News

By Steve Plunkett

    Now it’s 20 months and counting.
    Boca Raton City Council members canceled a Jan. 30 joint meeting with Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District commissioners. It would have been the first time the boards got together since June 9, 2015.
    Arthur Koski, the district’s executive director, announced the cancellation Jan. 9 as he discussed the long-sought addition of athletic fields at city-owned De Hoernle Park. The district built and opened four fields there in 2012 and has been seeking the city’s consent ever since to build four more.
    “It may be a subject for discussion at a joint meeting, and while I’m on the subject, the joint meeting of the 30th of the month has been canceled, and the city will get back to us with new dates,” Koski told his surprised commissioners.
    Beach and park officials want to talk with council members about how to fix tax disparities that future annexations will cause and how to define a nonresident when setting park user fees.
    “The city canceled the meeting, not us,” district Chairman Robert Rollins said. “That’s the meeting I asked back in [September] to put on their calendar, and so I’m terribly disappointed.”
    Briann Harms, the district’s assistant director, called the city clerk’s office earlier that day to ask why the joint session was not on the council’s schedule and learned of the cancellation.
    Late Jan. 30, City Council member Robert Weinroth posted pictures on Facebook of himself, Mayor Susan Haynie and council members Jeremy Rodgers and Scott Singer at an event at the Boca Raton Airport.
    “What a great night to showcase our amazing City to hundreds of CEO’s,” the mayor commented on one photo.
    City officials have not come up with a substitute date, a city spokeswoman said.
    Beach and park commissioners have been trying to schedule a joint meeting since August 2015.
    After several failed attempts, then-Commissioner Dennis Frisch went to the council’s July 26 meeting to ask Haynie and the four council members to use a smartphone app called Meeting Wizard instead of sending letters back and forth from district headquarters to the city manager’s office. “It’s gone on too long,” he said.
    “I’m with you,” Haynie replied. “Let’s just get this moving forward.”
    That effort went nowhere when three city officials did not follow through. Commissioners and council members also tried a scheduling website called doodle.com.
    In August then-Commis-sioner Earl Starkoff proposed having the Jan. 30 session as well as get-togethers on May 15 and Oct. 2.
Council members did not commit to the later dates but said at their Sept. 27 meeting that Jan. 30 was a go.