News

By Steve Plunkett

    The Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District has all but given up on meeting with the City Council in 2016, but is looking forward to having a joint meeting Jan. 30.
    “We’ve made every effort to try to pull this together. This was our second round with the calendars, and we still have two people who haven’t responded,” District Chairman Robert Rollins said at the commission’s Oct. 17 meeting.
    “We held out hope, and they held out hope that we try to meet, and that’s … fine, so it didn’t work out,” Commissioner Earl Starkoff said.
    In August, Starkoff proposed having the meeting on Jan. 30 as well as get-togethers on May 15 and Oct. 2, 2017. Rollins went to the council’s Sept. 27 meeting to issue an invitation in person.
    “Knowing that everyone’s busy, we thought if we’d give you enough time our commission could get these scheduled,” he told council members, noting that the three dates do not conflict with any other city meetings. “With the amount of joint business that we have, we just want to get this on the agenda,” Rollins said. “We have some interesting topics that we’d like to discuss.”
    But Vice Mayor Michael Mullaugh could agree only to the January meeting, noting he will no longer be in office after the March city elections.
    The two boards have been trying to schedule a joint meeting since August 2015.
    Arthur Koski, the district’s interim executive director, told commissioners he would be meeting with Assistant City Manager Mike Woika to discuss a master agreement that would replace a handful of other pacts between the district and the city.
    “If something falls in their laps, [if] there’s a date in December that works … ” Rollins started to say.
    “Let’s do it — absolutely,” Starkoff interjected.
    Rollins said he was heartened by the meeting between Koski and Woika, the recent execution of a beach renourishment agreement and a budget process that went “very smoothly.”
    “I feel like … the last three months have been fruitful,” Rollins said.