By Tao Woolfe
Boynton Beach has named an interim Community Redevelopment Agency director and determined that a permanent CRA director should be sought by seeking bids from executive recruiting firms.
The city could also look into using a familiar public sector recruiting firm such as GovHR USA, City Manager Daniel Dugger said at a Nov. 14 CRA meeting.
An invitation to bid on recruitment services was issued on Nov. 19 and the sealed bids are due by Dec. 18. City commissioners, sitting as the CRA board, agreed unanimously at their Nov. 13 meeting to promote Assistant Director Timothy Tack to interim director.
Tack, who joined the CRA in 2021, is a licensed engineer with more than 18 years’ experience in the public and private sectors. The commissioners agreed to raise his salary by $28,000 to a total of $167,852 while Tack serves as interim director.
Former CRA Director Thuy Shutt was fired from her post by the commission, for largely unspecified reasons, at a tumultuous CRA meeting on Oct. 10.
The three commissioners who initiated the dismissal — Mayor Ty Penserga and commissioners Aimee Kelley and Thomas Turkin — cited only unspecified “communication issues” between Shutt and city employees.
Many members of the public at the October meeting spoke out against the commission’s action and praised Shutt’s award-winning work.
Among them was Mildred Hay, wife of Commissioner Woodrow Hay.
“You do not deserve this,” Mildred Hay said to Shutt. “I pray God blesses you on your trail as you go.”
Status update on The Pierce
The City Commission received a status update on a stalled development — The Pierce — from its newly hired in-house city counsel, Shawna Lamb.
A lawsuit challenging the abandonment of three streets leading into the mixed-use project “is still a problem,” and is pending in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, she told the commissioners at the Nov. 14 CRA meeting.
An adjacent property owner — F. Davis Camalier, of 209 N. Federal Highway — filed suit against Pierce developer Affiliated Development and the city this summer.
Boardwalk Italian Ice & Creamery leases space at that location.
Camalier is claiming that the city improperly abandoned three streets to accommodate Affiliated’s winning bid to build The Pierce, a $100 million mixed retail and commercial development that will contain 300 apartments.
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