Delray Beach: News briefs

Development authority member removed — In an unprecedented action, the Delray Beach City Commission voted to remove a Downtown Development Authority board member.

The 4-1 vote at the commission’s April 16 meeting came on the heels of a Palm Beach County Ethics Commission finding that Richard Burgess had provided false information about his business address on his application to the DDA. The city attorney said she hadn’t found any example of previous removals like this.

Commissioner Rob Long, the lone holdout on the removal, said the problem the ethics panel found doesn’t meet the criteria for removal in the legislation that created the DDA, and that the violation the ethics commission found has been fixed. He noted that Burgess’s removal could open the door to a lawsuit.

Daniel Rose, Burgess’s attorney, portrayed his client’s removal as a “hit job” and a “witch hunt.” Rose cross-examined nearly every person who came to the commission to urge Burgess’s removal.

Ultimately, though, commissioners said they couldn’t allow someone who had broken the rules to stay on. “I think our job here was to find if there was cause (for removal) and I think that this constitutes cause,” Commissioner Angela Burns said.

Preempting hate speech — Invocations of Adolf Hitler and other antisemitic utterances at the April 2 Palm Beach County Commission meeting have the Delray Beach City Commission looking to beef up its rules for civility at meetings.

Commissioner Rob Long says he’s never heard the kind of speech he’s trying to prevent at Delray Beach’s proceedings, but he doesn’t want to take any chances that the chambers serve as any kind of platform for hate speech.

“It does seem like there are some opportunities to beef up language under civility in our local rules,” Long said at the April 9 commission meeting. “And the goal here would be to give Mayor Carney additional tools to swiftly shut down this type of speech and even remove its perpetrators from City Hall.”

City Attorney Lynn Gelin warned that city officials could not police speech for content, but she presented new guidelines adding prohibitions against “using terminology or gestures that cause a disruptive environment.” The commission unanimously approved the guidelines at its April 16 meeting.

Grant to fund license plate recognition cameras — Delray Beach will receive nearly $1 million for crime-fighting technology, U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel’s office announced April 8.

The federal funding will pay for license plate readers for the city Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center to improve its ability to observe, detect and prevent crime, Frankel’s office said.

A license plate reader for the Old School Square parking garage won City Commission approval April 16 and serves as an example of the kind of technology that Police Chief Russ

Mager said he envisions will be more widely installed as a result of the grant.

The parking garage reader was in the works when an incident occurred, providing an example of what police hope to forestall, Mager said. On March 30, a woman was shot in the ankle at what police called “a large gathering” on the top level of the garage. The injuries were not life-threatening. Police said they were looking for the culprit.

City beach keeps eco-friendly recognition — As it has for the past year, a blue flag raised over Delray Beach’s sandy expanse throughout 2024-25 will signal that the city’s shore is among the select for its environmental health.

Last year, when the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association first launched the Blue Flag USA program, the city’s beach was one of two locations recognized as meeting 30 criteria for water quality, environmental education and information, environmental management, safety and services, sustainable tourism, and social responsibility. And this year, the city has done it again.

The symbolic flag will be raised again at 9 a.m. May 8 at the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and State Road A1A.

— Anne Geggis

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