CRA November 10, 2009VERBATIM EXCERPT OF THE NOVEMBER 10, 2009 COMMUNITY,
REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY BOARD MEETING
REQUESTED BY COMMISSIONER RODRIGUEZ
Chair: We'll go to public comments. Anybody in the public wish to address the Board
on items not on the agenda may do so at this time. Please give your name and
address for the record. Make your presentation within the three-minute time
period.
Rodriguez: No. You go up here.
Ms. Ready: Barbara Ready, 329 SW 13th Avenue. Uh, may I have permission to
approach the dais? Thank you. I come before you tonight to ask for your
help with two matters please? Uh, the first one that you're looking at. Uh,
Jamie Titcomb brought to my attention the opportunity to apply for a
$50,000 matching grant. If I could get the CRA to please consider funding
$25,000 and maybe getting the City Commission to fund the other
$25,000 we could apply for this $50,000 matching grant. And we could
utilize this matching grant to um, hire a professional to evaluate what we
need to do to update the old school and we could use some of the funds
to help underwrite the cost of our historic preservation program that we'd
like to implement. So if we could get you to consider that, that would be
great. The other matter that I'd like to ask you to consider um pertains to
the CRA's Downtown Master Plan. Um I was a member of the Downtown
Master Plan steering committee. Uh, this, the whole, uh, the steering
committee was, uh the whole thing was highly participatory it incorporated
public input in previous plans and it resulted in a plan that meets our
community's aspirations. The CRA mission statement says that the CRA
will create a vibrant downtown core and revitalize neighborhoods. The
downtown has languished for a long time, and it's time for City staff and
CRA staff to work together as a team. There were four respondents to the
recent City F, RFP, and of the four, only one of those that responded,
responded with ideas pulled from the Commission approved, CRA
Downtown Master Plan. As you are the CRA, you have a vested interest in
seeing your plans are implemented. I respectfully request that this CRA
Board uphold your mission statement and recommend to the City
Commission that we grasp this opportunity to redevelop our downtown
and embrace the single proposal that addresses your Downtown Master
Plan. Thank you.
Weiland: I have a quick question. Barbara?
Ms. Ready: Yes?
Weiland: Uh, I inaudible read your email yesterday um, do I understand that we have
to provide 50,000 dollars to just apply for the grant.
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Ms. Ready: Yes sir.
Weiland: And if we're not approved of the grant I didn't read anything, we get that
money back?
Ms. Ready: Sure. Yeah. That money doesn't go anywhere.
Weiland: Okay I just didn't read anything.
Ready: We just have to put up 50 to get 50.
Ready, Rodriguez and Ross: It's a matching grant.
Weiland: Okay.
Ready: It doesn't go anywhere.
Weiland: I didn't read it that way.
Ross: And also its up to 50,000 so it could be 10,000 dollars that's awarded.
Ready: Well.
Ross: Which would be wonderful, but it's up to 50,000.
Ready: Hopefully we would apply for the maximum amount to get the maximum
amount so that we could use it for lots of things.
Ross: And they are reviewing the applications March 22 through March 23 of 2010.
Ready: Yes. Unfortunately there is a rather quick turnaround on this. The deadline to
apply is December the 18th, so uh we would need both the Board and the
Commission to decide whether you felt like -
Chair: Well, well I'll tell you, as far as I'm concerned neither the Community
Redevelopment Agency nor the City has budgeted that money, that kind of
money for anything $25,000. And quite frankly I think it's premature seeing
we're going to have it on the referendum on the ballot in uh March to see
whether the citizens want to spend any money, uh taxpayer money for that
historical thing. So I wouldn't be in favor of doing that. I don't know where the
money would come from anyway.
Ready: With all due respect, Mr. Chair,
Chair: Uh huh,
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Ready: I did request that both the CRA Board and the City Commission not gobble up
all of the funds from the knock down fund so that we would have an opportunity
to pursue these matching grants.
Chair: I don't believe that was acted on. That money was put somewhere else in the
City budget.
Ready: Yes I realize that.
Chair: Yeah.
Ross: This might - -
Chair: Could you, could you - -
Ross: - - be an annual.
Chair: I'm sorry. Could you please, on the second issue could you give me a capsule
again of what you are asking for.
Ready: I'm asking the CRA Board to recommend to the City Commission one of the
four proposals because it addresses your Downtown Master Plan, that is a City
Commission approved plan.
Rodriguez: And a CRA Board plan, approved plan.
Ready: It is a CRA plan and it was approved by the City Commission in January of
2009.
Ross: And you're asking. Can you repeat what you are asking?
Ready: Since it is a CRA plan
Ross: Uh-hum
Ready: I ask that the Community Redevelopment Agency Board, which is what you
guys are representing, recommend to the City Commission that you embrace
that plan. That proposal. Of the four proposals only one addressed - -
Ross: Yes, I'm aware of that.
Ready: - - anything within the Community Redevelopment Agency District.
Ross: Uh-huh.
Chair: Anyone else wish to address the Commission at this time?
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Rodriguez: Mayor I, Chair if I may -
Chair: Go ahead.
Rodriguez: Chair, I don't want to lose this. This is, I think, an important topic and uh, I
don't know if the Executive Director has evaluated that proposal whether
the Executive Chair or the staff is recommending support of that proposal. I
know ultimately it's going to be the City Commission and ultimately the
citizens in a referendum, but it's, do we want to have the Executive Director
evaluate that proposal and give, give us some insight on her, um, opinion
about that proposal as it relates to the downtown master plan?
Bright: I'm not interested in, in in doing that unless it's the consensus of the Board. The
gentleman did not provide, um numbers. The project I think would be very hard
to do that to evaluate. When you say evaluate I am assuming financial.
Rodriguez: No I don't. In fact that, it's it's financial is is irrelevant because we're going
to go to the citizens for approval and the City Commission would evaluate
the financials. But what I'm asking, what I think the Board should be doing
here is asking you to review that proposal and compare it to the Downtown
Master Plan to see if it fits all the elements of redeveloping our Downtown
which is what I think we are trying to do and that's why that Downtown
Master Plan was developed. And if so, that you recommend that, that's a
plan that fits into the, the plans that we've approved and that would be the
extent of the approval. The City Commission would then do all the
financials and decide what they're going to do. But if, if the CRA sponsored
Downtown Master Plan fits into those approved by this Commission and the
uh, by this Board and the, and the Commission then, I think there's a
vested interest in the Executive Director promoting that plan or at least
reaffirming her support for it to the City Commission.
Chair: What is the plan we're talking about? I'm not sure I'm --
Rodriguez: It is the downtown master plan.
Bright: Is it the Bank of America that was ranked by City Staff number 4?
Rodriguez: It was the whole downtown, the redevelopment of downtown. The whole
downtown master plan of where everything should go and how it should
look and how it should feel. That whole thing we did at the Woman's Club
with input from the citizens and the community. It, it cost, it cost taxpayers
half a million dollars to put that together.
Bright: Well, I wasn't at the meeting last week, City Commission I was travelling but, I
do have to say because I'm kind of confused because, um, I learned from the
Assistant Director that the Commission tabled like the Brownfield, and I'm
hearing a lot about the D -M -P tonight. So I'm trying to say the Brownfield is part
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of the D -M -P. The Bank of America project is I mean I looked over it briefly.
There are some components that are compatible but then there's other
elements like you know relocating the Public Works and this and that, so if
you're looking for like apples to apples, we can do that, its just that you know
that proposal is very very broad, and what would be your timeframe that you
would want that.
Chair: Oh I see what you're talking about you're are talking about one of the four things
that are put in for the police station and you want us to recommend that now?
Tonight? To the . .
Bright No, no. He's asking me to do an evaluation of apples to apples of the Bank of
America site proposal that the City staff ranked number four as not being the
best for the relocation. About how it compares to the, to the approved, um,
Downtown Master Plan.
Rodriguez: Right.
Bright: But remember that the plan is a plan so saying like, I can only say how his plan
would conceptually fit because it's not like there's like, we decided theirs was
going to be an office building here or this or that so, but certainly I can look at
that plan and evaluate that of course with the Community Redevelopment
Agency staff if, if that's what the Board wants to do.
Rodriguez: I mean I think we should have an obligation to do that, that's what we're
supposed to be sitting up here doing is redeveloping our downtown and --
Bright: I think it's very difficult and I have to say this. The CRA staff was not involved
at all in the City's RFP process. We were excluded. Um, the Development
Director's an extremely talented person, un the City Manager and the Director of
Public Works, so it's a little bit, you know, difficult for me to now, to go back in
and evaluate against the other plans. If this Board can assure me there's going
to be no repercussion for any statements or decisions that I would make, that
might be in violation of what the City Manager had wanted, I would certainly be
willing to do that. But other than that, his intention was not to include us in that
process so I feel alittle bit backed in the corner here at this point.
Chair: I think, yeah, I think for us to jump in here before these people have a chance to
propose. They're all four supposed to come and give their proposals to the City
Commission.
Ross: That's right.
Chair: For us to upstage them would be completely out of order I think.
Weiland: Mayor?
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Ross: Yes?
Weiland: Um, last week when we, acting as the Commission, when we discussed, uh,
whether we were going to entertain all four or just three of them, I was a bit,
uh, I guess caught off guard because I thought we were going to be
discussing alittle more of what was the nuts and bolts of what our options
were. And to pick out one particular one, I'm going to you know talk about it
at the next meeting, that in my opinion there's good parts in several of the
different uh packages that are being presented to us. So whether we're going
to end up having to pick one developer to do everything or whether we have
an option of maybe two or three different developers, one being involved in
City Hall, one being involved in the Public Works compound or one being
involved, a different one being involved in the Police Department, that's where
I'm going to see what we can put together as a whole. Uh
Chair: And really, that's a City Commission discussion. We should even be discussing
it here that's (inaudible) the Community Redevelopment Agency.
Weiland: I understand that, but that's where I felt we were going last week. It was
discussing that versus just whether we were going to include a fourth person
or not so I guess I'm, I'm tending to agree with you. I don't think, uh, we
need to up end the apple cart right now. We need to wait until after these
proposals are presented to us next week and then decide, you know, which
way we're going and, uh, how we want, uh, how we want to get there. So I
guess I just have you know a few more questions on how we're gonna
approach that next week and I'll discuss that with the City Manager.
Chair: (inaudibl)
Ross: (inaudible)
Chair: -- in the Commission meeting. And yeah, if that company happened to get
selected that would be time to ask the CRA to get involved and say how's it
going to fit into the Master Plan.
Ross: Yeah. We're going to hear from that developer next week.
Chair: Right.
Ross: Are we not?
Chair: Right.
Ross: So he, it's up to him. The fact that he is the one proposing, the one that's
involved with the Downtown Master Plan. So --
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Rodriguez: We, if I can just take a moment. We are the CRA Board. We have a
responsibility to redevelop our downtown. That's what we're supposed to
be doing up here. We're not supposed to be wearing any other hat except
the hat of a CRA Board to redevelop our downtown and the Community
Redevelopment Agency district. There are proposals on the street. RFP's
has been responded to that address the Downtown Master Plan and the
redevelopment of our downtown. To say that we're going to be silent, that
this Board is going to be silent and the Executive Director to say I haven't
been included is irresponsible because everything that's happening in
downtown she should be engaged in and we should be engaged in and
we should be, we should be supporting or not supporting. We should
have a position and take a position here. Not a position of let's sit back
and see what the City Commission does. That's not what we're here to
do. We're here to make, to take actions as a CRA Board and make note
of projects that are going to redevelop the CRA district and that's what
we're supposed to be doing. We're not supposed to — and and if the CRA
if if the CRA Board and the Executive Director and the staff can evaluate
projects and present them to the Commission as they've done on many
other occasions and say we support this or we don't support this and this
is why we don't support it or this is why we support it, that happens all the
time on different projects that impact the CRA Board. And I don't know
why, for this particular issue it's changing, but I'm just totally frustrated
with this, this whole discussion that we're going to be silent on one of the
biggest project that's facing the City in, in, in 20 years.
Ross: I never said we're going to be silent. I didn't hear anyone say we're going to be
silent.
Rodriguez: That's what, that's what you guys agreed to just now.
Ross: No.
Chair: No, we didn't. We said we'd do it at the proper time. And if there's any
irresponsibility, it's probably the part of the City Commission not demanding that
the CRA be included in the, in the RFP before they went out. That's where the
irresponsibility lies.
Rodriguez: That's irrelevant.
Hay: And that's water over the dam.
Chair: That's right.
Hay: Can't come back after the fact. It is what it is and we didn't take action then, so
don't try to do it now. I would want to hear, uh, those four proposals and then we
go from there.
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Rodriguez: Wouldn't you want to know, while those proposals were being, cause I
think we're supposed to make a decision when the proposals are being
provided the City Commission is supposed to make the decision at the
point in time when the proposals are being provided, I think at the next
meeting, wouldn't you want to know at that point in time the CRA staff has
evaluated the projects and has a recommendation for this Board and the
City Commission. Wouldn't you want to know that in advance? If you
select a, a developer and then get the recognition after the fact, the
recognition may be of a developer that was dismissed.
Ross: You want them to evaluate the ones, the projects that are not located in the
CRA district?
Rodriguez: No absolutely not.
Ross: So then.
Rodriguez: Only the one that's in the Community Redevelopment Agency district.
Ross: Right. So there's one. The developer can speak to that. We're going to hear
from him next week.
Rodriguez: This is not about the developer, this is about our staff making a
recommendation.
Bright: Mr. Chair
Chair: I think that sends a bad message to the entire (inaudible).
Bright: Mr. Chair.
Chair: Yes.
Bright: As a professional when the first meeting was held for the RFP, I've been in
redevelopment since 1993. The number of phone calls that I received as a
professional in this industry, was overwhelming that the CRA had not been
included in the process. It is not my job to question the City Manager. It is not
my job to question the policy makers that sit up here. It's also not my job to
question the fact that we don't have public hearing and it's essential to this
Board to make just those comments that Commissioner Rodriguez has just
made. We have no way of incentivizing a project and tying it to the site plan
any longer at this Board. So there really doesn't make any, any point for CRA
staff, if we weren't considered from the beginning, to be part of that
development team that would have reviewed and evaluated the projects. You
are correct, Mr. Rodriguez, we do that all the time, but for some reason we
were not included. But I really would never disrespect the decisions that have
been made by my colleagues at the City, the City Manager, the Director of
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Development and the Director of Public Works. I think it would be improper
and it would be political suicide for me.
Rodriguez: For the record, for the record, I want to make for the record this Board has
no interest in getting a recommendation from the Executive Director on the
proposal that's on the table for the City Commission. Is that what I'm
hearing?
Weiland: For the record I'm interested. I want to know, everybody's, you know, the City
Commission, staff, CRA staff, what their opinions are. Uh, unless I'm forced
into a corner to make a definite decision next week, I'm not voting on one
particular developer cause I just said what I think. What I said is, I think we
can arrive at what we want to do by using two or three different developers
and how we're gonna get there remains to be seen. Uh, I have my idea
where the Police Department might be able to be, you know, fit into the
project. Uh I have my opinion as to what might happen with City Hall at the
present time. The Fire Department is supposed to stay downtown as a sub
station so do we have to use the spot that it's sitting in right now? Possibly
not. Uh, same thing with, you know, we, we have good options as to where
the Public Works facility could go and be able to free up that property in the
Heart of Boynton so I think there's many variables
Rodriguez: I'd like --
Weiland: And once we discuss those things next week, it could get carried into another
meeting in December. Then we can, uh, have everything researched before a
final decision is made.
Rodriguez: First of all, we, we, we, there's a timeline here because this is a
referendum. We don't have a lot of time to make that decision. But, let's, I
just want to bring this to a head. I'm going to offer a motion that we request
the Executive Director evaluate the RFP that addressed the Downtown
Master Plan and give a recommendation to this Board and the City
Commission.
Chair: There's a motion on the floor, is there a second to that motion? Motion dies for
lack of a second. Go back to public input. Good evening.
Ms. Castello: Victoria Castello, 406 S. Seacrest. I'm appalled that no one here sees
the common sense that says that we have, it's called the master planning
vision dated January 2009 like Barbara said. The, these four, I don't even
know whether they looked at your Master Plan. So, they come before you
with a plan. I attended your, I was interested in where the commuter stops
will be in Boynton Beach. I mean there's a lot of things coming together
now that these are not researched further I'm, I know you're the CRA you
also sit as our City Commissioner. You have, you have a vision here you
can bring it over to our City in our City. I'm appalled that, of course, her
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coming in this late is, is shocking to me that she wasn't included at the
beginning that this CRA Board. 1 wonder did any of those developers look
at your master visionary plan dated January 2009? How could you even
consider them unless they have.
Chair: Anything else?
Castello: No, that's it.
Chair: Thank you.
Castello: Thank you.
Chair: Anyone else wish to address the Board on items not on the agenda. Seeing
none we'll return to the Board. Old Business. Consideration of termination of
lease with the Boynton Waterways.
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