City Commission on 11-02-2026 - Regular Meeting - Nov 02, 2026

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the regular commission meeting of the City of Delray Beach this November 2, 2026. If the clerk could please call the roll. Deputy Vice Mayor Markert. Here. Commissioner Mollica. Here. Commissioner Cassell. Here. 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. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all very much. You may be seated. Okay. Agenda approval. Are there any subtractions, additions, deletions, substitutions to the agenda? Yes, Ms. Mollica. Commissioner Mollica. Thank you very much. I would make a motion to remove 9A, the vacation rentals. I think we should take that to workshop. I've gotten a ton of e-mails and phone calls about it, and I think we need to think this one through. Okay. Well, I also received a ton of e-mails. It was all kind of silly. So, I mean, with it, does it, we have consensus? No. I think we should, let's let the staff just do their presentation, and if the end, we don't have to make a decision on it tonight, but at the end of the day, Mayor, this has been going on since 2024. You were saying this was an important subject in April, and we've had a draft for almost two years. Understood. So, let's just have the conversation. We may, nothing may come of it tonight, but staff did their presentation. Let's just see what they have to say. Okay. And I met with Lynn, and she's got a generic presentation. Right. We've got one to do it. I'm going to agree to it. Well, you know, I would agree to the, what's going on? Was that you speaking? It was coming out of the, it was coming out of my microphone here. No, no, no, it's coming out of. Testing, one, two, three, testing. I'm good? Okay. No echo? My view in this was very simple. I received a ton of letters, and until we know what we're trying to address, what we're trying to fix, it makes no sense. And to do, to have readings and all these presentations without any input from the public, to have it completely staff-driven, is just not the way this city should be doing business. And so I like the idea of the workshop. I like the idea of getting the stakeholders to come in and talk about it. They may come up with some good ideas. We may have some different ideas. But I think to try to have a first reading, I appreciate the fact that staff has a presentation. I'm sure the presentation will be just as lively if it's done at a workshop than done here. And I don't want to, until we know what we're trying to accomplish here, I'm in favor of going to the workshop. I think, Mayor, if I may, what we were trying to accomplish. I'm sorry, no, wait till you, Mr. Burns. Sure. I would just say that I would agree that we could table it. I did see the presentation, and I think it might give the concerned staff, and I appreciate all the letters that I received. I tried to respond to as many as I could. But I think the presentation might answer some of the questions that I received in my e-mails and also give you some additional questions that you may ask for a later workshop. I agree. Let's just have our door. Right now, I think we should take this. I mean, having a first reading on an ordinance and then saying, okay, we're then going to workshop it is kind of not the way it works. Okay, well, let's table it. But we've been talking about this for over two years. I need, so. Since 2024. Commissioner Malke, you want to move to a workshop? Correct. Yes. Okay, I do too. I would like to move to a workshop, but I also think it would be great for the public to see the presentation. Right. So let's just do it. You know, what we can do, what we can't do, kind of where we are, so that people can be thinking about it before we get to the workshop. Because a lot of things that were pointed out to me, according to what I found out in the presentation, is that we're precluded by the state for some of those things that we cannot do. And so I think that it's great for the community to find out what those things are. And some things that were concerns, we can't even do those things. So I don't know, workshop or now it doesn't. I don't want to. I would rather not waste my time. Okay, let's not waste time. Okay. And I'd rather just do it in a workshop. Well, hang on, Mayor, if you don't mind. Excuse me. I'd like to schedule the workshop as soon as we can. When could you schedule a workshop on this? So the next city commission meeting is Tuesday, November 17th. We currently have no workshop meeting agenda for that particular time, so we can make arrangements for a 4 o'clock workshop meeting at that time before the regular meeting begins at 5 o'clock. Does that suit you, Commissioner Malika? I'm sorry, my phone was ringing in my ear. When? Tuesday, November 17th at 4 o'clock. So a one-hour commitment from 4 o'clock to 5 o'clock, November 17th. That'll work. I support that. Are we allowing the presentation so that the residents can see? We have a, you keep going back to the same point. We've got three people saying. Well, it's before the workshop so they can answer the questions, and then for the workshop, when public comment comes up first, people will know what to comment on. We have three people that said we're going to amend the agenda. Is that correct? To take it off in favor of creating a workshop on the 17th? I don't know if I didn't see the presentation, but I'll find it. Okay? And we'll get to it at the workshop, and we'll do it at the workshop. So that's a yes? Yes, please. Yes, yes. Okay, fine. So any other additions or subtractions or modifications to the agenda? Did we already take 7A on 7A? That is 7A. Oh, I'm sorry. No, that was not 8A. 7A has to be removed, Mayor. There was a notice issue, so we'll just remove it completely. Let me get to 7A. Which one is 7A? That was the FAR for the Lake Ida, the waiver. Oh, yes. Okay. Right. I was briefed on that. You didn't take it off yet, right? So 7A we're removing completely, right? Yes, sir. You just said 7A were removed from the agenda and rescheduled for the 17th, so that's also coming back on the 17th as a regular agenda. It is, but it's going to be noticed. Okay, because it needs to be noticed again. Are there any other comments or deletions or subtractions to the agenda? No, thank you. Seeing none, I need a motion to approve the agenda as amended. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. We are now going to presentations, right? If I remember my thing, pretty good. Yes. Number 4A, clarity regarding Delray Beach Municipal Bond Ratings and Pending Project Financing. Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Given the level of interest having been expressed regarding municipal bond ratings in the city of Delray Beach, notably the last couple years of history associated therein, but principally in light of the focus anticipated for 2027 for additional financings, I thought it was appropriate that we offer background information and clarity in terms of why we are where we are. To further underscore the fact that when any municipality throughout the United States engages in any financing, it is accompanied by a specific rating. And that experience typically involves multiple rating agencies. In the case of Delray Beach, Florida, S&P, Global Ratings, as well as Moody's Investor Services. Interestingly enough, we have several transactions that took place over the past couple years that resulted in several different ratings and respective adjustments. And thus, it's important to help outline what the path forward looks like for 2027 in terms of productivity in that regard. Interestingly enough, also, the fact is many municipalities may have an experience involving as many as three rating agencies. We talked a little bit about S&P, Global Ratings, Moody's Investor Service. There's also Fitch and City Manager Simons 1 and 2 have actually dealt with those organizations comprehensively given the level of activities associated therein. I've likewise had the opportunity or took the initiative to collaborate with the City's External Financial Advisor, who is also a Managing Partner of PFM Financial Advisors, Mr. Jay Glover. He is likewise here this evening to offer an aggregate overview, to also take into consideration what's been happening in the utilities department as it relates to that particular enterprise fund as well. So that's a separate transaction process because, of course, we have been extremely busy with the myriad of projects and programs having been implemented. So it's important as we move forward in preparation for 2027 what the background, what's been accomplished to date, why we are where we are, and what is anticipated moving forward. So with that, Mr. Glover, if you would be kind enough to offer your presentation. And, of course, you and I will both be available to address specific questions or concerns that may be experienced as a result of this dialogue. Mr. Glover. Perfect. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Mayor, Commissioner, Jay Glover from PFM Financial Advisors, and I am a Managing Director with the firm. And we serve as the City's financial or municipal advisor. And what that means is we really assist the City when it needs to access the capital markets to fund projects and help craft plans of finance that provide the lowest cost of capital, future flexibility for general fund projects, water and sewer projects, and other things. And I've been before you several times to talk about, you know, financings. And as Mr. Moore mentioned, I'm here today to talk about the credit rating process that we have gone through over the last couple of years and then set the stage for what is future discussions we'll have with the rating agencies for pending capital needs the City has moving forward. So just the first few slides are a revisit of the history of the ratings and rating actions that have been taken over the last couple of years. So the first one relates to the 2024 Geo Parks bonds that were done, approved by the voters several years ago, and you all have issued the first tranche of those bonds to fund capital projects. And as part of that process, we went to Moody's ratings and S&P Global ratings to get underlying ratings on that specific transaction. That process involves a request for the rating whereby we put that out to each of those agencies and then they send us a list of questions that we respond to in writing and then set up a conference call that involves your staff, city manager's office, city attorney's office in some cases, as well as your finance staff are involved in a Q&A session whereby we address any follow-up items they might have. And then subsequent to that rating call, each agency has a credit committee that they go to where they present the financing to that credit committee. We're not involved in that. That's sort of behind closed doors with each rating agency. And they assign a credit rating to the issuer and the transaction in most cases. And related to that 2024 parks bonds, Moody's actually upgraded the city's credit rating from AA-2 to AA-1. So that's a one-notch upgrade and one notch off the highest possible AAA rating. And they cite some factors within the report as to why they made this action. You know, strong revenue growth. Leverage is fairly low, even considering future capital needs the city has. And they do also note that resident income levels are below average, but that's also reflective of the retirement community that you all have within the city. So these are all things that are directly from the reports, which are publicly available documents. At the same time, S&P assigned a AAA rating, which is the highest credit rating possible to the GEO bonds. And again, I won't go through this. But one thing they do note is the fact that at that point in time, your reserves were over 30%, which was well in excess of your policy limit, was really the main driver of the credit rating, along with very strong management, the various policies you all have in place to monitor the budget, capital planning, debt investment policies, et cetera. So again, Moody's assigned a AAA rating, or excuse me, S&P assigned a AAA rating. Moody's assigned a AA-1 rating. So that's what we call a split rating. They were one-notch difference between the two. So when we actually go to price the bonds, you know, investors are generally going to price the bonds to the lowest rating of the two. And that's just what investors do. They're going to look for every reason to extract value. So those bonds would generally price to that AA-1 level versus the AAA level. So just keep that in mind as we move forward. The next year, as you all recall, you all did a financing to redo your golf course. Those bonds were secured by legally available non-advalorum revenues. So a little different than the GO bonds, which are voter approved. Those are revenue bonds which only required, you know, majority vote of the city commission to move forward because they were secured by non-advalorum revenues. We also went through the same process with Moody's and S&P to get credit ratings on that transaction. So a different credit structure, but they also look at the overall credit quality of the city. At that point, Moody's affirmed the AA-1 issuer rating and also assigned a AA-1 rating to the revenue bonds. So the issuer and the revenue bonds maintained the AA-1 from the previous transaction. And again, citing many of the same reasons why that credit rating was assigned. At that point in time, S&P did lower the credit rating from AAA to AA-plus on those bonds. And again, the reason they cite mainly was because the fund balance levels had been drawn down to be more consistent with your policies, 21% to 25%. Still very strong, but they felt that was more in line with AA-plus rated peers, which they cite within their report. I'll also point out, now that we have the AA-plus and the AA-1 rating, those ratings are the exact same. Each agency, which is kind of confusing, uses a different moniker, but AA-1 and AA-plus is the same rating level. So now we're at the same rating level. Those bonds are going to price to that rating level, the AA-plus level. Switching gears just slightly, we were quite busy this year in 2025. You also recall you went through a process to redo your water and sewer system, and we issued an inaugural set of water and sewer bonds. Again, those are secured by net revenues of your utility system. We again went back to Moody's and S&P. But this time, the discussion was more focused on the utility system. They were looking at things like the regulatory environment that you were working within. Do you have all your permits? Do you have system capacity? Are your debt service coverage ratios strong, liquidity strong? All within the water and sewer system. So at that point in time, they assigned an initial rating of AA-3 from Moody's and AA-1 from S&P, which, again, that was actually the rating when we were crafting the plan of finance and you were setting your rates to meet your obligations that we were striving to get. Because we thought if we got within the AA category, those bonds would price very favorably. If you wanted to try to get to AA or AA-plus for the water and sewer system, you would have been required to set rates and charges that were much higher to generate higher net revenues, higher debt service coverage, higher liquidity. So it's just sort of a tradeoff. I mean, you can always try for a higher rating, but that requires you to do things that might be inconsistent with how you want to govern the city. And we crafted a plan and put a rate increase in place that we thought the community could afford and you all could get in that AA category, which we did. Those bonds were very successfully priced in 2025. We did about 50% of the construction cost for that transaction. And as I'll mention in a couple of slides here, we'll be back next year for the remaining tranche to complete that construction project. I was just talking to Mr. Hassan back there, and he thinks we might be back in the first half of next year for that transaction. So that provides sort of a historical snapshot of where we've been in terms of the rating process since 2024, 2025, and then obviously in 2026 there was no action taken to date. As was mentioned, kind of moving forward, which is really what we want to set the stage for, the city has significant capital needs moving forward. As I mentioned before, you have geo bonds for the parks that we have about $10 million of authorization remaining. You have a public safety complex that was also approved by your voters several years ago that you'll likely be accessing the capital markets for in 2027. You have stormwater needs, and I think you're going through a study now to determine what rates might be needed for those improvements. And you also have, as I mentioned, the water and sewer financing, and there's other significant needs within the CRA. So all of these are going to involve some type of debt issuance, likely in 2027, maybe moving into 2028, but will require us to continue to dialogue with both Moody's and S&P to go to the capital markets for that. One thing I do want to mention, we talked before, Mr. Moore mentioned, Moody's, S&P, and Fitch are sort of the three larger rating agencies. There's a fourth called Kroll Bond Ratings. The marketplace does look at Moody's and S&P sort of on par with each other, and then I would suggest Fitch is sort of a notch below those. That's just the way investors are. Those agencies have been around a lot longer. So we tend to lean towards using Moody's and S&P. There are some cases where we'll pair a Fitch with a Moody's or S&P, but that really is a decision that we make kind of looking at the criteria and determining what we think is going to result in the best pricing of bonds for you all. We rarely get three bond ratings. I would say I've been doing this for 26 years. There was a period of time where a lot of issuers had three bond ratings. They're costly. You pay for them. And they're very time intensive, not only put in place, but these agencies do surveillance on them every two years at a minimum, regardless if you're doing a transaction. So to maintain three credit ratings is costly in terms of the money and the time, and bonds don't price any better if they have three ratings versus two ratings. So I wanted to emphasize that. Again, I mentioned before, Moody's and S&P will be using moving forward unless something changes. And based on, you know, our review of the city's current financial situation, we don't expect any credit ratings moving forward, assuming you can kind of maintain your fund balance levels where they're at now. Obviously, things can change. We have Amendment 3 on the ballot tomorrow. That could potentially impact your credit ratings. We think if it's approved, rating agencies are going to take a wait-and-see approach and see how issuers react to that. I don't think there's going to be any rash downgrades if Amendment 3 happens to pass. I think it will take time. They'll let people work through it and adjust if needed. Also, I will point out all of the ratings that we just talked about have a stable outlook. So that means that the rating agencies don't intend to adjust the ratings up or down within a period of one or two years. Obviously, nothing's guaranteed. Things can change. But a stable outlook means they see things staying fairly stable for the interim. I'll also just point out, you know, obviously moving forward, when we do transactions, I generally come here and give a presentation. We try to highlight the credit ratings at that presentation, and we'll continue to do so as we move forward. So I hope that addressed some of the questions that have been asked, but I'm here to address any questions you all might have about the previous ratings or sort of the process moving forward. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Glover. To the commission, questions from the commission? Two for Mr. Glover. No questions. Thank you for your presentation. Okay. Commissioner Burns? No questions. Thank you for the presentation. Very comprehensive. Really thorough. Really appreciative of the time you've come into that. Thank you. I have questions. Thank you. So we had the AAA bond rating. We went down to the AAA+, and it was noted multiple times in this S&P report that this was due to the reduction in our unassigned fund balance, essentially our reserves, right? They say the downgrade reflects Delray Beach's ongoing use of reserves to decrease its unassigned fund balance closer to recently adopted policy. And then it goes on to say we could raise the rating if the city increases its reserves. Sorry, this is super small font, so I'm having trouble. But essentially, we got downgraded back in October of 2025 because of the use of our reserves and because we were not consistent with our policy, which was in keeping it with 21% to 25%. Is that reasonable? Half of that is correct. You were downgraded because your reserves fell below the 30% level they had historically been. But I think the report mentions that the reserves came back in line with where your current policy levels were. I didn't read that in the report. That's okay. So here's a question for you. I thought that's what you just said, actually. Is borrowing more – no, it was saying that the reserves were not – they were below the amount that our policy is. They were at 20%, and our policy is 21% to 25%. But when you're downgraded, your borrowing becomes more expensive. Is that correct? Or it can? Yes. And the taxpayers can pay more then if it's more expensive, right? Because you're borrowing over the course of 30 years. Yeah. Before I address that question, I will read from the report. Please do. It says, the downgrade reflects Delray Beach ongoing use of reserves to decrease its unassigned fund balance closer to its recently adopted policy target, 21% to 25% of budget of operating expenditures. Right. So, yeah, I would – like I said, I think the downgrade was related to the spend on the reserves. Right. But it was never below your policy target. Okay. Well, it's below our policy target, right? I mean, it's going to be in the upcoming – well, in our budget presentations, it was. But anyway, let's – so, but just as, like, an example, what do you think, if you go from AAA to AA+, what's the difference in terms of the borrowing? Can you say – In this case, I can confidently say there was no difference. None whatsoever. And the reason being, as I mentioned before, you already had a AA-1 credit rating from Moody. Right. So, this downgrade, move the rating to be consistent with that. And investors are going to price bonds to the lower credit rating. Got it. Having said that, I don't want to – if you were to be downgraded again such that your rating went from AA-1 to AA, that is definitely going to have an implication. Right. Millions of dollars. So, the action that's been taken so far, because there was a split rating, would not have impacted your pricing. But, yeah, we want to avoid any further downgrades because that will impact pricing. Right. And I guess if the city is downgrading and leadership is pushing for further downgrading, then that's a problem. Thank you very much. And this is – I think your presentation is happening now because we got downgraded last October, and I was never notified, nor was my commission notified. And, in fact, we were notified that the revenue bonds were doing exceptionally well, but we never got notified that the geo-bond rating had dropped. You know, so we got the good news, and we didn't get the bad news. And here's why this is important to me, and it's not relevant to you, so I should direct it to the city and to my colleagues. It's not about the bond standing right in this moment, but it's about the responsibility to provide us information when we're making financial decisions. The charter requires us to be apprised of relevant financial information, and I would argue that not getting that bond rating information was relevant to us. And that's because for two budget cycles, we have been up here debating what is the appropriate reserves balance. And some of us have been saying 15 percent, and others have been saying 25. And the whole time, Mr. Moore, you well know that that number is relevant to our taxpayers because a downgrade, an additional downgrade, could cost them substantially. And yet you didn't provide that information to us. Is this a question to you? No, I'm directing this right to Mr. Moore because I think you all saw my email, but this is the reason why we're having this presentation is the email I sent to Mr. Moore. Important financial information was withheld from us that was relevant at the time we were doing our budget because I think at the time we were doing our budget, if we had all known this, we would have definitely talked a little bit more about the reserves. And I don't think Mr. the mayor would have been saying 15 percent is a good number because if you look at, I mean, if you just do it mathematically, at 4 percent interest rate, the interest is $73.5 million. $4.25, it's $78.8. $4.5 is $84.2 million. Our reserve balance directly relates to our borrowing and our bonds, and it directly relates to the cost to our taxpayers. And to be talking about our budget while you are holding that information and not sharing with us, that is remarkably improper, and our charter does not allow that. It's a violation. We can't make good, informed decisions on behalf of our residents without all the information. Transparency and accountability, that is what we promised our residents, and they're not getting it because I'm not getting it. Okay, thank you very much. You've raised your hand. So, yeah, actually, this is not a question, John, so I apologize. It was just a comment to the comment, and that is that I'm new up here, and I knew about the downgrading in the S&P because I was given a whole bunch of reports from the Friday reports, and I even discussed it during our budget. It wasn't in the Friday reports, Judy. Pardon me? It was not in the Friday reports. Please let everyone have their chance. And then I even discussed this very thing during our budget meeting, so it was discussed up here. It wasn't discussed. Mr. Moore apologized for not providing it, so you can't tell me you have it if he apologized for not providing it. I don't know what it is, but I had that information. The S&P report that says we were downgraded. I just had the information from the downgrade. I did know that. He did not provide it via email. I did an email search. It was discussed by me. It wasn't discussed up here. It was. I'm not looking for an argument. Commissioner Burns, did you say you had something you wanted to say? I just wanted to ask, Mr. Glover, two things that you said I was taking notes. You said that in the report, the rating came back because it was closely related to the policy. We returned. Yeah, if I could just, and I'm reading from the report. It says the downgrade reflects Delray Beach's ongoing use of reserves to decrease its unassigned fund balance closer to its recently adopted policy target 21% to 25% of budgeted operating spenders. So you did not violate your policy. It's just your policy was more closely aligned with the AA-plus credit rating than the AAA credit rating. Okay, and then the second one, you said that because it was a split rating, we were not. Yeah, so I want to be really clear. You know, a downgrading can impact interest rates, but in this case, you had a split rating. So you had S&P at a AAA, the highest rating possible, and you had Moody's at a AA-1. So when an investor buys your bonds, they're going to essentially pay an interest rate equivalent to the lower of the two credit ratings. It's just what investors do. They're going to look for every reason to extract value from you. So having it downgraded now that you had ratings at the same level would not have impacted that specific transaction. But we do need to be cognizant not to have further downgrades because that would indeed cost you interest rates moving forward. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry, did you have a question? I just have one quick comment. I mean, we can't change the past, obviously, but I was in favor of not touching the reserves. I still believe in that. You know, that bodes to the long-term health of Delray. Our ability to borrow money at the lowest possible rate for projects that we want to do is mission possible for us, but we have to be conscious of that. And I know sometimes, you know, we get into a lot of fighting up here about lowering taxes and all that. But not having those reserves, it does crush us when we go to borrow money, and we do borrow money. And the second thing, which I've said before, we need those reserves just in case because FEMA isn't there like they used to be. And if we get a Cat 5 or something, we're going to need to have those reserves to get our businesses and our community open. So I see a lot of reasons why, as a community, we ought to think long and hard about touching reserves in the future. And I don't want to lose focus on the fact that you're rated AA-1 and AA-PUS by Moody's and S&P. Those are very good credit ratings. That ain't easy to get. There are AAA-rated entities in the state of Florida. Don't get me wrong. They have unique demographics, and they also have a lot of reserves, and they've made the conscious decision to potentially have a higher millage rate over time to maintain those reserves. So, you know, I have conversations like this with a lot of issuers that say, you know, we strive to be AAA, which is great, but there's a tradeoff. And there's things you have to do that might be inconsistent with how you want to govern, just like I talked about in the water and sewer system. Yeah, you could be a AA or AA-plus water and sewer system, but those, you know, those 8% to 10% annual rate increases that you put in place might have had to be 15%. So, I mean, that's why you all are elected. I have to make the decisions. But, you know, I just wanted to kind of point that out so we could all be on the same page. That's a great point. I just want to have a couple of – thank you, Will. I just want to follow up. There were a number of factors, as I remember reading the downgrade. It wasn't just the bonds. There was also our increased, you know, debt that we were taking on, which is associated with the police and fire station and all the other kinds of that. So there were a number of factors, correct? Yeah, well, right after the synopsis that I just read, and it does say, and significant future debt plans. So, yeah, there are many things that go into a credit rating, your financial position, the economy, management. It's not just one factor. Reserves are a big factor. But, yeah, you have increased debt needs. And is that, you know, you all have had very little debt historically. And, you know, you are a growing city, and there's a lot of demands, and you're adding debt to the portfolio. So, yes, that is another factor. Again, a tradeoff. You could not do capital projects and have low debt, but you also wouldn't have, you know, the amenities that the city of Delray Beach has. I was fascinated to see that Moody's actually, the year before that, actually upgraded us, and that was after we actually had our rollback rates. I just find that interesting. I didn't know that there was an increase in rating the year before. And looking at all the different factors here, in our rising revenues that we have, right, if we have a reduction in expenses, does that help us with our rating? Yeah. I mean, obviously, your fund balance is made up of, you know, a surplus. So you can generate a surplus either by increasing revenues or decreasing expenditures. So it really is both sides of the ledger that they look at. Okay. And lastly, this biannual surveillance that we're, I guess we have the two rating companies doing a biannual surveillance of us. And you say we pay for that as a part of our continuing part? No, not exactly. So you pay a fee upon doing a transaction. The initial rating, yes. So you will pay a fee depending on the size of the transaction to have that rating assigned. They are required regulatorily to survey that rating at least every two years. It's a rating over the life of the bond. But, no, you do not pay an ongoing fee. Sort of the upfront fee takes into account the fact that they have to do surveillance, you know, periodically. I appreciate it. Well, I thank you very much for your time. One more thing, if I may. Yep. Mr. Moore, your letter dated to me, 10-20-26, starts off with my apologies that I did not provide the S&P Global rating documents dated October 28, 2025, and this is a year later. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, if I may, please. Yeah, I'm good. Yeah, and then we're going to ask Mr. Glover to thank him very much for his time. Thank you, Mr. Glover. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Mr. Glover. I heavily rely on my individual meetings with elected officials as well as my... I would say you said that in individual meetings, Mr. Moore. If we could please allow Mr. Moore to finish. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I rely on my individual meetings with individual elected officials to discuss a myriad of issues, concerns, challenges, whatever the case may be. I try my best to be as accessible as possible. I also heavily rely on my weekly reporting strategies in this regard and every other as well. So I did provide, one year or two days ago, Friday, October 31, 2025, a summary of what the rating positions are, which is the S&P, AA+, as well as the Moody's AA-1, the reaffirmation of the higher adjustment on the Moody side in that regard. My thought process, of course, relates to the fact that the financings that are experienced by municipalities, including Dairy Beach, Florida, is based on individual financings, and that was the update in that regard. Given the expectations, I will endeavor to provide documents, materials owned by S&P, owned by Moody's Investor Service, working closely with leadership of the Department of Finance, as well as leadership of PFM, our external financial advisor from which you just heard from Managing Director Jay Glover, that those materials are provided via the 2027 process. I take that as a performance expectation. However, I do my utmost to provide information via written updates, reports, whatever the case may be. And much of this is a function of my previous experience as well, working closely with the external financial advisor to offer an update, okay, this is the outcome in that regard, and a lot of clarity was provided via this presentation. So I will take responsibility accordingly, and I adhere to those expectations moving forward. Nevertheless, I have been fairly responsive and attentive in terms of providing updates and background information. The materials from S&P and Moody's are products that they own for every city that they rate, for every city or community organization for which they are rating, that they evaluate. Nevertheless, I will make that a facilitation on my part. Look, I think private briefings are important, but I do think that also, you know, having a more demonstrative, like a transparent thing of where our ratings are when we have a change is in order as well. As I've just committed, and I will. I understand that, but I'm just saying it's a fair point. Right, because he put in the good rating, and he didn't put in the S&P downgrading in the information letter. Are we finished with this agenda item, ladies and gentlemen? Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Next. Oh, good. Presentation in the Analysis of Parking Revenues and Free Parking Wednesdays. Missy Barletta. You've been very busy lately, Missy. I'm seeing all the emails back and forth with all the waterworks that we're having in our streets. It's been a little wet out there lately. Yeah. So this is going to be a very short presentation. You've seen some of it before. I brought this back from the last commission meeting at your request where you wanted to look at doing Free Parking Wednesdays all year round. So the first couple of slides here are from last meeting's presentation. Just to remind you that during Free Parking Wednesday across the summer, the occupancy in the lots fell off about four percentage points. But the turnover rate, which is the amount of customers that are coming to the downtown area, was actually increased by 12%. That's a good thing. So the average occupancy down 2%. The daily turnover actually increased by 22.7%. That's a significant increase in the number of times that parking space is turned over from one person to the next. The downside of the increased turnover, though, is that the average length of stay is decreased. And in this case, over the summer, it was by about 47 minutes. So that is the experience that we had in the three months that we did the pilot over the summer. Excuse me. So these are the areas that are included in the Free Parking Wednesdays. Old School Square Garage, Fettersfield Garage, 4th and 5th Garage, which is the IPIC. There's only 90 spaces in there are dedicated to the city. And then our surface lots, Banker's Row, Gladiola, Village, Veterans Park, and the Roy and Simon surface lots. And if you look to the left of that table, the total amount of revenue that we would not realize, this is an estimate, the total amount that we would not realize across the year if we did implement Free Parking Wednesdays all year round is just under $220,000. You see it there and it says it here. It's great. Yeah. For emphasis. I like that. Okay. So the annual coverage, 52 Wednesdays, the average per Wednesday that we would not be bringing in is $4,216. The monthly average is just over $18,000. And the total estimated financial impact of implementing the year round Free Parking Wednesdays is just under $220,000. And that is the presentation for tonight. This does need to be adopted by resolution. And once we receive direction from commission this evening, we're bringing that resolution back to you. It'll be on the consent agenda on November 17th. To the commission. Thank you very much, Missy. Any questions? Vice Mayor Burns. So these numbers are estimates? These numbers are estimates of revenue that we may have gotten. It's a projection of the revenue that we wouldn't get if we implemented the Free Parking Wednesdays all year round. All right. So I thought the last presentation, we were looking for actual revenues that we did get for a period of time. That's not what we were looking to say. That was a separate question. That information is still being researched, and I don't have it for you this evening. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Casale, any questions? Yes, I'd like to continue with the Free Parking Wednesday for our downtown businesses. Okay. There's great feedback. I would love to continue with it, too. I'm glad we came up with it. The merchants seem very happy about it. I know it looks like the turnover is greater, so hopefully more people are coming downtown and shopping. I'd like to have free parking all the time, just saying, but if I can just keep Wednesdays. Commissioner Marker. First of all, thanks for the work that you did. I'm in favor of free Wednesdays. I think it's a good thing. I've talked to a lot of residents about it, and we had a slower summer this year, and I think from everything I've heard, it helped us a little bit. But I'm in favor of it. I think our parking in general can continue to be tweaked. We're learning as we go, and I did get a lot of correspondence, which I'd love to share with you in the next few days, about some really productive ideas that people sent me and things that we should look at, too. But I'm in favor of this, so I think this is great. Great. Well, Commissioner, you've already said this. Yes, I'm in favor. So you have consensus to, I guess, come back with a resolution stating that we're going to have Wednesdays will become a permanent feature now of our parking firm? Starting when? Huh? Starting when? We can start at this one. It's currently underway, right? I mean, it's currently. No, it's not. It's not in place. So it would have to be the earliest would be this Wednesday, November 4th, and that would have to be the direction from commission. No, the earliest would be if you adopt the resolution on November 17th, then I would ask to have until December 1st to be able to implement. So we can get the signage out. We can get everything. I thought we weren't taking the signage down. I thought we didn't take it down. I thought it was still ongoing. No, ma'am. It ended at the end of August. Well, let's make it happen as soon as possible. Okay, so we have consensus now. We're going to have to bring it back on the 17th, and the effective date will be December 1. Are we all in agreement? It would be December 2nd. Wednesday is December 2nd. Whatever. Tuesday is December 1st. Wednesday, December 2nd. It will be effective Wednesday, December 2nd, 2026. Sorry, but I have to. Do you have something you had to jump in? No, no. Okay. Thank you very much, Missy. You have consensus. Thank you, Missy. Okey-doke. Comments and inquiries on agenda and non-agenda items. First, we have the city manager's response to inquiries. Inquiries. I yield at this time, Mayor. Thank you. Highlights. Okay, none. All right, now we come to the portion of the meeting, which is for public comment. Anyone wishing to speak on a matter on the agenda or a non-agenda item except a quasi-judicial or a public meeting, which you'll then have the opportunity to speak at that item, you'll have the opportunity to comment. I'm sorry, did you see? Can I say something? Yes. I saw some people that came in late, and I just want to remind people that 7A, which is the FAR for Lake Ida, has been removed. Okay. If any people are here for item 7A or 9A, those items have been removed from the agenda. And they're coming back November 17th. And they're coming back on November 17th, so you'll have your opportunity, I guess, to comment at that meeting on whatever it is. And we're losing people, which I guess that means that they're... No, it's a call. Thank you very much for reminding us. Are we all set? Well, they can comment now, but they don't really... No, you don't really comment. They can comment, but I just want them to know a decision's not going to be made this evening on those two items. Right. So, you know, make it be faster. So, please state your name. Zip code for the record. You will have three minutes. My name is Rita Rana. My zip code is 33483. And I will always start saying thank you to all of you for everything that you do for our city. It is much appreciated. So, mayor, commissioners, city employees, and everyone here today and watching, I would like to take a moment to recognize and thank city manager Terrence Moore for his leadership, dedication, and contributions to the city of Delray Beach. Having a city manager who has demonstrated a genuine commitment to this community, who is approachable, and who is open to suggestions is something worth recognizing. Under the leadership of city manager Moore, we have continued moving forward with major investments in our city's future, including the new water treatment plant, the municipal golf course renovation renovation, Pompeii Park improvements, investments in our parks, enhancements to the historical society campus, public safety facilities, and continued planning for renovations to our historic Crest Theater. Manager Moore's commitment to employee well-being and workforce morale has assisted in the city's numerous regional and statewide recognitions in 2023, 2024, and 2025 for workplace wellness and creating a healthier and more supportive work environment. We have modernized city services, improved processes, and strengthened public safety. The city has also reported a 29% reduction in violent crimes, reflecting the work of our fabulous police department, headed by our much appreciated and loved Chief Hunter, and our effective community partnerships. It is also of great importance to recognize the significance of stability and leadership. Delray experienced considerable turnover in the city manager's position prior to managers' more arrival. In fact, reporting has noted that the city has gone from five permanent managers in eight years, and even more if interim managers are included. Now, of course, the accomplishments noted also reflect the hard work of our city commission, of fabulous department directors, like Missy Barletto, our employees, and our community partners, but it takes leadership, coordination, and a willingness to listen to keep priorities moving forward. Manager Moore, thank you for your service and your commitment. Your contributions that's helped move Delray Beach forward, and for that, we are grateful. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good evening. My name is Cynthia Ridley. I live at 210 Northwest 2nd Avenue, and I've been here, living here over 50 years. So today, I got a chance to come to my first workshop in Delray Beach, and I was hearing about some of the people that they were sharing by Legal Aid, what they do in this community, about all these great folks that are given the opportunity to pay $1 to use our building, whatever. I don't know they do anything, but I have come before you guys a couple weeks ago. You so gracefully turned down a community that does a lot of work and charging us over $100,000 for the work that we do in this community. Shame on you. That is okay for folks who don't even live in this community to get a $1 a year and don't be here and does nothing. And probably, first of all, you probably don't even have never visited the resource center. I don't know. You probably don't even know where it is and probably never even been inside the building. Oh, well. But we so good to say, I would give somebody to live in my community, Palm Beach County, and give them a $1 a year pass. Hmm. Something to think about. And then I would even ask the community what they have done in this community. League of A, go there, they're never there. First of all, thank you, because this is the first time in 30 years I heard the land trust name called in a commission meeting. First of all, I don't even know what they do. They give nothing back. And when you do bring up the community land trust, it's a shh. I'm like, what do they do? You can't even ask the question who they are and what do they do in this community. So next time, at least present to this community who you bring in here. League of A, Poly, Bolsa. I don't even know where it is. Some signage might be great. Hold some folks visit. Where are the numbers? Hmm. I don't know if they false numbers. All these folks don't visit the resource center. So give me proof. And I would love to hear their quarterly report from land trust, what they do, since it's a hush-hush to even talk about land trust in this community. So think about everybody get a pass, but the people that don't live in this community, who do work in this community, never get a pass that does the hard work and programming in this community. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. Jim Knight, 33483 is my business zip code, and 33487 is my home zip code. First of all, I want to say thank you very much for bringing back free parking on Wednesdays. It's been a very big, popular thing. I think it's going to go a long ways. And if you look at the $220,000 compared to what we generate in taxes, or not taxes, but in fees from the parking meters and so forth, it's not that big of an amount. The second thing I wanted to bring up is I know there's going to be a future discussion about the parking west of Swinton, and I'm hopeful that I know the CRA is out for an RFP right now. God willing, hopefully someone comes in with the right proposal here on December 2nd, and someone gets selected. But I think you're talking about five years minimum to really get a project built out there, everything else done. Maybe it happens sooner. But to just extend that parking in lieu, the waiver out there for five years, I don't think it's long enough. I think we're really trying to generate activity, development, and so forth west of Swinton. So I'd hopefully you'd consider that. The other thing is a little heavier note. So there's a gang that's headed up by George Long. Every single morning, about 6.30, he's on the beach with his fellow compandres. And I just wanted to say it's great. I've been getting out there and walking every morning. And he and the crew and everybody else that's out there is really nice to see. It's a true community, believe it or not, before the sun comes up, you've got a number of people down there on the beach, out there walking and getting around and so forth. And thank you for all you do. Thank you very much. Good evening. Laura Simon, 33483, director of the DDA. Just wanted to say thank you to our city, the Parks and Recreation team, the Rotary city staff, and just all of our downtown merchants. On October 24th, our downtown hosted an amazing Halloween day. It probably was record-breaking to see close to over 6,000 people in downtown. Thank God it wasn't this past, like the weather we had this weekend. But just to that point, we are very busy starting getting ramped up, getting people back downtown, our residents, our businesses. We are welcoming a lot of new businesses as well. So we appreciate the continuation of the employee parking. The free Wednesdays will be helpful. Still very slow. And then with days like this that we're combating the weather, it doesn't help. So it's just we really need to do what we can. And I appreciate all the city does for our work. I also want to welcome everybody. Old School Square is hosting the DDA as part of our mission to we're hosting a fine art show this weekend on Saturday and Sunday. And it's facilitated by Mariska Gatto at the museum. So it's one of two fine art shows she's going to be doing this year. So that is taking place on the front lawn of the Cornell Art Museum. And we're also in full swing with, obviously, the Holiday Village. It's produced by the city. Parks and Recreation team is in full assembly. And that will be happening soon. But we've got lots of rentals, a lot of activities happening at Old School Square. So looking forward to a good season. And it's just what I wanted to say. Thank you. If I could ask you a quick question. Yes, sir. I had one of my coffees this morning with the mayor. And there was a very lively discussion about the beautification task force. And they really would like some information on it as to when the meetings are going to be and can they attend. So on your website, are you going to be? We do. We have them up there. You're putting it on? Okay, so I can direct them to your website so that they can find out the status of it. Because there's a lot of people with a lot of ideas. And so you're going to probably hear from a lot of people. But I just want to make sure that I can share a little bit if you want me to now. Or I can just. Well, yeah, if you want to put it on the record now. Sure. So our beautification task force, we have a meeting on Monday. Our DDA board meeting is Monday the 9th at 12 noon in this room where we'll share more. But we had our first meeting October 15th with our committee to kick off the task force. Great group of people. We've also had their first initiative is really to evaluate the downtown, bring back where the current status is. And then we'll be meeting on our second meeting. We're meeting the second Thursday of the month at 5 o'clock. So that agenda and that information will be on our website so people can find out over there. I said I thought you had started because there's a great deal of enthusiasm out there for this task force. Once a month. We wanted to kick it off the first month of the fiscal year. So a great group of people, all different skill sets and ages and demographics. So it's going to be strong, and we're really excited to see what we bring forward. Great. Thank you very much for the update. You're welcome. Are there any other members of the public? Mr. Long, you sure it's your moment here? I mean, you'd have to stand up from your chair. We can bring the mic to you. Well, okay. I was going to make you come to the thing, but never mind. You're sitting down. If there's any other comments, then public comment is closed. With the commission's indulgence. Yes, sir? No, he just mentioned the beach replenishment. What's going to be the effect of Prop 3 on the beach replenishment? Your name is opposed to Jim Vetter 334. 0405 is my zip. Well, the beach nourishment program was not really funded, I don't believe, out of ad valorem dollars. They were funded out of the capital improvement fund together with federal dollars and county dollars. Oh, it was? Yeah. Okay. That answers it. Okay. Thank you. All right. It should be fine. Any others? Public comment is closed. We now go to the approval of the consent agenda, correct? Yes, sir. I need a motion to approve the consent agenda. Motion to approve. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. It is approved. We now go to the regular agenda item. 7A is already off. Next is 7B. 7B is a quasi-judicial. Hearing this is about the retaining wall. I'm going to let you read the resolution, and then I will read into the quasi-judicial rules. And, Mayor, there's actually two additional quasi-judicials. Yes. We have 9C, which is the rezoning for the parcel located at 116 Southwest 5th Avenue. And we have D, which is another rezoning for the parcels located at 1405, 1445, and 1515 North Congress. Those are all quasi-judicial. Any people here that are going to be wanting to make comments on items 7B, 9, which one? Oh, sorry, 9B. 9B. No, sorry, 9C. 9C. And 9D. And 9D. Please stand and get sworn by the clerk. The clerk of the vested in me, elder of the state of Florida, swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and not the best. Thank you all very much. Now let me read you the rules. Thank you all. May not be legally made upon personal views as to whether a project is a good project or not, nor may a decision be based on the numbers of citizens who support or oppose a particular project. The law requires that all decisions must be made on the basis of whether the project meets the requirements of law, the comprehensive plan, and the land development regulations. We've sworn in the witnesses. If you could please enter in the file to the record. Read the resolution. Please read the resolution, and then, yes. A resolution of the City Commission of the City of Zowry Beach, Florida, approving a waiver to Section 465C of the land development regulations to allow a retaining wall 7 feet in height at the property located at 103 Basin Drive, as more particularly described herein, providing an effective date and for other purposes. Thank you very much. Ms. Giannotas, if you could please enter the project file and to the record. Good evening. I'd like to enter file number PZ000773-2026. Are there any ex parte communications on this? No. No, I'm funny. I had somebody call me and ask me about it, but there's really no ex parte communications, so it was just to just ask me about it, and I followed up to get the update from Ms. Giannotas, who very kindly called me on a Friday afternoon to do that, which I appreciate. Anyway, if you could present the case. Thank you. Kristen Ritchie, I'm here on behalf of First Water Building and Design. Thank you, Commission, for considering this waiver. This is a property located at 103 Basin Drive, which is on the corner of Basin and Lowry Drive in East Del Rey. A new home was constructed there, and this is a FEMA AE8 flood zone, so the property needed to be elevated, NAVD 9 feet, which it was. The issue here is that the land development regulation requires the height of the wall to be measured from the undisturbed grade, and the basin drive measurement was measured at 2 feet. So the actual concrete from top to bottom of this wall is only 6 feet, which is what the regulation requires, but it actually sits 7 feet from that undisturbed grade as measured. What's interesting is that this is a corner lot. Lowry Street actually had a different measurement. So this measurement was 2.9, so we don't have an issue. The wall is consistent all the way around, but we don't have an issue with Lowry Street, only with Basin Street, so we are requesting the waiver. We are only at 9 feet total. This is Basin Drive looking north. That's the wall that we're talking about here on the right. The neighbor's wall is across the street. On the left actually measures a little bit higher at 9.1. So if the commission were at your pleasure and your discretion to grant the waiver, it would be consistent and applied consistently with the neighboring properties as well. This is actually Lowry looking west. This is the corner of Basin Drive and Lowry Street, and you see this vegetation predates any of the construction, and this is really what the undisturbed grade was, but it's being measured lower than that. This is the wall and the gate, and that's the neighboring wall. The LDR language that requires that it be 6 feet from the undisturbed grade, we're requesting total 7, even though, again, from bottom to top, it's really 6 feet. I have the contractor here. If anyone has questions about the plans, I have them all in here. I'm not going to go into great detail. I think you've had these issues come before you in the past, so I'm going to kind of move quick, and if you have questions, again, that was the vegetation that predated. This is why we have to elevate this area. It does flood. And the request meets all of the requirements. It shall now adversely affect the neighboring areas, which it does not. It doesn't actually apply to public facilities. It does not create an unsafe situation, and there's no special privileges being requested because it would be applied consistently with the property surrounding. The family is asking for the higher wall for safety. It doesn't impact the neighbors. And, again, I've listed some precedent because I do think the commission has heard these before. So we are respectfully requesting approval. If anyone has any questions, I can answer, or I have the contractor here as well. Great. Thank you very much. To the city. I don't think we necessarily need to pull the presentation up. I think you have a good overview of the issue. As you know, on the barrier island, it's AE8. That means they have to get 8 feet up, you know, just to get to meet the flood criteria that's required, and then plus one for the building code, and on and on and on. In this case, it really ended up being a pretty small bust of only one foot. And as you can see, there is mature landscaping that was kept in place. There's additional landscaping on the wall that faces base, and the resulting design is not really out of character with what is across the street. So, you know, in this case, we've seen it before where it's been a really, like there was no effort to grade down at all to try to, you know, maintain it. And I do think that our contractors are paying more and more attention to that, you know, kind of trying to get down to a compatible street, just generally elevation. And, you know, they made it by one. So your choices are either to grant the waiver from the undisturbed grade, which is now gone because the entire site's been graded, right? You know, worst case scenario, you're going to tell them to take the concrete cap off the wall and to lower the wall, and then it would only be a five-foot wall. So with the landscaping that's softening it there, this is not an extremely, you know, visual shift when you experience it if you've been by. You know, we were hoping to pass a fill ordinance at some point, and until Senate Bill 180 changes, we're not able to. We did try to loosen up some small adjustments like this administrative, but the way we drafted the ordinance, it was, you know, 5% or one foot, whichever is less. If we'd said greater, then we might have been able to handle this administratively. So if you'd like to give direction on that, that's something we can adjust. After our conversation. Yes, the mayor was like, why? I thought we fixed this. So anyway, I'm here if you have any questions. Great. Thank you very much. This meeting is open to the public. If there are any members of the public wishing to speak to the commission on this item, please come to the lectern, give your name and address for the record, and you will each have three minutes. Seeing no members of the public, the public comment is closed. First, is there any cross-examination between the applicant and the city, or the city to the applicant? Seeing none, right? Seeing none. Then it goes to the discussion by the commission. I throw this open. Which commissioner would like to speak first? I can speak first. I'll just say that I was with you. I thought we had fixed this, so we can talk about this later, but I think it meets all the requirements. I'm in favor. Great. Commissioner Malika? I'm in favor of granting a waiver. Commissioner Marker? I'm also in favor. Commissioner Casale? I'm in favor, too, but it does concern me in the instances, and not this one. I'm just speaking broadly. When we sometimes see this, and the height is substantially greater than this, I appreciate your situation, and I thank you for your efforts. And it sounds like the measurements on the Lowry side are different, too, so that creates a problem, which I accept this. But generally, I feel like we need to figure out, because we're seeing these after-the-fact issues that we have to rectify, and it's unfortunate they have to come in. But this isn't – we'll talk late off record. Thank you. So we do have – just to address that concern, we do have a floodplain manager in the building division now who is the one reaching out and coordinating and heading them off while they're under construction, which has been very helpful. You know, this contractor, you know, almost nailed it. It's just the world is not flat. Right. And I think the – you know, maintaining that mature vegetation, which you could – you saw the swell on that, was probably important to the neighborhood as well. So, you know, we're dealing with this, and then the state asking – or the federal government telling you to go here, which, of course, I mean, it's pouring right now. We understand why that's happening, but it's tricky. Thank you. I mean, I think with FEMA's content, they're talking about making changes again on the barrier island. So this is not going to – this is going to be – we're going to be seeing this more and more. I do think that you should – and at least I'm with the vice mayor on this. I thought this was fixed because, you know, administratively, this was – we understand because of the two different roadsides, this is one that really you should have been able to do. And so I would – if we got consensus here to do that, why don't we just go ahead and make that correction because really it's a correction. You want a motion? I need a motion. I mean, well – Let's do it separate. Let's do the motion on them first. First, I need a motion to – Approve resolution number 163-26A. Correct. Second. I'll call the roll. Deputy Vice Mayor Marker. Yes. Commissioner Mollica. Yes. Commissioner Cassell. Yes. Vice Mayor Barnes. Yes. Mayor Carney. Yes. And now do we have – are we – do we have – do we have direction now? We don't need a resolution to bring it back. We're just giving you direction to come back with a corrective resolution. Ordinance. Corrective ordinance, excuse me, yes. Is there a consensus? Yes. Yes. Yes, we all agree in agreement? Great. Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Item 7C, Sam Kamp. Did I say – there he is. This is a motion to – we're going to be looking at the economic development positioning and targeting plan and getting a motion, I think, to approve the plan if we're so inclined. Mr. Kamp. Good evening, Mayor, Commissioners. I'm Sam Kamp, Economic Development Manager for the city of Delray Beach. I'll say this is a long time coming. I've only been here for three months, but I think you all have been waiting for close to a year at this point. We're back in November 2025, December 2025. Tonight we have Kevin Crowder with Business Flair to present the final presentation of the Economic Development Positioning and Targeting Plan, and then we're here to address any questions or concerns before you kind of let me loose. Great. Thank you, Mr. Crowder. Good evening. Nice to see you all again. I like when I come present here because I get to use my Delray Beach office. So I'm going to be brief in this. You've seen this. We had a long conversation and meeting earlier in the summer and answer any questions you have. I think we went back in and had some things that we clarified in here. But this is the Economic Development Positioning Plan. Today it's the recommendation to accept the plan as sort of the operating framework for the economic development efforts that you have, and especially when it comes to how the city positions for the future with economic development. The three main things is affirming the target sectors that we talked about, that founder and creator lane. You'll see that several times in here. It's something that you already have, and it needs more visibility, and it's something that no one around you owns. You already do, even though it's not as visible as it can be, you already do it better than all of your neighboring cities. Boutique personal services, wealth management, family offices, types of things that they fit the regional branding that you have and things that are happening in Boca and things that are happening in West Palm, but they're different, and they fit Delray Beach's brand, your identity, and character better than some of those other destinations. So, again, that's about telling your story, again. And then AI-enabled firms, private equity, AI security, those other sort of tech pieces that relate really well to what you do and who you are as a city. And I think something that you'll kind of see that is consistent through all of those is how heavily dependent they are on talent and how mobile talent can be. And that's where your downtown and your tourism and the other things that you do really well comes in because those are the things that help attract talent. And I said it the last time I was here, I'll say it again, when I was in Miami Beach all of that time, it's our tourists that become our residents. It's the visitors who come and they see what we have to offer who then decide they want to bring their talent, whether they're an innovator, a creator, an entrepreneur, a wealth manager, whatever that is. Kind of the way we've got it laid out for you is the first actions in a 90-day plan that lets – we've started saying something as we've gotten looking into the new economy as we've gone really deep in AI and other technology, that the future is – the future doesn't need to be planned, it needs to be built. And so looking at a 90-day set of actions and then moving into what is the overall 12-month implementation of that. And all of this direct – coming through as economic development plans do through the city manager's office, you've got Sam here staffed up in that position to help you move forward. One thing that we talked about is, you know, like a lot of places in Florida, there's been sort of a passive model of economic development. Again, I used to joke in Miami Beach that, you know, my business recruitment program was answering the phone. You know, there was wealth being imported into a lot of places in Florida, especially along the coast. But that's changing, and it's changing for a lot of different reasons. It's changing because of generational talent and shifts in generations living in different places. But it's also changing because of technology. It's changing because just what people are looking for in a place has evolved and is changing. And we now have talent that can be so mobile that they can abandon places that they don't want to be. I was just at my high school reunion in West Texas, and my wife commented on how many people came up and made comments to her about, oh, you got out. We're still stuck here. But that doesn't happen anymore. Nobody has to be stuck in a place that they don't want to be any longer. So the first thing, the other thing that, and I wrote it down here, is, you know, in some of your areas, and we'll touch on this a little more, you're sort of losing some of that land base that you have, and we talked about this last time, that you have to grow your economy. And that starts with Congress, but it's not only Congress. And then, again, that founder and creator lane, and then your next economy, we have a map in there, and we talked about it last time, about the discovery we did of a lot of those firms that you already have that were just either misclassified or captured under a sort of nondescript categorization that are really just some really amazing stories that need to be told out of Delray Beach that you already have here. So when we talk about that land base and what that looks like, Congress Avenue is that first one. We spent a lot of time talking about that one last time. The owner-initiated rezonings, the movement between commercial and industrial and residential uses. Secondly, West Atlantic is that work and that support of the CRA as they move forward with what they're doing. They're on West Atlantic. The move of Aldi from 600 to 800. The RFP out for 600. And that, because that is your other place where you have that ability with your CRA partner to be able to meet some of the other sort of real estate-based opportunities that you need in the city. And then third was looking at North Federal Highway, which is the one that really needs the shift. Because when we look at, this is the place where it's not so much that you lose the land contribution to the economy. The use of the land has changed and you're not going to get it back. You have a Walmart that's just opened and you have a retail environment that from, you know, a standard retail perspective, you're not going to have the demand driven there where people are going to identify North Federal as a gap in their methodology that they need to come and put a store in. It doesn't mean you won't get a creative, again, back to sort of your key target, that you won't get a creative entrepreneur who has a product that he decides will come in and fit there. But that's not like a national franchise that you can understand what they're looking for and go target them. This is someone who needs to hear about Delray Beach and why they need to be there. But you're not going to, it's not going to be someone on a cold-caught list. And so that, again, comes back to those creators, those entrepreneurs that would be a really good fit there. But that's also where we see that opportunity. You have a different character on Federal, and that character can evolve. And some of that may take public realm improvements and investments. But we think it's a really good place where you can create that connection to the regional identity that's developing around capital, whether it's hedge funds, whether it's investment, and that that's a place for adaptive reuse or the use of spaces of that more targeted niche wealth management, family office, those types of things, as well as an opportunity. You have a lot of, and we talked about this last time, again, one of the things that's driving Congress is the residential and the multifamily and the apartments, a lot of which is workforce. Federal does provide an opportunity to provide some housing product so that the real estate can be used. If the market's not going to deliver it in residential, you need it on the tax row to be productive in one way. And some of that may be residential. What I'll say about residential, we do this even when we write CRA plans. We don't just focus on affordable housing and workforce housing when we write CRA plans. In our CRA plans, and we think this applies to a city, we're looking for a healthy mix of housing. And it's that healthy housing mix that really fills out all of the different things that you need. In your workforce, you need places that your creators and your entrepreneurs are going to want to live also, who are looking for something unique, something different. And you need to be able to shift and adapt to whatever your housing market needs that you can't control to maintain that healthy mix that your economy needs. So the first 90 days we have get started on the things that we have for protecting Congress and show some movement on that protection of Congress. And I think one of the other things that we talked about last time was the, I believe it's the six-month time period for nonconforming uses. Serving the founders, beginning that retention outreach, both through your city, as well as your partners. You have partners in the chamber and in the DDA and in the CRA. Claiming that visibility lane, the trade press effort, the outreach to all the different channels where your story gets told. And then continue to focus on that high-touch concierge service here when you're engaging with, through your processes. All those different places that people, that the city touches people who want to do something in the city. And sort of assembling that into a very clear, I'm going to use the word brand, that concept. You know, I always told when the other thing in Miami Beach is we wanted to be number one on people's speed dial. And we wanted to have a symbol, that package of reasons that we were. And then move to the next 12 months, which is really getting into the full LDR, land development package of things that protects Congress. Profiles that help looking at that tenanting outreach, financial services, wealth management, and those types of things. Understanding what those opportunities and real estate opportunities are on North Federal. Working with the CRA. Creating and maintaining your property inventory. And then also your regular reporting. And monitoring both, not just your activities, but the things, understanding whether those things happening out in the marketplace that may be beyond your control, but are going to really influence what you can and can't do and how you may have to shift in some policy decisions. And then just a lean model. You have your economic development manager. You have your assistant city manager and the city manager through which this goes. Work with your partner organizations. Work with your outside advisors as needed. And fund it appropriately for the things that you as policymakers decide you want implemented. So tonight it's just accepting the plan and really affirming the sectors and authorizing the work to get started, especially those first 90 days. We think it's a very doable, realistic 90 days that can be something that helps show momentum, get you some easy wins, and use the storytelling to really, really get that visibility of that that can differentiate you here in, not just in Palm Beach County, but South Florida and Florida. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much, Mr. Crowder. To the commission. Any comments from any members of our commission? And I think we're ready to go. Just thank you, and it's time to move on. I have a quick question. So I'm really interested. I love the analysis. But you talked about in the plan about financial services, private equity, and wealth management being some good categories for Delray Beach. You've obviously given that some thought. It looks like you think the smaller shops might be a better fit for us than some of the larger shops. And I'm just curious about your thinking on that because I think that category is a great one for us. We've got some that we've attracted to Delray recently, and they're happy and doing really well. I like that category. But do you think we'd be shopping for the boutiques, or are we able to play with some of the big boys, too? You know, I think there will be big boys that find you and decide that you're a better fit, but I don't know that it's your target. And I think that it's the boutique that helps sell that, that all of a sudden the big boy decides we want to be part of that. Because maybe, you know, and you know how companies grow, and you know how company culture changes. And we all started as small shops. And that's a culture we all want to keep, and we want to be around. And we may want our employees to be around when we do that. But I think it's the small shops because the small shops are much more that concierge high-touch that we talk about. That's why we think that your efforts framed that way is really good. And you are the place that they want their clients to be compared to the other options that they have in South Florida. And so I think that's some of the thinking is your Delray Beach can deliver an experience. Because remember, when their clients are coming into town, their experience is not whatever time they spend in that office. Their experience is overall. And you outdo your competitive market in that realm. And that's going to be more important than anything other than the actual financial management, but the experience inside the size of the firm. And just a second quick question. What's the best avenue to attract companies like that? What are we going to have to be thinking about in terms of finding those companies? Is it going to conferences? Is it personal relationships that we may have? And what are the avenues that we're going to need to start thinking about? It's sort of all of those. It's looking for non-traditional paths. So it's getting in the room where the people you want to hear your story are. And so I'll tell you, it's the reason that I try to not go to my own industry trade shows. I end up doing it. But, you know, I want to go to real estate conferences. I want to go to Creator Gold at South by Southwest, where the creators I want to come into my cities are. And so whoever that audience is, those are the rooms you need to be in. You need to, you know, make friends or create the relationships with the ones that you already have, even if you only have one, because that becomes someone who can make that introduction for you when you show up in their rooms. I think the most important thing is showing up in their rooms and making sure that your story is being told in the right places. So if you're targeting with management, you shouldn't be advertising in Site Selection Magazine. That's great. Thank you. I appreciate what you've done here. Commissioner Malika? No questions. Thank you very much. Listen, I think it's a great report. And I, like Commissioner Marker, think that there is a great opportunity with some of these, you know, boutique family-type offices because, I mean, let's be honest, the people that are staying in these offices, they want to be able to go to their office and park, and they want to be close to where they live. And considering there are a lot of people coming off the beach there and a lot of some of the upper, you know, housing we have there, I think it's something we need to figure out how we can attract them. I don't know the methodology yet, but I just think that there is a great opportunity up there because there's, I just think it's a great, because it will bring other, you know, spending into the city, which ultimately is what we want. It will. And you really do, and I'm serious when I say it, that your downtown is unique, and you know this. And for, when you think about this as a different market, number one, Boca's not going to have a downtown for any meaningful period that, especially if it has to go, anything that has to go back on the ballot. But, and West Palm is becoming too big for a lot of people to want to go, especially when you're talking about the sort of clients that we're talking about. Well, I really appreciate that. I think, Mr. Crowder, nice job. You did a lot of work on it. So, do we need a motion to accept the report? I need a motion, please, to accept the report, unless there's any other questions from the commission. I make a motion to adopt the economic development report. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you very much for your hard work. Thank you. Okay, now it's up to Mr. Stopping this guy. Yeah, now it's up to Mr. Kemp to put it together. We have no more in the 7th, do we? Correct. Mayor, can I read 9B and C together? Yes, please. So, 9B is Ordinance 44-26, an Ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Delray Beach, Florida, adopting a small-scale land use map amendment, redesignating a partial land, measuring approximately 0.24 acres located at the 116 Southwest 5th Avenue. As more particularly described, herein from commercial corridor to medium density, 5-12 DU per acre. Pursuant to the provisions of the Community Planning Act, Florida Statute, Section 163.3187, providing a complex clause and a severability clause, providing an effective date and further purposes. And then 9C is Ordinance No. 45-26, an Ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Delray Beach, Florida, rezoning a parcel of land, measuring approximately 0.24 acres located at the 116 Southwest 5th Avenue. As more particularly described, herein from Central Business CBD District to Medium Density Residential RM District, amending the City of Delray Beach zoning map July 6, 2021, and further amending Figure 4413B2, West Atlantic Neighborhood Sub-District Regulating Plan, and Section 4413 Central Business CBD District of the Land Development Regulations, providing a complex clause and a severability clause, providing an effective date, and for other purposes. 9C is a quasi-judicial matter, Mayor. Yes. So, as I understand it. Well, they're both listed as quasi-judicial. It's only 9C. Yeah, they're both, yeah. And so the applicant, I believe they're here, and they're not going to be making a presentation. But if anybody wishes to speak during the public comment portion, they are subject to cross-examination. So are we not going to be, is, are you giving a presentation, or is first reading okay? No, so we can just open it up. I just wasn't sure if you needed the case file. I'm sorry. You have to open it for public. I'm going to open it now to the public. This is, we're, this is, anybody wishing to speak on items 9B, I'm going to call them separately. Only 9C. Excuse me? Oh, excuse me. It says quasi-judicial on. 9C. I know, that's, that's a miss. That's a misstatement. Okay, that's fine. I just know what I'm saying. That's fine. On 9C, please come to the lectern, give your name and address for the record. You'll each have three minutes. Seeing no public comment, we need a motion to approve the first reading of Ordinance 4526 and Ordinance 44-26. So moved. Do we have to do them separately, or we can do them together? Okay, thank you. I'm not making the motion. I'm just saying I need a motion. I know, I said so moved. You made the motion. We have a second. Please call the roll. Commissioner Mullica, Commissioner Cazell, Vice Mayor Burns, Mayor Kearney, Vice Mayor Marker. Yes. For the record, that was for both Ordinances 44 and 45. Correct. Both Ordinances were included in the motion. Item 9D, which is Ordinance 46-26. In Ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Calvary Beach, Florida, rezoning three parcels of land, measuring approximately 5.11 acres, located at a 1405, 1445, and 1515 North Congress Avenue. As more particularly described here, from Planned Commerce Center District to Mixed Industrial and Commercial District, amending the City of Calvary Beach zoning map July 6, 2021, providing a complex clause and a severability clause, providing an effective date and further purposes. And this, too, is quasi-quasi. Thank you very much. Again, if there's been any ex parte communications, do we do it? Oh, you know what? We didn't do that for the last one. Were there any for the last one? No, there were none. Not for me. Sorry. Last one, Ms. Miskell. Who was the last? It was Mr. Costello. Oh, no. Mr. Costello, yes. Sorry. So there are no ex parte communications. Are there any members that, we're not going to be making a presentation, or we are going to make a presentation? Same, no presentations. Okay. Are there any members of the public wishing to address the commission on this agenda, Item 9D? Seeing one. Good evening. Christina Morrison, 33483. No, no, name and address, for the record. Please. Yeah, for the public hearing, for the Quasars, you've got to give your address. Need my address? 1000 Lowry Street in downtown Delray Beach. That's perfect. So, um. And you have been sworn. Yes, yes, sir. In 2016, we started with the Congress Avenue Task Force that recommends rezoning the east side of Congress Avenue. That was 10 years ago. For some reason, it's still not done. I think we recommended a melding of the MIC and the MROC together to really be able to draw a broad base of businesses to Congress Avenue, which is really our last vestige for to bring development of commercial and industrial, late industrial space to our city. That corridor, I'm sure you've noticed, has developed to be a very construction-centric area with all kinds of finishes, flooring, walls, cabinetry, things like that. And it's really booming to meld those two uses together, the MIC and the MROC, is really vital. And Mr. Mack is here to talk about his parcel. But just in general, it's really time we got together and got this zoning completed on Congress Avenue. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there any other members of the – is there any cross-examination to the witness? Technically, it's a quasi-judicial, so you can cross-examine. Steve Mackie, 501 Northwest 7th Street, Del Rey. I'm the owner of the properties. I'm going to be giving a presentation at the next reading to explain everything that's going on here. What Christina just said is true. We've been working on this Congress Avenue corridor to get the zoning kind of figured out to bring small businesses back and give them a permanent home so they don't get zoned out or to multifamily or whatever. So I'll be seeing you guys next month to give you a more formal presentation on this. Great. Thank you very much. And I know you were sworn because I watched you. No, this is coming up on the – No, it's going to be a little bit. It won't be on the 17th. No, it will not. Okay. December. So public comment is now closed. There's no rebuttal. There's no presentation, so I need a motion to approve. Motion to approve ordinance number 4626. Second. Please call the roll. Commissioner Casale. Yes. Vice Mayor Burns. Yes. Mayor Carney. Yes. Deputy Vice Mayor Markert. Yes. Commissioner Mullica. Yes. Great. We are finished with this agenda, and we now have comments and inquiries on non-agenda items to the city manager. I yield it this time. Thank you. Good answer. The city attorney. Same. Same. Same. Better answer. Okay. To the commission. Commissioner Mullica, would you like to go? Sure. I just have a couple things. One of the things I actually spoke with Anthea about, and somebody came to me with, it's a company doing AI for zoning, and I know they're getting a lot of them, but I just wanted consensus to bring that forward to the city manager and the department and to Jay Stacey, is that Mr. Stacey? It's a company to take a look at, because I think it's super important for us to get AI and get it to work for us. Even though while we're scared of it, if we don't use it, we'll be behind everyone else. So I just wanted a consensus to bring that forward. Is that a consensus up here? Is that Ms. Miskell's? It is. Yeah. I agree with that. I spoke to her, and I think it's a great idea, but only if it's running. Of course. Give it to them. Well, we can talk about it. There are several companies I've read of, but there are several companies, and some more and more cities are going to it, where AI looks at the plans, and they come back with, you know, in a much shorter time frame. It's an investment into the software, but theoretically it balances itself out, and it certainly should improve response times. Customer, yeah, and the customer satisfaction. From the customer side of you. So I'm in favor. What about you and everyone? I'm in favor. Is our staff trained for that? May I discuss it? So we have some tools in which we need to evaluate. Given the consensus being expressed, we'll come back before the commission to outline what that path may be and what it looks like, and we'll be able to go from there. However, as far as training and AI, we are evolving in that regard as an overall organization, so there may be some opportunities that make sense. Thumbs up, Terrence. The time is up. The time is up. The time is up. The time is up. The time is up. The time is up. The time is up. Mayor, can I just – obviously we want to, you know, explore different opportunities, but we have to be mindful about our purchasing policies, so – Correct. No, no, no, I'm agreeing. I'm not saying this is – I mean, I'm just saying the concept of this – No, the concept is definitely out there, yes. Of this is really – it's – everybody's doing it, so we really – We'll be left behind if we don't do it. Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen, we'll offer an update in the coming weeks. We'll be able to evaluate this, what makes sense, and take under consideration all policies, and we'll be before you. Perfect. Excellent. Good. Are you finished? Yes. Mr. Marker. I just have one quick item. I had some residents in Lake Ida approach me, and I've talked to Mr. Moore about this recently, about Cornell Park, and they have an interest in allowing dogs off-leash in the park. We currently prohibit that, but I talked to Mr. Moore about it, and the residents have come forward in the right way, and they're very interested in this. And so I asked Mr. Moore if the city could spend a little bit of time and take a look at what our options might be, what other major cities are doing in this regard, and so that we can go back to the residents and just have a good conversation with them. So I don't think it'll take much time, but I think it's something we should take a look at, and the residents have asked us. So we'd appreciate it if you could do that, Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Marker. If I may, Mr. Mayor, just to chime in. And so, again, I've actually spoken to you individually as well as you individually regarding this prospect, and, of course, we would have to examine any concerns regarding liability. This is not a case of designating a dog park or any of that. Some of the residents who I've spoken to were under that pressure, and that's not what we're talking about. What's being contemplated, as I understand it, is the prospect of allowing off-leash activity for a set period of time. So my interest would be to examine what that would look like in terms of liability, maybe sometime in December. I can update the city commission in terms of what that may look like so that appropriate decisions can be evaluated. I think the timing is great, and I think the residents would be very thankful for a good evaluation of that, so thank you for that. Likewise, I request consensus to proceed. Are we all in agreement on that? Sure. To take a look. Yes, we're all in agreement. Yep, okay. Thank you. Mr. Marker, you're done? All right. Vice Mayor Burns? Yes, I just have one thing. So this Halloween was a success. The Strawn and Son was able to have their trunk-or-treat activity that they have not had for the last two years. They got everything straight with the city. But I wanted to ask, there were a few hiccups that the city took care of, but I wanted to ask, if we have a community group that are having a private function, and the footprint is the same, there were no road closures or anything, does it – I guess I'm asking the city attorney or Mr. Moore, is there a process that this can be, like, approved on an approved list or – You can direct us and we'll put it in the special events policy. Yeah, be part of our special events policy. If it's a longstanding event that doesn't change the footprint, the issue was that this group had to go before SeaTac and DSMG. And the Vice Mayor is right. It was all on their property. There was just a closure of the parking lot, I think it was. And so, you know, the city impacts were minimal. They haven't changed anything, and it's really just on their property. So if it's an event like that that you've seen over and over again or that staff's seen, you can direct us to put that in the policy, and then they'll have an easier time going through the process, and, you know, you may not get so many phone calls. So do we have consensus to ask the city attorney to develop some language to add to our policy so that we can do that and make it easier for some of these longstanding operations which don't impact the city? Yes? Yes, we do? Okay. Thank you. Cut direction. Thank you. I'm done. Okay. Commissioner Casalo. Sure, thank you. I want to commend a gentleman named William. I don't know his last name, but we got this lovely letter to the utilities department about an emergency call after hours and how thoughtful he was and accommodating, and I love to hear that about our staff. And I want to also thank Mr. Hajimiri and the two other employees who were involved. It's always great when we're hearing compliments. Compliments to Ms. Carter, Mr. Hajimiri, and our city attorney, Jelen, another opioid litigation settlement money for the city of Delray Beach. Very exciting. The funding agreements, folks, I was talking to the city attorney about the nonprofit funding agreements. There's some language in the agreements that I think is causing some concern. They seem more like grants, as we discussed. There's a reimbursement option if the money isn't utilized in a period of time. But more important, in short order, they were supposed to provide a lot of information that I think is difficult to provide. And also what they're being asked to provide is, like, we would be getting reams of paper from these people if they have to provide all this information. And also, the money isn't going to them until the end of the year. And in some instances, the period isn't a full year. I think we need to look at this because these were funding agreements. We took the grant program from the CRA, and we brought it here as a funding agreement. And I just wonder if we can revisit that to make the process a little more friendly. I actually started looking at them because I believe that there were – Commissioner Mollica and I talked about some UDAG monies and CDBG monies that grant was literally a month for everybody to use the money. So we've gone back. We've corrected those. Because they should be out for execution before the end of the week. I think what you're talking about – Non-profit funding agreements. So I think it was for Spady, I believe. I think the Arts Garage has a different agreement, but it's still the same type of language. Spady, I mean, if they don't get the money to the end of the year and they're supposed to use it for programming, they're not going to have any programming. I believe I spoke to Mr. Moore or somebody about it, that it should be rolling. Yes. I think it's imperative that because this is taxpayer money and you are the stewards of the taxpayer's money, we have a responsibility to ensure that what we're reimbursing for is consistent with the program mission. And unfortunately, we've had some situations where the performance measures were not met and we were still giving the money. So I do think a reimbursable grant is more appropriate. I agree with you. It should be rolling. I mean, that's not fair. Especially these agencies have always operated getting the money at the beginning of the fiscal year. So to not tell them they have to wait until the end of the fiscal year, that's almost like a two-year wait. That's not practical. So we have discussed that. I think administratively we can address that. I don't think it needs to be done through the agreement. But I will tell you, I do think that we can look at what the requirements are to support the monies. That's your decision. But I would always tell you to err on the side of having more information than less. Because at the end of the day, if there's an audit, if there's a question, if we have that information, we can support it. If we don't, you know, it just can lead to unnecessary problems. And not to suggest that anybody would do something inappropriate with the money, but if you're going to say you're going to do X, Y, and Z with your money, you need to show that you did X, Y, and Z with your money. And if you did A, B, and C, then we need to be able to withhold the money until you can prove what you actually promised the commission you were going to do at a public hearing. So I think that's why we went with the more is better. But I'm happy to revisit it. But I can tell you that as far as a reimbursement, I agree with you. And I forget who I spoke to about it, but it will be rolling. It will say. Okay. So you're going to, will you, what is the next step in this? Will you look at that and then circle back to each of us? How are we, how do we move forward beyond that? I don't think there's anything. It's administrative. Okay. If there's language that needs to be adjusted, I'm happy to adjust it. Perfect. I mean, if you're going to direct me about the, what they're, what they're providing, you know, we, I would bring that back to you. I don't want to make that decision. But I think it was sufficient at the time when we drafted these agreements that what we were asking of them was fair because we do need to justify, especially in this day and age when, you know, if Amendment 3 passes, you know, we're really going to have to, you know, dot all our I's and cross all our T's. So I felt it was appropriate. But if you want to change that, I'd have to bring that back. Could you, maybe you could forward us those agreements and we could look at them and then just to see what, I'm trying to understand, but when I was talking to somebody, they were saying like you'd have to really provide every single charge that you used and that's, but for the library as an example, that would be a substantial amount of documentation. I mean, respectfully, they're getting over a million dollars. No, no, no, I understand that. I get it. It's onerous. Fair enough. It's onerous, but it's a lot of, you know, if you were telling me, you know, they're getting $5,000, I think you can be a little bit more lax with, you know, supporting documentation for that. But I'm going to tell you that library agreement, when I reviewed it and when I looked at the performance measures, I had concerns that the justification that was substantiating the nature of the agreement and the basis for the agreement was not met. And I think that as the policymakers, I think that you should strongly consider leaving that as it is because of the issues we've had in the past. Okay. Thank you. I would take your recommendation. And a couple more things. USA Today, best holiday tree display. Very exciting. Thank you, Gina, for sending that to us. Also, listen, we, code enforcement department is a bit of a mystery to me and always has been. And Mr. Moore, years ago I had asked after all that bad press for a, Mr. Moore. I'm listening. I'm just writing. I'm listening. Thank you. Okay. For a review of that department and we did it and we got a lot of recommendations as to how to move forward. But I was wondering, I mean, we do a lot of workshops. I would like to understand the inner workings of that department and how we are handling, you know, various situations. I mean, we've seen situations where someone has over $92,000 of liens and it's just not paying them, not coming. And that's not acceptable. And then we have other people who are getting cited regularly, $100,000 worth of violations. I said liens, excuse me. No, it was, I think, a lien at some point. But at any rate, there's a lot I don't understand about how we make these decisions once we get into a situation. And I know our goal is compliance and we're not looking to charge people. But I went and asked for some documentation. And if you go, look, and this history goes back a long way. For the closed files, we are like $2.8 million due to us that's uncollected with the expected collected amount of $1 million. And this goes back a long time in history. I'm not talking about current, but it's a lot of money. And if you talk about the currently open files, and some of them are going a long way back but yet are still open, we are $5.3 million due to the taxpayers and only $500,000 expected. Because we do make, you know, we reduce down and we try to accommodate and we try to get people to comply. And I'm not suggesting that that shouldn't always be our policy. But these numbers, you know, make me wonder if we need to look at, as we're looking at getting somebody new in charge of this department, we're a bigger city, we have a lot more people, and we have a particular way we want it to be. I'd like to understand how this process is actually working. And I don't mean the violation like going to someone's house and leaving a ticket and all that. But at the point when we get somebody who is offending and they start cranking up the bills, I would like to know what happens from that point forward. Because that's the interesting thing to me. Because this is a lot of money. We're talking about, I mean, between the closed and open files, the total money is over $8 million. And what we expect to collect is only $1.5. And, again, it's very old. I'm not suggesting it's recent. But how we're handling this, I would like to understand. Yes, ma'am. If I may, Mr. Mayor. I was going to say, I actually had this conversation with a city attorney this morning on a variety of things as it relates to this exact same subject, including timing. You know, we give somebody 30 days to mow their lawn. We shouldn't be giving them, I mean, you know, some of the timings that we have. And then they come into compliance, and then two days later they end up out of compliance again. And they have the same process to go through because then they need an adjudication board. So there's a lot of these items with code enforcement that I don't understand either, and I don't understand why our rules are the way they are. I'm sure they've evolved over time. But we need to get a better handle on the timing of people getting cited, the enforcement of when people are being cited, and to make people. And how much. Yeah, and how much they're being cited. $15,000 a day is ridiculous. But, again, whatever the amounts are. I mean, I don't think we have certain people out there that don't really take the code enforcement department very seriously. Correct. And I think that that is where we have been, you know, too accommodating. Yes. And this is why I spoke to you this morning about it because I'm very glad Commissioner Casale raised the issue because I've heard, you know, this time and time again. And it is time for us to take a full thing review. And I'm sorry, Mr. Moore, you said you had something you wanted to say. And I was simply planning to underscore this past Friday I announced the reorganization. Now the Department of Neighborhood, Community, and Education Services, as well as the Department of Code Compliance. I'm likewise in the process of proceeding with updating leadership. There's a selection process currently imminent. What I'll be happy to do with the consensus of the commission, once that's accomplished, by early part of 2027, we can facilitate a workshop meeting discussion involving new leadership of that department so that we can all be in alignment in terms of, A, what the understandings and expectations are, and, B, getting our arms around additional policies that might need to be considered so that we can proceed per expectations outlined here. Well, I think everybody was nodding when Commissioner Casale and I were saying so, so I think the consensus is there. Well, that's the way I would like to proceed. Yes. I totally understand what you're saying, but remember, code enforcement is dictated by Florida's statute. That has a lot of requirements for us. Yeah. And so, you know, even down to the amount of the fines, like, you know, where there's limitations and there are maximums. So I understand what you're saying, and I agree. I think the blanket approach like everybody gets 30 days is nonsense, right? Because it frustrates the neighbors, it doesn't show compliance, and then it's this revolving door. So I appreciate that, but I just think we need to be mindful that, you know, there's two separate types of violations, right? There's regular violations where you didn't mow your lawn, you get 30 days to correct it, you don't correct it, you come before the special magistrate, he gives you additional time to correct, and after that, it's a daily fine of whatever. I don't think that you should, you know, calculate that money as, like, revenue, right? Because that's really just, like, the carrot to say, if you don't correct this, this is going to start accruing, and at some point it's going to turn into a lien, and then at some point it's going to be filed against your property. In the old days, they used to, the city used to, this is maybe 20 years ago, the city would go in, and they would mow the lawn, and they would charge the person. We used to have nuisance abatement. And then we would impose a lien, whatever it was. But the issue with nuisance abatement is that you're asking all the other taxpayers in the city to fix something that one taxpayer can very easily correct. And to me, having a daily fine of $100 a day until they correct it, that's more, nuisance abatement boards are complicated. You have to convene them, they have to meet, it's the same process. And it's just asking all the other taxpayers to pay it. So you're going to have to budget. I want to preserve people's equities, but at the same time, they need to take code enforcement seriously. But, and that's the point of, I'm not suggesting that we should assume that's revenue that we were ever going to get. That's not the point. The point is that there are some people who are not responsive to this, and that is why we have these. And the option is a lien. Right. And then we can start putting liens against property. And then the only other option after the lien is for you to tell me to foreclose on the property. If that's what the policy of the commission is, I will, obviously I'm going to follow your policy. I just think that's a very high bar to threaten somebody with taking away their private property, putting it on the auction floor, and selling it. And like we've all talked about, we've only done that one time, and I'm pretty confident in saying that one deserved it, right? Like that was a true nuisance. It was a nuisance and a public safety issue. So I'll do whatever you want within the confines of the law, but the law is very clear that once you hit that lien, the only other option is to start foreclosing, and then you have to look at the value of the property and things like that. Well, I think the first step will be having the workshop. Right. We do need to amend this from the manual. We think our policy should be. Sure. And if I may, Mayor, what I would like in that workshop is for you to go back to that second report that was done by, I think it was Calvin Giordano. Correct. And see, you know, where we are in terms, because if we're getting another new director in that department, we'd like to start out on a good note and working forward. And that's the whole idea. So to be supportive of that observation, that's the direction. In early 2027, we are in the midst of implementing the reorganization and Department of Code Compliance, likewise the Director of Code Compliance, to likewise take under consideration recommendations offered, what's been accomplished, including the observations being shared here today, to be facilitated in early 2027 via workshop. I'll be more than happy. I think I see consensus on part of everyone to proceed in that regard, and I will endeavor accordingly. Okay. Are you finished? Yes. Thank you. I'm done. Fourth. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Nope. Commissioner Russell reminded me of something. Sure. And this is probably, well, not probably, if the Karen Funds can handle this. And I want to know how do I move forward with it. There is an opportunity for us to help local. I'm just going to read this, what I wrote. To help local high school students prepare for their next chapter, well, for their SAT, ACT testing. Alpha Star Academic Enrichment, Inc., led by Marsilia Kelly, who is a Palm Beach County school teacher. She's a resident, born and raised here in Delray Beach, has a very successful program where she preps students for this test. And the results have been phenomenal. They have been scoring the 2200s, 2300s on these tests. Wow. She has 20 years of experience at Palm Beach County School District. She's currently doing this at Palm Beach Lakes High School because the city of Palm Beach gave her the $10,000 that she needs for the six weeks. She runs a six-week boot camp every Saturday morning, 830 to 1230, provides a light breakfast and lunch for the students and the three hours of tutoring. And so I'm hoping that we can help finance this to bring it to Delray because Atlantic High School, the principal at Atlantic High School, has students. She can serve with the $10,000 for the six weeks. She can serve between 35 and 40 students for that. And so that our students are open to come to Palm Beach Lakes, but getting there on a Saturday morning is an issue. And so I was just wondering if the Caring Foundations meets this kind of criteria, this is educational, whatever. Is there any substance abuse training part of it? Substance abuse? Can she throw it in? Even a little. It's got to have a nexus to substitute. Yeah, it has to. And then it's pretty broad. That was great. I'm – you were trying. Oh, yeah. Okay, we can talk about it. What's that? She has to have some component of it that we're – and it doesn't have to be the main focus of the program, but at least some component of it has to relate to substance abuse training. Okay. And so I know that we talked about this before for criteria and how – so how do we – like, is it an application process? Is it – we make a motion that we get it? How does that work? I'll talk to her about it. You can direct staff to look into it. Okay. And if – you know, we can get a proposal from her, and if it meets the criteria, I think based on the amount, the manager could execute it. Okay. I will talk to her about this substance abuse portion of the – We need to learn more in terms of that application, in terms of the substance abuse component, making sure we're on point in that regard so that we can be compliant. And I'll talk to her and have her get a proposal to you. Okay. Thank you. I'm ready. You ready? Yep. Yes. All right. I want to thank, by the way, because Commissioner Casale brought up the water, but I've had letters from both – from a lot of people on the responses that we've had, not just in Mr. Hadjimiri's department, but also in Missy Barletta's department, with addressing some of the stuff that's going on this last week with all the weather. So I want to – you know, it's always good when I hear from people saying, you guys are doing a great job. So I want to thank you for doing a great job because, I mean, we really – They never tell me that. Huh? Why didn't anyone tell me that? I always give the other stuff. I don't have been violating some rule. I don't want to tell anybody anything. Whatever. I thought I'd bring it up in public. Secondly, and this is just an aside, I'm required to – I've been begged to ask you this. I just want to invite everyone to the Mayor's Chess Challenge this Saturday, November 7th at 10 a.m. at the Community Center. Every year we have a chess challenge as part of a whole strategic thing. I play. I lost to an 8-year-old last year. It was – I didn't mind losing to the master who beat me, you know, like in seven moves, and it took the 8-year-old about nine moves. But, you know, it was embarrassing, but, you know, he felt good about it because I had a mayor's shirt on and he beat the mayor, so it worked out great. That's at 10 on Saturday. 10 o'clock on Saturday at the Community Center. And please all come, especially if you play. A very good point was made by Mrs. Ridley earlier regarding the Resource Center, and I do think with the new rules that we're having with respect to the new requirements in the contract that they're going to have to report quarterly what they're doing. It's going to be very good for the community at large to actually know what these entities do and have them some kind of a performance center. So I'm very happy, and Mrs. Ridley brought it up, and I'm very happy that we had already, you know, made the agreement to do that. I think that makes a lot of sense. And I also want to thank the city manager for breaking up the neighborhood services because I think code enforcement will be much more effective as its own department than it was being part of a neighborhood services. And I think that was a very good move, and I'm very optimistic that we can get that department. In ship shape. Yeah. I mean, it needs improvement. Let me just put it that way. Finally, I received a couple of calls in the last couple of weeks by two separate groups related to our requirement for these defibrillators. They're called the AEDs. And what's happening is if you've got three or four buildings that are five stories tall, our code is requiring that they have a defibrillator on the first floor, third floor, and the fifth floor. So if you've got five buildings, you know, you end up having 15, 20 units, and sometimes your proximity to a fire station is pretty good. So I'm seeking consensus, and I've talked to the fire chief about this, and I think everyone kind of agrees that I'm trying to seek consensus from my colleagues to amend Section 96.12 of the Code of Ordinances regarding our requirement to install automated external defibrillators in certain buildings. I believe we should include a provision in the code which would authorize the city manager to waive provisions portions of this section, as long as doing so would not adversely affect public health, safety, and welfare. The administrative waiver positions would authorize the city manager or his designee, which presumably is the fire chief, to at least consider a request to reduce the number of AEDs. And because, as I said, I was recently given a request for this. In one case, it was nine buildings. They were going to have to buy 30 units. And not only have they 30, they're going to have to train everybody to use the units. And by the way, this is all within four blocks of the fire station on Linton. So it didn't really make any sense. So I would like to get consensus to ask the city attorney to draft language in the ordinance. And I'll tell you the draft language, and I don't know where you got it from. But anyway, it says, The city manager or designee, upon receipt of a request in writing, may waive any provision of this section, provided that such waiver would not adversely affect the public health, safety, or welfare. So this is what I'm asking for. May I ask a question? Sure. When we first worked on that ordinance, they wanted it on every floor, remember? And then we changed it because we thought that was too onerous. But if you think about it, if you're talking about a five-story building, what are you going to ding the elevator while the guy's on the ground, and then get upstairs and grab the defibrillator, and then ding the elevator and go back down? I mean, I don't know that we – I think this – we were flexible because we thought it was costly and onerous, but I think now waiving it, I don't think we should be – No, we're not – We're allowing the city manager to waive it. It allows the city manager or the designee to examine the public safety aspect, because in this particular case, this week we're going to have to buy 30 units. And quite frankly – But are they – so you're saying there's 30 – that's 60 floors over the course of three buildings this year and every other. But then what's the point of even having one if you are reducing down? Because it really depends on, I guess, how the buildings are and how they're structured. I think that it's asking somebody to buy 30 units and then training everybody and then expecting them to know how to use it. I would be willing, before we go and change it, maybe we ask someone in our fire department to go look at that building. They did. And they think it's okay? I think they would require a vote of all the owners. Like if it exceeds a certain percentage to say, like, we don't want this, and then they can exempt themselves out. So are they signing a release to not hold us responsible since this is our ordinance? Well, the ordinance already says we're not responsible. Okay. I don't know if we want to make this exception. I just feel like it's a health and safety thing. Give him an opportunity to have it considered because right now the fire chief has no discretion to even look at it and say, you know what, I don't know if you need it, you know, in wherever. So, or even right now the way the ordinance is written, they're out of compliance. So he could even give them a phasing schedule to get this all in because it's a monetary issue. So right now there's absolutely no discretion to do anything. So all this does is that they put it in writing. It gives him an opportunity to meet with them and look at the provisions of the code and make a plan for them that might include a phasing schedule. It might include reducing the number of units. Whatever in his discretion, his professional discretion, he deems appropriate. Can I just ask a question? What does a unit cost? Like $4,000? No, isn't it? It wasn't that much. How much do they cost? Can we call the chief up and get the information? Because I think it's less than that. Come on up. And they give a list of places where you can get that up. And I thought in the beginning we were helping them with some supplementing or something. Well, we've got two. I mean, you know, but just we're trying to, as I said, I had calls from two separate groups with the same issue. And I'm saying, you know. Good evening, Mayor, City Manager, Madam City Attorney, Distinguished Commissioners, for the record, Ron Martin, Fire Rescue Chief. No, an AED is in $4,000. You can buy them reconditioned. They're very affordable, the price point. You can get them as cheap as $850, $700. Some cases reconditioned models are right around there in that price range. So you do not need to go with top of the line. As far as training, remember, this ordinance is one piece. We're trying to do a multi-tiered to make Delray Beach one of the safest communities in the state of Florida. In the nation, okay? So this is multi-faceted, okay? You'll never find me saying an AED isn't anywhere, but like the city attorney said, phasing in a schedule, working with people, starting with addressing the highest risk area, places, a public assembly, fitness centers, and then working towards compliance is always our goal. But more importantly, also layering that in with a good presence of community CPR and alerting the community when we do have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. The good thing is, as I shared with the city manager and the city attorney, we're making progress. Since the full implementation of this, we've had about 13 multifamily residential occupancies that came into compliance. We've had 13 incidents of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. We've had nine attempted uses of these AEDs with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. And I'm pleased to tell you right now we have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest that had bystandard CPR that successfully had the medical interventions. We regained pulses, and that person returned to their normal life and their families without any neurological deficits. So we'll get more to that. But our system's working. We've had community members jump in there with CPR and even attempt to use the AEDs. So we will get there, and we will work with anybody, and we can develop whatever compliance schedule. And I agree with the city attorney, giving myself and Mr. Moore that flexibility to sit down and say, what can we do, how can we get there? I agree with you, Madam City Attorney. Which is really all I'm trying to do with this language, is to give you the flexibility to make a determination, you know, under whatever the facts are and circumvent unique to that building, that this will suffice, and we or they, in the case may be, could live with it, so to speak. That's really what I'm trying to do. It's to provide the chief, well, the city manager, but with the advice, or a designate, to have that flexibility. That's all I'm trying to create. Because right now they have no flexibility. Everyone's out of compliance. I support it. I will as well. Very well. Thank you. So just to be clear, a new unit, approximate price for that? Somewhere between $700 to maybe $1,250. For a new unit, but a refurbished is what you quoted earlier. Refurbished is somewhere between, well, I've seen them as cheap as $550 up to around $850 for a refurbished unit. So not a big difference between the price for a refurbished versus new. That's correct, because those refurbished units that go back onto the market still have to be medically tested and insured and, in some cases, firmware updated just to make sure they're in compliance with most AHA standards. I have a question. Did you say nine people used the machines and only one person survived? Well, nine people attempted. You've got to realize, when a patient, in a patient population that experiences a non-positive cardiac arrest, for cardiac arrest, when we look at them globally, that's the worst-case scenario. That means you've been homesick, more than likely, or you have chronic medical conditions. And you're out of the hospital setting, and you're experiencing a cardiac arrest. Those typically only have 9% to 10% survival rates without any intervention. Without any intervention. Okay. That's why early CPR, bystander CPR, is so important, as well as that electrical therapy prior to our arrival. Once we arrive, as all citizens of the city of Delray Beach, you have invested very well in your technology. You are getting a mobile emergency department arriving. But if we don't get that heart artificially pumping or we don't stop those lethal rhythms, those defibrillators only shock in two rhythms, ventricular fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia. And for every minute your heart sits there and fibrillates in your chest, you shave 20% off that patient's survival. That's why these AEDs are so important. Yeah, as I said, I just want to make you have the flexibility to see, because some of the pool areas, I mean, there's a lot of places that we should have no flexibility. Yes. And I completely agree with that. Thank you. I understand the direction. Thank you very much. Are there any other comments from any members of the commission? I was just wondering, whatever happened with the churches at your burning conversation with regard to this topic? Well, the fire department came out, addressed the churches, and they got them some counseling and some assistance. Thank you. But we're still working on, like, a manual to get to each one of them, but they got assistance. Can I ask, can I make one more? Sure. Just a comment, and maybe, Missy, I can talk to you separately, but bringing to my colleagues' attention. I've gotten three or four complaints about, and I know we're not in charge of the private garages or parking lots, but someone got a $125 ticket in one of the private lots here in Delray, and she was over 20 minutes. And not that the time you're over matters, but it's after you paid for parking, then you're getting a – and then another person got a fine in the IPIC garage when they had paid, and they had proof that they had paid. And so then the company said, okay, well, we'll take $20 off of it. But they had paid, and they proved it. So I'm a little – I don't know what we can do, and I know we've done a lot in terms of signage and all that, but – The signage isn't that big. Like, I look for it because I knew that we made that rule that it was supposed to say this is not a city lot, but it's, like, that big. Well, there's a state statute, but we could modify our own ordinance and make it – You can make it bigger if you want. Look, I would be in favor of making signage more demonstrative so people know exactly when they're driving into a private lot. I wanted to add to that as well. The day that we did the Wetherspoon street naming, they had any – the family went over to – where did they throw social? I guess that's the name of it. That parking lot, almost six or seven of the family members got tickets. $80 tickets? Yeah, they got – yeah, $80. No, $100. Yeah, but – yeah, right. But they're getting threatening notes saying they're going to be lean and all of that. I mean, there's that. But they paid as well, and so they had to go to their bank, but they – but the machine didn't have receipts. So – and I went there, and it said it didn't have – I just took a picture of it that said it didn't have a receipt. But they had to go to their bank, get copies of the bill, and they had to do a whole lot to just prove – Unfortunately, we're preempted by the state to enforcing anything against private lots. The most we can do is require the signage, make it clear, and just – I don't even know how we discourage, but we can have the signage – Tell everybody to use the app and only park in the orange P parking lot. But have we – has the city gone – we passed that ordinance last year. Have we gone and inspected all of the signs to make sure they're in full compliance with the – Yeah, Missy's nodding her head, yes. And Missy and I interacting with one another, I can confirm that they have. Okay, well, maybe we need to shore up some of the lines. So is there a consent – do you want us to look at that? I don't really want more bigger signs. I don't think it matters. I mean, I really don't – It's just – I don't know that – I mean, when people go park, it's just – but it's unfortunate because the people are at the mercy of these companies, and they're not very – They're supposed to get the first few minutes free, but let me tell you, it's a fast five minutes or ten minutes. I mean, you know, you're there, and all of a sudden you've got a ticket. It's predatory. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm just going to continue to spread the word about our lots. That I do. Stay off the private lots. All right. And you have no other things, right? Thank you. We are adjourned. Thank you. I'll thank you all for coming to you.