INSET BELOW: Mayor Susan Haynie
By Mary Thurwachter
Fresh out of a two-day goal-setting session, Mayor Susan Haynie outlined Boca Raton’s goals and priorities during a State of the City address to the Federation of Boca Raton Homeowners Associations on May 6.
Maintaining a financially sound city remains the city’s No. 1 goal, she said, followed by providing world-class municipal services, remaining a vibrant and sustainable city, and having strong partnerships with the community (for example: Florida Atlantic University, the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Parks District, Palm Beach County and Boca Raton Regional Hospital).
Wildflower top goal
From those goals, Haynie said, a policy agenda was established for the coming year. First on that list is development of the Wildflower property.
“It’s been on the books for several years,” Haynie said. “We’ve owned that land for awhile. Recently, we put out an RFP and Houston’s did respond. They came to the council and we said, ‘Please, you need to go back to the drawing board and solve your parking and access issues.’ We understand that it’s a very sensitive location to the neighborhoods. We understand that there could be some traffic consequences to the intersection of Palmetto Park Road and Fifth Avenue. And we also need to protect the boat ramp from overflow parking. Hopefully, in the coming weeks, we will hear some more about the solutions they have identified.”
Public safety pensions
Next on the list are public safety cost and pension sustainability actions.
“We are about to enter into negotiations with our police and fire unions and we hope it will be a collaborative negotiation that both sides understand that we need to make some changes for the future fiscal sustainability of our city,” Haynie said. “Stay tuned for that. Those will be coming over the summer.”
Economic growth
The city’s economic development structure is third on the list.
“We (council members) really have no desire to raise the millage (tax rate),” she said. “We would like to balance our budget based on further economic growth. We’ve been very successful so far. We would really like to focus more on that. In the last three years, we have retained and created over 5,000 jobs just in our city alone. That’s an excellent track record and we could probably expand that.”
Improve permit process
The fourth priority is a development process improvement plan.
“We (council members) hear it from the big developers of complex structures to someone just trying to replace the air conditioner unit in their home,” she said. “It’s very difficult to get through our development process. We see room for improvement. We instructed the city manager and put it on this list with much discussion.
“You know, you don’t hire a consultant and put a report on the shelf,” Haynie said. “Do a peer review, go see what the county’s doing. Go see what other cities are doing. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, but when something isn’t functioning optimally and the customer service is failing, we really need to address it. And this really isn’t over-arching. It’s a threshold where we’re asking these businesses to come into our community, then they come in and they can’t get a building permit to do their interior improvements. It’s very vital to our future.”
20th Street plans
The 20th Street development and overlay district was part of the priority plan last year and is back again.
“This is a vision to work with Florida Atlantic University, collaboratively, and create an overlay district for the redevelopment of 20th Street,” the mayor said. “It’s a corridor of industrial and aged retail, and we see that as possibly a gateway to the university with university-centered uses. FAU did a survey of their students as to what type of uses they would like to see there to integrate with the university. We can take advantage of a planning grant through the MPO that pays for a planner to come in and assist the city so there won’t be a fiscal impact to us.”
City staffing levels
Also under high priorities is city service level and staffing.
“This has become an issue,” Haynie said. “When the recession was so strong, Mr. [Leif] Ahnell suggested to the council to cut 200 positions. We’re still trying to play catch-up from that. It was the right thing to do, to cut our expenses to that degree, but we know our residents expect certain levels of service and we are now finding we may need to increase a little bit of staff to maintain those levels.”
She said city staff prides themselves on “delivery of service in the most economic, streamlined fashion, and we use technology whenever we can. However, there are certain staffing levels that need to be addressed.”
Renourishment, marketing,
rail safety, park access
Other priorities include annexation policies, finding funding for beach renourishment, city branding and marketing, rail safety improvements, a Lake Wyman Park public access plan, the downtown pattern book, customs facilities at the airport and intermediate and long-term solutions for downtown parking.
“Ten years ago, there was nobody in our downtown and now we are having a parking issue, which is a good problem to have,” Haynie said. “But we really need to address it or we’re going to lose our momentum and our vibrancy. There’s been talk of providing a centrally located parking structure. This is one of our high priorities to identify a location and come up with a funding scenario to make that happen.”
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