shop good evening everyone welcome to the city of delray beach regular commission meeting this Tuesday September the 8th if the clerk could kindly call the roll deputy vice mayor market here Commissioner Mollica Commissioner Cassell here vice mayor Burns here mayor Kearney here we have a quorum thank you very much if you could all please rise to 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 very much we have the agenda approval is there any items on the agenda you wish to pull yes you would yes go ahead I have one item 6 f1 the appealables and the item is the sprab 8-2-6-120 southwest 3rd Avenue please so you you want 6 f1 be the appealable which will become 7 a a and which is the other that's it I was just being specific about the item there's oh fine okay any other any other um change then I need a motion to approve the agenda as amended motion to motion to approve his agenda as amended all in favor aye opposed that's it that's adopted all right we have we're into the proclamations at the moment so the first is the proclamation of Constitution Week Marjorie Ferrer is here somewhere because I'm going to be making this proclamation and you are going to be on the other side so there we go okay whereas in this 250th anniversary year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence which proclaimed to the world the revolutionary self-evident truths that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights including life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and whereas in this 239th anniversary year of the drafting of the Constitution of the United States by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention which created the enduring government from governmental foundation of we the people securing these self-evident truths and whereas it is fitting and proper to ask our citizens to reaffirm the truth proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence reflect upon personal and governmental actions necessary to reaffirm and protect these truths as expressed in the Constitution and execute their duty as we the people by participating in their government thoughtfully and actively and whereas it is fitting and proper to accord official recognition to these anniversaries through patriotic celebrations which will commemorate the occasion and whereas public law 915 guarantees the issuance of a proclamation by the President of the United States designating September 17th through the 23rd 2026 as Constitution week and whereas during 17 September 17th through the 23rd the National Society the Daughters of the American Revolution Henry Morrison Flagler Chapter NSDAR will celebrate the Constitution and the 235th anniversary of the Bill of Rights now therefore I Thomas F Carney Jr. mayor of the city of Delray Beach on behalf of the entire city commission who hereby proclaim this week of September 17th through September 23rd as Constitution week and encourage all citizens to study the Constitution and reflect upon the privilege of being an American with the rights and responsibilities which that privilege entails remembering that rights lost are difficult to regain thank you very much I just wanted to congratulate the city of Delray Beach for first of all being the first city when this for the for the America 250 project my individual project which was celebrating the graduating class of 2020 26 was bigger than I thought there were 13,800 students but we made it through is a five-year project and Delray Beach was the first city to donate the money for all of the graduating seniors in your schools Atlantic High School and Carver and so I wanted to commend you for your support over the past five years and for Constitution Week and just in case you forgot I have the bookmark about writing your Constitution in case you forget and and just think about I mean Delray Beach was settled in 1845 you know not incorporated as a city and that was 181 years after the 80 years after the American Revolution I mean you think about it the city is you know pretty close you know pretty close to the 250th part of that so we go back on your history I don't have it all but if you get through your historical society Delray Beach is like right there we didn't have any of the battles fought here but we're certainly involved and I want to thank you on behalf of our whole chapter Henry Morrison Flagler chapter for all of your support and don't forget Constitution Week is the 17th to the 23rd thank you thank you very much we know the recognition of the beach keepers Commissioner Casale will present this item oh great thank you and this is a good thing to be presenting at this meeting because we are also approving the proclamation as September 19 2026 as National Cleanup Day so totally appropriate timing to recognize the beach keepers here in Delray Beach and I will read the recognition I will services. Beach Keepers was founded in 2017 by Paul and Andre Fazzino, who began by personally picking up trash along the beach in Delray Beach. Their efforts grew into an organized nonprofit whose volunteer work has expanded beyond the shoreline to the public streets, the parks, the parking lots, and the waterways. And truly, you can't go to any event without seeing these gentlemen and their team helping keep our city beautiful. Beach Keepers, Inc. organizes regular community volunteer cleanup events engaging residents, family, youth, and local businesses in hands-on environmental stewardship along Delray Beach coastline and public spaces. Their Student Debt Initiative Program offers students and graduates the opportunity to serve the community through litter abatement, administrative duties, social media content, and pollution awareness work while receiving financial support of up to $800 per month towards their student debt and their educational needs. They partner with local organizations for youth engagement, including youth cleanup partnership with an EJS project to involve young people in protecting the environment. The organization has collaborated with local partners for community partnerships such as the Downtown Development Authority, the Sandaway Discovery Center, and area businesses on large-scale cleanup events, including Earth Day and Great American Cleanup Activities in Delray. This is presented to you on this 8th day of September, 2026. And I just want to say thank you for showing up. Thank you for caring. And thank you for making Delray better than you found it. Thank you. We can, if you want to say a quick 30 minutes, 30 seconds, excuse me, not minutes. I apologize, Mayor. No, that's fine. And then we'd love to take a picture with you so that you can have a photo. Okay, great. I just wanted to thank you all. Good evening, Mayor Carney, Vice Mayor Burns, commissioners, and everyone that came tonight. We're known as beach keepers. And we're generally excited about being here this evening and standing before you. It's been nine years. And we look forward to a successful future with you here. And we want to continue our good work. So please join us. And thank you very much for this evening. Means a lot to us. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. Okay, the next item on our agenda is the School Board of Palm Beach County educational update. I am pleased to welcome a member of the board of the School Board of Palm Beach County, Mr. Edwin Ferguson. Welcome. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council, good people of Delray Beach. I'm attorney Edwin Ferguson, your District 7 representative. This is my fourth year. And given this presentation, just to give you all kind of an overview of how your District 7 schools performed last year. I'll be less than 10 minutes, probably less than five. So if you all have any questions for me, feel free to talk. And I'm being short also because I'll be here next week doing another town hall. Right. So I'm welcoming everyone who has questions about the public education system here in Palm Beach, whether it's District 7 or even beyond that, feel free to stop by. And to that point, before I even get into District 7 schools and some other points I wanted to bring to you all, I want to applaud Carver High School. I went out of my way to recognize them for getting a B. Carver has not been a B school, I don't believe ever, definitely not in a very long time. And that's a testament to their leadership at Carver. And I believe the support of Delray residents to help that school be greater, be better and be great. So I want to applaud our Principal Grice and her team for doing an exceptional job at Carver. So a couple of things before we get into District 7. I know there's been a lot of talk about student student enrollment. We estimated that our student enrollment would be down by about 2,800 when in fact it actually at least to date is down 5,900. So that's about a 3,000 student shortfall. But there's nothing to ooh about because actually we are fairly certain that the majority of the students who are not in our district are students that would have been in our ELL program. So our students who are children of foreigners. So we still feel there are some some remnants of the federal policies that are making people want to stay away. So we believe that's mainly what it is. It's not about the vouchers because we're looking at that as well. In fact the home ed vouchers everybody thought that everybody would be keeping out children at home. The number of parents who have opted in to do home ed thus far is well below what it was last year. It was 6,500 right now. And last year and the year before we were at around 8,300. Now to be fair we do expect that 6,500 number to go up a little bit. But the point is I think things are kind of leveling out there. It's not easy to educate and teach children and some and some of us probably should leave it to the to the professionals in that regard as far as that goes. Now also kindergarten enrollment is down this year. It's at about 9,700 and in past years it was somewhere between 10,500 and roughly 11,000. Persons were saying that that was due to the birth rates but as an attorney I like to look at the data. So according to the state our birth rates are fine. Our birth rates are right out of where they've always been which is to say somewhere around 14,500 or so to up to 15,000. So it's not about people having less babies because that was a there was a hypothesis out here that fewer people having babies in Palm Beach and that's why we see the drop off. So it does seem to kind of point toward the fact that we have a lot of students from from foreign countries whose parents are choosing not to enroll them in school presumably for fear of deportment and detainment. Be that as it may, let's talk about District 7. So you all have a slide deck up there. I'm going to kind of push through this fairly quickly. Do I oh forgot where I was. You all always look out for me. Sorry about that. So yeah well I'll briefly talk about academic results. Go Heat, go Dolphins. We're going to take the Raiders down here on Sunday. So what I'm really focused about is making sure that this the product that we're providing at the school district meets the needs of the community. So you all know that a lot of our parents and our students are really focused on career and technical education. It's not necessarily trying to get a doctorate or be a lawyer or whatever the case may be. They want to be entrepreneurs. They want to be able to provide for themselves sooner than later for themselves and their families and I think that's that's very admirable. So I as well as the majority of the board members we're doing we're continuing to expand our CTE portfolio through here in District 7 whether that's at Atlantic Village Academy all the way up to my other schools Palm Beach Lake Suncoast etc. One thing that I think is of note here in Delray is you still have a fairly large number of persons who whose native language is not English. So we have a lot of Creole speakers and things of that nature. I've been working with the superintendent and his staff for the last couple of years to encourage us to use what's called native language support. So that's not the same as having a dual language program but it is a situation where say if Mr. Moore was fluent in Creole that we're giving him the authority to use Creole to to help me, Edwin understand this lesson. So you want to get it done by any means necessary basically. So that's something that's kind of unconventional but we've we've seen that it's starting to pay results throughout those areas of the county where we have those large numbers of say Spanish speakers maybe not so much a concern with Spanish speakers but definitely in regard to our Creole speakers which I do know affects Delray Beach directly. This the Delray Beach data I'm going to skip that just because if I click on it it kind of gets kind of clunky but everyone you have that QR code I would encourage you all to scan the QR code you can go back through the data look at it if you have any questions you can reach out to me my contact information is at the back of the slide deck as well and as I said I'll be right back here a stone's throw away from City Hall next week so any questions that you all have regarding the data we'll be there to have a conversation with you in that regard but the point of it all is in all these town halls that I always do it's kind of a little mantra that I came up with and I say I came up with it I've never heard anyone say it before at least this way those who start ahead tend to stay ahead those who start behind tend to stay behind and so when you look at the data you'll see that those those students who are not kindergarten ready they tend to struggle the entire time they fall into what I call that triage education where we're just trying to get you get you just enough so we can kind of move you on and I don't think that's what we want because those are not children who can provide for themselves those are people who are likely going to have trouble being gainfully employed in the future they may get sucked into the criminal justice system they may have trouble with with housing so if you know a thing as a community we have to do better so it's it's really a we problem it's not a they problem or a you problem it's a we problem because this is something that's going to stay at our door 5 10 and 15 years from now so early education is a thing so what I would say to you all is when you look at the data there are a couple of things that we need to start doing from a community standpoint we need to make sure that all of our kids are kindergarten ready and by that I mean they can recite the alphabet they can hold a writing utensil the proper way like this versus like this like they're using a stirring spoon spoon they know colors brown black yellow red etc these are things that many five-year-old matter of fact the majority of students in Palm Beach County are not kindergarten rate I think our scores right now are 48 percent maybe 52 percent this year and 48 last year tomato tomato neither is good in my opinion I'm counting to 100 if my name is Tom and I see it in a written format I know that that my name is Tom I represent to you that the greater majority of students in kindergarten do not have that in their in their toolbox and that's a problem and it's offensive to me because as a parent who had a child who was autistic he was kindergarten ready at three and he was not like an Elon Musk type level of performance he was more toward the middle he had some serious struggles but even he showed master these things so my point is that my son Xavier can do it I think the greater majority of our students can do it so there's a lot of there are a lot of tools that are embedded in this slide deck that I encourage you all to look at learn and master as well as I have in this point and make that the standard because we need to have our honestly our three-year-olds kindergarten ready because again those who start ahead tend to stay ahead and there's another asset I will have for everybody as well engaging that you so don't let don't let the iPads or whatever else serve as serving serving your stead we have to do the work at minimum 20 minutes a day you got to read with your child that interaction asking questions these are all things that help make their their trajectory from an educational standpoint much easier I know it can be challenging because we all have multiple jobs I have two I'm sure some have three and four and five I'm as far as that goes but we got to put in the work we put in the work to make them I said that last week and everybody burst in the last we put in the work to make them let's let's do what we have to do to make sure they can be all they can be because who doesn't want who doesn't want their child to be independent and can provide for themselves as an adult that's something that every right-minded person would want so we got to put that work in and it's really not as hard as you might think once you get into it um and there's some other tools inside of this this slide deck for those who may feel a little apprehensive about jumping into those waters there are other support groups throughout Palm Beach County that can help you with that and if you are not clear on that again either come see me next week or just reach out to me I'm here to I'm here to serve you all I was elected by District 7 but I represent everybody in Palm Beach County all the schools in my schools I'm as far as that goes how am I doing the time I feel like I'm getting close to that 10 minutes all right so yeah this is this is the whole point why kindergarten readiness is important school three there's an actual school in Palm Beach County last year that was their kindergarten readiness score from three years prior that's their ELA reading score uh last year so you see that that that group of students is probably going to be somebody gainfully employed I would be willing to bet they could very well be on the city council one day or be a better lawyer than I could ever be or better elected official than I could ever be the group over on the other end 17 to 28 17 percent of their kindergartners were kindergarten ready that means they showed matching those very basic things that I just mentioned to you and only 28 percent of them were performing at a C basically a C or better when we came when we determined their their reading proficiencies in third grade those are going to be the children that are more likely to get sucked into criminal justice the criminal justice system not be able to provide for themselves by keeping a roof over their head and not being gainfully employed who wants that citywide or even in neighborhood wise so if you know better Delray let's do better um so again here's many of the tools there I could spend an hour on that that's why I'm going to keep on going uh but again it's the interaction with the parent and children you got to interact with the kids whether it's your kid whether it's your neighbor if their parent is comfortable with you talking with them do it it'll pay off a huge huge benefits to us in the future 5 10 15 to 20 years even when we're not here be involved with your with your um sec and your ptsas at your school as well the school works for you all I'm going to let you all I want to say that again because I think sometimes there's some confusion there we work for you all so we we only rise as high as you a lot with so but you got to engage with us and let us know what the deficits are don't just complain about it let's have an honest conversation and let's work if somebody's not doing what they need to do they got to go but we don't burn down the building the building the paradigm the public education is great it served many of us very well over our years so let's make sure that it's always working at an optimal level but that only happens when we on the private sector come into the public sector and and give our input like Mr. Mark did last year when I met with him 20 seconds I can hit this one I can hit the game when it shot bright future scholarships you all take a look at that that's very important we have a cleanup that we do up in West Palm Beach to help people with their community service hours it's the best cleanup in the in the county right now we do it every month we've helped West Palm Beach remove over 12 tons of trash in less than three years so we don't just talk about things we do things and so I'm done so I apologize I thought I was going to be in five minutes and the data got the best of me I should have stuck to the script but I apologize everybody like I said I don't want to I don't want to encroach or anything like me but if you have any questions for me I'll be happy to answer or better yet see me next week I'll be at the old Carver high school town hall starts on the fifth it's September 15th and it starts at 6 p.m. 6 p.m. at the old Carver high school yes sir perfect yep we'll see you there all right see you there any other any questions for no I would say thank you for coming it's always a pleasure to see you and I think we were just I was just talking to Kay Johnson's about the children rating and how important it is is in that scenario where we need some improvement with the younger children and I would be remiss if I didn't say we did have our education roundtable the first ever and it was quite a great experience and I would say very productive I think outcomes for us and how to move forward and help our children get a better quality education and also you know young adults moving into the workforce so thank you very much and we look forward to continued engagement I do any other comments just a big thank you for what you do oh absolutely you know what they what people don't understand is if the kids by the third but aren't at reading level by the third grade their chances of success or doing anything and not ending up in jail or worse it's just multiplied by exponentially and it's just unbelievable so keep up the you know I love your initiatives yes ma'am probably too heavy for a quick question but um like how how do we reach the three-year-olds for somebody like me my kids all grown my grandkids I helped them out now how do I help out some three-year-olds and the second one is some of the people that are afraid to bring their children to school can people like us that aren't afraid take those kids there well you'd have trouble unless they unless they um appointed just guardian of their child being able to enroll them in the schools you would still have that conundrum there but the first question none of these questions that you would ask me hard just I live this level thanks if where there's a will there's a way so if you have a relationship with someone who may be struck who struggles with maybe they don't read so well that that's a real thing too so I don't I'm not begrudging anybody who's not doing the 20 minutes as I suggested but if you have a relationship with someone in your neighborhood or in your community and they're willing to allow you to engage with the child for 20 minutes a day that's amazing and that you should do that um and as far as that three-year-old question which you also asked this is why I tell people hey don't get so mad at the school district because again you only can work with what's coming in the front door and we have no jurisdiction over the greater majority of our pre-kindergarteners here in Palm Beach County although I would like to um I would say reach out to the child care centers make sure that they're um implementing these standards with fidelity everybody knows what the answers to the tests are the question is everybody's not studying in my oversimplified way of seeing things so I would say get out into the community into the uh religious centers and make sure that everybody knows these are the goals that need to be hit by five but we want to hit them by three because again if my son can do it I'm pretty sure the greater majority of our students can do it as well just have to be exposed the wrap around programs right that's why we're advocating for those programs right so that by third grade kids can read so you wouldn't need a wrap around program if everybody came in like uh vice mayor birds you follow what I'm saying so if you're already kindergarten ready there's no need for wrap around programs wrap arounds to help people who have that deficit right you follow what I'm saying like I didn't need wrap arounds I don't need any I don't think so and I think it's because I came in kind of well equipped and it's been easy selling for the most part for me since I want everybody to be just like me and many of you other high performers as well and I also forgot mayor you have two of the best schools in Palm Beach County that happen to be in District 7 one is called Pine Grove yes King is your principal there they just made a for three years in a row two and it's about to be three and then we have uh Plamosa that's right they already are three in a row and there's about to be four like if you want to see how public education should look you should go to those two schools like they are they are testaments to what why Palm Beach County should really is your best choice for the greater majority of our residents thank you for the recognition thank you very much see y'all later i'm gonna take it okay um okay 4d this this item by the way was on the agenda last week which we moved it to here because we were running late last week so we moved it to here uh this is the city manager's annual report from the city of uh city manager about accomplishments that the city has done this past year just to put on the record so that everybody knows that we're just not up here not doing anything that that we actually are moving forward in a lot of different areas so uh mr. moore this uh i turn it over to you thank you mr. mayor and frankly i wasn't prepared to offer much in this regard because every year typically by the end of july beginning of august i provide to the city commission an annual report summary of outcomes record of achievements accomplishments etc and what i like to highlight whenever i've given the opportunity is the numerous major projects and programs being implemented by the city of dairy beach so to your point mr. mayor and quite frankly all of you i'm appreciative of the support you've all been able to demonstrate because major decisions and major investments were authorized by the city commission to enable us to proceed with the development and construction of the new water treatment plant for example the golf course renovation program the beach renourishment program comes to mind you'll be celebrating via groundbreaking ceremony two days from now the long-awaited pompey park renovation program and numerous other mid to small scale events but this is really unprecedented for the city of dairy beach and the basis of my report for 2026 is to highlight and underscore the basis as to why we are where we are so nothing more to add mr mayor ladies and gentlemen nevertheless i do appreciate the opportunity to offer administrative leadership and guidance to get us to where we need to be nevertheless it's a continuous process thank you very much for the opportunity thank you very much and the report is part of the record so if you haven't had everyone have a chance to read it and everyone out there it's part of the record and it really articulates all the different things that the city is doing including the major projects and it's it's where it's a good read it's good to see what we're doing um to get things done thank you mr moore our proclamation national forensic science week whereas forensic science is a critical component of the criminal justice system providing crucial tools for the investigation of crimes and the identification of suspects and whereas the dedicated professionals in forensic science disciplines including dna analysis latent fingerprint examination bloodstain pattern analysis crime scene reconstruction and crime scene investigation apply rigorous scientific principles and meticulous attention to detail daily and whereas these committed mavens work diligently behind the scenes to assist law enforcement agencies prosecutors defense counsel medical examiners and the courts by providing unbiased scientific analysis that protects the rights of victims and the public alike and whereas forensic science continues to evolve through research innovation education collaboration improving the accuracy of reliability and effectiveness of criminal investigations and whereas forensic science week provides an opportunity to recognize the dedicated professionals whose expertise and commitment often take place behind the scenes yet whose contributions have a lasting impact on the safety and well-being of our community now therefore i thomas f carney jr mayor of the city of delray beach together with the city commissioners to hereby proclaim the third week ofcember as forensic science week in delray beach florida and encourage all residents to join in and recognizing the important contributions of forensic science professionals to acknowledge their commitment to scientific excellence and ethical practice and to celebrate the essential role they play in promoting justice protecting public safety and strengthening confidence in our community in witness whereof i have set my hand and seal on this eighth day of september 2026 yes we appreciate you guys uh recognizing national forensic science week um my unit works uh long and hard hours to help um and does a phenomenal job at identifying suspects to commit crimes in our city so we're just trying to do our part to keep the city uh safe and make it the safest city in america so thank you all right then we are now to the comments and inquiries on agenda and non-agenda items in the public uh and i'm going to read the rules as it relates to public comment um and then i'll be turning it over to uh the city manager for any responses the meeting is now open to the public any members of the public wishing to comment on any topic or agenda item other than a quasar judicial item or public hearing item should come forward members of the public have an opportunity to speak on quasar judicial and public hearing items later in the meeting as those items are called for public comment please sign in state your name and zip code for the record and you will have three minutes to address the commission this is not a question and answer opportunity and members of the commission will not be responding to inquiries from speakers speakers must address the commission as a whole not any individual insults personal attacks and disruptions will not be permitted and you'll be asked to leave if you violate these rules please come up to the podium state your name and zip code for the record you'll each have three minutes mr mr mayor i believe i go first oh you go first i'm sorry i'm sorry mr richwagon you'll have to stand by thank you just indulge me a second because i actually do have one item and it actually accompanies an update i provided in this past friday's information letter report september 4th 2026 the selection of cuny cemetery consulting for the work that was consented to proceed a few weeks ago we completed the selection process to bring them on board for a pretty comprehensive scope and assessment in terms of what the path forward should look like in terms of capacity proper execution of roles and responsibilities as it relates to operations at the dare rate beach memorial gardens municipal cemetery so it's pretty comprehensive and that information was shared this past friday i bring this up publicly because i have an additional footnote and it's in response to a conversation i had late saturday morning while i'm here at city hall vice mayor burns and i had an opportunity to talk a little bit about this and therefore i thought oh this is good for the public to be aware so back in august there was commentary about lack of space availability etc i'm pleased to report over the last couple weeks re-engineering and land reconfiguration became possible over at the dairy beach memorial gardens municipal cemetery to make available 100 additional plots for availability for use and given the level of interest and the amount of activity associated therein the city of dairy beach currently anticipates these opportunities to be available for about the next four months that shows you how robust we are and the consultancy process will be about a six-week endeavor to commence beginning next week and i'll be keeping the commission and everyone else informed in terms of steps and progress being made in that regard but again to accompany the report from this past friday i wish to underscore the availability of plots now available at dairy beach memorial gardens municipal cemetery so that clarity and background can be shared in that regard and again vice mayor angela burns thank you for texting me i decided to give you a call and talk it out while upstairs saturday morning circa 11 30 a.m to get squared away in this regard so i was encouraged and inspired to offer this update i saw him at 9. he sure did actually you're 15 minutes late sir that was 9 30. well i thought i put i thought it was 9 30 so i'd be fair so yes sir so in any event ladies and gentlemen i thought it'd be good information for the public to be aware in addition to the aforementioned path forward so look forward to productivity as a result i yield at this time thank you very much one of the one of the issues is i think that's extremely important but i also you know some of the some of the criticism has been about the day-to-day maintenance uh because it seems that's part of the scope of the review as well well yeah i i agree but it seems to me that the maintenance component is something that should be ongoing and current as opposed to just seeing how it's going to you know end up on summer and that's the case as well okay all right you're finished now i am thank you we are now opening it up to the public i've given you all the instructions mr richwagon albert richwagon 33483 two years on subculture coffee no sidewalk still a bob's barricade sign for two years two years on a waste of police use and resources on a daily basis for writing tickets and trying to teach dum-dums that you can read a sign that says no parking real easy two years on still events going on on a weekly basis yes they're not advertising them but they're still going on two years on a one single no parking sign but five cars illegally parked two years on a freshwater commission guy decides to park in the handicap space because there's no sign there i didn't know we could have handicapped florida freshwater commission officers um two years on staff parking in the same place i think she's received over 11 tickets two years on federal highway still a total disaster of dangerousness you can't drive through their parking lot two years on more waste of police time and presence two years on you can't drive through their parking lot their parking lot is not up to code it's not double striped nothing has changed we're still over there agonizing on a daily basis i used to love my job and to go to my business on a daily basis in fact i did it six days a week for many years but it's not fun anymore i i tried to their phone doesn't work anymore so i had to walk over there today to ask one of their patrons to please not park there as i was walking back he decided he just thought it was cool to just cuss me out chew me out and tell me how stupid and and small i was for kicking him out of my nine lots parking space and there was five available spaces that he was going to buy a bike but now he no longer would ever come to my store i'd like to enter this into the record for the commission to review um yeah so we got another minute left so i just want you to know that one minute of 60 seconds is so small but you know what i deal with this all day long every day all day every day it used to be fun it's not fun anymore it's not fun going to work at my bike store anymore because i have to walk outside 20 times to ask people to not park in my parking lot with giant tow weight signs and people say we usually get a tow company that can perform i call zucalas by the time they get there they've left they got there to go coffee and they're gone but it still caused me a half hour of aggravation i just i don't understand why we can't do something to fix it the police do the best they can they come out every time as much as they can but what are they going to do you know there there's only so much they can do you can't fix stupid and that's just the way it is it's it's a cult over there it's it's not fun so please can we get a sidewalk thank you very much thank you uh good evening all uh greg page we have the duplex at 246 north dixie boulevard on a zip code your zip code oh three three four four four thank you uh on that property uh basically you probably know i'm asking about not accepting the budget as it is and see what you can do to adjust this so because right now we're set for another 400 something dollar uh and change uh increase on our little spot uh compared to last year uh presently uh delray beach takes up a quarter of our taxes on that unit and uh through the years we've been paying more and more taxes on it the value has been going through the roof and uh there are a few things that have uh you guys are might be aware of but we don't need to have the extra inflation that we're suffering and trying to get more money out of tenants they're not happy with it and then the uh future proofing i understand you need to get some sort of a fund together to protect us if something happens where we don't get any more uh state money coming back here if uh for some dumb reason uh but uh we don't really need to take it now let's see what happens uh after the uh amendment if it passes or not maybe we can go ahead and uh future proof later uh that's about it i do appreciate uh the past uh choosing not to uh pass the amendment as is uh and then one other thing i was here a while back and that gentleman's problem is still going on uh i don't know what you got to do for him but it would be nice if somebody can do something for him all right thank you for your thank you very much hello my name is julie nixon my area code is three my zip code is three three four four four i was here at the last meeting about the cemetery and i spoke my truth um since then i have received threatening text messages saying that um i need to stay from out of this building in this meeting speaking my truth what they're gonna do they're gonna have the code enforcements come out they're gonna have the health department come out um and then they made the statement in the text you don't even have a headstone for your dad um no i don't have one because i don't want to put one there i want him to be put next to my mom so my job now moving forward since someone is sending me threatening messages leave yasmin alone i never mess with yasmin i only came here and spoke my truth told you all what my family went through i never throw anybody under a bus i never wanted anybody job but now i want my dad dug up and put where he belongs what we paid for the first time not the second time the first time because now i'm being threatened that they're gonna do this to me and that to me if i come back i'm coming to every meeting you all have you'll see me i'm gonna be voiceful because it's not fair because to me it looks like a cover-up somebody's trying to cover something up i only spoke my truth no one else from this board reached out to me to ask me you know what happened what went on you didn't get to say everything no i did not say everything but to get someone to text me and say those things to me multiple times not one time they didn't text once multiple times leave yasmin alone leave yasmin alone i'm not messing with yasmin when did i ever say anything on this pull of tape tape when did i ever say anything wrong against yasmin never but now i'm gonna get me an attorney and i'm gonna do everything i need to do to get my daddy dug up and put where he belongs whoever's there go get dug up and y'all can put him wherever you want to put him don't matter to me but he's gonna get put right there the certificate yeah i have it and we will be getting him in that place so whoever it is they watching it or they're here in the city i don't know who it is but listen to me we don't have a headstone but we will have one soon and it would be next to my mom because that's where he's going thank you very much my name is cynthia ridley i live at 210 northwest second avenue dairy beach i was here also last week before you closed out to listen um what will go on with the debt that some of us own um it's it's sad that i felt like this city could have gave given us some grace to the people who named you called out our financial and one of the other commissioner felt like we should be put in jail that's how i felt of a debt that this city and people in this community give not 100 but 200 to this community to feel like i need to be locked up put in jail back and forth about a debt that you can wipe away we've seen many things going away but to sit here to say that we need to be put in jail or we need to be you got to die before a debt is paid wow that's what the city of delray commission and they financial decided that what should happen that's how i felt i felt like walking to him with some handcuffs today so you can take me to jail because my name is on one of those lists but for you not to give this city some grace for the people who work the roots cultural professor bahamia committee none of y'all in this city is not doing anything for this side of town so for us to feel like we have done something wrong and to be put down in the front of people i've got a hundred thousand dollars that shame on y'all we should have some grace and some commitment that these we work hard for this community that we need to be feeling like the only way that debt gonna be wiped away is to be put in jail or die same on you shame next time all these ones who won't walk over this set community if you ain't for the set sit on this commission don't don't come asking me to put a sign in my yard because i will not and i will get on public media to say just what he said we need we need to be put away or we need to do this and and be dead come on commission we better than that all we asked was some grace and you could not do that i bet you'll be knocking our doors and asking us to vote for you it's coming around so show some grace sometime and stop big and back and forth for the people that works in this community i work in this community we don't get one dime or pay for what we do in our state community not one dime but not to show any grace for that shame on you thank you very much giving honor to everybody in their respective places to mayor and the staff and all the officials here um it has come to our attention your name and zip code sir my name is ronald williams zip code three four four four good thank you um it has come to our attention can you hold the microphone closer okay it has come to our attention that the delray beach water treatment plant is new up and running and since then we received a notice i didn't get to bring the paperwork with me but basically what they're saying is the bill for us is going up and up and i see no justification for the increase in our particular home because i know i cut the sprinkler off whenever it's raining that sprinkler doesn't come on i don't do car washes in the yard i don't do any extra water usage and the bill has jumped up like almost 25 30 percent this last time around and i think that's an injustification it's not justified i don't mind paying my bills or should i say me and my wife we don't we don't mind paying our bills we don't try to skip out on anything like that but to be uh charged just because someone estimated that oh they might have used this this month send the people out that do the jobs and let them measure what has been used please please get some real accountability in the water treatment plant not passing the buck and say oh it's not my job let them do it because all this passing the buck stuff it's not working for the citizens that work here and pay taxes it doesn't work okay we pay our taxes but we want to be represented you know just like you when you when you when you put your money into an investment you expect some return on that investment you don't want to pay your water bill and you turn on the water socket and nothing comes out right i i don't expect them to you know give me no 80 discount or 50 discount like that but just send the people out let them measure the meters let them do their jobs and that's all i have to say thank you very much i will say that the water plant is not complete which is where it's going to be complete in a couple of years and the water rates had not gone up for almost 10 years or so plus 15 15 years and we're finally raising the rates in order to pay for the new water plant so that hopefully when two years from now when you turn it on you're going to get a nice clean great experience experience in your water with no uh you know a little floating around plastic pieces and also can i say something we don't have plastic pieces no sir no but i'm just saying i'm just i know we don't and i wonder can i add something to that sure so also the new i'm making the new system that is working a lot of people were billed for 42 days 43 days so look on your and and as opposed to the 30 days and if it did make the bill go up a little more but once the the cycle clears itself then you'll go back to the 30 days go back to the normal so yeah we we have billed for basic more than the one month look on the it tells you it tells you you may have you may have yes just check in all likelihood perhaps as much as 43 days or something to that affect mr williams because i had a lot of people come to me and that was the case and if i may mr mayor just to support the comments by you and vice mayor burns and others so this is the result of the implementation of an enterprise resources programming software so we're making operations more efficient in that regard and that transition resulted in billings for this temporary brief period of being maybe 43 days 41 days 45 days etc typically it's based on 30 days and that will be cycling back in the next cycle so for that reason i don't think there's much to be concerned about i would also invite you mr hajimiri who's our director of utilities who's here behind in the commission chamber he'll be happy to walk you through the specifics in that regard but given the aggregate increase you've experienced calculating the mathematics it appears that you have a 43 day approximate billing cycle based on a 25 increase and that would actually make sense therefore it will adjust in a proper position on a 30-day cycle in the next building okay so please visit with mr hajimiri if you would he's here and he'll be more than happy to offer you more specifics in other words what you're saying that that's the temporary condition that's exactly right as a result we believe because we initiated this transition late summer june july time frame and thus the most recent experiences regarding august billing reflect that i myself resident and homeowner of dairy beach florida i was on a 43 day position so i was able to see that and understand what's going on and that's all in likelihood the case so again i would invite you to visit with mr hassan hajimiri we'll be more than happy to offer you specifics he's here he just waved his hand and please take advantage mr hajimiri if you erase your hand sir all right thank you very much thank you by the way what i was trying to say is that we have all this pfas the pfast things that are all going to be cleaned out in the new water in this water treatment we're going to be a state-of-the-art our new system we are going to be a state-of-the-art thing with the new system with the new system don't nobody want plastic floating around no i don't mean for anything else i wasn't referring that was it was a it was a i was i was exaggerating a situation obviously there's no plastic in the water yeah the mayor said yeah i don't know i put that in our newsletter i'm talking about the pfast filtration system ladies and gentlemen don't start me yet but based on the water thing does that mean in the middle of the night where i live and the water is shut off from the city that will start getting water again i'll tell you who i am yes please your name is zip code for the record my name is roberta silver uh i live at seagate towers it's 33483 is my zip code um we're located at 200 and 220 mcfarlane drive i'm here today to ask you to restore freebie service to seagate towers for this season for 2026 2027 i understand that bids are going out for contractors um so you can have more service from military down to the barrier island but right now for this season we're requesting freebie to stop by us and i want to make the case that this is not simply a request from someone one condominium company community it's an opportunity for the city to connect 150 households directly to downtown businesses restaurants cultural venues and everything atlantic avenue has to offer and i added on here not only that but anyone who goes to trader joe's and tries to get into that parking lot there is just no room so if we could have freebie for there too that would be great um seagate is a non-profit condominium with 150 residences primarily two and three bedrooms the average per purchase price now is 1.3 million and our community continues to attract new owners we've had approximately five to seven sales to new owners this year a median owner's age is 65 many of our residents are deeply involved in the city's non-profit cultural and civic life and seagate does not permit rentals these are permanent residents who live here spend here and contribute there's something else that makes our requests particularly reasonable freebie already comes extremely close to us today freebie services met far lane drive just one block from across street at ingraham and importantly seagate was included in freebie freebie services until i think 2022 because that's when amanda said she started but before then we got the services so we aren't asking the city to create an entirely new route for an isolated community we're asking you to restore a connection that already existed and that makes geographic and economic sense um why does that matter because our residents want to go downtown they want to have dinner on atlantic avenue they want to visit restaurants uh attend events enjoy the shops and cultural attractions and participate in the downtown so that's what i'm asking for i have more but that's it thank you we'll see you next week to complete it oh okay thank you very much two weeks excuse me two weeks can't correct me andrew lorick 33426 i first wanted to thank the mayor for recognizing the engineers that worked on the george bush bridge i too am an engineer and we rarely ever get recognition for what we do usually when people talk to us it's because they have a problem that we're supposed to fix so i appreciate getting um some public recognition and i wanted to thank commissioner cassell for always looking out for the taxpayers anytime there's talks about impact fees or event fees being waived stuff like that i really appreciate that you've been very consistent and you also you're also the chair of the cra and the cra is what i wanted to talk about today the cra is doing a townhouse with adu project part of the affordable workforce housing program i think having a townhouse and an adu that you can possibly rent out is a very good and creative way to attack the affordable housing problem we have in america my concern is i'm afraid that deceptive investors will try to buy these houses and resell them i went to the cra event last week which was great by the way the tacos were great i saw miss burns and um i i discussed it with some of the cra staff and i was told that there are resale restrictions on workforce housing which is good something like 35 to 40 years before you can sell it um but i haven't heard any official rules or decisions about this project specifically and i would like to find out some stuff about this project i think these townhomes could truly be a once in a lifetime opportunity for people in my generation to own a home because without something like an affordable housing uh initiative even me as an engineer probably would not be able to buy a house which is not what i thought things were going to be like when i grew up this is i have a little more time i go to subculture every weekend on saturday sunday without fail i love it there but to get somewhat reasonable parking i kid you not i wake up at 8 a.m to go and get coffee and i have to park there at 8 30 and pray that i get the most inconvenient spot on the end where i park halfway in the dirt because i can't fit the whole car there because there's no double line and the wheel stop is always at a new angle every time and i love the place but it is a genuine issue that and people just don't respect the no parking rules that's everything have a good one hi everybody marjorie waldo arts garage 33444 you look beautiful this evening all of you especially you mayor i wanted to remind you all um that in addition to impacting the city's economic development arts garage supports our community in a variety of ways since december our senior series has served over 1200 seniors veterans and alzheimer's and dementia patients in five palm beach county senior centers since november our artists in residence program has provided complimentary program tickets to over 1 000 senior and seniors and veterans in our space since october our partner program has provided another 376 complimentary seats since october we've accumulated 98 000 in rental fee savings for our non-profit partners the kimmel family series served 3 000 underserved students from local public schools last year with a target of 3600 this year and we continue to showcase 12 months a year world-class internationally touring music comedy and theater as well as visual arts exhibits we're very grateful for the city's investment in arts garage as we did in prior years with the cra a guide grant funding on 2526 we used the city funding as detailed in our contract in and explained in our year-end report number 3.2 on our contract says the terms of funding require that the quote that the grant funds will be used exclusively for programming costs and expenses as outlined outlined in exhibit a we included in our exhibit a performance fees professional photography hotel fees for touring performers and 48 percent of three employees payroll house managers times two and tech person only there during the programming we we didn't think it might be an issue um maybe we were incorrect um of nearly 32 000 patrons approximately 60 percent of them spend before and after shows and 30 percent of those patrons are from out of state while we are a not-for-profit we are still a business we're proud after an extreme turnaround if you remember and the pandemic that built a reserve which is equal to approximately 26 percent of our budget data says 26 25 percent is uh best practice for a not-for-profit i talked to a partner today and i think it's not enough we do not draw down on our reserves to balance our annual budget these dollars are only for emergencies we have invested heavily and i don't talk about this but i want to say it in the overhead and improvements to the interior of the building including painting plumbing and air conditioning the air conditioning alone totaling over 200 250 000 in the last 10 years i've invited you to join us on september 17th at 2 30 for the palm beach county legislators tour it's a complimentary performance for the legislators for our board for you and for our volunteers we would love for you to attend some other events but for those you shall have to pay full price so thank you so much it's great to see you all thank you for everything thank you very much good evening andrea bruton 33445 um i wanted to add to miss ritley's concerns um and ask you all to please take into consideration many of these organizations were improperly charged in other words the fees to them before their events um were different or if any fees they were totally different than the final amounts that they received in the end so i asked you all to please take that into consideration as well now i'm asking for clarification regarding the noise ordinance and the impact on events held at pompey park and the libby wesley amphitheater currently the events at pompey park um must end at 10 o'clock because of the noise ordinance however there we all know that there is a difference east of swinton our community deserves consistency fairness and transparent um i'm sorry i'm jumping ahead of myself um again it just appears that we're being treated differently on the east side especially at pompey park and libby wesley and along the atlantic corridor at avenue corridor so we ask that you consider all of that especially um looking into pompey park and libby wesley for the noise ordinance to go to be extended past 10 o'clock as well um i would also like to talk about address the 100 approximately 100 grave spaces that have seemingly appeared without notice to the public cemeteries and familiar people who are familiar with the property have consistently said that the space remained available even when we were being told that it wasn't yet the public is repeatedly told that the cemetery is out of space last year we were publicly informed that roads would be removed to create additional barrier burial space and that doing so would time would require time and careful planning now additional role uh roles have suddenly been removed creating approximately more than 100 grave space the entrance to the area where these spaces are located has been closed off for years so to say that that road was recently removed is not true i live on southwest 6th street born and raised and my street run right into that road that we're being told that was recently removed it wasn't removed recently it's always been it's been there been removed for about probably 15 years now or more i'm very familiar with it so i'm asking we're asking for transparency consideration and respect in this neighborhood thank you thank you very much good evening good evening good evening angela hill 33444 i respectfully ask that the decisions affecting our community be made with that of integrity fairness sound judgment and a strong moral compass that is your job it is extremely difficult to understand how anyone could conclude that a non-profit organization should suddenly be held responsible for debt allegedly dating back three to ten years particularly when those obligations were not properly invoiced communicated tracked nor managed which is the responsibility of that of the city accountability must work both ways if these organizations are not appropriately billed notified or given the opportunity to address them the alleged balance when it occurred the serious question must be to that of the administration not of the non-profits i have zero skin in the game i have zero obligation to any of these non-profits i'm not attached to them however the way it went when you all spoke on it it was personal i won't call commissioner's name commissioner market but to use words like thief thievery and it must be paid it was some very harsh words to the people understanding that non-profits are generally probably 10 times more volunteer than ever that of payment so it's not a lot of money being shuffled around with those things there's not a profit to be gained by them thus the name non-profit so i just want us to use the proper etiquette empathy and professionalism when addressing that situation but that sounded very personal and you all circle back to those same people with that false smile saying i'm here for you let's not do that don't play that game we're wiser than that so i'm just asking you all to take ownership as the commission for the role the city played in it as well and again angela hill has no debt to the city or anyone else thank you thank you very much miss hill billy roach 33483 i'm sorry the name was what billy roach so i just wanted to come in so i'm at three minutes and rebuttal to this trim notice last year when you guys did your vote for to raise our taxes um i listened to what every one of you said and in particular um miss casal said the money's just not there i'm looking it seems like you dig deep into the binder and see if there's any money to cut mr market mentioned have you been to the grocery store lately yeah we've been to the grocery store lately inflation is bad the gas prices the the grocery store prices and then you you followed up with well your housing values your your praised housing values have gone up so that's a nice boost for you well this isn't what's actually happening and a lot of people don't understand that this inflation the dollar is losing value so we're bombing other countries our president comes in and says that he's going to be a president of peace and then he's spending taxpayer dollars bombing other countries spending our money elsewhere not on our streets not our decaying infrastructure so he lied through his teeth so now we basically trust in the public uh office of your basically government is at an all-time low for good reason because basically we know when we get these flyers in the mail and you have your dog everybody's smiling vote for me you never write on their higher taxes because if you did that you wouldn't get elected but what happens is when you come in you vote oh yeah you know your housing prices are going no the dollar's tanking relative to gold relative to a pound of ground beef and that is why these prices go up so we don't these are these are values that we don't see as a homeowner you can work your whole life you can pay off your house and then if you have a couple bad months and you were your bad year and you can't pay your property taxes a sheriff comes with a gun and drags you out of your house that you worked your whole life to pay for that you supposedly own and you're out so when i get a bill here for 72 000 when you want to raise your this is property taxes i homeschool my child i cut my own lawn my wife has a business it helps other people how do you guys justify you're elected by us you're paid by us all the services you gave a raise to the government you gave a raise to yourselves and you're taking more from us it's already high there's i mean when do you have any empathy or any humility or every humanity seriously like people work working people are struggling right now and 72 grand i don't mind paying if i can get a cop at my door within 20 minutes when i call 911 and we know we went through i'm not getting into that now but my services haven't gone up so why are you raising my taxes when we're not getting anything for it we understand the roads but we can come together as a community and we can pay for the police pay for the fire pay for some clean water but this is ridiculous and you guys need to dig into your heart not as business people or as as government officials as a human and say enough's enough people need a break don't raise this trim do the rollback don't change it do one year to show the people you actually have a heart thank you very much by the way we did not give ourselves a raise just thought well you gave the local government a raise oh employees had a contractual raise yes they did for cost of living and for inflation when do we get it when do we get a break on inflation thank you i we don't get anything noted thank you um good day commissioners my name is nicole ivy 33444 and i'm calling i'm coming up here today um and i wanted to speak about the cemetery as well and i wanted to provide you with some insight on the conversation that i had with the cemetery supervisor so i hope i don't get any backlash either because there's gonna be a big problem with that so recently i contacted the supervisor because i was trying to locate my grandmother's burial plot her name was dorothy williams she was one of the first black barbers here in the city of delray okay um so she's a beloved member of the community everybody knew her and i was calling just to find out where her burial plot was because of the recent conversations about the cemetery um so i was told by that supervisor that she was unable to identify where my grandmother was located the specific spot she said that she was somewhere in there but she couldn't identify where it was i explained that i was going to be ordering a headstone so i didn't need to know where that plot was actually located and her response was essentially that the headstone would be placed somewhere in the cemetery so you're telling me that it's going to be at a random location and that response i received left me with the impression that yes essentially my headstone would just be placed somewhere in the cemetery i cannot adequately explain the pain of hearing that when you simply are trying to honor somebody that you lost and the fact that i never even met my grandmother so now i can't even put a headstone but uh more about that later my family has been here for many years my great great great grandmother is buried in that cemetery mattie ivy i have over 11 family members who are buried in that cemetery um and these are our mothers fathers grandfathers grandmothers relatives and loved ones when a family walks through those gates they should feel like their loved ones are being cared for with dignity accuracy and compassion and i do want to recognize two people and that would be andrew haynes and also mr curtis wise they were actually able to find my grandmother on my birthday so that was truly a blessing so i have now a plot i mean a headstone and now we have the plot so that we can um put it there but i just wanted to give you that insight on the conversation that they were able to put my grandmother's headstone anywhere thank you very much good evening mayor city manager commissioners nice to see you this evening i'm dr spencer 33445 as you consider the karen funding tonight and the grant kind of parameters i'm asking if you can take a look at the definition around supplantation typically this makes sense when organizations are government funded um but in uh take for an example a case like living skills in the schools where our funding is actually community funding um which can be variable right depending on how much we fundraise this year from the community or um versus government funding so it would be helpful if we had a definition on that um so that the very organizations that the grant was meant to fund are not excluded from that application um and then number two if you can take a look at the parameters around um an indirect rate um i think right now it's showing that um an indirect rate will not be um allowed and typically in grants and i think there's a lot of other people here that can that do grant work there's usually a a boundary of five to ten percent that's allowed for administrative costs so i'm just asking that you take a look at that and consider those parameters when you're looking at the karen fund grant thank you thank you very much dr spencer for any other members of the public wishing to address the commission seeing none the public comment is closed we now go what you don't like the noise i now need an approval of the consent agenda as amended so moved second all in favor aye any opposed it is approved okay we are now going to uh item 7a which is former 6f1 commissioner casal you had this pulled from the agenda to be discussed yes i turn it over to you six f1 is the appealables the second item is the sprab 826 decision on 120 southwest third avenue um you know i we look closely at what sprab is doing because sometimes they they're the those projects don't come back to us for review and in this case i think we should just give this uh this project deserves our review up here it's um 120 southwest third the project density proposed exceeds the base allowance according to the report it's five units on 0.46 acres there are street tree reductions and questions about performance standards i have not uh fully seen the presentation so but i do believe that we should um review this ourselves so you you would like to to have a de novo item on this to be brought to the commission that's right commissioner uh mr orris did you uh have you he's on another thing coming for he's on the next thing okay so uh it's up to the commission if we would like to do this any if there's a consensus to bring this back uh for a de novo review it's okay with me i think we should okay that's fine then we are do we have three so i need a motion i need a motion to uh what to we're going to that this is going to be appealed by the commission yes okay would you make a motion to please so moved second all in favor aye any opposed nope fine okay for the record mayor 1231 south congress is still gonna 1231 south congress is um approved and 120 southwest third avenue is coming back to the commission for a de nova review yes sir perfect you're done okay 7bb excuse me 7a which is an update on the opportunities of outside agencies and grants from the karen foundation settlement funds and opioid litigation settlement funds mr orris uh jeff orris assistant city manager just here to kind of tell you where we are in the process we've been working on a request for applications for three different programs if you recall through the opioid funds the commission had approved an expenditure plan that include included grants to provide workforce and job assistance and also to provide affordable and or supportive housing those are both programs that will be to i think it's on the next slide to folks who have opioid use disorder or at risk f for it and have some other code determining issues so those are particular to that you would also ask me to go to the opioid settlement advisory committee with uh to to devise a program for use of the karen funds to provide substance abuse training or education this is where we are i brought to them i said what do you think of the parameters um they gave me some parameters i went out i found a really decent uh outline of a program in highland county which we then plugged in what they wanted to it actually most of what highland county did was the things that the opioid committee said we should do some alterations were also made after you all had indicated you'd like to fund some education programs with karen funds so we expanded beyond uh what the osac had put for that uh also again that note that the opioid grants should provide services to those at risk of opioid use disorder or other co-occurring disorders uh you may have seen the presentation it was emailed out to all of you uh late last week it's long i will make it much shorter because a lot of it is duplicative the opioid the workforce and job assistance grants you allocated 135 000 for it the idea is for it to be a reimbursement grant most everything we're trying to do now is reimbursement based grants are only to be used to assist delray beach residents and the administrative expenses are limited to 10 of the total reimbursed the idea of that is that you don't just put in 10 of what you're asking for it would be 10 of the total that's actually used and reimbursed you clarify what you're saying i apologize okay so often you'd say who's reimbursing the the fund yeah the okay it'll be reimbursed through the opioid uh settlement funds you're talking about karen and opioid we need to keep them separate because they're two separate right now i am talking only about the opioid workforce and job assistance okay the other side said karen on it okay so how much oh let's go back to the opioid money we're getting how much money annually from the opioid it shifts around 62 to 92 000 i think you said last year right listen guys and i was going to wait on the budget for this but the i am extremely concerned about how we're handling this money we are committing to increasing our staffing in our highest paid jobs in the fire department which we were going to be using some of this funding and some of the karen funding but now we understand the karen funding is probably coming to an end and we definitely know that this is 62 to 92 000 for a few years and if you go back i wrote to mr moore whatever it was a week ago about this and i'm going to find the email um we're talking about taxpayers are paying 352 000 is it mr moore right and we don't have that money covered by any of this now we're sitting up here talking about our budget how we need to cut you're talking about marriage at the last meeting you asked why is there growth in the you know we have so much growth in the highest paid department the fire department it's our votes that's why i do not think at this point in time we should this paramedical program when you did the presentation to us back in um may you did february i believe you did it in may or june no may you emailed us the document that was the three standardized levels right they started at 600 000 for this program and go up to well over a million with 700 000 to retrofit the fire department right and now how are we paying for this first of all commission i apologize but that's not the issue at hand no it is but it kind of is because with this maybe i understand but the grant program we should take i've said this before you're using a portion of this grant money towards this program i'm using the portion that the commission allocated to these grants for that right but i'm saying we should i think we should revisit that decision in this current fiscal situation i don't know how we could possibly be doing that and go there's a point here which is that we are relying on the settlement agreement to derive these benefits from the counter foundation and that's as a result of their ownership of one particular property in the city right should that property be sold for some reason i don't know that it's going to be sold but should that property be sold for some reason this money dries up meanwhile we will have committed i'm sorry did you have we have committed two different funds i'm getting there but go ahead you understand there what i'm saying with the carin fund nothing has been set in stone right right not for the care so right now we have 900 plus thousand dollars the paramedical program is not is the carin fund money is not being used for that program mr orris is talking about using some of the opioid money which will have a stream nowhere near enough to cover the program we talked about potentially supplementing it i was getting but thank you for the for accelerating my thought because in the opioids we have the same issue in both of these categories we have the issue of funding that is not assured right certainly the amounts are not assured yes but the not assured for a period of really greater than one or two years maybe no the opioid is for an extended period of time but it's nowhere near hundreds of thousands and we're getting and we're getting into financial commitments correct right with the hope of prayer that all this money always comes in the way we want it to come in but we'll still be short yes and i have argued up here about right doing programs where i can't fund them and then i got to rely on going to the trough to get paid i just think that is not we're going to the trough in the next fiscal year to get paid because we don't have the money well i want to clarify what i why i brought this up because in the beginning we had talked about potentially having the karen be some somewhat supplemental to this and then what mr moore said to me is that right now in our current budget upcoming we have allocated 251 000 to start the program 50 of it is not covered and we're no need to go to outside agencies to look for coverage no outside agency is going to give the city of delray beach taxpayers money to to fund a program and i don't say that this program doesn't have value but we need to do i think a full investigation on what delray medical is doing what other places are doing miss spencer is here she has this fabulous i just got the opportunity to look at it today prevention program that she's distributing through emergency responses it gives you all the resources access to information in a second and i do believe i'm not going to go into depth about what's in this packet that we need to start looking at using the opioid money for prevention and hold off on the paramedical program and whatever we're doing with the karen none of it should be used to supplement that program because it's not going to be the money may not be there and we can't keep committing taxpayers to long-term additional this has already been discussed the opioid settlement advisory committee which were 11 to 13 volunteers that were very very hard they are in the addiction community they're the ones that said that this is what they thought the people needed we talked about the education and then we said well you know what there's enough money for prevention in the karen fund and there is so the program with your those the um that that i think is a very good one it's a great can be funded but the opioid money is a separate set of money it's not and when we discussed the um the the what is it called when they go out paramedical yeah the paramedical we already agreed that we would have to come up with half of that because it could overlap to the elderly as well which was the it can't overlap to the elderly we agreed on that at the last meeting it cannot overlap to the that's why that's why it was it was um presented to us that we would have to come up with 110 000 it's way more and when the and the when the fire chief stood up here i went and watched it the other day it's 251 right now and that's at the base with one individual it's not even and what the chief said plus there's the retrofitting of the fire station which is a 700 charge according to that document i could pull it up i have it here and that's this is not giving us even the lowest level of service the chief said once this program begins i am going to be coming back in front of you and asking you for more money that is what chief martin said at his presentation and my concern is you know i we are up here trying i brought up over three million dollars of cuts last time i don't know why that gentleman said i brought none 2.954 million of the cuts that i brought up are going in this budget and that still only takes us down a tiny bit to give the residents relief i don't say this isn't a good program i'm just telling you i don't know how we can begin down the road of starting a program that's going to be so expensive to our taxpayers under the current situation we uh agreed to it but the the thing that's in front of us now is not that right but some portion of that money we were talking about using for it so i'm just want to have i'd like to have the full discussion now because i think it's important it's all working together in front of me before i had the full discussion now well because i'm prepared for what we're discussing but not for what we discussed i think it was well i'm going to bring it up at the budget because i do think it's in our current budget that we need to revisit it judy i really do so those numbers that you and i are speaking about right now are in our current budget that we're going to speak about so 251 000 is in our current is it 251 yes it is in our budget what amount was coming from the opioid because i remember 110 125 500 i'm sorry 125 500 50 percent 125 000 and which is one half of the 250 which is one half so the other part of the 250 was coming from the funds is that well yeah the 251 in the budget is going to get half the money from the opioid understood so we're talking about 125 not 250 and what the police chief and i have done is we've gone out and found some potential partners you mean fire rescue chief not police chief yes thank you i apologize for that chief um chief martin and i have gone out to look for some potential partners so we can relieve the general fund of that obligation the intent is fund this for at least one year bring back statistics that will determine whether it should continue or not there's a lot of potential savings to the city in doing this you heard from the chief that we have a number of people who utilize our transportation services repeatedly over the course of the year and if we can get just one of those people to stop using our services we will save thousands of dollars that's how we arrived at our decision when we made that decision i recall that discussion and and the intent is to not put in something that's funded long term you have to you can't start a program and then pull it that's we've never seen that happen it's funded for a single year and then we determine whether we continue it okay may i read this document lowest level funding is 412 000 level two uh three minimal funding 424 that's minimal funding okay mid-level service funding 619 000 and highest and best service funding one million five hundred forty one thousand five hundred and sixty eight dollars and facility augmentation estimated at uh seven hundred twelve thousand five hundred dollars i remember that document but i also remember um chief martin's presentation on that evening um depicting the numbers that we're talking about now at 250 so it wasn't as extensive of a program as the numbers in the initial document presented but he said with this this with this price you can only do one person and you're not really going to have you know in other words you're kind it's like you're half not even half doing it it's putting in a little bit of an effort and at the end of the day we all know once you hire somebody in that department in that job it becomes it's it's a it's a commitment it's a long-term commitment and i just don't know that i don't know how we sit here talking about the finances and and say we're we're going to make that commitment i don't think it's responsible i think we should use the opioid money to recoup some of the savings that were pre repeat trips that these um people with problems he talked about a guy going 50 times or something too right i mean and but the hospital has these services i mean we're duplicating efforts that are being provided by other government organizations we're a city municipality i mean this is providing a service that to me is great if we had a ton of money but i don't know why at this point in time well when the taxpayers are asking you know why our costs are going up that's all i'm saying it's it's these votes up here well this is this is uh this is money that we were deciding where it could best go right but we're going to supplement it we're not i don't see prevention of death it's i believe in prevention of of addiction but this is prevention of death and that's what was what was presented to us when we made the decision and i don't i definitely don't want to well actually what the person is doing is not preventing death they're following somebody through their services it's almost like a social worker so the delray beach is going to essentially have a social worker that is going to be helping somebody with their recovery process that's what what it is and it's going to become a large larger department depending on how successful it is and listen if we had a ton of money i would say we should do it but the fact of the matter is i which agencies are you speaking to that are going to come in and help fund this which agencies repeat this effort this hospital we already have them hot the delray medical has this the county has a pair of professional whole pair of professional unit like i just i don't know that cities are really doing this or if you said that we commit it to one year yes okay thank you i mean the the when the board appeared in front of us they did make a rather compelling argument and using the word death was was repeatedly used yes right that's true so uh i i acknowledge what you're saying with respect to the others that are doing this my whole concern is that we are we are creating an infrastructure that we may not be able to pay for in year two and three but meanwhile the employees will be you know in their jobs right uh and i won't have the money to pay for them so i'm that's kind of what i'm my concern is putting a putting together an infrastructure and a structure that i can be reasonably assured that i can pay for in front of you and i'm not positive i can pay for it especially since you know in light of all the other numbers that they're now throwing at us all these other things we need to do put to build that infrastructure that's expensive it's expensive stuff but there's a lot of that that is not required to run a basic program that the chief did come to you and say he doesn't need to make modifications to the station at this time he doesn't need additional equipment he said i'll be back asking for more money once it gets started is that that's exactly his quote i'm feeling comfortable if we need equipment moving forward in the future this is a program that i know is near the a portion of this program near and dear to congresswoman frankel's art and that we can go to her and ask for her help in finding some federal dollars to fund capital improvements that we may need to do so we have avenues they're not fully explored at this time it is one of the reasons why we went out looking for other people's money to cover the 50 right but have you found that the commission had accepted that they were going to have to pay have we found any of that money you've been out looking for money for over six months to help cover this sources that are interested we have one we still can't even get that judy that's the problem sorry he hasn't gotten that yet i mean that's the problem because you keep talking i'm sorry but we don't have the money i just have to hear one person well so you're just giving somebody you're not asking for a direction here today right yes i'm asking for just on the grant programs not on the entire of expenditures in uh anything else we'll address the the care and funding and whether it goes away or not through some of the uh recommendations of the opioid settlement advisory committee i had um one comment about that with the the um provision of substance abuse training and education programs is that the one that i saw something in no that's the education it's confusing where did i have that underlined then no it was the other one the yeah the job assistance had housing in it and i was confused about that it's there because the idea of you can't get a job if you don't have a place to live oh but i mean you don't have separately have the housing it's not intended to be something where we're getting into the housing part of it got it but again some of this needs to be discerned through the review process of what somebody's asking for is it reasonable based on what they're doing it should not be a housing only program so somebody can get a job there should be some reasonable thoughts put into it and we have not yet put together a scoring program but we will do that prior to this hitting the streets so it's basic i'm sorry ideas of of the parameters of the grant that were that i'm here to present to you and make sure that you're okay with so may i mirror yes please the um the two grants for the opioid money i think are absolutely fine um as as they are i was a little confused about that housing going into the job thing but you've explained that the um the cameron money grant we um have it we know there might be an insecurity about that money on a continuous basis and um we have a three-year grant perhaps we should look at making that a one-year grant i think we should push it to you know well i agree with you that we shouldn't make it for three i think it's because i don't know what's going to happen to the karen i mean we know we have what 900 000 so three three-year grants or we could make it stretch out if we only did a one-year grant um right that's a consideration that's so caring that's on the karen side on the care yeah i think that they maybe should have been yeah are we speaking of any specific organization or are we talking in general in general okay because the this grant is for um up to three years right that somebody would and it's very specific it guidelines i'm i don't know why we're discussing them in the same content because i know if it were separate so my brain would be better but i folded it so now i also conflate the both funds so you know frequently no i folded it and now it's separate okay okay i think given we certainly heard in public comment today a desire to try to keep our our expenditures and our costs as low as possible and i think we've been all trying to do that and that that's been a lot of work up here and we're making progress probably not where we need to be but we're getting there i think we have to be very short term in our thinking here given the uncertainty around the money and i i would hate us to build an infrastructure that is very hard to disassemble if if the grant winds up going away and infrastructure can be you know hiring a couple of people or a person you know that that's that's an ongoing cost and it costs us money when we have to do layoffs and things like that so i i would just caution us to be very short term in our thinking here i think we should really try to use the money that is coming from the grants and that that we don't try to burden the city with with additional costs here given i mean we all heard the public comment today i mean that that's that's fair costs are rising um and you know we're trying to do everything we can to keep our costs in line as best we can um you know without giving up the goodness that we have in the city and you know i i'm empathetic to that again that was the chief and and my intention in going out to some outside agencies to look for that portion that you all had already accepted would come from the city's budget we're looking to alleviate that and if we can come up with partners that are longer term then we have a better opportunity if the numbers pan out to continue funding moving forward mr mayor how about this i'm sorry commissioner well i'm wondering would it be appropriate to take the karen money and put it back into our budget for if you're if we're insisting on starting this new program and by the way you're gonna have like one person doing it at this cost then you're not gonna have two people in the in the for 150 000 the entire cost is just personnel okay i think what mr mark was i think what mr mark was saying which i agree with 412 we want to make sure that this money is going to be used for this year not to build the infrastructure could i just finish please two people one single certified paramedic 155 100 a year one fire paramedic assistant 185 and then the various equipment the total cost is 4 12 600 for two people that was not the most recent update that the chief gave well this is his document that he sent to us on this memo city fire rescue department sharpened his pencil more and that's why we had the number of mr mayor 250 so he took that down by half you just we can just go across the board and take it down by half the cost of the program from what was presented to us that concerns me greatly we are seeing a lot of things that can just be cut in half randomly which makes you wonder how much padding is going on around here because that's really strong now i'm just saying one minute so maybe we take the 155 from this for this moment put it back to cover the cost of the paramedical program and hold off on the grants until we understand what the long-term funding is going to be for the for the karen what how much we're actually going to get because i understand it ranges from 62 to 92 a year and i don't even know for how many years and what the actual cost of this program and success is going to be in the first year you do your trial first year so the taxpayers don't pay anything out of pocket and then we see how it goes from for next year's budget we can't pay for the other 50 on the opioid dollars out of the karen foundation money i'm not sure we can use them i'm not sure we can use if you could use it for these programs why couldn't you use it but i will but i will say that if he sharpened his pencil and it's not the four hundred thousand dollars it's not when we were talking about this we said education and training i'm sorry i'm sorry i can't hear too many people are talking i'm sorry i was trying to hear what the city attorney was saying i i don't recall providing an opinion that the karen foundation can be used to staff a program like this it's substance abuse training and education so i mean that's pretty clear there have been some interpretations made where you know they go into the schools they do a bullying program but part of that bullying program does touch upon substance abuse education so yes that was okay i would be very hesitant to to opine that that money can be used for a staff level position which is why it was presented at 50 percent did miss warren provide an opinion on that no no i mean 50 of the of the opioid would come from this conversation is just particularly confusing because they're two very separate programs one has a lot of strings that are attached to it right the other one is a little bit more loose but one is also you know a very small amount of money over the course of years commissioner burns sits on the palm beach committee she knows this and the other one is it could be a finite amount of money that you know we don't know how long we're going to have that money so i think this conversation is is getting a lot very conflated right now and i think that maybe we should just take a step back i know we're going to discuss the budget shortly um my only advice is that i don't think that i i am confident that the karen money should not be funding positions in the city great um i haven't looked at the opioid opioid monies yet but that too i mean they're very specifically tied to how we can use these monies and you don't want to misuse them because that creates a whole host of issues for the city much less the fact that if you're hiring somebody for a position we don't hire people for a year right right that's and some of these positions may be tied to union benefits right and it's not just oh we're going to do away with the program thank you for your service right these are people's livelihoods yeah that's that was my point we're building an infrastructure that we're going to have to live with exactly you know down the road you're two three four five and i don't have complete recall but i feel like um the chief indicated that that would not be a case that they're not creating a new position that's sort but i i don't have 100 sure ladies and gentlemen i don't know if travis knows i'd like to offer a suggestion both fire rescue chief ronda martin assistant city manager jeff forest talked about the commitment of identifying external opportunities to engage and connect so i'd like to go ahead and have us perhaps pursue those opportunities to see what's actually out there before making the determination in terms of what resource allocation commitments might be made available the opioid and excuse me caring foundation funding is in position you don't have to make any expenditure commitments right here and now let's see what we can come up with in terms of any external partnership opportunities before making a final decision let's see what that looks like because that's an arduous process to identify who or what organizations ancillary may be able to partner with the city of delray beach with regards to this matter i will offer that suggestion that way there's not a commitment at this particular point in time let's see what the marketplace bears in terms of opportunities for partnership we report back if there's one there's two there's nothing we go from there so are you referring to the opioid fund fund yes that's what that is correct i apologize just to be clear okay these two things also the the workforce and uh and the job program i wouldn't call it that i would suggest let that nest let this be the next step forward identify what's available in the external marketplace in terms of partnerships and we'll go from there even though those two would be fully funded with the 130 with the amounts offered and or for their family they they have to worry about their family as well so some of those supportive things may be child care or it could be tutoring we don't know we'll see what what comes in the door applicant requirements are basically the same although we added in uh certification from the florida association of recovery residences if if you're providing housing everything else is the same um we did wanted we i say we the opioid advisory committee also said they do want to try to give preference to organizations that are based in delray or have a history of providing services and have service locations in the city for both of these two opioid grants again only to serve delray residents care and funds completely different forget everything i just spoke about the idea right now you have about 947 000 available the osac had recommended that you only uh allocate half of that right now simply because we know that that can go away at any time and they thought doing a million dollars worth of programs right up front was an awful lot so they said let's let's only allocate half now and keep the half for later uh because we don't know what's going to happen again a reimbursement grant grants only to be used to provide programs or trainings to organizations or schools located in delray beach and administrative expenses limited to 10 percent of the total rate reimbursed these have to be abuse or education programs geared to charitable organizations religious organizations schools or other similar organizations again applicant requirements uh must be based in palm beach or briar counties preference to those with delray at least two years experience providing relevant services in palm beach county documentation of the ability to provide service to palm beach schools you do have to go through a some sort of a certification program i'm understood to be allowed to uh enter the schools and do this so we need to know that they either have done such a thing or they're able to get the approval to go into the schools if they're looking to do it in the palm beach public schools again the 990 or the annual tax filing applicant this is where there's a lot of discussion in osec they liked the idea of a hundred thousand dollars per year but they also thought maybe a multi-year wouldn't be bad because there is a lot of money here and it would avoid us having to go back again so they came up with the idea of a multi-year award up to three years as best as i can tell and in this case i don't necessarily want to speak for them but the discussion was very much if you don't do that you don't do that it was kind of a maybe this would be a good thing so that we'll have to go through this every year for some of them that have programs we know you want to keep going uh and again the city reserves the right to award lessons requested then applicants basically submit all of the same things they do for the other grants so then just the appropriate documentation um all that's all the same so some of the items i i thought you all might want to discuss was the timeliness to spend we put in 18 months to completely spend workforce dollars one year for housing and current programs were two years to spend each one-year allocation if you do multi-year awards that would be two years for each year you're funded um the amount of carrying funds to award now again we have those concerns uh any additional changes or to the parameters the requirements that that you might want to do and any funding preference if if you want to um uh split dollar have some dollars for things that aren't public school based or whether you have some of these programs that aren't entirely uh related to drug abuse versus one that may be 100 if you want to allocate different pots of money for that or just one big pot everybody apply and we'll we'll see what comes out in the wash and if there's anything else that that you feel should be changed in these thank you for the presentation and so these suggestions came from the opioid committee yes okay commissioner casali we should be recognized sure um you know from the beginning when we started talking about using funds how we could use the funds i support a lot of these programs and it's a fair amount of money i think you could eat it up i mean in the uh housing quickly but i am really thinking we need to be in our schools working on prevention with our children i've been to miss spencer's facility it's right down the street here she serves delray kids in delray schools and delray families and now delray adults with her latest uh adventure and it's really impressive so i would ask you all to go check it out and i do believe that we should be working on preventing our kids from using drugs get them before they start versus trying to help the guy who and i'm not saying one or the other but it's going to be harder to have an effect on the gentleman who's been in our ambulance or lady 50 times than it is on the child before they get involved in drugs they're two different pots of money i'm not i didn't say that one is exclusive of the other i'm saying i think it would be easier to work it would be easier to work with the children and have accomplishments at a young age rather than the person who's got the issue and that's i'm just saying i would like to see and i thought we had already decided because we have an allocation in the current fiscal year this is talking going forward that we were supposed to be allowing people to apply for grants to utilize that money already for education yet when i went to see miss spencer no money had been i don't know what's going on in that process the commission asked me to bring this to the opioid civil advisor committee for a program and a process to go through this is the process we said we were also going to the rfp at the last meeting just to be clear the care and funds of 947 566 is for preventative education correct correct and then the separate pot of money which is the opioid money is what the opioid settlement advisory committee suggested that we do those two other grants for and plus the mobile unit correct yes so they're two separate things so yes with prevention with the care and funds money we can decide whether it's a three or an only a one-year grant i'm not sure exactly where the scholastic fits in is it scholastic achievement junior junior i'm sorry um i mean i think that's easy it's only 50 000 50 000 a year for three years do they have time to go through this process i thought they'd gone through all the process they needed to go through that's the way i thought okay junior achievement is a pretty well-established many of the criteria that they meet anyway to do a funding request then we're saying you don't have to go through that application we're giving you that and then we're going to make everyone else go through the application right so why does miss spencer have to go through an application she loves just right if we can just allocate the money that's that's the route i would vote for i just think that i do think we don't want to ignore the procedure because if you ignore the procedure for one you got to ignore for everybody so i mean i but in the case of juniors i think the them filling out that application would be enough this is a suggested procedure we haven't adopted these yet you have not right and they're two separate procedures one is the one thing that i think that we need to do is i've been on this commission now four years we have not spent a dime we need to start getting this money out in the community and get it being used what it's for what it's supposed to be used with every other city let's get they're using their funds the opr points for west palm beach they're using it it's out in the community it's being used we're sitting here talking still four years later how to give the money like enough already let's i'd be okay to agree with the junior achievement getting um the portion that they need for the program that was presented in the two schools right and for the um the um dr suzanne i'm sorry thank you dr spencer getting um an amount for her program i'd be absolutely without the application process the others what was dr spencer's amount could we ask her what why don't you why don't we have staff work with her and we'll work on funding agreements right we'll bring those back on the 22nd great and then at that point whatever there's an action item we can approve them and the money we spent great well now let's work on the okay we have we have consensus on that yes thank you i have consensus for the karen money now let's work on now we're talking about the opioid money okay i think we should move forward with those two grants that the the group agreed were very very important and um try to get funding for the other half of the mobile unit and the intent with the the grants will be that we will put in a request out on the street for applications staff will review them for completeness we will bring them to the opioid advisory committee for a ranking and then to the commission for a final ranking can i ask the assistant fire chief travis i'm sorry i don't know your last name i don't mean to be disrespectful we just call him chief franco we don't we're not on that thank you can you speak to the different amounts because i know that the chief came with a sort of a condensed amount for this operation and then we determined that half of that could overlap into the elderly so the city would take a half of that which i remember to be 110 but it looks like it's 125 or something but can you speak to that do you recall yes so i was not as involved uh deputy chief travis franco um fire department um i was not as involved in the creation of this program as chief martin was he kind of took this under his own wing and wanted to champion this cause um however there were prior iterations of this program that i was involved in and they were specific to elderly and that's where um congresswoman lois franco got involved her mother had a fall we actually did a whole joint effort press conference and everything with her years ago um relative to these positions that the fire chief is speaking to i'm unaware of the memorandum that commissioner cassell is um speaking about because the costs as i know it i'm not saying that the costs aren't the document doesn't exist i'm saying the costs as i know it are around along the lines of 200 plus thousand dollars because the positions would be single cert meaning that they wouldn't be dual certified meaning that they wouldn't be in the firefighters pension system which means the cost of the the personnel in the positions is far cheaper than it would be if had they been dealt certified so that's where the savings for those positions would come in um but it would be two as i understand it two new positions it would not be something that would be done with existing staff it would be two new positions that would be brought on one would be a single cert paramedic the other would be a clinical social worker um to help with those sides that those aspects of it why couldn't those positions be contractual like a one-year contract so then we're assured that they're not part of the um that we don't have to deal with that personnel issue you know after years we want to if it's year two if we don't have the money in here too so i'm sure i know that there are a multitude of companies out there such as um amn healthcare club staffing medtron all these companies that do contract contractual work so that would i don't know how that would all work with the public entity but i know that they my wife happens to work for one so is that i know is that legal under the terms of the contract lynn are we allowed to use a contract are we are we allowed to use these funds for contractors no i'll look at it but i think so i don't i don't i honestly i feel more comfortable having a contracted employee versus i we all would absolutely that's where that's where i do no question about it my inclination would be the contract's not going to allow us to do that i'll check it assuming it does i would be more comfortable with doing a contract on a one-year contract they're looking for they're looking at these things longer term than we are right now we're playing a short game which we've all been talking about i don't know i i'll read the contract lynn can read the contract but i i just i there's a part of me that says they're they're not going to want that no i'll bet you cookie cookie i hope i'm wrong i could offer you okay mr franko excuse me this is a march 3rd 2026 estimated mobile integrated health program memo so if there is an updated document would you get that have somebody get that to me sure no problem so we have agreed on the care right we know we're going to come back with the funding for the care and foundation dr spencer's thing for junior achievement those and those things and we have agreed to come back with something we're going to be doing this money on a on a contract basis it's a sum certain that we have and and assuming we can do it on the contract basis on whatever the scope of services that they have to provide in order to comply with what they use to the funds then and we agreed that he can move forward on the grant application for the 135 000 for jobs 135 000 for workforce well yeah they would be the people seeking the grant would be under one year would be it would be a contract for for you no this is a separate thing but yes you're right it'd be one year absolutely yeah so are we all in agreement on that everybody yes i am yes it's just we need confirmation from the city attorney with respect yeah well yeah obviously with obviously it's contingent upon you coming back saying we can do what we just said we would like to do okay i'm done i'm wrong thank you i hope you aren't you no but i mean this is just a one-year grant thank you very much chief thank you very much that's it that didn't hurt too bad i don't know that's okay next step ali vermin is going to be up here talking to about the special events manager uh this is resolution 131-26 a resolution of the city commission of the city of dairy beach florida approving a non-impact event known as the cocoa market to be held the first sunday of each month 2027 as more specifically described herein authorizing the city manager to take all actions necessary to effectuate the intent of this resolution providing for an effective day and further purposes thank you miss burman good evening ali beerman special events manager um we're here tonight to talk about the cocoa market which is produced by cocoa yogi inc it's the first sunday of every month uh in 2027 at old school square uh we're here to approve an event that had violated their permit this year and city code um i'm sure you are aware uh that at the february 8th 2026 cocoa market there was a dog rescue vendor on site with adoptable dogs this vendor was not on the vendor list given to me uh by the event producer and any animals must be approved by the parks recreation director and that was not done no certificate of insurance was given for the vendor as well and a minor went over to the vendor and asked if they could pet one of the dogs the handler said yes and the dog proceeded to bite the minor in the face causing permanent damage having dogs in parks without the approval of the parks recreation director is a violation of the city's code the event producer was suspended for three months for violating the permit and was fined for violating code they have since served the suspension and paid the fine the event producer has stated they will never have rescue vendors again at the cocoa market and city staff is confident that the event producer will remain compliant moving forward the map of the site thank you very much um well i mean i'll start off because i've always been critical i think but uh they i believe in second chances i believe that this woman has done a good job while she's there um she's taking responsibility for the action she's just made given us assurances that it's not going to happen again she's going to have the requisite insurance my inclination would be to say go ahead and let and you know and do it but that's just me commissioner cassava hi grace you apologize profusely and um was very kind on social media and didn't engage some people were you know looking to do that and i think you know yes commissioner um i would move forward on this yeah i'm also in favor of this i i the the applicant was very remorseful and you know this won't happen again i'm sure on her watch so i'm okay with it commissioner burns yes i'm in favor of moving forward with it i need a motion to approve resolution 128-26 i think it's 131 131 motion to approve uh resolution 130 oh wait 131 what i'm sorry 131-26 thank you so much i mean second all in favor aye any opposed it is adopted thank you very much now we're moving on to resolution 128-26 a resolution of the city commission of the city of zara beach florida amending its budget for the fiscal year beginning october 1 2025 by providing for supplemental appropriations in the amounts identified in exhibit a repealing all resolutions and consistent herewith providing an effective date and for other purposes chief financial officer henry dakwas ladies and gentlemen thank you is that like it you know i know there should be music or something balloon drop right here north shoe so this is uh the monthly budget amendments um the first is parks and recreation requests a 250 000 revenue increase to prior year surplus and 250 000 expenditure increase to other current charges tennis tournament related to hosting the billy jean king tournament at the tennis stadium the two amounts balance each other and that's in the general fund the development services requests an eight thousand eight hundred and twelve fifty dollar and fifty four cent expenditure transfer from freight and postage to rental and lease equipment to cover payments for cry wolf and 37 expenditure transfer from office supplies to tuition reimbursement related to an unanticipated cost um so the total transfer amount is eight thousand eight hundred forty nine dollars and fifty four cents the water and sewer fund utilities request an eight thousand dollar expenditure transfer from general operating supplies to service equipment maintenance to cover an increase to po 2026 309 for camera repair and sixty two thousand four hundred sixty four four hundred sixty five dollars from salary wages plus three hundred thousand dollars from non-operating contingency to various general ledger accounts to resolve negative balances identified in the finance department's quarter three two thousand twenty six variance report utility billing printing until ee erp go live july 27th water treatment plan incentive pay for new hires water distribution increase to overtime for water shutoffs and engineering staff changes upgrades and out of class work reclassification transfer amount requested is a total of three hundred seventy thousand four hundred sixty five dollars um and it's just line item changes within the water and sewer fund those are the requests this month thank you to the commission any comments that otherwise i need a motion to approve motion to approve resolution number one two eight dash two six second all in favor any opposed it is adopted thank you mr dokowitz you're not leaving i understand but that's all right um the next item is the uh is this the resolution for the this is the first uh as it relates to setting up the the uh millage for the city i'm going to ask you to pass that down can i read this i've got artwork you can go ahead and read it thank you resolution resolution number 140-26 a resolution of the city commission of the city of delvary beach florida certified to the property appraiser and tax collector of palm beach county the rates of millage to be levied by the city of delvary beach for the fiscal year beginning october 1 2026 establishing the city of delvary beaches general fund operating millage at 6.350 6.3501 establishing the city of delvary beach's debt service millage rate at 0.0289 providing an effective date and for other purposes the intent of the city commission is to adopt an operating millage rate of 6.3501 mills the rollback rate is 5.8 by 555 mills therefore the proposed operating millage rate is 8.45 above the rollback rate the increase in ad valorem taxes is necessary to help fund increased budgetary needs primarily associated with public safety parks and recreation general government community services development services and parking facilities the proposed operating millage rate of 6.3501 requires approval by a two-thirds vote of the full membership of the city commission the city commission also intends to adopt the service millage rate of 0.0289 mills for a total city millage rate for fiscal year 2026-2027 of 6.3790 mills and as a reminder this is a public hearing thank you very much um i have passed out to my to the my commission which i'll make i'm going to actually send some letter into somebody on this but i am still of the position that we should not be raising the millage over and above where we are this year um as it is if we just keep the same millage it's going to be a 6.9 percent increase in at what taxpayers are going to actually pay at the recommended rate of 3.6.3501 that's a 10.2 percent increase in what they're going to be paying i'm just not prepared to layer another 10 percent taxation on the people of delray when they're going through all of these other when they're paying for increased insurance increased groceries increase all these other kinds of items you know we're still going to be having an additional six point if we kept the same millage now we're still going to have an additional 6.4 million dollars coming in this year everyone keeps talking about services i just know when we when we had our rollback rate there was really no none of the services were impaired everyone loves talking about services i have there's no empirical evidence to say that any services are going to be disrupted and we have we've had 77 properties get co's this year at the tune of uh 77 million dollars in increased value to the city okay starting and and as and there's more properties coming online because as everyone knows we pay taxes and arrears here so come january 1 of next year all of the properties that were up that that received benefits this year and co this year will be now best based will be added to our tax rolls we'll have more money coming in we can afford to stay with the same millage we have today not increase in burden the people who can least afford to pay it they're already i'm already asking them to pay six percent the city's asking me with this recommendation to have to pay over ten percent and i just think that that's unfair and i'm sticking with i mean i i'll i'll put this it's now part of the record and the clerk will post it or do whatever they do i don't know what they do um but there's no it is time we give relief all i'm saying is we should keep the same millage rate and this is already a six percent increase let's not bring them to ten percent let's get over ten percent i mean the original proposal was eleven point seven percent which we all nicely got rid of but it's this is not going back to the rollback this is saying we're gonna we want the city to get an additional six point four million and they'll have to manage everybody else is managing you know companies are out there and when the companies say well we're short on cash we need you to do this the first thing they say is the first thing they don't say is well we'll go out and raise our prices well that's what raising taxes is is raising your prices they find ways internally to cut that's what i'm saying the city needs to do it i mean we had this one fellow when i billy roche got up there and that's what he said when are they going to get some relief because just because our property values go up we don't have to you know we we we're the beneficiary for for for their property values going up we just spend it i just i want to stay where we are and not have any more tax not go above the rate that we are today and but obviously it's going to be a lot of discussion on that and i do you know have this whole little mr mayor i got i got more of them so mr mayor that's not it there's more trust me somewhere mr mayor yes i'm turning it over to i'm i've got more to say but which you know i'll wait to my i would simply like to have us have the presentation please the presentation we have a full presentation lined up it's fairly succinct but it is you have a presentation that's going to show that we're not going to pay 10.2 in additional taxes the presentation is based on last week's consensus however they cannot not wait yes i mean we to move it forward yeah yes sir nevertheless i think it's important that we afforded the presentation before city commission offers this direction whatever that might look like today that's fine that's all okay so mr dakwas if you would please and we have the material presented on each of the screens mr dakwas please historical and proposed operating millage rates actual expenditures and municipal cost index we've shown this before the green rectangles show our millage rate and the history that for eight years from 2017 to 2025 the millage rate was decreased including the rollback of 2025 it was modestly increased this current year to 6.1611 and the proposal for this coming year is 6.3501 and as can be shown it is not even equal to what we were charging in 2023 the yellow line on top is municipal cost index this is done independently and they they show what the costs to municipalities across the country are and how they've gone up from 244 to 340 over these 11 years the orange line in the middle is our actual expenditures here in delray beach in millions of dollars we have gone from 117 million to 200 million this current year and it's up to 219 million for the proposed year notice that the orange and the yellow lines are very similar we are within the reasonable boundaries of what municipals are facing across the country inflation is unfortunate and unfair but it hits all of us including running a government operation general fund tentative budget revenue summary by category so we have revenues taxes are going down by 1.6 million dollars okay permits fees and special assessments up by a little intergovernmental revenue we get from the state charges for services is going up by 4.6 percent judgements fines and forfeitures a little bit of an increase miscellaneous revenues up by two and a half million other sources down by 6.76 million that's mostly because of the drawdowns from reserves which are shown below the subtotal property tax revenues from the taxable value in the tentative budget is 8.5 million property tax revenues from the millage rate increase is 5.7 million and we're projecting a fund balance drawdown of 6.8 million so we have a total of almost 20 million from the subtotal of 196 to get to the revenue of 217 million on the expense side we have to have the balanced budget so the second column tentative budget has a total expenditures of 217.3 million dollars police up by 1.8 million it's 3.2 percent of the largest budget in the city budget fire is up 6.4 million 12.9 percent that's because the unknown is that we are in the midst of negotiations with the fire union for the next budget no we're actually complete so the position is where we are solid okay it's solid at 6.4 million parks and recreation was up by 1.5 million to 24.4 million six and a half percent public works engineering up by 1.6 million 14.8 percent the others neighborhood and community services about a half million finances a reduction because there were changes in the department organization the purchasing department that used to report to me is now a separate line item also the pension administrator has now moved to human resources parking facility small increase of 279 000 but on a small budget it's 13 15 percent city attorney city manager human resources is up 330 000 uh and they have included the um the pension administrator uh to their department um city commission down 239 000 purchasing is is being shown with a zero for the current year that's why the entire department cost is shown as an increased um internal orders similarly used to be part of city commission that's why you had such a reduction um 296 000. so you have the subtotal of expenditures of 213 million and then we have the cra tiff funding from property tax it's 2.1 million from the millage increase it's 1.2 million so the total is 217.3 million an increase of 16.2 million dollars eight percent if we look at some of the surrounding cities um the first line the proposed millage rate 6.3790 for delray that includes the debt millage of 0.0289 um fort lauderdale's 4.3 boca raton 4.69 uh palm beach gardens 5. pompano beach 5.6 city of deerfield 6.1 coral springs 6.18 those are lower than we are miramar 7.12 boyton beach 7.75 west palm beach 8.18 but let's look at the millage rate growth since 2016 the earlier graph showed how we consistently reduced our millage rate for eight years we had if you just look at the beginning and the end of that 10 year period we reduced our millage rate by 11 and a half percent fort lauderdale was up five four boca was up seven palm beach gardens is most comparable to us they reduced their millage rate by 10.8 pompano up by 2.2 deerfield 7.8 down coral springs up 21.4 percent miramar 5.2 boyton beach a small decrease to 1.9 and west palm beach a small decrease 3.7 then let's look at tax taxable property values we have a 21.06 billion dollar taxable value which we multiply by the millage rate to get our tax revenues from real estate fort lauderdale is more than three times at 67.5 billion bokeh is 42.7 more than twice palm beach gardens similar a little bit higher than us at 23.57 pompano higher at 24.68 deerfield is lower at 12.78 coral springs 16.8 miramar 16.9 boyton also lower at 11 west palm 27.85 the pro now the last piece is that all of these other cities except for palm beach gardens have a separate fire assessment fee meaning when we look at a millage rate of the city of delray of 6.3501 it includes fire services in every other city except for palm beach gardens there's a separate charge and the annual per dwelling unit fort lauderdale is 338 bokeh 224 pompano 361 deerfield 365 coral springs 308 miramar 479 boyton beach 170 west palm beach 250. so you can't just look at that top line comparing our proposed millage to the other cities you have to look at our history of reducing the millage rate of how much taxable property value we have and also whether we're charging separately the two footnotes are the key takeaways most peer municipalities leverage fire assessment fees and maintain stable millage rates the city of delray beach does not collect fire assessment fees and continues to maintain low millage rates looking at all taxing authorities to our taxpayers the total millage rate is 18.59 delray beach is 6.379 a little bit more than a third the public schools are 6.287 also a little bit more than a third the county is a quarter 4.521 and other independent districts 1.404 so we are we understand that there are other charges and they have to be included but we're working on our one-third charge homeowner pays 3073 in ad valorem taxes to the city assuming a 481 794 taxable value that's the average according to the assessor's office in palm beach county if we look at the operating and capital budget by fund types general fund you've seen before 2046 to 217.3 a change of 12.6 million 6.16 percent the special revenue funds have gone from 34.5 million down to 28.3 million a reduction of 2.3 million or 18.17 percent the enterprise funds those are business like where they charge fees for their services and they are usually programmed the goal is to become break even including all expenses they've gone from 157.45 million to 156.64 reduction of 800 000 uh one half of one percent uh one half of one percent debt service funds four million five this current year four million fifteen thousand next year an increase of nine thousand seven fifty one quarter of one percent capital funds this current year's budget was three hundred sixteen three hundred thirty six million it's going down to 269.7 million a reduction of 66.4 million or 19.75 percent internal service funds these are funds that provide services for the rest of government operations and get charged out the current year is 47.2 million it's going down to 42.3 million a reduction of 4.9 million or 10.4 percent in total the amended budget this year 783.9 million being reduced to 718.2 million a reduction of 65.7 million or 8.4 percent operating budget by fund type here's a nice little circle graph general is 30 percent at 217 million um enterprise funds are 156.64 million on the left side um capital projects down below 269.7 those are the the largest internal service 42 million debt service is 4 million uh special revenue 28 million general fund budget highlights personnel services firefighter collective bargaining agreement negotiations have been completed salaries and benefits increase 7.2 percent from 120.8 million to 129.4 million including 1.9 million for cost of living adjustments increase in fire pension contributions of five hundred eighty nine thousand dollars increase in police pension contributions of seven hundred twenty three thousand so we're looking at 1.3 million increased contributions for public safety operating expenditures increase to public work street maintenance of five hundred thousand that the commission requested increase to fleet fuel and lube costs of three hundred seventy thousand ever since the conflict with iran costs of oil and gas have gone up transfers decrease in transfers to neighborhood services funds of two hundred seventy four thousand dollars an increase in payment of tax incremental fund revenues to the community uh the cra of 2.9 million enterprise fund highlights water and sewer fund rates are projected to remain stable projected monthly bill of seventy eight dollars forty three cents for average customer with six thousand gallons of usage stormwater fund rate rate adjustment of four point eight percent was approved august uh just a month ago sanitation fund rate adjustment of four point four seven percent effective october 1st of 2026 this is we negotiate with our outside vendor and we do the best we can but that's part of the inflation and the municipal cost increases that we talk about curbside collection for residential single family of twenty dollars forty one cents per month municipal and lakeview golf courses renovations and repairs are nearly complete city marina and cemetery mausoleum construction in process um you've seen this before we've simplified it a little bit start on the left side if we look at our revenues the recommended the city manager recommended budget and millage rate was 205 million seven hundred ninety two thousand and the tentative budget and millage is 206 million 517 000 the operating millage rate was reduced from 6.4371 mills to 6.3501 mills property tax revenue splitting that into the two parts how much came from the increase in the taxable value 8.5 million this year the city manager recommended and 5.667 from the millage when we decrease the millage rate we still got 8.5 million increase from the increase in the taxable value but the amount of revenue from the millage rate increase drops to 3.8 so now we're at a total of 12.3 million for the 6.3501 uh for the current recommendation projected fund balance drawdown it was originally 8.1106 thousand and now that we have gotten decreased revenues from the millage rate we are drawing down less 6 million 860 thousand 489 the calculation on the right is as follows about a year ago september 30 2025 we have our audited financials and our fund balance this is the rainy day fund not reserved not restricted 49.13 million we estimate that for the current year ending september 30 2026 we will require a drawdown of reserves of two million dollars that would mean our projected fund balance at the end of this fiscal year in three weeks would be 47 million 131 at that time the fund balance as a percentage of expenditures would be 22 percent the projected drawdown under the tentative budget and millage rate is 6 million 860 thousand dollars projected fund fund balance at the end of the year we take the 47 13 at the beginning of the year minus the drawdown of 68 and we would get 40 million 270 thousand 511 the projected expenditures less transfers for the fund balance calculation as specified by the commission is 212 million 516 thousand 685 dollars therefore we are projecting a fund balance as a percent of expenditures of 19 so we would be dropping from 22 percent to 19 that takes care of the top left uh explanation of the millage rate and the fund balance drawdown on the expenditure side the expenditures we had cutbacks in overtime from police and fire public safety so our expenditures went from 216.239 million to 214.319 million uh reduction of 1.4 million but because of that our tif funding from taxable value stays the same at 2 million 99 000 but the additional cra tiff funding from the millage rate goes from 1 million 200 200 227 000 to 840 000 a savings of almost 400 000. so when we look at our total expenditures we've dropped it from 219.565 million to 217.25 million a reduction of 2.3 million total revenues and total expenditures were 219.565 they're now 217.259 and that's the budget process as it remains thank you great thank you very much i want to ask you a question because in and i looked at all your your figures there and you're very good with showing what all these other cities do um do you do you know offhand with the taxable base change when you apply your millage rate it has to be against what your taxable base is right i mean we all agree on that so you know do you know what the taxable base change was for example for boca raton for the last five years no what percentage no i do i do it's okay 47 percent uh boynton beach is like 51 percent do you know what del raise is what 57 percent in the last five years 57 percent increase in our tax base we've had only 11 percent you're very quick but we've reduced by 11 yeah we did 11 but we had a 57 57 increase i don't consider that really passing on anything to the taxpayers who by the way i work for just like the you know when you're in a company you don't sit there and say i'm raising my prices so don't worry we'll make it up with in volume i mean you know all your figures are assuming that we're not tightening our belt in a lot of different areas where i believe we can tighten our belt and if i am not all your things are still all your all these numbers all true but unless you really measure it against what your true increase in your in your tax base was so that you can see what the bet what the what what it really meant when you reduce or raise the millage as the case may be then all of this is just saying we're keeping you know they've gone down up and we've gone up and they've got no our taxable base went up 57 percent in the last five years we've given an 11 percent relief if that doesn't resonate with every taxpayer in the city which it does who i work for and what they want me to i mean i've talked to a lot of people the last few weeks i know what they're looking for they're looking for us to tighten our belt they're they're asking for what they want is a rollback i'm not even you know i mean i i don't go to disneyland so i don't worry about you know fantasy but to not increase the the millage rate is the very least that they are expecting can i ask you what the change in inflation has been we're subject to inflation i'm happy i'm happy to answer that question i'm happy to answer that question starting from 2015 to 2025 okay we increased our budget from the 98 we increase that no no no the general economy what has the inflation rate then because we don't live in an order you know when i borrow money and when you know something when companies are excuse me let me finish let me finish mine um when you when you when you're in a company and they're dealing with inflationary issues they don't sit there and they don't pass it on to the cut to the customer because there's only a certain amount that you can pass on don't they look at what their competitors do of course they do so if they always are passing it on they pass it on too that's why we look at other cities gentlemen companies are not passing on a hundred percent they are retreating back my point is what is the inflation rate mr mayor when i borrow money for 30 years right whether it's for delray or any other city i borrow fixed term fixed rate for 30 years that's the only cost that doesn't go up every year okay every 60 of our costs are people agree okay we have unions then you need to negotiate it then you need to deal with personal issues you propose to continue you need to deal with personal issues a million dollar operation without increasing costs and revenues by the five to eight percent that our staff gets and you people you're going to have to the cola you're going to have to deal learn how to deal with staff that make that make that what does that mean gentlemen let me just let me say our budget in 2013 was 90 it was 98 million dollars okay i'm just going to go up it goes up to 190 million i had the same question asking me for the president well when you added inflation yeah we did we did a whole inflation analysis it would have been 140 we were still 100 percent higher than the inflation rate in terms of how what was money we were spending when you have a 56 increase in your in your taxable base and you give an 11 percent relief the the the inflationary component was about 22 percent it was about 22 million dollars so i'm still outpacing inflation by about i got 80 percent in terms of my in terms of my my spending so yeah i did we looked at all this i looked at all i mean i spent the entire weekend you know and i'm looking at the cities which are raising their taxes you know you got people who don't have a strong tax base are the only ones raising their taxes briny breezes well they're all kind of built out highland beach no new construction there all built out um palm beach shores same royal palm beach same lake park shores lake park shore is actually reducing south palm beach is actually reducing and then everybody else the rest of the whole page is here and all these other municipalities the other 39 i didn't count them 30 municipalities are all are all staying the same yet they didn't have they did not enjoy the huge increase in tax base that we have mr mayor yes may i please you may we spent a lot of time energy and effort to offer data analytics metrics the kind of metrics all the background necessary to offer what our recommendations are and why we offered an element of zero-based budgeting we went through all the steps if i may please please please call it what it was it was a modified zero-based budget using last year as the base that's not a zero-based budgeting under any analysis i said that you're just about be be honest about the budgeting process because it was not an element of zero-based budgeting i said that modified zero-based budgeting synonyms i said the same i agree so the point is we've offered a lot of background information and this is the first hearing the second hearing is two weeks from today i think we need to hear from the commission at this time so that we can accept the appropriate direction and go from there the recommendations have been made it goes with the office of the city manager so i will take full ownership in that regard all the department directors did an excellent job in terms of helping with data analytics metrics econometrics all the necessary background to get these considerations underway so on that note i don't feel that it's productive to be overly critical in my interest if i may please as city manager i would like to have some sense of direction and i would like to help facilitate an outcome that makes sense so that everybody can be comfortable i i have so i think i've made my piece known so who would like to go next with your commissioner oh yeah i'm just thank you vice mayor burns i should give you the proper um i just want to say i think thank you mr moore for the presentation you've done what we asked you to do here we sure did thank you and thank you uh mayor for this um you know we do have to be very mindful of our taxpayers with you know everything uh has increased and that's for everybody and things are compounding and so um i am whatever millage rate we adopt i want it to be the lowest rate that allows us to responsibly operate the city and maintain and as you said we didn't lose any level of services by remaining with the 6.1 um whatever the lowest that we can go that allows us to operate the city pay the bills and maintain the level of service that our residents expect and deserve so that's all i have to say right now i have another week to think this over two weeks we'll do it in two weeks actually we need to have a tentative adoption tonight so i would like to hear from you all tonight so that we can prepare for two weeks okay you're comfortable leaving where it is that makes two of us i'm very comfortable with leaving where it is okay we have work to do so let's hear from the rest 6.11 whatever that is yeah i don't know i gotta go back and look it up 6.1611 whatever i wrote there which does not include your debt service okay may i just ask a few questions first of all so we can talk about why we're where we're at and and mr duckwood says it's our spending collectively us prior commissions the costs have increased if you go back and look from 2016 to present the cost of our fire department has gone up 112 our police 91 but you talked about surrounding areas and i just quick checked i'm using ai so it may i'm hoping it's accurate but comparing the our budget 2016 to present general fund boynton has gone up 90 delray has gone up 97 and boca has gone up 83 and the other two have assessments we are consistent with what's going on it's not like what is delray doing so horribly the thing that concerns me i sat here the other day and brought in about three million dollars of cuts and mr moore thank you put him in the budget he i said i thought it was 2.9 it was 2.854 and my thought was we give a small reduction and it only equates to a small reduction it's 43.50 per 500 000 of tax value but we also look to keep our reserves at a reasonable place you we have a policy that says our reserves are supposed to be at 21 as i said at the last meeting they used to be 35 just three years ago 35 percent we dropped them down they were 25 yeah they were when i sat up here before they were 35 and we agreed to start utilizing some of that money and feeding our funds down to 25 to make the budget work they had to be dropped down to 21 we're modifying our reserves to make the budgets work that is not a good day-to-day practice and it's not fiscally sound for our long-term financial future now you gave us this cute little thing and it's all great but if we hold your added revenue is 6.4 million okay 10.54 million is our cost just to pay for our employees pay increases under various contracts now i brought in three million dollars of cuts the other day you i'm not trying to be disrespectful but you didn't bring any cuts and you're saying cut you're talking right here off the top over four million dollars that you are needing to cut where will you do it we can't i can't do it's not with respect it's not that's not my job that's his job you you wanted the workshop okay you have to give him some direction i think you picked up a lot of what i was talking about with the overtime you weren't talking about it i talked about it and then you followed right exactly and i met with mr moore and told him about it but the point is the point is no the point is where are you going to cut last year you sat up here and said or sorry two years ago perhaps we drop one person off the ambulance the chief explained to us we would save two million dollars but at the end of the day you can't pull the trigger because what they say is life safety health response time and the like where you're just talking about four million dollars that you need more to just keep your current level of employees paid well if your amount you were four million in the hole so do you want to dig into the reserves use another four million and drop them down to ten is that your plan what is your plan because it's great to just throw out numbers my city my plan is to the city manager will figure out um if if we have to address numbers of personnel then we have to address that every other city is doing so you want how many people are we firing everybody else is doing no but which departments are we losing people are we gonna drop down the police i'm not gonna i don't want to know it is your job in a sense because you voting you're voting for these contracts that are costing the money all year long then you're sitting up here after you voted for police and fire i don't remember the other any contracts every every consent agenda is a contract of some sort everything we're approving is a contract an increase to the contract not the salaries not the personnel kind we're not but we don't we don't vote on those so we we don't vote on those those are his purview so mayor i'm sorry the problem is you don't with sticking where you would like to say stay and everyone would like to you think we all don't want to cut taxes and you're the only one who wants to yeah but you never it last year same thing you didn't present anything viable to take it down so you wanted to where you mayor we cut the fireworks you got a text about the fireworks and you wanted to put the fireworks back on at the last minute you were you it's the idea of cutting sounds great but when we get right down to it what are we cutting and you can't say nobody experienced any loss we stopped our road paving program if you don't pave your roads and keep up keep your roads and you wait a year or two years you it cost you tremendously more agreed but we're making decisions about here we're not talking about the capital i'm talking about things that money general fund money goes into cip so don't say it doesn't so if you're cutting and you're taking money out of the general fund then that's some money that may not go into cip so it is connected projects may get delayed no question correct so you are okay delaying right but i want you to say to me today here which projects do you want to delay not my call his call i'm not going to second guess i'm not going to become city manager oh let's remember that and part of the issues that i've had is that we we i am not the city manager okay what i take he gets instructions he figures out a way to make it work and that's the way it works and and the taxpayers who i work for we all work for the taxpayers well i went through that 300 page they don't want a tax increase three times to come up with three million of cuts well i mean i don't know who you're talking to but the ones i'm talking to certainly don't want to have they don't know that we are raping their reserves and we're taking all the money for a rainy day fund they don't know they know what they're experiencing than their household but they don't understand we're experiencing it here i would hardly say by leaving an 18 percent um into your into into it's going to go down below 18 percent at your cut it'll probably go down way lower at this current rate now if you go down that's assuming you don't want any structural changes if you don't want any structural changes in your city i gave three million dollars in cuts changes are needed well then everybody else you keep calling workshops but you can't list out one of them list them out we're here right it's eight o'clock we don't have a heavy agenda list them out what's your structural changes do you want to cut police then say it do you want to cut fire then say it what do you want to not do i would like five percent across the board yeah but across the board it doesn't work and every you can't just say pull this out of this department pull that out of that department you have to know what you're cutting excuse me yes i just want to ask a question the p the pfos funds um is that earmarked for a certain thing can we use that as part of the budget can we use how how is that it's earmarked for you based on prior commission direction it's been earmarked yeah water treatment facility it's restricted can that direction be changed yes so was it because we just recently got another payment correct yes and so any pfos funds we've allocated that i have to double check with our outside council i don't think that they have restrictions but i just need to verify that they don't before we go and use you know use those funds agreed to use the previous direction our water treatment facility because we need that money for our water treatment facility our how we cost it out our water treatment facility was in part dependent on that money being allocated yes it is it was going to infrastructure related to water utility operations including that and to help offset concerns related to aggregate expenses with the water utility and of course in terms of public budgeting and evaluation field it's those are one time opportunities it's not something that will happen on an annual basis and that so not as advisable especially considering the allocation commitments and there's two sources of outcomes there's the 3m settlement and dupont settlement right one had more strings attached than the other generally speaking and okay now it needs to be verified across the board however it was all previously committed that that be directed in that regard because frankly i thought about that briefly and it goes against my background and expertise in public budgeting and evaluation public finance because they're one-time outcomes so it's not a sustainable way to to budget resources in that regard but quite frankly ladies and gentlemen i like to offer my participation much like i did a week ago so that we can get to a place and i can run some calculations and figures i'm sorry before you do that mary just a reminder this is a public hearing so we do need to open it up to the public oh yeah what i'm sorry it's a public hearing that we need to open up i mean there's been a lot of discussion but no no no i know you're going to finish but typically we get a presentation we hear the public comment and then you can have your discussions based on why you're from the public it's up to you i just don't want to forget would the commission like to hear from the public now we can wait if you want to after our discussion uh commissioner cassel and i have already spoken the other two didn't get a chance to speak so maybe you want to speak to you like to speak before we no i mean i'm happy to come up with this mysterious several million that would keep us at the old millage rate we um i know that police and fire we already know that takes up a portion and that is a contract that we have to agree upon and we have agreed upon to pay them and the rest of the departments are scrimping to get to the numbers that they got to they're at their bare bones we act like there's some big fluff money sitting around that that i didn't see you didn't see you didn't bring it up the other day and um i thought about the people's too but really borrowed borrowing from peter to pay paul we have an expense we have to pay it um you know mr dakwich and and mr moore beat their heads against the wall to come up to to lower it to the mount to still keep a decent amount of reserves um not taking that way up of the three uh 6.35 and um i'm okay with that i don't like to raise it i don't like to raise it at all i'd like it to stay the same i know that you said the rollback that you did didn't hurt it did hurt yeah the the rollback we had two years ago we were going lower lower lower than we went way low then we had to make up i don't have the numbers i don't have the number no i didn't say any service was cut but we had but it we had to make it up we had to make up money up mr mayor yes i like and may i commissioner malica because i'd like to contribute to the observations you just shared and that is whatever military is set for fiscal year 26 27 will service the baseline for the following fiscal year 27 28 we talked a little bit about this in terms of what our capacity may or may not be based on what the outcome is in november 2026 as it relates to amendment three so if we were to go too far be too drastic about it we did what we could to strike a balance in that realm and that's a compelling factor as well so just to contribute to the observations haven't been shared our our recommendations are not simply based on fiscal year 2026 and 2027 alone it does take under consideration the future beyond if that makes sense given the baseline considerations as we get to that place so i think a lot of good work has been done in that regard but i'm listening to the feedback and i'll be prepared to offer thoughts based on what the aggregate direction is so that we can strike a balance achieve a happy medium to the extent that we can so to speak so i would encourage you mr mayor to allow market to speak that's all about a public hearing then we can debate from there commissioner market excuse me deputy vice mayor market deputy vice mayor thomas market st lawrence university class of 1981 i know who you are all right um first of all henry i want to say thank you for all the hard work i i know having been in the corporate world for a million years the work that goes into setting these budgets up is monumental and it's a it's the hardest task and it's it's a relief when it's finally over we're not there yet clearly but we're trying to be thank you um i was relieved to see that we're not really out of step with the other cities around us when when you do the math the proper way as you pointed out i mean we don't have a fire assessment at some point maybe that's something we should be considering um you know we don't have a police assessment maybe that's something we should be considering because we seem to be a little bit out of step with some of our neighbors on that i don't know if there's wisdom in that or not but we should um i i've said from day one i continue to be against uh drawing down our reserves i think that leaves us so vulnerable and you know the moment we need that and we don't have it you know then there's going to be some really bad things that that are going to happen i've been through the budget with you and with mr moore you know several times over the past month or so um we are at the point where we have cut out all the fat and we are now sawing through the proverbial bone and and what does that mean to to all of us that means we're going to have to cut out things that are going to be super duper noticeable so there may not be any more parades the christmas event may go away um you know commissioner cassell brought up our roads yeah you may have a lot more potholes down the road on that um police and fire i'm not sure what we can cut we have union contracts which you know we we negotiate in good faith and we have to honor those there are some things in there called overtime that probably we could affect but that's going to affect safety and other other things that i think we should all be really super aware of i doubt that um and then there's things that we've discussed earlier today that we want to invest in the cemetery there's nobody sitting up here that feels good about the situation that we're in but you know what that's going to take money so you know if we're going to cut is that going to get cut we've talked about veterans park as being another area that we you know we want to do more with that might be cut and i i would just say for me gentlemen as i said i really appreciate everything that you've done um and i i think to be fair up here i i don't want to be close-minded to lowering the budget further but i want to be in a position where all of us can see what those cuts are going to mean and i still don't see that today because i we have cut through all the fat i'm convinced of that so now it's now we're going to go into bone and we're you know there's going to be painful cuts that we're all going to see i guarantee you um and if if that's if that's where the community wants to go and we don't want to invest in in future things um as i mentioned earlier we can do that but recognize just from my three years of experience up here we're going to cut through some bone we're going to all feel it if that's what we want to do that's okay but i i want to for the next time before we vote i want everybody to hear what those cuts are going to be because they're going to they're going to be draconian i need to have a discussion this evening in terms of how we get to a place in which we know what the military position will be because we've done a lot of that we've been through all of that and i appreciate that we'll continue the education process during the course of the fiscal year that doesn't just happen september 8th and september 22nd that's a continuous process because part of the administration of annual budgets for municipalities ladies and gentlemen involves budget adjustments which you all engage in quite regularly which is appropriate and that's your opportunity to understand what the adjustments will be good bad or otherwise so that's a continuous process my interest today so as to prepare for two weeks from now for final public hearing is get to a place in which we can say the military is x the fund balance position is y so that's what i like to do i have thoughts but i gotta hear from you we've offered recommendations we've modified recommendations for the better we came up with a lower military versus what we initially proposed and and given the adjustments that were talked about by commissioner casal i actually verified those in advance of september 1st as well we were able to tweak the fund balance position a percentage point higher so there'll be some give and take on both sides as we get to this place this is not an environment ladies and gentlemen to say terrence go back come back september 22nd we need to be at a place today so that we understand what the direction is so that we can update our modified presentation for the final hearing two weeks from now so that we can be clear that's it ladies and gentlemen i know what my obligations are as city manager i think we've done a lot of great work in terms of fiscal stewardship and getting us to a great position striking balances etc nevertheless that's what we have to have this evening so that we can be adequately prepared for september 22nd because again we've been working since really february it's september 8 2026 ladies and gentlemen we began this dialogue back in february march really more robust six months of work not a lot of other cities can say the same this i know for sure as a long-term city manager i just want to make one quick quick comment i understand that you that you addressed commissioner gosal's issue about with the with respect to the to the um fund balance i will say that i do that's not only her issue that's everybody's if i forgive me i apologize mr mayor but i do recall that commissioner burns also said that if we're going to do any reductions further reductions she wants us to endure to the benefit of the taxpayers right right that's not what did what that has done so and and and and when someone says it only costs us 43 or 50 a person you know a three million dollar bad expenditure doesn't become a good expenditure because i can spread it out over 47 000 people and we have some we have some i know we're saying we have fat we have all that's fine but you can't have this kind of growth and tell me that there's no structural changes that can't be made and these are maybe they have to do with some restructuring some personnel maybe this has to do i i don't know that's your job it is my job it is exactly right mr mayor i 100 percent agree with that sentiment and and and we we have the money we certainly are going to be making more money next year we have more things coming online i mean there's already i will obviously there's already 77 million dollars worth of property that's not reflected in this that's going to be reflected in this on january the january 1st depending on what happens i understand automatically the ceos have already been issued they have not issued the ceos yet on um sunday village so that increase in value we haven't even seen yet they are operating but they're operating under under tcos which means the property appraiser hasn't gone into reassessed they have on atlantic crossing to the tune of almost 300 million dollars which is we get about four million of it or so right maybe even about four million of it from that thing give or take a penny or two thereabouts um the other lot there which is currently under construction is not yet on the tax rolls so we we're pretending and and one of the reasons west palm beach you you see it's dropped which is why the line that's missing here is what's the increase in the tax base of each one of these towns when you're trying to measure what the millage rate adjustments are going to be you have to look at how much their property tax values have increased that's a key component because let's see what that's what you measure your millage against and of course west palm beach has gone down because all everything they had three huge properties come online last november they hit the january tax rolls and so they got all kinds of money we can't balance a budget on the tax rules that are going to explode when those new properties come on we have to look at the numbers that are in front of us right now but i'll tell you to sit there and say we're worried about this the property uh amendment three so therefore we ought to put money under the mattress now there's no money under the mattress we will deal with it's a rate if we have to deal with creating special taxing units down the road if we have to deal with these things we will deal with them as we are presented you don't don't budget with the expectation there's going to be some legislation legislation passed and you're going to be trapped i think this this budget here is about a number not about padding it for the number so i mean patting it for the 10 it's about what we were able what they were able to crunch down to well i don't see any maybe if you can find it i'm happy to look at it mr mayor and i know that's his job but mr mayor yes if i may please i would like to encourage you all to engage the public hearing consideration however once that's completed i'd like to dialogue with you all in terms of what makes sense so that we can go forward for once and for all i know what my job is i know what my responsibilities are and as always i'm prepared to do that right here at the dais that's my insistence on using september 8th this evening as an opportunity to get us where we need to go so i'm always thinking i'm always executing my thoughts and when it comes to data analytics and metrics i'm actually pretty good about it and responsive and attentive yeah well i i need to do that a little bit more vice mayor burns i'm generally not that way but yes humble person mr mayor you came at me here in person this past saturday 9 30 in the morning 15 minutes late and i offered you my time as always with any of you so it's nothing to be sorry about it's okay we're here we are i need direction in the morning we spoke so i i made i made a i put 9 30 in instead of that's okay can i make a point of order please can i make a point of order before you open it up what we're getting from uh the edwards company in delray beach operation is 1.3 million debt yeah that's right the four million dollar bill we get five thousand dollars and the dda is getting two hundred thousand it's not four million and then we get like one sixth of it yeah right but the point is and we've had this conversation last year you said the same thing all this stuff's going to come on and we're going to find this money and you said it the year before until it's there as miss malica said it's not reliable and it's not one million dollars for that the cost that that costs us when you're talking about what we have to provide back to the taxpayers as a result of that large increase in population that one million does not cover it at all i absolutely agree with that okay but so you we can't argue that this all this new development is going to pay i'm just saying we have additional stuff coming on which is why the millage rates when you look at these things it's all related to what their increase in taxable value i understand but then you have an increase one point yes sir and then we'll go to the public in in anticipation of the referendum um i looked at what layoffs would look like to the city i'll say it again 60 to 70 percent of our costs are people willie sutton said you got to go where the money is so i explored what layoffs would mean we have three very strong unions so what happens is when you initiate layoffs there are bumping rights and it's not based on merit it's based on longevity oh yeah it's based on tenure so it's one thing if you say 10 across the board and we cut 10 of the payroll and the weakest performers would be counseled out that's not the way the world works so what tends to happen i've been through this with other governments where the people who have the most tenure been here the longest whether they're the best performers or not or maybe they're older and they slow down they don't produce as much as they used to they bump and keep their jobs and the people who get laid off unfortunately the youngsters i call them 20 to 35 they're motivated they're still excited they're not cynical yet oh i'm giving back to government service i'm doing you think we get cynical they were born with computers in their cribs they are techno wizards yes yeah those are the people going to get laid off so the reality is except for dancing around the periphery the other 35 which we have squeezed eight months this year eight months every year through the budget process unless you're willing to look at wholesale people changes restricted by union requirements because we sign all these contracts we went to 24 72 we have police negotiations last year the point is we're dancing around the edge i do not agree with you that there are millions of dollars lying around waiting to be discovered as savings i go back to what other commissioners have said i look at reliable we've provided services we've invoiced people we had receivables and then we don't collect i'm sorry i'm a cfo until i get the money in my grubby hands and even then it could be clawed back i've seen banks do that not carny bank of course but the point is we got to deal with reality and we do have a referendum coming up whatever the percentage you give on it passing or not this is all the pain just to balance this year's budget we didn't talk about the referendum at all but if that goes through it compounds i will tell you personally looking the environment now's the time i want to borrow money the bond market is breaking interest rates are going to go sky high because we have 40 trillion dollars in debt over two trillion in a budget deficit every year japan said we're going to do quantitative easing we're going to buy our own bonds to keep our long-term rates down but they are the largest sovereign country in the world not china owning federal bonds okay so they said to scott percent we'll just sell some of our u.s bonds and we'll uh we'll buy our own debt he said don't do that we'll lend you the money it's a worldwide phenomenon we've had this conversation go up so to me i want to borrow now as much as i can and pay it back in less valuable currency down the road and so the reality is we have to look with an eye to the future of what's coming and i look at layoffs because that's where the people were and then we have restrictions so i just said my piece all of that is i'm acknowledging all of that is true okay i still want to know why you know for example this 10.2 percent tax increase is not with the taxpayers i mean we work for them i work for them too i don't know i mean gentlemen i work in too i i throw quarters around like manhole you know what i see everybody in every department with golf shirts that we paid for and i joked for two years and people laughed in my face and i said when it saves a body from being fired maybe you'll give up the golf shirts and pay for it yourself what about all the freebies what about all the stuff when we don't collect receipts and gentlemen that's our job to address administratively we've looked at all of the easy low-hanging fruit as mr mark i know it's going to be hard i never said it's going to be easy gentlemen gentlemen i said my piece great gentlemen i'm going to open this up to the public are there any members of the public wishing to speak on this non-controversial matter please come to the lectern you'll give your name and a zip zip code it's not you right zip code for the record and you will each have three minutes unless i really like what you're saying then i'll give you more time just to keep going on not true go ahead no i won't but anyway greg page 3344 thank you okay uh what i didn't mention earlier was the overvaluation of all of our properties that's a biggie i don't know where the money has gone but if we just go back to 2010 on our little thing and i said 20 you know when i talk about 400 what you'd be taking from me that's only the city of del rey's money that you're taking adding to my existing so it'd be about 3300 i'd pay now uh the in 2010 uh we had a millage rate of a uh 8.1 percent that uh increased from the previous year uh cost me 19 now uh 2026 this proposal 6.42 or you're going to drop it down i suppose but 6.2 uh 42 percent is going to cost me 431 dollars something has changed and we know it's the valuation of our properties so you're taking a smaller percent i got it you know i understand you're bringing it down doing the best you can and you all really are impressive i gotta tell you i've never seen this meeting before uh so with this i know you're trying but i'm not smart enough to figure out how so much uh overvaluation of our properties because we're not stock traders here we're either renting them out or so uh we do have a lot of uh hidden money which i think you all know about the uh short-term rentals you've heard of them they're not paying their share the long-term uh people these are uh tenants who are spending their uh uh tax dollars here sales tax they're doing everything and they're not really overusing our facilities but the short-term rentals are not being uh collected on there's ways of getting that um the uh other uh properties that i i guess we can't touch but they've been taken offline uh many houses uh or smaller properties have become private schools i don't know if you've ever noticed that uh they're small daycares that was somebody's house before but then it turned into a preschool well now this preschool has a two million dollar property across from mine that was taken offline a few years ago no tax these are places that uh taxes can be gotten if uh you all have a way of uh figuring through uh certain propositions but that's uh my short thank you very much are there any other members of the public wishing to speak last call seeing none public comment is closed so mr mayor i'd like to be city manager now please again and again i'm going to answer the commission and again about some of the recommended but go ahead i'll probably well my no that's fine please do my interest is to do what we can to cut to the quick and get some decisions from the commission so that we can come back properly so that i can go back to my econometrics part of my mind and bring back a structure that makes sense so that everybody can feel comfortable i thought that was accomplished fairly well during the september 1st city commission workshop meeting on a subject the basis of presentation this evening when we went from 6.4371 to 6.3501 there was a super majority consensus offered at that time that's the basis of why we're presenting as we are we took under consideration the the adjustments that were presented so i was already there with the 1.4 on the public safety side 600 000 on fire rescue casal was close with that number a little less than that on a little bit more than that on the police side ended up being 800 000 so 800 000 plus 600 000 was 1.4 million dollars i bring that up specifically because that outcome that metric ladies and gentlemen at 104 1.4 million dollar metric resulted in the transition from 6.4371 to 6.3501 that is how that was paid for the other number now i credit you commissioner casal you talked about this explicitly 1 million 454 thousand dollars 1.454 million dollars we factored that to strike a balance on a higher fund balance position which put it from 18 percent at the time to 19 percent all of that was the basis of the presentation this evening ladies and gentlemen so i just wish to highlight that yet again to help underscore how we got to that place econometrically financially etc so please understand we did our absolute utmost to accept the super majority consensus which was to go to 6.3501 we showed you how to get there mathematically we did it that's the basis of presentation so what's more in it at this time is another similar exercise given the variety of commentary being experienced here at the day is so that we can put our heads together crunch some numbers to showcase what that might look like and that means a military position a final military position for goodness sake so that we can be prepared to finalize this two weeks from today enough information has been communicated enough data has been articulated for months i need direction and that will help us get there i'm going to say that you keep saying about this adding to the fund balance i remember specifically in this chair saying at the meeting we're not going to worry about the fund balance get us the lowest you can get on the on the millage and what you've done is you've kept your 3.5 and the additional reports you could have applied against the millage reduction 6.3501 was expressed by an axi multiple times down the line everybody said yeah monies we were going to be able to commissioner burns said if you can find additional monies to save we're not going to deal with the fund balance we're going to add that back to the taxpayers that was said and we that fine i clarified that i clarified why we are where we are but at the time any additional savings we're going to go to reduce the millage so let's get some consensus then we need super majority consensus in terms of where to go to continue to take money from the reserves we are rating the reserves we will not have fema support and as mr dokowitz pointed out to us we are going out for for big money on four different big projects and our reserves are declining quickly and we are well below at this point our own procedures and practice but aren't we going in the reserves with either rate that we're you're asking us it doesn't matter yes but we have a 21 upon 21 policy but but the 21 went to 19 according to that and you want to go lower and lower and keep going i mean we're rating our reserves what but what just just curious you keep mentioning about ratings what percentage of the rating calculation is based on your reserve we got a study no no no saying i'm sure mr dokowitz knows this it's anywhere between 20 to 25 percent of your rating is also is what the reserve of it depends on all the factors correct it's a whole list of other factors are weak the reserve makes a big difference but the good news is they're not weak in delray beach today we have a stable we have a village rate that's gone down eight out of nine years they're looking at repayment of bonds they say i don't know they're looking at taxable they're looking and we have a referendum coming and they're going to say this isn't what it was before they may downgrade all florida municipalities that's a separate issue no it's the biggest issue if we get lower to single aid compared to tennessee or texas or anywhere else then it's harder for us to pay bonds and we're going to have to we saw it in those scenarios we still have the ability to raise taxes no we don't we can yes we do you know if we lower taxes rate today there's a compounding negative effect because if the referendum passes okay today's millage rate this year's becomes the base for a limitation of increases i certainly understand that but that's when you would be deciding whether or not you want to be having special taxing units to cover different portions of your element of different we looked at special taxing it takes two years to get that in place agreed so the point is so what do we do in between it's not quite two years but yes it's two years a fire assessment might be quick but a special taxing district really takes quite a while we have explored a lot of avenues and because the referendum hasn't passed we haven't spent too much time we're trying to get the current budget done but to say that the reserves don't count and that lowering the millage rate now will not have a negative impact when we borrow money i'll say that i think that will hurt us well you know the moody's people will say that really depends again on the line that you're missing here which is what is the increase in the tax base because if you have an increasing tax base that exponentially increases beyond your millage rate then you are not really doing a reduction you're trying to when you your taxes go up your base goes up 10 percent and you take off one mill ladies and gentlemen increase we still have if we do nothing we still have a 6.4 increase mr mayor if we do nothing mr mayor getting back to the place of direction okay and before i do that i'd like to further underscore as part of the presentations we've made over the last few months that property tax bills are we're only a portion of it so as we talked about repeatedly during training sessions during town halls and all other engagements with the commission representing about one-third the property tax bills so sir just to provide some content and clarity in that regard it all does not come to the city of delray beach the lion's share does not go to the city of delray beach okay well nevertheless thank you but just in general speaking just to offer that clarity and background so in any event ladies and gentlemen please understand that and i'd like to offer some direction please so that we can prepare adequately because i'll have some homework to do but i'd like to do as much of that as i possibly can this evening so that we can get down to business just to verify your your recommendation is the 6.3501 it is okay with reserves at 19 percent it is what would it be if it reserves for 18 but like they were 6.2249 so the way we would get to the place something you want to share with the class he will so just a little background information the commission to be advised that the millage rate tentatively adopted tonight establishes the maximum millage rate that may be adopted at the final budget hearing the final millage rate may be equal or lower than tonight's tentative rate but it may not exceed it going back to the point i'm hoping to accomplish let's get this squared away tonight please if no millage rate receives enough votes at all then the first budget hearing is not completed florida's department of revenue guidance specifically addresses that situation when the first public hearing does not result in adopted tentative millage rate in a tentative budget the taxing authority recesses the hearing and notifies the public of the continued hearing date that process can be repeated until a tentative millage and budget are adopted that also means the clock for the final hearing does not really proceed as planned because okay we don't want to put that into the universe because i'm confident that tonight we're going to come up with a tentative and that's the point so i say all this to say that we need to get down to business tonight that's what i was getting yeah that was just offering tonight is number one we need to have a number understanding again that the number can't be we can't go up at the next budget hearing if you hear information from mr moore that additional cuts aren't satisfactory to you my recommendation is this um you know that if we don't adopt a rate it's going to be the rollback so what i would recommend understanding what mr moore has recommended and mr dakwitz has recommended that we adopt that today and we will come back if you want to have a workshop we will come back at the next meeting and we can figure out the exact number that we need to reduce the millage by to get to the place where commissioner burns and the mayor seem to be and we can give you the exact cut so if mr moore determines that it's a 1.5 million dollar cut that's going to bring us to the lower millage rate then at that point staff is going to come in and we're going to have to tell you what's going to be cut and you're going to have to make an educated decision on the dais if if you're willing to do that and it could be things that are things that you know your constituents enjoy it could be things that you don't care about but at least we're doing this in an educated manner as opposed to just throwing numbers out today where you don't know where those cuts are going to be if i do the research and the pfos money can be used we can come back i'm not recommending that but i will give you that as an option and i'll say you can lower the millage with that like mr moore said i don't think that that's the best practice because it's a one-time payment it's not something recurrent and you don't want to depend on that but i just think that for today's purposes understanding that we did do the homework and we did get the number down to what was the consensus was at the last meeting i think we should tentatively adopt that number knowing we can still go down and then instead of reflecting on what everyone else is doing maybe we come back at the next meeting and give you the exact cuts i think that's what everybody here is asking for i think i keep hearing it over and over and it's not just you know personnel are going to be cut it's going to be this program is going to be cut this project will have to be slowed down and at least you can have that information to determine if that's worth it to you to lower the millage rate again well right now we know the following if we didn't try to increase the the reserve and we kept it at the original 18 that was talked about we would be going down to a millage of 6.229 is that correct 2249 6.2249 so i know that there's already a lower number hang on if i may because you you talked about the rating and that's what we haven't that's without doing anything else right we know my colleagues if i may that that it's it could be 6.2249 right now without making the adjustment the upward adjustment that personally i don't think is necessary because we have more than two months of operating expenses and we still have the ability to raise money and our taxes don't stop because of whatever we i suggest that be the ceiling a 6.2249 which is 6.114 i'm 6.1611 moody's report rating methodology and scorecard factors the um uh fund ratio is rated it it was measured at 136 percent and it's rated at 20 percent there's only one other thing weighed 20 percent everything else is well below that and that is if you look at this a factor in why we got our aaa rating and it seems like based on this rating methodology and scorecard factor that i'm looking at here it's it's it's heavily weighted compared to the others the others are all 10 though so if it's 20 compared to a whole other a bunch of things that are 20. i used to do ratings i do not want to read our reserves where where does the reserve put us at the 6.2249 it would be the 18 percent position so if i may we start 18 let me explain that please because again i like to be as productive as possible what that means is the ancillary 1.454 million dollars that was made available to go from 18 to 19 while striking the balance on a 6.3501 military position that's how that came so the thought would be to offset that and contribute that towards the lower fund balance at 6.2249 okay that's how that would work in that regard and again we need a super majority to get us to where we need to be and i like to have this as as smooth as possible majority tonight yes ma'am okay otherwise it goes to the rollback rate tonight yes we don't yes we need that tonight that's why i like to be productive we can postpone this but i don't want to do that for the for the process to make a decision for us instead of the commission making a decision together i i hope that we can come to some consensus on this ladies and gentlemen not let the process make the decision for us absolutely not yeah thank you and that's why i'm looking for a super majority vote this evening so that i can get to work and we'll be back with other specifics two weeks from now i'm sorry so i was just going to say you know i think what mr moore is trying to do i'm not going to say it as eloquently as him but i think you know our job up here is is to try to get this group to consensus and you know unfortunately amendment three is actually forcing us to put us in a position where at least four of you agree on this and that's tough because in the past we've had three two commissions on the budget so i think what he's trying to do is get us to like the happy place it's like when you go to mediation mayor you know this not everybody wants nobody walks out happy right but you settle the case and so that's kind of what we're doing here today we're trying to get everybody to this middle place where i i promise you you're all not going to be happy but at the end of this process i do think that if you have all the information you need to get to the number that you want i think you're just going to make better decisions and what he's trying to do is understanding the concerns about the fund balance that at least 2.5 of you have been very vocal about i think that he's trying to get the millage rate at a point where four out of five of you are happy and also have the fund balance at a place where we're settled and so i just and i keep going back to this i really think a lot of what you need to do is really make a very highly high level educated decision tonight and it's going to come down to crunching those numbers and ultimately deciding what projects are important to you and if they're important enough to cut then we'll get you to that number but if they're not then we're going to just have to have further conversations but i feel like doing this on the fly and commissioner gazelle you know we've had this in the past where we do things in the on the fly and then it's like a mess later because there's misunderstandings about july 4th and there's misunderstandings about what was supposed to come out of the budget so i i just feel that if we leave the millage rate to the lower amount that mr more got us to for today 63510 and then we come back to you 501 then we come back to you and you give us direction on another number that you would that would make everybody happy and then we come back with those finite decisions to tell you what that number means i'm a visual person right so you're going to have that visual of what that number means to get down to that number if four out of five of you are okay with it we've done it but if not you don't want to make an education a decision and and i'm just going to say this about amendment three i know we keep talking about it and whether or not it passes it's still something that's very real because what happens next year whatever number you pick today that's your baseline and if this doesn't work out and we find ourselves in financial distress which we're not we have an excellent cfo who's never going to let us get there the numbers that you're going to work with next year if it's more than one mil then you're going to need a unanimous vote and we all know how hard the super majority is look how long this discussion has lasted so i know we keep talking about the what ifs and there's a lot of uncertainty and unfortunately this doesn't come to the voters till november but i think we're just trying to slowly plan ahead so that at least next year if this does pass we have somewhat of a road map to help us get through it and then we'll talk about the taxing districts and we'll talk about assessments and those are things that are going to be very difficult decisions too let's be honest that's not going to be a simple decision for the commission do you want me to put it to a vote and we'll see where it sits right now sure so just say one thing moving and splitting the difference between your thing you say we should meet halfway and all this stuff that would be 6.2321 and six he pulled the one point uh four from the overtime off of the regular budget and took the remaining one point four four five four and he pulled that out of the um fund balance out of the fund balance or applied it towards the pot correct because that's what we asked them to do at the last meeting when we found that when i found the three million dollars some of us reserve the right to say no well you can say no but let's put it forth and see where we're at i'm going to put forth an operating millage of 6.3501 with a debt service millage of 0.0289 total millage 6.3790 and that puts us at the 18 percent no she's not doing that well we need a second for discussion first okay i'll second that motion okay you can have discussion discussion i'd like to answer your question thank you yes ma'am so that position that calculates the fund balanced position of 19 19 okay thank you yes ma'am okay and i want to thank mr dackowitz because your last comments that last information you gave helped me move from the 6.11 to where we're going to go now so thank you for that information no it just what he said makes sense and i respect who you are uh you we hire you for your expertise and i trust your expertise so thank you very much so so this is if we if i want to try to go to the lower one to the rate that we said if we wanted to take all the money and give it to the taxpayers and still adding some to reserve which i you know that's not this number so i have to vote no you would vote no on this okay just want to know so do we call the roll yes please do you want me to state the more clearly motion to approve resolution number 140-26 general fund uh operation and debt service proposed millage rate an operating millage of 6.3501 a debt service millage of 0.0289 with a total millage of 6.3790 i'll second that the clerk please call the roll deputy vice mayor margaret yes commissioner mollica yes commissioner cassell yes vice mayor burns yes mayor carney no i wanted all the money to go back to the taxpayers i want to make it 6.224 well you can't we can do 6.224 are we yes 6.224 an hour no i'm just saying you want to increase it but we can still go down this is this we can still go down i'm not fighting you i'm just saying this is government i don't take things home so do you want me to read the next one i'm sorry or should i read 7e yes 7e would you please read the resolution for 7e this is uh the downtown development authority proposed millage resolution dash 141-26 a resolution of the city commission of the city of davray beach florida certified to the property appraiser and tax collector of palm beach county the rate of millage should be levied by the city of davray beach within the downtown development authority taxing district for the fiscal year beginning october 1 2026 establishing the downtown development authority taxing district operating millage at 1.0000 providing for an effective date and for other purposes the intent of the city commission is to adopt a downtown development authority operating millage rate of 1.0000 the dda rollback millage rate is 0.9469 and the proposed dda millage rate is 5.61 above the rollback rate this rate is necessary to fund the increase in the cost of operations and maintenance for the downtown development authority the proposed dda millage rate requires approval by two-thirds vote of the full membership of the city commission which is also a super majority and this is a public hearing great thank you great do we have to be you make your presentation yes thank you very much uh good evening um thank you i'm laura simon i am the director of the downtown development authority and i'm joined tonight by two of my board members i have uh dr alan costello and i have bob robert cantwell as our board and i um quentin morgan from our council along with shelley licasar part of our team so thank you for having us tonight and i'll be brief in our presentation um tonight just uh sharing just a little bit of history for the public since this is a public hearing and for um the commission uh that we were established in 1971 as a special taxing district on the downtown commercial commercial corridor uh expanded twice and one in 93 and one in 98 to expand the district to where it currently runs from 95 to a1a and north to fourth street and south to second and third street and we are made up and the assessment of the one our millage that we're at um asking for uh tonight is not being raised we are staying with the one mill and it is an assessment on the properties within the downtown development authority district and majority of those properties are commercial uh this outlines uh what we are um where we are valued as the downtown this current year from the property appraiser's office and the one mill will go into our operating budget to fund our operation which is taking on more and more responsibility every year and as our downtown continues to grow and be uh continue to be a hospitality destination um just want to set some priorities for you all this year as we um outline our uh continued prop priorities uh for our organization um i don't know how many people really know but our our city is celebrating our 100th anniversary this coming year which um it is joining the delray beach and delray um prop uh cities municipalities together as one back in 1927 so we are honoring that tradition this year and recognizing that with our city partners as well as our beautification uh task force will be working this year to outline um for the next 100 years what downtown will look like uh obviously we continue to um be that destination marketing arm so these are our proper our priorities and obviously we really want to invest continue to invest in our organization i wanted to break it down for the public and for you all just so you can see as our we outline what we do uh we are very considered downtown is a tourist destination our number one industry is hospitality so we need to continue to focus on the branding of our destination bringing people to downtown driving people into our downtown economy so our budget line item for our marketing continues to stay flat at 265 000 we are marketing communications for driving everyone here on all things in downtown also then our next we have an economic vitality bucket which is our economic development book bucket it also includes our events and programs into which are driving people back into um into the downtown highlighting our industries and we have rolled in centennial activations into this this year highlighting our legacy businesses our downtown core we do have a place making activation grant that number is incorrect on this slide it is in our budget online at 18 000 this year that is goes back into um we have a grant available for um businesses or nonprofits that are doing events in uh underutilized areas so it is a way for people to activate those grants so that number is really 309 309 000 on the bottom place making is our downtown operations or the amenities if you will of the downtown that we have assumed the role and responsibility for back um about 10 years ago we took on the um amenities from the banner and and the street pool lighting decorative lighting program funding that we continue to invest in our lighting and amenities which is significant um and has made a significant difference and impact into downtown itself our street pool banner program so managing those amenities as well as investing in new and expanding that program holiday lighting as well and then our cleans and save portion of this is really our partnership with the beachkeepers and um enhancing and expanding the litter abatement program uh signage and then public art management which is we assume the responsibility from the pineapple grove arts district board uh several years ago i guess it's found six now to take on that public art strategy maintain build and grow the public art in the in the downtown um and also as you know we manage and fund the safety ambassador program uh which is a 365 day um public safety support and hospitality management in the downtown and that number is up a little bit this year we also are doing the veterans park um committee we have a committee that is doing the um strategy around that and working with our neighbors and we hope to bring some things forward with that as well operations this is the team and our administrative and office expenses all surrounded in this area so as you all invest in your team we continue to do that too as well as our operation and administrative support we've had a lot of growth this year internally in our operations um and continue to enhance our enhance all of that with training and policy and process so here at a glance is our numbers and um again the grant program is at 18 000 this year so that um changes that number a little bit at the bottom there so um wanted just to this so we've got the marketing this breaks down to our expenses at the 2.2 our revenues will also see additional income from we we source sponsorship and miscellaneous income from um our private sector that support our marketing and our events throughout the year so that number ranges anywhere from 50 to sometimes 90 000 so we do rely and really look at those that want to be part of what we do wanted to throw in here too um i know this is not part of our dda millage and it is part of your budgeting but um wanted to highlight the old school square as a priority as we go into this year continuing to continue that momentum that is managing as part of our interlocal agreement with you as a city to fund that operation continue to build the momentum that is bringing to the center of our town so here highlights what we're looking to do um this year just at a top level uh we the the campus itself is gained a lot of recognition as a venue rental and we are seeing an extreme growth in venue rentals this year which is going to continue to um absorb and need a lot of operation and manpower to run those events and manage the campus so that is something that we have to stay focused on and continuing to build the marketing and branding around that so here um highlighting our revenue sources obviously the city funding is our primary which is at 800 000 and then we forecast the remaining number the venue rentals we have venue rentals all the way through almost till next september already so we are um forecasting for that revenue already and program income would be um based on ticketed uh concession and other revenue sources that would come in there and then this is where we would um again our budget's staying really flat what we where we invest in is what income comes in to forecast for um events and programs there so back to the millage we're here tonight to um request that uh the city adopts the request for our to stay flat at the one mill rate um with a small increase to refund back into the downtown and reinvest back into our community and with that this is a public hearing and i'll turn it over to you great thank you very much uh this is a public hearing any members of the public wishing to address the commission on this item please come to the lectern you will each have three minutes you can name and address for the name and zip code for the record seeing none public comment is closed to the commission commissioner no comments commissioner commissioner now would you like me to make a motion why don't you make the motion motion to approve resolution number 141-26 second um thank you it's public hearing so uh call the roll please commissioner mollica commissioner cassell yes vice mayor burns yes mayor carney yes deputy vice mayor margaret yes motion passed okay great sorry for talking so fast but thank you very much all right now is the um adoption of the fiscal year tentative budget beginning october 1 2026 i mean are we ready for this i mean yes subject to read the speech read that and then let me take it i'm sorry i'm just gonna read the speech yeah why don't you read the resolution number oh resolution number 140 wrong one resolution a resolution of the city commission of the city of every beach florida approving a budget for the fiscal year beginning on october 1 2026 and ending on september 30 2027 providing for severability of parts here of if declared invalid providing an effective date and further purposes and just a reminder so mr mayor if i may the budget presentation was actually incorporated in 7d and e of the 7c and d of the agenda so there's no formal additional presentation in that regard given the tentative position relative to the millage i think that's been covered when mr dakka was talked about the various funds as part of his aggregate presentation during that particular agenda item that covers it so with that i think we're all set okay this is not a public hearing is it it is a public hearing as well oh it certainly is this is this is a public hearing um have we read did you read the um okay she did okay uh any members of the public wishing to address the commission on this item please come to the lectern you will have name and address for the record each have three minutes seeing none public comment is posed to the commission yeah i have a couple comments you know we all got this the email from mr mcnamee but i will say that the document um online is really detailed the printout i originally got was 300 pages but this is very detailed but there's a couple things in here that are interesting to me and just if you could make notes there's some revenue in departments that i guess maybe it's moving to building but the permits are like roof permits are are zero compared to last year's and then you've got pool permits and different permits so i'm just curious about that and then the other thing is thanks anthea i don't have the benefit of the document you're talking about but i can tell you kind of what's happened with permitting since the state requires a building fund um before we had every all of the permits going into the general fund and you know we supported other departments with that revenue now um if it is florida building code related it goes into the building fund when we migrated roofs for whatever reason we're staying in the general fund and they are not supposed to be in the general fund they're supposed to be in the building fund so when that adjustment whenever that happened the year the year before that's why it shows us we have zero revenue got it in the general fund account because it's sort of a leftover account okay thank you and also there's another thing that i would like to see in the budget going forward mr moore because i was talking to the chief about the special events and you know in his department i think you have a lot more costs for special events than we would realize right because we just think but like even the tennis tournament we have no idea how much police overtime or regular uh cost goes into the tennis tournament or other events there's a line item for the regular play and there's a line i know i'm just speaking generally there's a line item for overtime and there's special events over time but i would like to kind of have a better idea of what those cat the categories are right what they're for i don't know if with our new payroll processing system if that's easy information to see for us it's a fair observation commissioner we'll be happy to take a look at it and incorporate that in our process in the future thank you and that's it that was those were just my general comments about the uh budget just just to follow on that question or mr moore are we able to estimate those overtime costs and and build those out appropriately the best way to accomplish that would be and what's called an expenditure analysis so what the overtime costs for a particular event over the last three years and an average of that that would be the best way to forecast that as we prepare for an upcoming fiscal year because the the vendor should pay for it i mean where we have and where we have vendors correct we should be billing and and that's in essence where we're going yeah so that aligns with that expenditure analysis that i talked about that's great yes sir amen i thought we just had one price for the place i didn't think because when you and i discussed that you said that there was just a particular price and this will spread that further because sometimes over time occasionally over time does come up in terms of a special event just to be clear yeah so let's say there's the billy jean king cup or some other event downtown whatever the case may be if it's outside of the normal hours overtime opportunities are in fact made available which aligns with what deputy vice mayor market and commissioner casal talked about in terms of budget line item positions so that will make it more clear yes ma'am yes ma'am but if we could build out the known overtime amounts i know i know there's always unknown over right something goes wrong right you know that that expenditure analysis piece i've talked about will help us get there based on the trend analysis from the previous fiscal years thank you but i wasn't just referring to overtime i'm also just talking even general hours right you go to you that would be a separate line you see and i'm using that as an example but you would you see a rotation of officers there the entire time right but when we look at the police budget we don't know what portion of that operations is attributed to that so it's not really the overtime that i'm as interested in is in just general the whole cost i'd be interested in all of it and when we are reimbursing um are we then reimbursing back to that department how is that working i just go straight to the general fund simply because the expenditures are made available by the general fund so whatever resulting fees revenue fees that come about simply go back into the general fund which is fair well but it's not a fair look to the department if if their costs are being offset and and and it doesn't show in a visual so people could perceive the costs of that department to be more than they actually are because they're getting offsetting sure you know what i'm saying sure i'm just saying i'd like to see no there is but i think there's been a distinction yeah between um special events that are run by outsiders non-profits etc right and city events so i think with special events with the uh work jeff orris and city manager have done um there's a pretty good accounting which starts off with an estimate probably based on historical an invoice gets sent and then it's followed and trued up after we have the actual numbers and that's how we get the receivable right i think with the city event you're asking for a cost accounting let's say the police department that has overtime and it says overtime special events how much are for the city events how much are event by event yeah kind of want to know what we're paying for the tennis tournament event it might be the over time is fifty thousand dollars and if it's an outsider we get back 35 000 right but if it's a city event that's our cost so in order to get the true accurate full cost of a city event we have to know what all those amounts are and identify them whether it's through payroll or someone going through it right so we've done it on the non-profit events because that was such a hot button item and we can now um move on to the city events i think it would be a good thing for us to see you know for people to see thank you we are in good i love that um so any other comments from the commission not from me thank you then we need a motion to approve so moved open up for public comment you did that already i'm very sorry no i did public comment already you did that's right yes i need a motion oh okay i said motion to adopt resolution 142-26 adopting the tentative budget for fiscal year beginning october 1 2026 ending september 30th 2027. second is this public could please call the roll commissioner cassow yes vice mayor burns yes mayor carney no deputy vice mayor markert yes commissioner mollica yes thank you okay thank you very thank you mr dockowitz thank you mr dockowitz all right we're on nine uh are we on 9a yes ordinance number 38-26 an ordinance of the city commission of the city of delray beach florida updating the capital improvement plan schedule in the comprehensive plan of the city of delray beach for fiscal year 2026-27 to fiscal year 2030-31 in accordance with the requirements of policy cie121 and cie126 of the capital improvement element providing complex costs providing severability costs providing an effective date and for other purposes and this is first reading this is a first reading so we're not going to have any presentations right you know no to talk just for the you know she's here um give us your wisdom i need a motion then to hang on are we we're approving our whole capital improvement plan to go into the to the comp plan i did want to say one thing about the library painting and the air conditioning because i was speaking with i thought it was safe no oh sorry yeah well look it we this is our obligation and the the ac is going and let when you play tennis at the tennis center everybody points to it and kind of says what's going on with the library and i say it's coming but because this is a five-year plan i do think we have to talk about putting some some money into this for you know the cost and look we can say we can't do it this year but it has to be we have to be if their ac goes what are we going to do i mean the painting is something you can say okay well we'll try and clean it we'll try and keep it well but they don't have lighting in the back there's issues with the lighting which creates a dangerous parking lot situation at night there's things that we need to address and i think that we we need to get on a path and kay had a brilliant idea about could we work with the county to meter those back um spots at night for people going to sunday village or downtown and then utilize those funds back into the library for these services but and i think that's a brilliant idea and but i think with the ac we need to be prepared to replace that ac at some point potentially soon and we really should be talking about the painting if i may sure as far as the library is concerned i've spoken about this prior that the building maintenance program building maintenance budget for 2026 2027 we have an interest in working with the library to do what we can to get to that place okay any event that there's a tremendous issue we're looking at a budget adjustment consideration when that time comes but for purposes of establishing a balanced budget the maintenance program for fiscal year 2026 2027 does involve some attention to the building itself and the department of public works will likewise coordinate begin the process of coordinating with you early fiscal year in terms of what that looks like in terms of the aggregate piece regarding the architectural plans in that whole bit that's tremendous that will take us a few years to accomplish rightfully so that's understood however via the maintenance program i just described in general that's how we'll get started for the upcoming fiscal year and that is available via the proposed budget for 2627 okay fabulous and if we could maybe um just think about what the possibilities are with respect to metering that lot and getting some money from that to go back that would be a collaboration as you just stated commissioner casal with palm beach county given the presence of the parking lot and that whole bit so we are prepared to help facilitate that so we can get together at the beginning of the new fiscal year to to coordinate what we can so mr orris and myself have already discussed that direction thus my confidence in sharing with you all this evening the possible path forward and getting there i i will say that the people who are running sunday village would like to look at that lot to run to do some of the valet there's a lot of possibilities for that lot it is and my i happen to have a conversation the other day with someone at the county with respect to this to see if we could reinstitute what was what we did back in 2011 uh and they seem to be an appetite to do it right now we're limited on how often we can use that but they seem to be saying to me because they're looking for revenues too that if we can find some way to show them that there would be an economic benefit for us to do that because already we're responsible for well actually it's the library but to pass it on to us but to be responsible for some of the the maintenance of that operation um they would be certainly be amenable to discussing it in this particular budget year so um i i'm just saying that i happen to just by accident was with the people from peb and them at the same time and it was kind of morphed into we'd love to be able to explore that so i think it's a good time to do it yes sir and i'm just pointing that out with commission what the library i mean there's a lot of people have that same thought of this is real wasted spot and we have an opportunity to derive some revenues and provide parking and do a lot of different stuff so so what i like to do those revenues i'm not deciding but the idea of renting it so like what i do like to do ladies and gentlemen again thank you mayor kearney thank you commissioner cassell and i plan to offer an update to you all as part of my weekly report in the next couple few weeks or so with respect to the county so as we get the budget adopted in the next couple weeks we'll begin that process to get us there so i look forward to offering an update in writing as part of an upcoming weekly report regarding palm beach county collaboration accordingly thank you thank you thank you right so we need a motion to approve so moved second all in favor aye aye any opposed and now we're at 9b ordinance number 39-26 an ordinance of the city commission of the city of delray beach florida amending the land development regulations of the city of delray beach code of ordinances chapter 2 administrative provisions article 2.4 development application requirements section 242 application submittal requirements to add requirements for lobbyist disclosure and certification providing a complex cause and a severability cause the order to codify providing an effective date and further purposes first reading thank you very much uh miss you notice you have nothing to say at this point correct all right this is a public meeting anybody wishing to no it's not a public excuse that's right i forgot it's first reading it's not a never mind so i need if there if there's any comment otherwise i need a motion to approve uh ordinance number 39-26 so moved second all in favor aye any opposed great 9c ordinance number 40-26 an ordinance of the city commission of the city of delray beach florida amending the community redevelopment plan for the city of delray beach finding that the modifications conform to the community to redevelopment act of 1969 as amended finding that the modifications are consistent with the city of delray beach's comprehensive plan and making further findings pursuant to the applicable requirements of florida statute 163.360 providing a compass cause a severability cause and authority to codify providing an effective date and further purposes first reading thank you very much are there any members of the uh commission wishing to address this matter no then i need a motion to approve ordinance 40-26 motion to approve second all in favor aye any opposed it is adopted first reading all right comments inquiries and non-non-agenda items i should say non-commission items uh non-agenda items mr moore i yield at this time thank you thank you city attorney i yield also great city commission let's start with commissioner malica okay let me get on this i lost my notes um one of the things that i wanted to speak about is with regard to whoa are we throwing things kids behave over there i want to know what's in that class i know um with regard to the um the plan for the cemetery which we've got in place somebody coming in and just take a look at the whole thing but the the thing that seems messed up is you know some of the plots but there's been a lot of work done towards that end like um the va came in and identified 500 veteran lots uh plots rather not lots um so that's there there's been some other work done i think in development services that they had some work done the historical historical yeah and there's a body of work that could be collected and sort of put all together and somebody on public comments said when they requested some information the lady said well it's all in this box and i don't have time to do it i would um put to the commission for a consensus to maybe have our auditor take a look be out and be in touch with the two funeral homes that are that are um heavily involved in the the the funeral and the um the graveyard and i think identify it and have software available for her to use i mean she's smart i think somebody smart that got in there and looked at things could settle things up i know that the clerk is what who used to sell the plots right so the information is all there somebody like that's trained to do all that should probably be able to put it together pretty quickly in conjunction with the person that we have looking at the whole thing holistically so we're like solving two birds killing two birds with one's two stones two stones not one that's a suggestion you're stoning birds i'm stoning birds whatever it takes to get those i mean the answers are there right i know that with the flood that there was some confusion that we may never know but since then the answers are there it just needs to be put together like a puzzle and it's i think the answers are there there was also an outside agency that used to handle because i have brothers that purchase their plots through an outside okay i have the name of that agency but so the history goes way back it's a it's a it's a big job yeah and i think she's more than capable of doing is there consensus to have our auditor take a look at see what whether she can you know i mean i don't i don't it's i think there's a lot of there's a lot more to it a lot more i thought all along the way i mean i know we had some records that we lost along the way okay long before any of us were here but it seems to me and i mentioned this before the families will have some records themselves i mean i when my parents died i've got all their records hidden away somewhere in the garage but it's there if somebody needs it and i think if we work with some of these folks that they can provide some of that documentation and to angela's point i think the funeral homes might be another source yeah there might be some legal requirements to get all that but if we could get those documents and digitize them then then you know somebody needs to be that person that goes out and gets all this but go get them and then digitize them we need somebody well i mean i think that one of the the larger concerns right now is the maintenance and and and space so we've identified 100 spaces as of saturday i don't know how many there are today i don't know how many you know there were however i think that since we have hired this uh consultant we need to let the consultant do his 12 weeks or whatever weeks of works oh six i like that half of what i said six weeks and maybe that because i talked to our auditor as well as about um um you know that might be an area that i would be interested in having audited but i think that along with some other suggestions that we've made and some suggestions that i have that we should wait until we get this report from this consultant but just include that in the scope and include that as part of right on yeah i mean maybe that's maybe she's too high level for that i just think somebody smart can put all this together she's already trying yeah okay so so wait for the so this six week as casas it will kick off beginning next week so half of september so by early november anticipate having a report delivered and it'll be a presentation to the city commission in terms of what the outcomes are the recommendations given the comprehensive assessment i think is well money well spent okay thank you a couple more things not done yet um uh mayor carney had brought forward when we were doing mr moore's evaluation that um some other alternatives for an evaluation and i would like us to kind of look at that it's like i think i don't know how concise that evaluation is that we use to really put our feelings about everything i think you do everything great but i think that um some of the evaluations that you put in front of us were worth looking at and i don't um know if that would be a workshop or maybe um the human resources um dwayne could get take our ideas and maybe put it together to put it out does anyone have an appetite for looking at a different evaluation or reformating it what's that say i said the mayor has asked for one for the last two years okay it's okay i mean i mean i'm always working to do better so if it's gonna work the one that we have works for me because it doesn't it doesn't matter the i'm gonna answer it you know based on and if i have to put it on a separate sheet of paper i do that if we can find one that will adequately do it i'm i'm all for i'm okay okay so it won't hurt okay so i guess we have a consensus yes and how would we move that forward we don't have to accept the form if it comes back we don't like it we want exactly right there are other forms out there that i got from the the international association of city managers yeah i read them over and i like some of them i like some of them yeah so the prep for it in that regard within the next few months because again there's some time before that's actually due yes so i would suggest a workshop meeting sometime in early 2027 to get together including human resources different examples in that whole bit so we'll facilitate that months in advance of the time due so january february somewhere in there okay and last and final thing when we did our round table with the businesses there was a number of of um challenges that they identified and one of the challenges is that they were getting code violation with a fee without any kind of a warning without any kind of education on how to remediate the problem and um i would like for us to to put forward the direction that i guess um i worked on some language with with um lynn to identify the violation the officer shall identify and determine whether violation of the code exists and the officer shall make reasonable efforts to educate and assist the property owner in correcting the violation before more moving forward with the enforcement procedures so i see something going wrong in the back of angela's restaurant i'm going to knock on her door and say look this is going on i want you to be aware of it here's how you remediate it i'm going to come back in 30 days and look and then the fines would happen instead of slapping them with a fifteen thousand dollar fine what's that they claim that's what they do now i'm sorry angela i didn't hear you i'm sorry she said they claim that's what they do now yeah oh that's that's not what was represented to us i know right in those instances where they create irreparable harm that you can't undo there is an immediate financial penalty correct lynn not really um when we went through when we went through florida statute today um commissioner cassell i'm malika and i so this florida statute talks about remember the goal of code enforcement is always compliance right it's not revenue generating the goal is really just to bring people to compliance to whatever your code requirements are when you look at the irreparable and irreversible i forget the language but it was like it wasn't a shell and it wasn't a must that you have to go directly to the okay the enforcement so that's how we came up with this language and look it's it's you'll make they'll make reasonable efforts but if you read their their manual which miss prior is in the process of editing i think the language could be a little bit more clear to give the officers a little bit more discretion if they're dumping you know garbage in the intracoastal they're probably not going to get be given reasonable efforts but if it's a situation where the condensation from the ac is dripping that's what's causing the liquid to mix with the garbage and then they have this hefty fine that could be a conversation right because if it's just dripping water then maybe it's a conversation hey this is how you fix this i'm going to give you 30 days and then we're going to come back you really need to address this and look if they thumb their nose at the staff then staff has the discretion to now move forward with whatever processes they can i think we just want to empower staff right to work using their professional expertise and and use it in a way that you know is going to achieve the goal of compliance i think it'll alleviate a lot of the complaints that you're getting and it's in writing so the staff knows that this is this is the policy of the city commission of the city manager so educate assist and then when all those efforts fail then you can move forward and whatever is speaking of ac condensate it is not illegal the state of florida does not deem ac condensate as illicit um discharge it does not um they the argument is that once it gets on the ground then all that dirt collects but that's but the business did not discharge something dirty it became dirty when it touched delray's ground so i don't believe that's finable in my opinion and neither does florida rules anyway that's a different that's a different story but i hope that we can cure it huh how do you cure it um i guess you could make our streets cleaner i mean the the ac condensate that's coming out of that little dripling is the purest water there is you could drink it it's there's nothing illicit about that discharge i'm not going to i will drink it i will show you guys it will cost money but that water can be directed into the wastewater system so it can be it can be very it can be fixed it will cost every business a little bit of money but the beef that they have is that the grounds particularly around restaurants have a lot of grease and a lot of dirt and it it goes into the wastewater system which is none of us want that but you know i think with a little planning and a little bit of money you can divert that water in i've seen it done i saw one oh i heard one restaurant i don't know but the the um the consensus i'm seeking is that we will um educate and warn before we find well i think we have to let them do their job and in some instances as the city attorney pointed out if someone's dumping garbage into the ocean like there's no i i agree so i think i don't want to give a consensus to that but there should be a policy but i mean there should be i think what we're just looking for is is to understand for the commission to let us know that yes that is the policy of the commission you do want your staff to do make their best efforts depending on the nature of the violation to always try to educate and assist and if that's not possible then you're going to move on i just thought that's what they were supposed to be doing it's not it's not explicitly stated so we do we did they have a manual the manager's in charge of the manual i just think we needed he wants to hear it from the dais that yeah i mean that's a reasonable you have we got it talked about it before same thing i've been on it a year so i'm i'm for it okay okay and then one no i'm kidding i don't have one more thing i would love to um show everybody this one year of excellence magazine that we got in our cubby thank you chief it's super fun i will uh be reading it tonight it's suitable for framing are you going to sign it for us too it's quick read it's lovely thank you it has been a year of excellence and i appreciate you um and i do think everybody should go check out miss spencer's uh place and see the great things that she's doing because we may have ideas about things that we can do with respect to prevention for our kids for our adults there are so many amazing um organizations doing things in our city that we don't even know about and it it's really uh enlightening um oh gosh subculture really and truly i can't can we just get some understanding is the part did his parking lot pass it mean there is no side parking there i don't know if those stripes were painted on by hand and if they're still there i don't know what's going on but i would like to be able to answer that just really quickly the special magistrate process um it was brought back to the special magistrate he gave both sides um basically two weeks to draft proposed orders with findings um those will be submitted by thursday there's a special magistrate hearing next week where we wait on this conversation so well no no that i'm just saying it's it's pretty public but he's going to enter orders next week okay um and in conformity with what the appellate court from what i read it wasn't a win it was really it was not a redirected he remanded it back from for the for the they wanted the order correct they wanted new orders written with specific findings outlining how the facts related to the law and why there should be a finding so it was not a win um but that will be brought back to the special magistrate um at the hearing in a week from thursday great and then also delray reads jeff is here for to tell you about no i just that's i mean i was just going to tell you they have an active uh permit application for the parking lot they have not yet okay so this is going to make the permit this is not appropriate we had people we we took it off the agenda we need to put it back on the agenda and go through the discussion again if they have this is not that permit was supposed to be done two years ago once no two years ago before they even opened they should have had all of that stuff in the parking lot done i think once those orders are entered i think we can um this is out of control we can address any future violations i i'm not i'm hesitant to bring it back before the city commission um to reassess parking or to do anything if if they haven't if the parking lot remains um not according to code we have a mechanism through code enforcement i don't i don't want to involve the commission in this fine but i think you the city should understand that it doesn't it's not a good look for us to be constantly dealing with the same violation for years with no result it's not fair to the people who follow rules the problem is the guy who's who he was at the meeting last year and he said they're still giving no but truthfully the problem is he should never have had those in lows but he got him i wasn't here i agree with him no i know i saw i saw the meeting where they get it but with that in mind also the fact is is maybe we should be creating more parking i don't know how i don't know how we could create it there and also he misrepresented what he was doing he might not have gotten the in lieu you know it's not it it it's at that meeting shelley petrolius said i watched it she said well what happens if this thing is wildly popular and a lot of people start coming there and um the attorney answered well that's where the police come in so that's kind of what's going on right it it is wildly popular and the police have to unfortunately be involved but the truth is is with that in lieu money and with us with the desire for us to have businesses and that end of the town we need to provide some kind of parking right but it's not whether it's 10 minute parking on the street or whatever it is right but there were i mean to be fair judy it's not just the in-loop parking it's a lot of other violations as well right so even if you take the in-loop parking off the table there were other violations going on the whole entire time so i just would like this he was doing events in his parking lot where there was no parking yeah my understanding is that doesn't happen but i don't know i'm not yeah recently no it was a year ago i mean the photos we were just shown were recent events i didn't see the i mean i looked at the photos okay well you understand deliberately because i said you can't prove it really happened so i went we had photos taken yeah with me um so delray reads my net my last item i think it's my last my second last item um city manager i didn't see delray reads as a line item in the budget and i did the you know control f search for it and i couldn't find it anywhere are we giving money to delray reads this year excuse me i believe we are i'll double check could you do that i think i don't i don't want us to be surprised and not have any books for delray reads it comes out of the education department which is now part of neighborhood and community services and so it would be there right so i'll get your confirmation usually you have a line item and i can pick it out quick and the last thing i want to do in keeping with these recognitions i would like if we could and we could do these two together roots and wings and bound for college um especially in light of having gone to the education round table and i thought and i will compliment you again and uh jenny it i thought that was really constructive i feel really good about where we're going my group is having a follow-up meeting and we're working on um how to move forward and in that um i wouldn't i would i think it would be nice to recognize those two organizations that are doing things for our children you like doing them together you mean on the same day yeah because i think it's the same theme what what organization roots and wings and bound for college he does the young kids she does the teens and they they sort of uh they you know they both put forth efforts towards education so i think it would be if we could do it on one day if there's a consensus i would propose the october 6 regular city commission meeting perfect thank you with that okay oh yeah sure okay you've got your consensus thank you all that is uh it and mr moore you'll just text me about that other money yeah well you and i will talk a few minutes tomorrow bi-weekly that's right yeah commissioner burns yeah i have a couple of things um short-term rentals where are we with that i know that we talked um a couple of months back this close we're close we're very close i i think i think it's going to planning and zoning board this month okay and then we'll have it before the city commission we're we're just fine-tuning it and um finalizing the forms but i promise it's almost done so this is going to um where these short-term rentals will have to pay a business tax is that correct it's not a business tax it's a registration fee which will include an inspection from the city and um we'll be able to maintain a list right of contact information emergency contact information um and it'll have an annual renewal okay and um it'll be monitored by code enforcement okay and um so and where are we with i'm going to ask a lot of where are we with uh the audit budget committee i i think that um some of this looking for money looking for whatever we're calling the budget audit review financial review committee that will be forthcoming at the beginning of the fiscal year we made a commitment a few months ago we complete this process so between october and november you'll begin the process of appointing membership all right it would have been nice if we could have had them work on this it would be an application online there will be a process so it will be coming before you all in the next couple months because i'm looking forward for them to find this all this money that's on the table like you know they could be looking at contracts different things like that um okay so that's october november i'm writing this down so i'm going to ask again if i don't see it by then just so you know um and then also uh the the cemetery budget for in this current is that part of parks and rec or is there a it is it is it's still it's a division of the department of parks and recreation currently currently and again i like to give the process we've outlined an opportunity to be successful and productive and i just wanted to make sure that there's money for um maintenance for the cemetery to answer that question it is okay i'll go back and look again and find i went through a couple of hundred pages but okay um and then there's one more thing oh the designation the historic designation of the cemetery we have said over and over the survey's been done the property belongs to the city can we move forward with designating i think it will open up some doors for some grant funding to help out with that this or the historic part of it um so can we move forward with um designating um the um cemetery that was number one on my list too i mean i totally agree with you can we goal setting she said they wanted to do frog alley first right well i don't know what that means i don't think this one prevents them from continuing to work on for all guys vice mayor is correct i think it's a great idea and i pushed it before i asked a question before that i still don't have the answer to is i wanted to make sure that if we designated it historic which i think is a great idea because i do think it will open up some funding opportunities will it curtail the ability of the city to redesign the golf golf course redesign or redo stuff at the cemetery that they may want to do it may not i mean there may be the portion of the cemetery is here and the other i don't know i thought it was a question i think this is the older portion i think i don't think it's the entire uh cemetery i think it's just the older portion that's fine i just didn't get an answer to it so i just as long as it doesn't happen in addresses what's like there'll be a contributed building and a non-contributive right right and the historic's involved in all of it so you're saying and the cemetery would be separate and there's only a portion it's only a portion that we're designating that's all i i mean my that was my only caveat i don't want the city to lose its ability to try to get the place up and running that the way it wants it to do it that was it and if it doesn't affect it then it's great but remember um the people who would make those decisions are right here yeah let's just do it it's not like it's private property private property i tell you with sb-180 to get a plot there so there's only 99 left with sb-180 we would have that concern first you can't get one pre-purchase are you done nothing i mean putting green on some of the stuff would be great okay so so is there a consensus for that yes yes oh yes yes there is thank you thank you and then last lastly uh the the policy is there a policy for i mean i have a cemetery booklet that tells people about the but however do we have a policy because people are being told different things so currently my understanding is that the cemetery plots that are available are not available for pre-sale and they are for delray residents only is that correct that's been the understanding see that's the under but i need and people are being told different things so do we have a policy so that we follow that policy and everybody is told the same thing and the understanding is yes however that does underscore the reason why i secured the external consulting services to help us tighten up in that regard ladies and gentlemen it goes back to that place we're getting started beginning next week so we look forward to being tight in that regard clarifying what policies do exist but what policies should be to have a tight environment in this regard that's part of the the scope of service associated with this endeavor okay but until then we have some well six weeks okay because we we still have people that are calling people are unfortunately passing every day and people are being told different things we just found a hundred spots we didn't have any last week right right and that people find that suspect as well and again the objectivity from the outside it goes back to that ladies and gentlemen that's a lot of process to take this course and we'll be tight i'm all for that i'm all for you know ironing it out doing due diligence so that we can move forward and everybody's on the same page but i'm also for making sure that we're telling that it's it's fair across the board and that we're of course everybody the same information and of course someone didn't call me and say well i was told this and then somebody else well of course you know it needs to be the same of course okay so do you think that in the interim maybe so i'm sorry i was just gonna say do you think in the interim maybe um you want to provide direction how to address the the the newly found plots i mean i i'm not i am not an expert well so right now that yeah people have to contact the city right yeah they shouldn't have to contact the funeral homes because the funeral homes don't own i mean they don't own the property so it should be they should contact the city and say i need a plot do you have a plot available and the answer should come from the city you should have to go to the funeral home to say oh well does the city have plots and these and would you want these to not be used for pre-need use because we have free need plots and then we have everybody will be in line to buy one yeah i'll go so it should be for those i'm just saying i do if they're opening them to everybody so the so these will be available for for need now we have pricing we have pricing i'm done thank you once a mausoleum okay commissioner mark wait can i just um i wanted to say one thing about you brought up the um if i may do i forgot one thing and then regarding the auditing you know we both know um mr ronald uh mark and i had thought he would be good on that auditing committee so i sent him the stuff and he he said in his area of expertise that we may have um filled the board with people who are more like marketing even though they're in finance they're more marketing people and we may not get the people that we need and i'm wondering since we already approved this ordinance i'm so sorry because i didn't talk to him before what resolution resolution thank you um what what would it take if we wanted to add or do we just use we sort of had that i mean do we have the catch-all was on what they do no man the catch-all was what they do we still have the opportunity to make those changes when it's presented i mean resolution you've already approved it what we're waiting for is for the applications to be advertised right and then it'll come back before you the catch-all was for what they were going to audit we had specific categories and and he was like a discussion item next week i feel like maybe we should i apologize guys no i i i i well i actually said that at the time so i mean and the last thing is the e-bike ordinance wellington has theirs we the city attorney shared it palm beach has not done anything yet so i think we should just move forward with the wellington and modify it according to our own needs so i'll email it or the city attorney can re-email it and can we put it on an agenda i got an email today for somebody said it was needed a clip by one of them i'm telling you if you're down there at night it's scary they're scary these children are frightened hunter and i have had some discussions commissioner morgan and i've had discussions we can very quickly prepare an ordinance yeah probably not in two weeks but in october we can bring it okay great thank you thank you okay and we should all look at that one to see if there's anything because the only thing i'll send it i'll send it to us yeah okay thanks may commissioner can make commissioner market go now yeah of course i'm done i am but she said she was i am done but did you guys see the beautiful um rainbow the other day though it's a thick bubble it was something that's just pollution i would say it was did you say it was pollution commissioner marker yeah just real real quickly the number one thing on my on my agenda tonight was to declare the cemetery historic so i'm completely in line with you on that and i i i think we should do that that seems very logical and i've talked to the people that know more about that than i do and everybody seems in consensus um on the e-bike thing i've done some work on that um and as part of the metropolitan planning organization i gathered information from other communities and towns and i i i would like to share that with you guys yeah well we'll we'll get the wellington and then we'll put it on i've got well i've got wellington all done so yeah and you have the one the work that you put in as well yeah okay it's just it's a it's not a it's not a one-size-fits-all for every community i'll just tell you that i'm with you what wellington isn't really a city like we are we've got you know we're a little bit different they got horses up there they're worried about we don't have those and then there's all this stuff you have to decide like what are we going to do in parks are we going to allow it in parks and and there's all sorts of issues with policing this i talked to one of your officers yesterday about what they go through when they pull somebody over who's 14 years old on an e-bike and they have to sit there and call the parents and i i i i mean the the it's got a lot of hair on it so i think we should spend a little time and go through it yeah that's it all right i got three things you're only allowed two first and this is kind of a long line of what commissioner burt said somebody one of the people called me the other day and they own rental property and they have set up each one of these rental properties to be owned by an llc of course they were told that this llc does not need to get a business tax receipt they're right why is that because that isn't revenue stores they said they called a register they said you don't need it for an llc if it's a rental property i'm just telling you what they were they called a city that's just ownership they're just that's their ownership it's a business that if you have to file an annual report with the division of corporations yeah you are a business llc's have to file an annual report doesn't have to be a big even if it's only 50 bucks if it's an operating llc and they own a piece of real estate and they're collecting rents i know exactly what you're talking about um but well okay well they may have talked to you too but the point is it is a good revenue source number one and people will pay the 50 bucks for the btr but i don't think we're allowed to charge business lessons for short-term rentals is that accurate by the state it's not a short it's a business forgetting the off getting the operation i see okay we can't charge a short-term rental like in i'm not charging i'm trying to operate no i understand i think you're right but that's why we're doing a registration ordinance and we're not licensing two different things you want to register the rental property that's one set right but the fact that you're an operating business in the city if you have to file an annual report with the division of corporations because you're an annual now you could be if you're a shell and you're not really operating you have to say i'm a shell i'm not really operating you sign a form fine but if you have an operating business you ought to pay a business tax receipt thing well if you show income yeah i mean you're an operating business you're if you show income you are operating right so that i think we need to look at that secondly second thing i want to do is to talk about amending the local rules on something that has been bothering me for a while in the course of my time up here in the last year or so two years you know someone will say we'll adopt something at the commission level and then for some reason it changes and something else happens and the remark is well i received a consensus from your other commissioners my view is if something is decided on the commission we all give consensus we want this to happen if this isn't going to happen you've got to come back to the commission and say okay we got to do something different because otherwise i don't know for someone to say i've got consensus i don't know from whom and also it means to me that you only spoke and you didn't call me and this happened once with commissioner casalo said you're doing something that the mayor said it shouldn't be the case it has to come back to the commission to say this is what we want i'm and i want to do this for that reason so if it's something that's decided on the commission level if you're going to change something consensus can't be anything other than in that new consensus to be given at the commission at the commission level that's transparency you and i spoke about it you said fine if it's a local rule you're happy to comply so sure we used to that was happening and then what we ended up creating a rule where if you were going to be doing something that was asking for a consensus you have to get a consensus to put it on the next agenda and then provide all your documentation and it could be something because what happens is we all say yeah that sounds brilliant let's do it and then of course once you start talking to staff you figure out costs or whatever else something changes and then it may be everybody gets the same information and then it drops but you're right it doesn't officially circle back and conclude but that sort of made it very helpful because everybody had the information before they were actually making a decision that's why i wanted to circle back i want the commission to say yes all right so do we have agreement yeah on this i mean it really should be if we've decided something in public any change that's got to go back to the commission okay and the last thing i want to say i would like yeah i did a local rule change but just i'd like to see the language i mean it shouldn't be that hard the last thing i'm going to say is someone said last week something out and they said well it was in the weekly report you put a lot of stuff in your weekly report but i don't consider your weekly report notice to the commission no if you're going to put something it's not i said well i you know i i never regarded report that's not notice to the commission no it's not i'm just pointing out that there are some things that really should be direct notice to the commission of course end up in your weekly report right there's email communications personal meetings phone calls i'll be more than happy to oblige and i think i always have and i've never regarded that as a formal notification it is a tool for communication ancillary to all the other strategies and engagements but of course in the weekly reports like i don't remember agreeing to that so so well understood all i'm saying let's say good to go mayor i'm trying to make things transparent and i have no nothing else to say oh my goodness okay we'll take it but understood good to go except i want to read this speech any other things then we are adjourned