going to add additional um burdens to the people who can at least afford it and the what i'm meaning by that is anyone with an adjustable rate mortgage any renter because your commercial properties are are are not don't get fixed rates so all these renters so the people who can least afford it i mean we can price people out of our neighborhoods by because the people who can't afford it are not going to be able to afford it and um so we have increasing we have everything increasing around us i i like the statistics about how much how much our our taxes going up our taxes have gone up like the revenues have gone up 45 in the last five years and i know people say well you know we did that rollback rate but the the reason we raised taxes last year because they're going to make that excuse again well we did the rollback rate two years ago last year we raised rates because of the rollback rate the prior year we did the analysis now what they don't tell you when they're going to say this what they're going to tell you is in that period where we did the rollback rate in the subsequent year 350 million dollars in increased properties came on the record 1.5 billion dollars in taxable value increase from 24 to 25 and from 25 to 26 each year 1.5 billion i understand the issue about whether we're in a bubble or not we've been in we have been very lucky in delray for a long long time we have a number of properties are going to be coming online we talk about well you know it's it's it's it's a year late we're a year late anyway i mean we're budgeting now for the money we're not going to get till till november and december we're all we're always we're always 10 months behind so that kind of excuse saying well therefore we shouldn't look at it we are always 10 months behind we pay our taxes and arrears so we know that 2027 is going to be adding more property to this thing we know this i mean there's already 77 co's that were issued through the end of june at close to 100 million dollars in value um so we know it's coming and we know more it's going to come in 2028 so i look at all the balances and i say if i don't do anything if i keep my rollback if i keep my god i love the rollback but if um if i keep the rate exactly this way it is today everybody in this room in every neighborhood every person every property owner is going to pay seven percent more because it's seven percent more if we keep the same millage so now the homestead properties get a break but the renters won't and what i'm what's being proposed is that we should we should have them pay over ten percent i i'm you know you know i think we talk about rainy day funds i would suggest people look at the economic picture now and ask whether or not we're having an economic tempest at the moment because i think we're having an economic storm so to pretend that we're not to pretend that everybody is not being severely impacted by this economy is delusional and i'm being polite because you know we we we pay our taxes and arrears you know the property values are going up and you know i'm going to talk about reserves for a second because i know that's going to come up and i have i i sat very closely and i met with mr moore and and and he has assured me that if we go if we keep the same millage plus we we adopt the the uh the debt service millage but we keep the same operating knowledge of 6.1611 he can do he can operate the city we're not going to cut salaries we're not going to cut people we're not going to cut this this is what he says and i believe him because i got it you know we we got it all down here but when we talk about operating we talk and by the way with this with this 6.1611 we'll be at a at a reserves of 18.9 now we can say well you know we that's that we're cutting we're doing this when you do a close analysis and i had someone do this for me thank god it wasn't me i had an expert do it but anyway when you talk about reserves we talk about the proposed balance of 18.9 percent first of all it does s p looks at anything over the tiers of ratings by the way for s p starts at 15 so whether you're 15 18 19 28 36 you don't change you're still in the top tier so it that so that that there's nonsense about the rating um uh and if we need to if we need to raise funds and look at rainy day funds are important but if we really did have that rainy day we have the ability to go out and raise money it's it's we're kidding ourselves because the state of florida allows it to go to 10 mills we could no they would never they'd run me out of town to go to 10 mills but i could raise 78 million dollars extra in a year with being able to increase my millage just by increasing my millage so if we need to raise additional funds in emergency we can the the whatever you're saying you're arbitrary we're using arbitrary numbers because the gfoa says well you need to have two months operating well at 18.9 we actually have 2.2 months and here was the interesting analysis from the credit agency that i spoke to the guy from who does he used to do these things for the for because you know i used to do bonds and so i spoke to the guy when how do you go out and get ratings and how do you look at reserves and he said there are the the there are four steps he says first of all he said you your five steps he says first of all your revenues continue he said you're not like a corner pizza parlor our revenues are going to continue because their taxes continue to get paid anyway so our revenues are not going to stop and they're going to be based by the way on the higher value if we stay with the same millage we're still going to make an additional seven million dollars 6.9 million i guess the number was if we do nothing and that's assuming that's using the july one number and they they are all saying that that's going to be higher they're all saying it's going to be higher because they were only predicting what was going to close by the end of the year so that number is going to be higher that's number one so we will actually do better income wise than than than the than the 6.9 million in addition the second thing they said was um if if um if it tax the so the second thing they said was you already have employees that they people confuse what you do when you're trying to draw on reserves the first thing the city is going to do assuming they've already got the money coming in which they will first thing this day the city is going to do is we already have the equipment the resources the trucks and everything that to deploy our own assets and i spoke to former city manager david harden over the weekend i said what did you do during hurricane irma what did you do during hurricane francis he said we never had to go into our reserves because and i'm not even talking reimbursables okay someone won't say the theme is not me i'm not even talking reimbursables because you don't even get to your reserves until you do all these things which is so now you already have your employees and equipment that are redeployed to meet the emergency so much of the cost by the way it's the salaries the trucks the gas all that other kind of stuff on our own employees is already built into our budget that's not an increased number so your parks and rec people your public works people they start doing other kinds of things capital projects are delayed but they they they still it's not doesn't you're not getting into your reserves third thing they said was the city can manage well this was the other thing that what i just kind of alluded to that you can slow down capital projects or reprioritize expenditures and but only then after all these things after you've gone through all your employees doing all their work and everybody do only then do you start hitting your reserves only then do you start because it's not necessary meanwhile your revenues are still coming in so it's it's it's foolish to say that the the the total increase in in delray's um tax values from 24 to 26 uh it's up 16.58 percent but i would assure you that you know our somebody alluded to how fast our expenses are going our expenses are are eclipsing these numbers you know boca raton's only 14.22 boynton beach is 12. i mean now they have additional fees but we've i'm also talking here earlier today about creating additional fees you know i mean there are so many areas where i believe the city manager and this commission can find ways to make money you know we have llc's that own real estate in this in this town that we do not consider in our taxes we do not make that even though they're filing annual reports we don't make them we don't make them get business tax receipts i don't we're the only one that doesn't everyone everyone else does you own a piece of rental property in in in these other communities you have to pay a business tax receipt for owning your rental property we don't do that we say no we don't need to do that with llc why that's money so i mean there are there are so many different things that we can do we mentioned a few about the how i want to make development services you know essentially a not a profit center as i said but i don't want them to be a loss center and some of the everyone else charges for all these things we need to do so there's there are so many things that we can do that i just cannot support in this year burdening the people with more than they're going to be burdened for by just keeping the same millage of 6.1611 and that's i just think that we are you know there's that all you know raising taxes is always a bad thing but raising taxes against the backdrop of our current financial situation is nuts and you can't look at your reserves in a vacuum without considering what else is coming online you just can't do it and it's a great argument to say well you know proposition excuse me amendment three could come yeah it could but that affects us in fiscal years 27 and 28 well guess what the property values that i'm talking about going up are also in guess what fiscal year 27 and 28 it's not yet you it's like you want to take the the the crisis now and apply it to this year when it's two years out as of the real estate gains we're going to be making so that is my i mean that's i've kind of renditioned my my article that i was out there but the most important part was i i i have the assurance from the city manager that we can do this by keeping the same millage and it will drop the fund balance ratio to 18.9 which i is still three points above what s p said we need because everyone you don't look at your reserve because the other thing that the guy said was and i thought it was very good i got got a he said you have unused taxing capability yeah i got all that but he talked about the the the develop our how our rapid development here has created such a financial buffer that we are really blessed you know so you and and you just can't look at the reserve percentage the reserve percentage in isolation to all these other factors which is what we're having a tendency of doing we're saying well we need this rainy day fund well it's raining but it's not raining the rain rain is what people's checkbook every month so i am not in favor of increasing the tax rate at all already and i mean i'm not happy that we're not going to the rollback because i want people to pay no more than they paid last year but even if we keep the exact same millage today they're going to be paying seven percent more and they're going to say well that time is a tax increase yeah it probably is but at least i'm not raising at least i'm not raising their tax rates and we've already raised our tax rates last year to make up for what we did two years ago so that argument doesn't work anymore because when you do the math it doesn't work it doesn't work so that's my opinion anyway now i finished my as my mother would say pontificating and um do you want me to go who would like to go next i'll do commissioner casal uh mayor could you speak to those two statements uh excuse me mr moore that the mayor said about going to 6.1 would be fine mayor carney a few days ago and other members of the commission had asked me about the prospect of maintaining the existing millage rate of is that your recommendation and that's what i'm asking no we've made our recommendations multiple times specify what that is verbally please i'm sorry i'm attempting to respond you've asked me again please what would you like for me to answer i would like to know what your recommendation is the mayor just said your recommendation is 6.1 no he did not say that was the recommendation if i may i did not say that the recommendation as we've communicated in the last several weeks was 6.3501 for the reasons we stated for the reasons we've communicated to get to the best position we possibly can in terms of fund balance with the contributions having been made by you and others in previous discussions much appreciate that and bless you i was asked by a couple of elected officials individually who've expressed an interest regarding the existing military position of 6.1611 what would that look like in the event that there was an interest to proceed in that direction and so running the math running the calculus etc the econometrics i should say based on a fund balance position of 18.9 percent as opposed to 20.27 percent so a difference of 1.37 percent swing on the military against the fund against the military of one 6.1611 versus the recommended 6.3501 that's the difference that was the basis of that dialogue not only with mayor carney i briefly had a word with mayor so you're not recommending that when he said you said it's okay you're not saying that that's doable you're just giving them the math options of how that could would look and essentially what you're saying is in order to get there we have to take additional money from our reserves the reserve balance position would be 18.9 and to be clear i've had this discussion with commissioner malica one-on-one i briefly dialogue with commissioner excuse me vice mayor burns a couple weeks ago about that potential possibility going from the 6.3 to 6.1 on a 500 000 value gives a a home with 500 000 seven dollars in is it 84 cents a month right and and but but we can go into our reserves down to 18 percent 18.9 nearly 19 percent it would be okay we had a study you had a study done by our staff that suggested it be 21 percent this is where i'm excuse me what study was that our auditor produced something for the city the auditor quoted what the policy is that's no no she didn't quote the policy she did i saw i asked the auditor that very question monday i saw it so i'm just telling you i saw it now so as we sit here here's my biggest concern because i feel like people need to understand how we come to a number in the budget we vote on things and that creates a cost and then we take those costs tally them together and say this is how much millage we need tonight we voted in 10 million dollars of expenses right here and no one even knew it on our consent agenda it's it's affordability is a giant issue but when you're talking about being fiscally responsible you have to do it every day billy you come here a couple times a year come every meeting and see what's going on there's a lot happening here and it's a lot of spending i'm not critiquing my colleague mayor yes you did the same thing you did last year created a document you said we had to make up for no don't you didn't lose because of me you lost because it wasn't a good idea but when you put out these documents start putting out the facts accurately our staffing level is up 17.28 percent according to hr you just no excuse me because this document produced by our hr department i don't know what i don't know what hr said i got him off the city i got it off the audit no you're not you should get it from the source that works last year you put out inaccurate information here's what's incorrect you keep interrupting me and i'd appreciate if you would stop i'm sorry go ahead you're correct the problem is here's the problem in a nutshell you've called three meetings and said we need to cut you've given no cuts whatsoever not one cut i put forth how much mr moore 4.4 million dollars worth of cuts 1.4 came out of overtime 1.45 million on that whole list of things i gave you the other day and the other day 1.55 million 4.4 million dollars of cuts i'm working for the residents but here's the problem if you stay if you stay right where you are today right with your employees currently in place the cost of pay increases that have already been contractually obligated to your police department to your fire department to your seiu union that includes health care colas pensions and the like comes up to ten point five four million ten point five four so if you stay at the six point one that the mayor recommends you have six million dollars you're four short that's it so what are you going to cut the mayor won't come up with a cut he doesn't want to cut the parades you won't commit to that you don't want to cut you don't want to take one off the ambulance that'll save us two or three million you didn't want to do that last year when we talked about it if you want it that's that you have to cut i'm not going to well where are the cuts coming from doesn't make it true no it's true people can go watch the meetings you have cut nothing and you've spent more than anyone up here if we want to talk about your spending just for a second okay these are the two last police contracts total of 16.4 million dollars over three years this fiscal year alone 7.7 million dollars is necessary in addition to what was already being paid the year before an additional 7.7 million dollars that's a commission vote bless you you voted for that excuse me excuse me you voted i'm not going to let you get away with you didn't vote for the police contract did you you wrote it it's in the minutes first of all i voted against it no you didn't you voted for the no no i voted to ratify the contract as per the law lie the city attorney you voted for no i'm the chair you voted for that and now you're telling people you did it you're out of order now because i've just ruled you out of order would you please explain explain the vote would you explain please explain what the law was you can't get away with that september 15th you're used to making decisions that get to city lawsuits but would you please which one would you please rendition what what the vote was to ratify the contract so it was it was during an impasse and the city commission um in the middle of the impasse be presented an offer that was accepted right it needed to be reduced to writing yes so while the commission and i believe it was a three-two vote during the impasse who voted for the who voted against it at that meeting you and commissioner cassell and when we got to the day of gratifying the contract what was the vote that day 4-1 with the mayor voting for it would you explain to her what we voted on because i know what we voted on you voted on the contract you really should go to law school it's in the i know you stated a holiday and express so you don't probably don't have that's charming can we mayor i need to finish my comments would you would you please explain to her what we voted on fair in in the minutes the mayor indicated that he he was voting against the contract but this was just but he was just going along with the rest but he voted yes but at the end of the day at the end of the day you were required to just like you voted for it and it's a seven million dollar contract this year okay here's something else you voted on it follows you we would have had a lawsuit dollar contract we would have a lawsuit no it's called unfair labor practice it's like yes it is stop talking when i'm talking well stop here's a 15 here's a 15 million dollar contract that cost us over a million this year the bottom line point of all of this is when these things are voted in you're paying for them that's the bottom line and there are hundreds and thousands of dollars okay the police contract the fire cola was additional two million dollars this year so there's a seven million dollar for the police contract two million for the fire cola one million in equipment you wanted croquet for 400 000 thank god that didn't happen visioning was what 150 000 we paid this year for visioning that went nowhere you're spending money is the point you're spending money and then in in your votes and at the end of the day you have to pay for it you can't spend it you can't sit here and vote yes to these expenses billy jean king 250 000 must go lighting 732 no it wasn't coming out we didn't vote for it but look i agree we have to scrutinize our spending now i'm finishing my time because you hold you can't spend every day vote yes on everything and then at the end of the year look around and say i can't understand why these costs are increasing i don't understand 23 percent pay increase to the police and i'm not saying they don't deserve it but where who's paying for it taxpayers in the budget take responsibility for your votes you voted on union contracts professional services consultants maintenance technology cola increases who's paying for that you mean the one-time cola increase for the employees who hadn't had a cola increase we just voted on a 3.5 percent cola increase excuse me i'm not saying i dispute the mayor i don't dispute i voted on that i think it's a good good thing to vote on we voted on a cola increase for the fire department tonight two million dollars i'm not saying it's a bad thing but i'm not up here saying i don't understand how the costs have increased that's what you're saying no you don't because you're sitting here saying we have to cut them okay are you no i'm not i'm not you can't keep asking residents why the costs have increased and not be transparent about why and it's all the votes up here every day including the 10 million one today i identified real cuts in our meeting and i identified them after and i applaud you for that thank you we all have the same but at the end of the day well oh stop i asked you what yours were and you couldn't answer three times stop so you're talking about giving people a reduction from six one from six three to six one and giving seven dollars and 88 cents a month but going through our reserves i think i'm going to ask mr dakowitz to use the the remainder of my time our job is to make sure delray beach can be fiscally stable not just this year but in the future and this vote's going to be a problem mr dakowitz can you explain why we need the reserves because we're going out on funding for four big projects can you also explain again what the determination today means for the future please yes um i have to disagree mayor with your assessment that s&p feels that anything over 15 is equal 15 35 35 75 are not equal the size of the reserve compared to the expenditures is a major factor in their assessments you cannot just say that anything over 15 is the same 15 to 19 to 20 sure that's in the ballpark but all that's not accurate okay and so the reality is all credits in florida are under a microscope now because with what is it appendix three and and and the referendum there's a challenge to our revenues and the governor said he doesn't want to just go 250 000 500 he wants to go to zero on all homesteads that's a major challenge to our revenues with no replacement of revenues and every every governmental entity has to examine that there are projections that smaller governments will have to disband or go bankrupt okay i i think there's a tremendous hypocrisy going around here right where we talk about all the taxpayers who are under burdens from the economy and their salaries are not going up with costs cost of living and anyone who uses the government's three and a half percent inflation rate is naive it's at least twice as much there's a place called shadow stats where all they do is calculate inflation the way it was calculated in the 1980s but the government changes all of that because if the inflation rate is too high they have to pay more money okay but the point is if the taxpayers are under pressure we're running a 200 220 million dollar operation are we not subject to inflation i say we have a higher inflation we have three very strong unions we have unions that command five to nine percent increase per year i come from the north i'm not used to this in the south where the police and fire departments are the third rail of politics no one will touch them no one will examine them and scrutinize them my mayor in norwalk connecticut hired efficiency consultants and what we got is a retired police chief and a retired fire chief who went through the departments looked at headcount do we really need so many people and looked at how much we're compensating everybody if it was a business you and i owned that's exactly what we do but because police and fire are very well supported by the community no one touches the expenses they do a great job but it's not like new york city where things are burning down and the policemen take their hands in their lives every night about coming home okay that's number one number two we have three strong unions so police and fire are 52 percent of our budget the rest of the budget is at least 70 percent people i explored what layoffs would entail the problem is with unions the cuts are not based on merit the lowest performance jack welch ge let's cut the bottom 10 15 percent every year to have efficiencies we can't do that it's based on tenure the longer you've been here you stay the younger kids i'm not sure that's your role to to to to to educate me may i please finish it's not just for you gentlemen no but but it's really not i mean may i please finish mr city manager the commissioner asked me a question may i finish his page why do we interrupt each other all the time let's ask your boss i'm not concerned there's a protocol roberts roose of water she asked me a question i'm answering if if you're not going to let me answer why should i sit here you may have the i have 50 years experience gentlemen gentlemen mr this is ridiculous i've forgotten more than the expertise on this commission i'm sorry i'm sorry no please let me finish it's rude and it's not proper yeah that i agree with so 52 percent police and fire we're not going to look at them 70 percent layoffs we're not looking them either because the wrong people would be laid off and then we can go to all the other decisions that every commission here we have i've examined special projects special events nobody has the will to do that so the point is we have a cost problem here we have inflation that's worse than what people have in their individual budgets and we don't have the political will or the smarts to do the cost cutting okay that's the bottom line so we have to pay for it i want to remind everyone about another factor that the tax assessor and tax collector that i supervised in norwalk taught me we have costs we have a budget we have our total expenses minus revenue is what we have to fund using real estate values is just one method of apportioning how people pay if we did it per head if we did it based on users it would be regressive and people at lower incomes would pay more and people at higher incomes would pay less that's the reason why we allocate ad valorem taxes based on real estate values the assumption is if you're in a million dollar house you can afford more taxes than the person who's in a 200 000 house we shouldn't be blamed for having ad valorem taxes based on real estate values but to say as someone said our budget doubled in 10 years you know what that is seven percent per year compounded that's the inflation rate blame the federal government which is basically bankrupt okay we have to get our house in order there are two ways to do it one is to look at the expenses and really cut them even though they're unpalatable take off your hat i run finance you guys have constituencies who voted for you and supported you to get elected it's time to take off the provincial hat and put on the city hat what's the right thing for the city not just the people who support me because we're all going to be a little unhappy if we do it right but we have to cut the costs i agree with you we should be cutting costs so which costs would you like to cut let's not my job but where are we and unless you unless i have to tell you unless we put you you do the millers right and you force people to make cuts they don't make them here we've proven that time and time are you willing to cut the police and fire department you know joe bruso took 25 million out of the budget are you willing to do that it's not my job it's his job it is mr mayor may have the floor please may have the floor please i need to ask everybody to please settle down relax because we've had numerous meetings we've had numerous discussions we've made our recommendations we've explained our recommendations the merits and the rationale behind the recommendations based on econometrics and other data analytics metrics etc so that's clear it's time for the commission to offer this decision i've had this discussion a couple meetings now september 8th we talked about it resulting in the tentative adoption of 6.3501 for the reasons we stated however getting back to what my job is you are all absolutely right about that you are definitely right about that mr mayor miss casal you are absolutely correct we appreciate the contributions given my experiences as a long-term city manager multiple cities including this one it's okay and appropriate for elected officials to make recommendations with respect to adjustments and that was accomplished by you commissioner casal we appreciate the contribution because of course that gave us the opportunity to review and analysis and we said okay number one prior to all that much analysis was accomplished to help us yield a recommendation while striking the balance with respect to what the fund balance possibilities can be also working with everybody spending time with each of you all individually i am asked about different scenarios and opportunities and outcomes what that might look like and as a city manager i have an obligation to share with individual elected officials as i engage and interact and build trust and rapport with each of you all to talk about what that might look like in that vein i work with all concerned to prepare several different scenarios millage rate x millage rate y millage rate z what the outcomes would be fund balance one fund balance two fund balance three i have those discussions as a economist i like to do that that makes sense and that's part of the package so i would like to ask the commission because we've had these discussions before a lot of what mr dacre was just talked about we've had those discussions and presentations before i need for you ladies and gentlemen to please offer your direction staff has done their job i've done my job i need direction and we have a couple opportunities in which to get there we've offered our recommendations we've been pretty consistent about the recommendations we took under consideration the thoughts and suggestions regarding cuts adjustments we've made them we've incorporated them and we've done some more on our own above and beyond that to get us to where we need to be and mr dacre was correct your comments are correct nobody's wrong here nobody is wrong here ladies and gentlemen i need to allow the department of finance they've done that work there's really nothing more to say to talk about i'm referring now deferring now part of my language part of me to the city commission to offer direction let's talk because we need a supermajority position so that we can get on with it we've done the work there's nothing more to say or argue about or discuss well the carne casal doc which shows it's going to stay down for it because there's three more commissioners that need to speak really yes well my direction as city manager i'm asking to allow the department of finance to sit tight and accept the direction once we get to that place i don't wish to continue to create a lengthy heated debate because we've done it already before we've explained we've offered analysis and we've talked about different scenarios across the board so i'm asking you all to please focus in that regard so that we can come to a conclusion i'm your staff member not them at the moment so that we can facilitate what makes sense so that we can live for fiscal year 2026 2027 and beyond okay commissioner malika would you like to be recognized certainly i will so i'm feeling like our peeps are at their wits end so i'm thinking it's coming down to two things what the recommended millage rate of 6.3501 does that include the debt that's enough no okay thank you does the 6.1611 include the debt no the debt is a very small understood understood this is operating what people are concerned about thank you so the 6.3501 with a 20.27 percent reserve or stay at the same rate we were last year at 6.1611 which would reduce our reserves to 18.9 are those the two scenarios am i understanding that accurately and there's a potential third one we can come up with a number of other scenarios but those were what was discussed let's stick with these two let's just stick with these two and i know there was a little money found from last meeting right because of reclaimed water at the um cemetery correct not yet that's a separate analysis that would affect during the course of the fiscal year i'll bring more information about that but that's not part of this analysis in either scenario i'm going to keep that a secret then too late we'll have more to come got it so what is the difference in the 18.9 percent reserve and the 20.27 percent reserve with return with regard to our ability to borrow money with or without amendment three that which hasn't passed if it did we're we already know we're not looking good but let's just say everything's just like it is what's the difference between 18.9 percent and and don't give me the math and 20.27 percent with regard to what rate our loan would be or our bond would be is do you get any distinguishable rate that you can think of this is the response i would offer to that effect so it's the swing of one one point three seven percent twenty point twenty seven versus eighteen point nine right so in the case of s p global ratings and moody's investor service they would look to see the city do the best they can to continue to replenish this fund balance position so in terms of a swing in that regard it would probably not make much of a difference at all as long as we continue to do what we can i agree with mr dacu is what the rating agencies are primarily concerned about is aggregate impact as a result of amendment three coming to fruition what municipalities will do in the aftermath of that with respect to to revenue issues challenges etc they'll look to see if the city of delray beach can come up with alternative solutions to raise fees and do whatever else we possibly can to to to take care of expenditure adjustments in that regard this sounds so fiscally irresponsible the way that you're answering this question concerns me it's our both of the rating agencies and judy i have the letters s and p and moody's rated us at the time because we had thirty percent reserves which we can't do we we did it was only a couple years ago judy we're blowing through them this is really concerning i sat up here in 2023 they were at 35 percent and that is why i feel very passionately and strongly about protecting our reserves we have a policy in this city it used to be 25 in order to make the rollback rate work the policy had to be changed to be flexible 21 to 25 because at that time it was going down to 21 percent because we needed that money from the reserves to make the budget work we also that year did not we we decided to forego a two million dollar paving program for over two years and we didn't we we didn't hire staffing there were effects of that but the real effects are going to be when we go out and borrow because when we were borrowing we were at thirty percent we're not even close to thirty percent so when you're saying well what's the difference between 21 and 20 or 20 and 18 it's irrelevant it's what's the difference between the 30 when we got the bond ratings that's what we have to look at mr mayor may i please respond i actually asked that question cut the analysis you're basing a reserve when on on a different taxable value the taxable values have gone up so much in the last four years if i may mr mayor please that does get taken under consideration so if i may mr dagowitz answer this as the financial professional i think we should be referring financial questions to the financial profession okay well i'm a financial professional as well and i'm not being fiscally irresponsible i never do that that's not what i'm about so i have to provide that on the record i was continuing the dialogue there's various metrics there's various outcomes variables that take that under consideration again speaking from experiences in multiple places to that effect so i applaud and appreciate all feedback and contributions yet i have some as well so i am a professional to that effect and i am knowledgeable and that's the current reality of the day there are multiple considerations that take shape and the biggest focus right now as mr dagowitz did talk about earlier is what all municipalities in florida will be faced with should amendment three come to fruition so we need to get our ducks in a roll should we get to that place so that we can get to a place in define what our future would be and that may take the form of other operational adjustments that may take the form of other fees that would have to be adopted to offset revenue losses etc so all of that is taken under consideration there are multiple variables multiple points of analysis that the rating agencies do take under consideration that's all i'm saying it's not fiscally irresponsible at all it's actually responsible it's real it's a truthful statement one you're saying it's one percent point one it's not it's it's it's you're comparing a time when we had thirty percent to attempt to the time now so what's our millage if we have a retainer thirty percent um reserves just kidding don't do it's i get consider about nine nine mils yeah i'd like to ask that angela and i be here be heard we're sitting here we we've not put our opinions on the table i don't think that's fair and i think we should all try to be more respectful about this i don't like the energy up here i don't like it at all finished commissioner yes thank you okay commissioner yeah yeah yeah um so when we had our previous meeting um and we discussed the budget i was uh prepared to uh uh to support the adjusted millage rate of the 6.350 um and that was brought forward by the city manager and staff because that was based on information that was before us at the time however since that time i think that there's two points of information that has been added which um helps me support holding at a 6.1 and one of them is the fact that mr moore said that we could operate uh did not change his recommendation but we could operate the city with the same millage rate with and that would take the the reserve to the 18.9 and also there was uh 1.5 million dollars that was discovered uncovered however it's been moved so can you was that money moved to reduce the millage or was it used to increase the reserves increase the reserves since i'm sure i'm sorry i apologize i am talking to the i apologize i found the money so i thought i could answer it so i will credit commissioner because she brought some thoughts to our attention so myself working with the department of finance and the department for our rescue we took a look at the associated expenditures and it was determined that about 1.5 million dollars and change can be adjusted to take care of the operational expenses and so that was factored into the mix that resulted in our ability to go from what was initially a 19 percent fund balance position to a 20.27 percent finance fund balance position and that's how that contribution was yielded and that's been since the september 8th visit so that was the direct outcome thank you and that is that is with the the 6.3501 yes so 6.3501 fund balance position of 20.27 was the result of that 1.5 million dollar and change outcome i just discussed in general so you know and you know from what i'm hearing tonight you know i understand the residents and the city we're all feeling the impact of the economy um and it is costing our residents a whole lot and and we realize that the city is also under the same um same pressure however if we are able to operate the city with the same millage rate um i'm willing to uh use this additional information so that we don't cause additional burden to our to our um city um to our residents and if the city can operate with that with that same millage rate and not cut sources and not cut services then i will support uh holding at 6.1611 if that's if that's the scenario i like to work with the figures that's in front of us and not all of these arbitrary figures and everybody's research and thank you for pointing out that you are a financial uh professional as well thank you thank you vice mayor markford thank you um first of all for those of you that don't know me uh during my corporate career i managed billion dollar budgets for a couple of america's biggest corporations um and i want to apologize henry i i know um the job you have tonight is a is a very difficult one and you've done a miraculous job pulling all the numbers together and i'm eternally thankful for that uh i've had a chance um to to sit with mr moore and mr dakwitz and others to plow through the budgets over the past couple of weeks and i think there's a few things that and and some of these have been said but i think they they bear reinforcement our police and our fire department who are the best in class they are the bulk of our budget they are and that's okay and that's great because we we got a great fire department a great police department and i love it but those are union contracts and the there it's a huge sum of money that we pay but it's okay if it god forbid you have an accident 95 our guys are coming god forbid you know someone pulls a gun on you in a restaurant our guys are coming and that that's great so i you know i got i got nothing but but love for them we are in a situation in the world right now where the cost of living is nuts and everybody's feeling it i don't care where you are on the spectrum you're feeling it i have pretty strong feelings about the reserves um in my conversations with mr dakowitz and my conversations with some of my friends in the rating agency if we get our we're on a path right now of we're we're we're not going to be bond worthy anymore or we're going to be bond worthy at really crazy rates because we are we're losing that edge that we have we've had and you've heard it from others we've we've cut the we've cut the reserves way back um and i've raised this in previous meetings because of the work i do in washington fema is is not what fema once was and i'm going to say it one more time and and you may say well okay well we got you know delray gets gets smashed with a cat five so what are we going to do fema doesn't come i can tell you what we're going to do we're going to knock on his door and after all the reserve money like on the spot to get our city back functioning again that that is what we're going to have to do and by the way if if delray gets hit and boca gets hit and orlando gets hit and we all get hit at the same time that that's the money that we're going to have to reopen the city and i i think that is that is a that's a really easy decision to sit here and say let's cut back those reserves and man we're some of us will be sitting here our kids will be sitting here when the day comes when we're going to need that money and there ain't going to be a bailout you're on your own and like i said i spent a lot of time in washington and um you know i i just i'm worried about that to no end um and i think we have to be good stewards of of our citizens and and plan for those disasters i don't think we can i don't think hope is a strategy we can't hope that we're not going to get hit with it with a storm so i feel strongly about that um this commission has been good stewards with delray's money look at the bar chart henry put up a few minutes ago there were a lot of bars at the beginning a long time ago that were really big and in in recent times henry can put it back up we've cut way back i mean we've been good stewards on this but but you do reach a point where where where you're you're going to hit a wall and i i don't like the idea of going below 20 on the reserves it is going to affect the rates we're going to pay we're going to pay more um and i don't think any of us up here can sit here and say well there's a lot of things we could we could cut to make the budget okay what what are those things what because they were not apparent to me now we can cut things there is truth to that we can cut events no problem easy peasy we can close parks easy peasy um you know there's a lot of things we can do but they're not going to be little this isn't a budget where we're going to cut little things we're going to have to cut some big things to get to the number if we if we want to go there and you know we can make the budget work um but cutting those reserves i i think that's a really easy thing for us to do and i think that's being fiscally irresponsible for our folks down the road and commissions down the road um and and let us not forget the good things that we've done because you know we get in these meetings we forget about the good things we have a golf course that that will be opening in a few months that that is great for our city we got a water treatment facility that's going to benefit all the residents here and we've spent money on that pompey park is being remodeled we've done these big big things to help our our our differentiation in delray and it's working people want to come here um so i i would just say um i would just say i i i support the 6.3501 and i would urge all of you to think hard and long about cutting into those reserves there there will be there'll be an immediate reckoning when we fall below 20 and if if we have a trifecta with with a storm there will be no money guys i'm just telling you like we'll we'll be closed and i don't i don't i don't want to i i would not feel good about my job up here representing the residents um to allow for that to happen so i i i stand committed to the 6.3501 mr mayor may offer one caveat sure thank you hearkening us back to the workshop meeting the development services workshop meeting we you all talked about interests and identifying a couple other positions a couple other opportunities as a public finance professional as a public finance professional public budgeting and evaluation expert for a long time i took under consideration not only the group discussions with respect to expectations goals objectives and outcomes and goodness gracious there are a lot of them to mr marcus point regarding major projects and programs being implemented and associated outcomes the expectations i hear from each and every last one of you all on a consistent basis is to continue that path continue to elevate services continue to be our absolute utmost in order to get there and it has to be paid for one way or another somehow some way much work from an econometric standpoint the basis of my public finance budgeting evaluation expertise is a function of econometrics going back to when i was a kid and that's the perspective i bring working with the department of finance their perspective is more so from an accounting standpoint minus from an econometric standpoint but guess what we always meet in the middle and all the meetings all the discussions all the analysis have demonstrated that but the common denominator ladies and gentlemen is the great expectations that all of you have communicated to me in either a group or on an individual basis communicating to the executive leadership team and everybody else involved so many of those recommendations if not all of them are based on those premises so we will likewise need to be realistic so the commitment we made back during the workshop meeting earlier this afternoon this evening i should say is to take a look at a couple other opportunities and frankly those considerations will be heavily depend whatever we come back with striking a balance with the expectations you all communicated and the requests will be heavily dependent on building fund resources so that we can get to the best place possible so i'll have the opportunity over the next couple weeks to spend time with all involved to strike balances so that we can adhere to those expectations and offer recommendations that help us to get there therefore we're not at liberty to the fact of that tonight because of the advertisement requirements and other conditions associated they're in but we will come back and we will employ our creativity based on the economic realities of the day so just to be as clear as i possibly can i'm somewhat loquatious i don't mean to be but i can't help it so please yes did you just dangle a carrot no i'm kidding so i'm not going to talk econometrics i'm going to talk like my understanding of something and that is with regard to the vote for this millage is it is there um attorney you can perhaps help me out with this there isn't there a certain amount required to agree or we end up back at a rollback rate and what is that rollback rate so right now if we don't agree to the to a number above the rollback rate then it would revert to the rollback rate which is oh no what's that the rollback rate would be 5.88 five five five five five excuse me so any number in excess of that has to have four out of five people out of five people so if i can for additional context again econometrics public finance call it what you will that would result in a loss of revenue of 4.9 million dollars and change go ahead and round it off to five million dollars if the rollback rate was the outcome you're looking at a five million dollar loss in revenue on a general fund side alone so with if four people don't agree on a not one of these numbers we got the devil coming out right it's a loss of nearly five million dollars in revenue tonight i think and we are not prepared for that the budget does not support any of that i came up with scenarios talking with each of you individually you talked about a couple of them including the recommendation that the office of the city manager made working closely with the department of finance and all other department directors to get us there we did that we're gonna we're gonna take care i'm a very healthy young man we're gonna come up with a number that's above the rule we have to come up with it we have to ladies and gentlemen please do not let a law dictate the future of this community for fiscal year 2026 2027 you've all accept set great expectations and we are implementing them for crying out loud we are being recognized statewide nationally myself you all our department directors for all the good work that's underway we are and it is great i'm very proud and you all should be too i need you all's direction not to be defined based on some law doing what's in the best interest of the community we've come up with a couple scenarios we can strike a balance we'll work through whatever challenges that may result in the end but it can't be based on a rollback rate position no ma'am no sir no can do i just say one thing um so when we when we do the millage rate and the tentative budget we advertise those in the newspaper and so mr moore and we've had a lot of meetings with anthea to to try to address the concerns that the commission even previous to today has voice on the dais and mr moore had two positions that he wanted finance to incorporate and because of the advertising requirements we were not able to do that and we'd have to do a budget amendment and things like that why am i telling you this because i think there was consensus earlier today for those additional positions that were on anthea's side under the six point if we do this 6.3501 i think that there's there's room in that budget based on what i'm hearing today to fund those those are not all building fund positions i can tell you right now the btr is not and the others they're going to be percentages so there are going to be general fund monies that have to fund those positions so i'm telling you this because we're talking from the polar ends right i i appreciate exactly what the mayor's saying he wants to give the residents tax relief the other side of this is that six seven hours ago we were talking about improving processes and there's two prongs to it there's the staffing side of it and the ldr side the ldr side is easy for us to to address with you it's the staffing that's going to have to be addressed in this budget if that's not something that the commission is not interested in that's fine we can talk about lower numbers but i know that mr moore found some monies and that's you know been incorporated into the budget but just understand that you know we have a very lengthy wish list and it was a very expensive wish list earlier today and if you don't want that that's fine we can always address other ways with ai and software and things like that to pay for those things but we have to just be mindful that you know solving one problem could create an issue somewhere else and i think if we don't if we're not mindful of the global picture you guys are the policy makers right the policy earlier today was we need this done faster and better and more efficient that costs money so i'm not telling you one way or the other mr moore will make it happen for you but those positions aren't going to come free and they're they're not all going to be funded by that building fund it's it's impossible i i look i acknowledge you know my point is you know we can there's honest disagreement about reserves and i and i completely understand having been on both sides of the you know of that question but you know when you talk about getting to reserves it really is could all these things happen and we're going to eat into the 39 million which is 47 million or whatever the number we choose to be the the additional thing after including all of the other factors that we have it just all i'm saying is you can take this for what it's worth but under prior experience when we did have hurricane irma and hurricane uh francis in the same year we didn't get there but you had fema you keep discounting that like fema i'm not even i'm not talking about reimbursables i'm not talking about reimbursables i'm talking about getting you're talking our city reopened getting our restaurants reopen the the question was could an event could could an event create immediate liquidity requirement exceeding the whatever number we have after considering continuing revenues existing city personnel and equipment expenditure flexibility new taxable property continuing appreciation impact fees insurance and government reimbursements so the question is there's a lot you got to get to before you hit your reserves we are not a pizza store we still have our revenues and i'm saying that we can get by with the the the the the the 6.16 you know it's going to be his job to figure out how we want to staff stuff and he can do it he's done but when we had our rollback we didn't have any meaningful reduction in services actually we reduced the street paving program about 2.5 million dollars that was significant you you you delayed capital project we delayed capital projects we did which every municipality is doing you know when you are and i'm going to use a corporate thing here but you know if you're if you're running a company and you're having a problem with your with your costs and and your budgets and stuff you know your people your your marketing people don't go to you well i can solve the problem we're going to raise our prices no that's not the answer you cut expenditures you cut expenditures which is what we're trying to do here everyone says well we should run government like a business okay let's do that you cut costs because our customers are the taxpayers they need relief this year i'm not saying you know the only i disagree with mayor you can't cut costs by a thousand cuts so we can't go back to mr moore and say well you know reduce this department by one percent reduce this one by eight dollars i'm not suggesting you're not going to have a lot of what you got to do having done billion dollar budgets you got to go after big chunky things and you got to eliminate big chunky things that's the way real budgeting works anything else is is it doesn't work it doesn't work so if you want to get to where you want to get to then let's talk about what we're going to slice and it's going to hurt and and let's not pretend it's not going to because we can all sit here and say well you know we'll get mr moore to reduce this by twelve dollars and this hopefully it's more than twelve dollars well but but you it doesn't work that way in a in the real world should i make a motion and see but they're but they're in the real world you you you operate the city manager will be given a millage and he'll operate within that millage did i think everybody's kind of saying where they are okay all right let me i'm gonna where you were um should i make a motion we need four of those let me make a motion and we'll see um angela asked a question we have a motion you want to make a motion i'll make it well can we i think there's a question sending so we should at least let commissioner moore answer and then we can make a motion because i'm also not for allowing the process to dictate this thing for us so i've heard everybody i know where everybody is i was just wondering because i did not hear where you landed oh um i was saying that the process are you saying you don't want the process to dictate the process is that if we don't have four votes that it is a robot so you don't want that oh um i haven't made my decision yet okay that's what i wanted would you like me to make a motion and we'll see okay i'm going to go with the city's recommended but oh making you make this motion and we vote then then it's no no we can have a we can have a other motion until it's not just like one motion and it's you know we get it okay right if we haven't passed then we could have a rollback but i'm confident we're going to get a millage tonight i'm going to make a motion for the city's recommended operating millage rate of 6.3501 and a debt service of 0.0289 with a total millage of 6.3790 i second that call the roll please commissioner mollica yes commissioner cassell yes vice mayor burns yes mayor carney no deputy vice mayor market yes motion passed should i read the next one should i read the next one right can we take a five minute break mayor is it this the dda do you want to just it should be fast the dda should be fast we don't even there's no presentation involving the dda so let me do the dda so people can get out of here so resolution number shh resolution number 158-26 the resolution of the city commission of the city of delivery beach florida certifying to the property appraiser and tax collector of palm beach county the rate of millage to be levied by the city of delivery beach within the downtown development authority taxing district for the fiscal year beginning october 1 2026 establishing the downtown development authority taxing district operating millage at 1.0000 providing for an effective day and for their purposes the intent of the city commission is to adopt a downtown development authority operating millage rate of 1.0000 the dda rollback millage rate is 0.9469 and the proposed dda millage rate is 5.61 percent above the rollback rate the rate is necessary to fund the increase in the cost of operations and maintenance for the downtown development authority the proposed dda millage rate requires approval by a two-thirds vote of the full membership of the city commission and this is a public hearing public hearing any members of the public wishing to speak on this matter please come to the lectern you will each have three minutes give your name and zip code for the record here's i've been in this city for 79 years and i've seen other cities and i enjoy all the things that laura and and and and the city is doing but i here's what i think the general population right now is suffering and the general population not the people that are coming here for vacations but the people that are coming here to be in business buy homes and their overall things are not real good right now and i think everybody and this is what i had to do in my business in my home various times everybody needs to sleep tighten their belt a little bit that's just my two cents worth and that's about all it's worth it's two cents but i think everybody i don't think we should dip into our safety net i don't think we have to i think everybody needs to tighten their belt a little bit i hope i haven't offended anybody that's it is that it for the anyone else there's public hearing on the dda so has anyone else got anything they want to say we're good we're good i mean it's public comment so okay am i public i'm not no well you're well no she's no you're not no you're not should we make a motion yes are we ready yes you can make a motion motion to approve resolution number 158-26 second thank you call the roll commissioner cassell yes vice mayor burns yes mayor carney no deputy vice mayor market yes commissioner mollica yes motion okay thank you good speech now we have what's p f 7f uh 7f fiscal year resolution number 159-26 the resolution of the city commissioner of the city of derby beach florida approving a budget for the fiscal year beginning on october 1 2026 and ending on september 30 2027 providing for severability of parts here if declared invalid providing an effective date and for other purposes this is a public hearing wait sorry sorry sorry sorry i have to read the whole thing what i was given isn't the whole thing let me do it again is this public hearing yes but i didn't read the full caption okay that's fine the resolution of the city commission of the city of delray beach florida approving a budget and making appropriations of sums of money for all expenditures of the city of delray beach for the fiscal year beginning on october 1 2026 and ending on september 30 2027 prescribing the terms conditions and provisions with respect to the items or appropriations of payments there are four providing for supplemental appropriations and reappropriations providing for separability of parts here if declared invalid providing an effective date and for other purposes mr mayor the presentation ensues september 8th as part of the military dialogue that presentation took place so i don't think there's a need for a follow-up presentation unless there are specific questions i think we are likewise all set so i would recommend that you call the question being added okay from the prior presentation that's fine as long as we open it up for public comment then this is a public hearing any members of the public wishing to speak to the commission regarding the budget please come to the lectern give your name and zip code again for the record greg page for three four four four um well uh yes very impressed with what you've been all doing and working hard uh however you you neglected to go over the building of your income you're getting your revenues if you wish to have this conversation over and over and over about your expenditures maybe get your revenues straightened not so much by raising the millage but by going ahead and finding out where you're leaving the money on the table because the rest of us we can't leave the money on the table we have if you own a property and you rent uh to renters you have to take it from the renters and the renters then say well we don't want to come back here or uh as i mentioned uh some of the uh uh other places that uh have the short-term rentals and you'll get none of that money if you want to have a cohesion from all of us to support you when you're in your uh trying to raise more money that you need think about how you can get more money from other places that's all thank you very much any other members of the public wishing to address the commission seeing none public comment is closed um we we uh to the commission is there a motion do we want to i mean it's the same budget i'll just make a motion motion to approve resolution number 159-26 second uh clerk please call the roll vice mayor burns yes mayor carney no deputy vice mayor market yes commissioner mollica yes commissioner cassel yes motion passed great okay uh 7g the approval of the collective bargaining agreements with the the city of delray beach and professional firefighters um mayor commission there you are good i'm just going to call and hope you feel better feel better carmen dwayne deandre human resources department what you have before you tonight is approval of collective bargaining agreement between the city of delray beach and the professional firefighters of delray beach iaff local 1842 um really it's just a one-year deal we normally like to do three but they worked with us shout out to the iaff leadership um and incorporates a 3.5 percent cola which is what we're giving to the general employees so that's for your consideration just for the record um this is just a memorialized agreement of what was agreed to during our executive session understood yeah thank you for the clarification so we just need a motion here motion to approve motion to approve the collective bargaining agreement between the city of delray beach and the professional firefighters of delray beach ii kff second all in favor aye any opposed it's unanimous go ahead next one unanimous next one you have 7h as well right yep approval collective bargaining agreement between the city of delray beach professional firefighters of delray beach if local 1842 and this one is for the um rank and file bargaining unit same concept same same concept is to the approval of what we've already one year one year deal motion to approve the collective bargain agreement between the city of delray beach and the professional firefighters of delray beach or the rank and file bargaining unit second all in favor aye any opposed it is accepted thank you do you want to take like a two-minute break because the next two are kind of lengthy absolutely nothing yeah it's it's going to require a conversation okay so this is a piece of break yes i'm sorry pizza burger yeah okay i have something i have something for you in the back it's just it's it's not miss spencer's been sitting here forever can we do her really quick lynn she's been sitting here it's not quick that's the whole point and there's junior achievement before that one i believe um i'm going to take a two-minute break i don't know we are going to adjourn for we will be back at um um 10 o'clock sorry six minutes we are re-adjourning here at uh re re-adjourning i want to re-adjourn we are we are starting this meeting again at 10 04 so the clerk make note of the time we're starting and um the next item on our the next item on our show is item 7i thank you very much authorizing the city manager enter into a three-year funding agreement with junior achievement of broward county for a grant in the amount of 50 000 a year for three years we switch that up and do that up and do miss spencer is anyone from junior achievement here no no should we do miss spencer oh sorry oh sorry she doesn't get any money the woman from junior achievement is she okay yeah i got sick up here too but that's you know i didn't yeah man we're all six thank you thank you thank you for that with the permission of the commission i'm going to i'm going to ask that we defer junior achievement conversation because we do have another item on the agenda uh 7j um which is yes over here so can we with the permission can we amend the agenda to have 7j precede 7 7i yes we don't have so moved i don't think we have to actually not have the discussion just because they're not here you know we're just no we have somebody waiting and i'm trying to just get her out of here five minutes earlier so yes we're going to start we're going to mr orris we are with the consensus of the commission yes we're going to handle 7j before 7i so you're on for 7j you will essentially hear the same for both which is what we're seeking is just your authorization for the city manager to enter into a three-year agreement for a total of 150 000 at uh 50 000 a year to fund the programs you've heard of we do need to still work out some particulars with each organization and get the documentation together that's all we ask okay ma'am yes please so with regard to the particulars i want to make sure that these programs are our grants and that the um applicants both of them um fill out the application it's um paid in arrears and then is that right reimbursable yeah it's reimbursable it's reimbursable and that all of the element of the grant application is applicable to each applicant yes and we are adding performance measures as well so you know exactly uh a measurement that that they will be held to so they're accountable for the dollars and i recall the application had a certain percentage of administrative there were some criteria it's all more than 10 percent the same application we saw right we use those same criteria and ask them i i can tell you that dr spencer and i worked closely together over a weekend to get some things together and you know we'll be ready to enter into those agreements very shortly thank you john i don't think the 10 percent administrative cap was in there so we need to add that it was in the proposal that dr spencer had because we asked to keep to that the agreement will be uploaded to reflect that provision because dr spencer did commit to it and it was in her proposal so that's an easy commitment so as you all vote that is to be part of the record so both of these are reimbursable meaning they put the money up yes ma'am and so has that been communicated i i hear with dr spencer but has that been communicated with the they were given all the same specs um and worked on a have been working continuously on a proposal okay i need a motion to approve okay all in favor aye any opposed well done doctor don't even don't get up so the the authorization will be for the city manager to actually keep those agreements they won't be coming back before you that's correct that's what the the authorization and same for seven jays we're authorizing city managed that was seven i should we do seven i separately yes we're going to do seven i now which is a different thing so same sentiment same focus do we need a presentation no no then i need a motion to approve seven i so moved authorizing i'll second judy god funding agreement with junior achievement of broward county judy judy and me oh okay okay we have a we have a motion we have marker and a second from from whatever yeah yep um all in favor aye aye any opposed okay thank you you're very welcome happy to help nomination for appointment to the green implementation board i believe it's mine i would like to do anique forcier all in favor aye aye any opposed okay great nomination for appointment to the police advisory board i'm going to do terrence delahanty any uh all in favor aye aye opposed good appointed public hearings this is a second reading ordinance number 38-26 an ordinance of the city commission of the city of delray beach florida updating the capital improvement plan schedule and the comprehensive plan of the city of delray beach for fiscal year 2026 to 27 to fiscal year 2030-31 in accordance with the requirements of policy c ie 1.2.1 and c ie 1.2.6 of the capital improvement element providing a complex cost providing a severability cost providing an effective date and for other purposes so state statute requires that the capital improvement plan that you just adopted on 7b be incorporated in the comprehensive plan and that's what this ordinance does public hearing public hearing the public i just you know i mean i'm happy with you rolling along this is a public hearing if anybody would like to uh address the commission on the ordinance number 38-26 please come to the lectern you will have three minutes seeing none public office closed there's nobody to fight so do we need a motion second all in favor oh no it's public meeting uh would you call the roll please vice mayor burns yes mayor carney yes deputy vice mayor market yes commissioner malica yes commissioner cassell yes motion passed great okay 8b this is this is uh lynn jellin authorizing the transfer of property to be a quit claim deed in favor of palm trail plaza you've been sitting here all day for this you know john had known i would have moved it to the next agenda i'm sorry that's not the right thing to say so um can i read this so would you like to read the resolution into the record please resolution number 151-26 the resolution of the city commission of the city of salary beach florida authorizing the sale of property through a quit claim deed in favor of palm trail plaza inc as more particularly described herein authorizing the mayor to execute the quick claim deed and any other documents necessary to effectuate the intent of this resolution providing an effective date and further purposes and just because i'm visual those are the two properties and then this is the little parcel that we're talking about it's right smack in the middle it was conveyed to the city for public purposes there's no public purposes it's landlocked at this point um and so um again i did the title of the property right next to it this was an old alley that went all the way to george bush boulevard exactly and when they developed the properties it just left the alley so the it's like it's just this it's obviously an alley to nowhere so it the city's got liability for a property they shouldn't have liability for and we can't do anything with it this is a public hearing because it's a conveyance of property i'm sorry did you as applicant do you have anything to say do you want to just move along well yeah my name's john glenn i'm a 33483 and i've been the owner of the property that isn't the subject for uh probably over 30 years but yes this was lost in transfers between county city for years and uh they're trying to buy this property from the sellers to stevens i represent the stevens and they're all ready to go the sale is waiting to close in like two or three weeks but this is preventing it really just kidding well geez that's good how much of a bargain you know our shortfall was how much did we say in the budget i mean we can't um is there any other commission comments otherwise they need a motion to approve uh resolution 15126 so moved second all in favor aye any opposed thank you sir tell madame stevens that she's got it done i'm going back to the keys now you came up with this we have no first readings comments on uh uh inquiries on non-agenda items mr city manager one item briefly and that is a friendly reminder that the community input portion of the cemetery consultancy engagement taking place wednesday september 30th between 6 pm and 8 pm or so next door at the community center information circulation updates have been provided throughout the community so i just thought i'd share that for the record because of course in the coming weeks thereafter we hope to offer a deliverable in terms of considerations regarding path forward otherwise i yield at this time thank you great thank you to the city attorney any comments no sir okay to the city commission commissioner thank you i'll be quick i know it's late because you raised your hand i know thank you um at the mayor's education round table held at the chamber's education breakfast my table discussed bringing back the education board but we discussed specifically instead of um making a board um to to form a task force um instead of a board to allow more flexibility and getting action items to recommend to the commission i'm seeking consensus to direct staff for a resolution to form an education task force in place for two years i guess we have to name an ending point with the goal of updating the education component of our comprehensive plan to bring before the commission and then implementing the changes made um so i'm seeking consensus to allow that task force to be formed education task force okay thank you that's i'd like to see the composition what it's going to be but um oh the the commission will will name the the people on that task force subject to us you know that's fine in theory it's a great idea okay uh so that's it we have consensus so i'll bring it back to you for like you can tell us how to create it establish it that's what we're all in agreement on this that's fine okay discussion perfect okay one last quickie is um united against hate week 2026 takes place from october 18th to october 24th 2026 um palm beach county is making a proclamation at their october 6th at their october 6th meeting lake worth beach is doing theirs october 6th as well and um mr was this the hate crime coppola yeah said um had sort of brought it to my attention so i'm seeking consensus that delray beach follows our cities and our county in making a proclamation at our october 12th commission meeting october 13th october 13th the commission meeting is uh okay thank you very much yeah but you could be here monday i'll be here yeah i'll be here a different day than the rest um yeah do you have any questions about that what that is no i was going to bring it up so i'm glad you did so any any any are we all in agreement on that yeah i had brought it up about a month ago and then kelly did a report on it because we were talking about what could we do like could we do an event or something and i think it was deemed that it may be questionable with respect to spending money so i think a proclamation is great free well or recognition you have consensus so you'll come back with the proclamation and in accordance with you know what we're doing yes yeah okay sounds good that is all i have okay commissioner marker nothing further commissioner burns uh yes um just two things well not two things um the the renters policy or the status of that where are we with that okay it's coming we just finalized the forms a few days ago it's going to be electronic but i want the commission to see the forms and paper i think we can do it the october 6th to be sex first reading okay i'm sorry this is for what vacation rentals okay so um the gentleman that spoke seems keeps talking about a 13 percent but that the tax that's charged for room tax for short-term rentals does not go to the city yeah so whether city would stand to gain exactly a business tax license correct a btr we would require btr and an inspection fee okay um and it would be an annual uh inspection fee understood and that's that's it yeah we do not get any percentage of the room tax that goes to the county just wanted to i don't think most people are aware that we don't get the money i know we i wish we did but we don't but however the people from discover the palm beach are gonna be real happy with the room tax so i know they get it that's right that's right okay so you'll see it october 6th october 6th for first reading thank you and then um the the status okay so mr patten gave us a a resolution and then i mentioned earlier that um i wanted the would like for the city to move forward with the cemetery designation for historic and i know that we talked about waiting until the analysis is done or the investigation whatever can do we have to wait for that or actually if i may yeah i actually don't think you have to wait you can proceed now because this presentation will take place the consultancy presentation the second meeting in november if not the first meeting in december so that'll be here before you in the next couple months but i don't think it i could consider this a mutually exclusive event okay so that's fine if there's an interest in proceeding so because it's a city-owned property um we'll do the application essentially so it will go to the historic preservation board first they'll make a recommendation and then it'll come here i'm real curious you know i mean obviously i'm in favor of it i've raised the issue several times but i don't it's it's the old part of the cemetery it's not the whole center right it's the old part that you and i were talking about when i was walking the cemetery yeah the northwestern's um portion of it oh yeah and i was walking the cemetery with my thing and i had angel on the other side where's the where i'm supposed to be looking it's the old part so we have that direction all right thank you so you'll bring it back and we have it as it'll go to hpb first perfect all right thank you and then lastly i wanted to uh recognize two city employees um uh andrew haynes and curtis wise and and this is for an act of kindness in my opinion um and service that made a difference in the life of a the young lady that came to commission to report that she wanted to place a headstone on her um grandparents grave one of her grandparents grave and that the information from the city was that they didn't know where it was but they would put the stone out there somewhere uh mr wise who has been uh employed with the city for i'm not sure 20 plus years and assigned to the cemetery knows the cemetery i understand like the back of his hand so to speak and so he and mr haynes found this the site and so the young lady is able to place a headstone in the appropriate place and i just wanted to recognize them for going over beyond um the call of duty because they didn't have to do that but um and also want to make a recommendation that mr wise be interviewed or help be a help to the consultant because i understand that he has lots of information um about cemetery and locations and i'm actually going to give him my father give put my father's name and see if he can't help me locate my father so yeah yeah so okay just wanted to recognize those two individuals his name is curtis wise and then also mr andrew haynes um so three days ago was thank a police officer so thank you chief and to all the officers um creative art school is having a faculty exhibit on october 2nd from 6 to 9 i'll be there hopefully we'll have great attendance uh mr moore i spoke to you about the agenda changes when it changes we need to get a notice and a line item specific to the change yes ma'am um thank you for that where where is our tourism master plan and what have we we've done nothing with that i mean i sat in that group and it was a very exciting process to create that plan but can you distribute it um to the group so we can look at it and yeah it was a while ago it was probably back in 23 it was that's about right um and just so we can see it as we're looking at old school square and different things in the city it would be good to reflect on that plan um we paid for it so and thank you missy cynthia jason and juan they did the presentation um barwick road north presentation and the residents were very happy um and you know when we were talking about um designations back in may i got a consensus of three for veterans park and i would like that to be on the list of things i know we're talking money and things but that should be on the priority list of things to do is to designate veterans park because we got the consensus um and lastly i don't know if you all saw this article in the sun sentinel insurers excessive profile profits secret no more the editorial which was frightening about how um 53 florida property insurance companies are claiming 432 million in collective losses while simultaneously funneling 1.3 billion into their corporate affiliated businesses and the reason i'm bringing this up at a commission meeting is we're always talking about how the taxpayers are burdened by costs and one of the most major cost increases that we've all seen is insurance i think as a commission we need to write to the state and and and and talk about how egregious this is and demand some kind of uh you know information uh reconsideration of the regulations something on behalf of our residents just to say we're not happy about what you're doing to our residents and i think we should do that and i you know i think every city should but i would like to be the first and that's an article that was yes it was in the sun sentinel and that's actually the beginning of the whole expose they're about to do right it's going to get worse right um so i think we should just voice as a city yeah sure the title of the article is um insurers excessive profits are secret no more um and it was published about a day or so ago in the sun sentinel but i would like uh maybe city attorney you and i can work together on what would be appropriate to say and then we can share it with everybody for input and then get it out from the city of delray beach yes it's on the head nods okay we can work on it thank you i appreciate that that's it i'm done with that um i don't remember giving consensus i don't remember anyone discussing you didn't but um you didn't excuse me the other two did well it was three to designate veterans park i'll go back to the meeting and watch it it's not asking it now you just asked for it mr marker did and i think miss burns did i'm asking i don't recall so what's what's the meeting it was in may i think it was may 5th giving to a bit because there's a lot of issues when you take a public park and designate it to where you're taking because we control that park right different than a cemetery yes you know it's our property means we can't do anything we can't do anything with the park ourselves we can design a lot of design depending on which part of the park you're talking about but you just the other day said if you get three it's three and it doesn't change now you're trying to change it there were three yeses on in the may meeting i said i don't want to do it i don't believe in doing things you bring it back to the thing for your consensus i did not give you didn't you're correct you didn't you know the the taking a public park which we control and turning it over to somebody else is really who are we turning it over to that's really who are you saying we're turning it over to if we give it a historic designation we're protecting it once you do a historic designation there's all other kinds of restrictions that you can do with your own property the city can do with its own it's a park though it's not like you're building well then you don't need to designate it historic it's it's ceremonial because we appreciate the park you think because the idea would be what happens if the city is going to sell the property i got can we just i got a consensus on that day or you i want a full discussion with the i already got a consensus wait so my consensus doesn't matter but yours consensus does is what you're saying here today i'm saying i don't believe in backdoor consensus we are how is it back with some if you're going to discuss consensus we've discussed designating veterans park for such a long time this is there's no back door about it certainly been pushing it for certain but i think that the commission and the citizens deserve to know all the ramifications of what it means to designate a public park well there would be a process that's what i would like a presentation what it would mean for example we couldn't change the pavers in that public park without going to historic board first that is a fact that is a fact no i'm not disagreeing with you yes there's a process we couldn't do to the park ourselves correct but it's i don't see why the city should give to lose its own rights over its own public park there's a lot of other people in the city that are that are involved in giving away a public making it a park historic which you don't need to do because we're in control of the destiny of the park i think the consensus we are now to submit the applications right right that information yes it was just to move it to move it to get it so that we can start the application correct they want it they want us to submit the application well it's it to ourselves we can't do the research on the park right until we have the application so the application starts it staff does their research right they bring it to the historic preservation board which the cemetery is going to be the same thing and then and then it'll come before this commission for a final determination whether it's going to be in the code of ordinances and at that point you'll have the history of it you'll have the determination you can say no but you won't we can't do the research for you mayor in a complete fashion until we have the application and or it's really just a direction we are in control yes it would still be in control no we are not we would we couldn't change the paper we are on the historic the historic but we also just came off a massively horrible budget session where we don't have any money so we have no money to fix that part but if we if we declare it historic then we are eligible for grants that we can get from the state and the feds and good point and all i care about is i i think we should i think i've heard it from a lot of people i think we should look at it we got a consensus already to start the process the consensus was to look at it if it's good great if it's not just assume staff that's short-staffed that has to look at that yeah is that who does the research well maybe not huh i think the preservation trust offered to do the research for us judy i think they offer to do it so the other thing you can do is allow the preservation trust to submit the application yeah and then they do all the work right and then they bring it to the store we've done they've asked to do that in the past but because they're not the property owner we don't let them the property owner has to sign the application so you could you could allow that if they're interested in doing it allowing them to they want to incur the expense come on it come on right i thought so yes it's already done again if that's what you want to do it's just again we'd like to work on the things that we're sure are priorities so whatever you that's a priority for me we've got frog alley we can't do frog alley though i thought because of the litig potential litigation i mean senate 180 yeah makes it a little tricky it makes it harder but if the community is on board and i think we were going to start doing community meetings at some point i think one of the main things how do you define the part of the structure the building i would have to refer to the study i mean the building we can have this discussion about why shut it down before it even starts do you want to do a workshop no i don't want to do a workshop let's that's really where you have a discussion and then you can bring in the preservation trust they can bring you whatever information they have it's still our property we're not we're not giving it to someone else that i read they include the building as part of the historic structure because it was built 50 years ago so they say now there was a lot a lot of good i mean it's a block building but now you're there they don't want to make any changes to the building i don't know how could you say they don't want to make any changes because he told me well then mayor calm down calm down no i'm just tired of being railroaded you're not railroaded three people said yes ten people no no no you're not being railroaded by anybody i asked for a consensus in may and i got it i think we should start the process and see what it looks like you can certainly object anybody can but don't say you're being railroaded by anybody no one's railroading that if the preservation trust wants to submit the application is there a consensus for that you mean bury yourself from staff and then that's not a nice combination you need i don't know why you're being so rude bury yourself that's lovely so is there a concise we have one person saying there's consensus there is a there was a consensus i know but this is for the preservation trust to submit the application that would be fine because i mean it's not very small look at but maybe you do a section of the park not necessarily the whole thing there's i'm sure what they presented to you is what they want doesn't necessarily mean that's going to be the end result you can't make your determination on that that's just the threshold that means i'm historic come january okay so good so we have that yes it's like a historic you're really historic are we finished now i think we can yes can we gavel out you don't have any comments did you say anything i just made my comment oh okay i was responding to the other comment i mean i had no comments but then you know a comment was triggered oh i forgot one more comment thank you for the lovely pizza wow if she knew it was a joke