News

By Steve Plunkett

    Relations between the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District and the city withered in June like an unwatered lawn in the hot Florida sun.
    • District Chairman Robert Rollins listed a year’s worth of failed efforts to get the city to agree to build four more sports fields at the Spanish River Athletic Facility, then urged commissioners to sideline that proposal and finance installing three artificial-turf fields at Patch Reef Park next spring.
    “I don’t believe that we’ll get our [Spanish River] project … underway this fiscal year,” Rollins said.
    • Boca Raton took over development of the master plan for oceanfront Red Reef Park. The district’s consultant, which started on the master plan in July 2014, had prepared three alternatives for commissioners to consider.
    “And as we discussed, it makes sense to hold off the master planning process until the completion of the comprehensive waterfront plan,” Assistant City Manager Mike Woika said in an email to the district.
    • Commissioner Earl Starkoff ended the district’s more than five years of silence on the city’s controversial Wildflower site, saying he thought the city-owned parcel on the Intracoastal Waterway should remain green space instead of housing a Hillstone restaurant.
    “I am pro-park; I am not anti-restaurant,” Starkoff said.
    Rollins updated commissioners June 6 on what he has done since the June 9, 2015, joint meeting between the district board and the City Council intended to speed up projects and improve communications.
    “You’ll have to indulge me because I have a prepared statement that I need to read so that I don’t miss the details,” he said.
    Right after the joint meeting, commissioners sent the council contracts for the fields at Spanish River and beach renourishment. The city said the contracts needed modifications and in November sent back a contract consolidating the Spanish River proposal with all the other agreements the two governments have. District commissioners did not like the city’s revisions and asked Rollins to go to a City Council meeting to explain.
    “The city manager’s office requested that I first meet with the mayor, so on Feb. 24 we met and I went over our request,” Rollins said. Mayor Susan Haynie agreed with the concept of having a separate agreement for Spanish River, he added, and told him to meet with the city manager, “which I did and the first available date was April 4.”
    But when he asked Woika and City Manager Leif Ahnell to support signing a separate agreement, “there was no response,” Rollins said.
    He then went to the May 9 council workshop but “was unable to obtain any positive feedback regarding the … project moving forward.” Instead, Haynie asked that the district submit changes to the proposed global contract.
    Rollins said he also met separately with four City Council members. Jeremy Rodgers was out of town when Rollins tried to reach him.
    “I wanted you to know the time and effort that’s gone into trying to sell this program to our partner. I’m disappointed that at this juncture I have to report to you that I’ve been unsuccessful in getting any commitments,” Rollins said.
    Moving money budgeted for the Spanish River fields to Patch Reef will enable the district to begin construction next spring, Rollins said. The district agreed at last year’s joint meeting to install artificial turf at Patch Reef in a compromise so it could build four grass fields at Spanish River.
    At Red Reef Park, Woika said, the district could finish the first phase of repairing the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center’s boardwalk but the city would oversee subsequent phases as well as the development of a park master plan and fixes to Gumbo Limbo’s sea tank pumping system.
    “For a number of reasons the city has decided to run all capital projects on city property,” Woika said in his June 12 email. “Therefore, we are looking for transitioning these capital projects to the city.”
    On the Wildflower property, Starkoff said he has refrained from commenting but that it was time to address the issue and asked that commissioners discuss it at their July 11 meeting.
    “The highest and best use of that property is as a public space,” Starkoff said at the June 20 meeting. “We need to define the context for any commercial component that exists within the space, rather than have a plan for a restaurant or any commercial space that leaves public space as a secondary consideration on public land.”
    Commissioners were not entirely sour on their relationship with the city. “I’ve had good conversation with several of the City Council members” Rollins said. “I’m hopeful that with this revised [global contract] we’ll have a favorable response to it.”
    Commissioners also decided to send the council two possible dates for a joint meeting. They had asked to meet together July 25, but the council said it has a full workshop agenda that day.