beach park district - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-28T10:41:36Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/beach+park+districtBoca Raton: Beach and park district reverses itself, will make CRA contributionhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-beach-and-park-district-reverses-itself-will-make-cra-2016-08-31T14:15:55.000Z2016-08-31T14:15:55.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Steve Plunkett</strong><br /> <br />The Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District will continue to let its annual contribution to the downtown Community Redevelopment Agency grow, but wants to discuss stopping the payments in the future.<br /> Arthur Koski, the district’s interim executive director, told commissioners Aug. 15 that the contributions were evidence of a historical “spirit of cooperation” between the district and the CRA. He advised them to cancel an Aug. 22 special hearing called to consider freezing the annual check at $894,000 each year.<br /> That would have left the CRA with a $132,000 shortfall for fiscal 2017 and more in subsequent years.<br /> Koski said the CRA and the district agreed in 1986 that the district would pay into the CRA’s redevelopment trust fund to provide for park and recreational facilities and public art downtown.<br /> Three years later the city asked the district to allow its money to be used to pay off debt for building Mizner Park. <br /> “Again, in the spirit of cooperation, this board agreed,” Koski said.<br /> Without the money from the parks district, the CRA may have had to take money from another account or ultimately get bailed out by the city.<br /> Koski said the original agreement was due to sunset this year and the 1989 agreement would end when the Mizner Park bond is paid off in December 2018. <br /> “There may be some dispute from the city as to whether we have the right to walk away after completion of the debt,” he said.<br /> The CRA, he said, will continue to exist until 2025, longer if the City Council extends it.<br /> But Koski, who is also the district’s attorney, advised against “getting into a contest of lawyers trying to determine who is right or wrong” and recommended that commissioners add the issue to the agenda of an as-yet unscheduled joint meeting with the council.<br /> Commissioners seemed ready in July to freeze the CRA payment after Koski told them a state statute would allow them to do so. But City Attorney Diana Grub Frieser, who is also the CRA’s attorney, said the statute does not apply.<br /> Part of the city taxes that downtown property owners pay fund the CRA’s operations. The district does not own any land within the agency’s boundaries and, without the agreements, would not owe the CRA any money. <br /><br /></p></div>Boca Raton: Wizard not strong enough to get two panels togetherhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-wizard-not-strong-enough-to-get-two-panels-together2016-08-31T14:14:59.000Z2016-08-31T14:14:59.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Steve Plunkett</strong><br /><br /> Not even a smartphone app could help the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District and the City Council choose a date for a joint meeting.<br /> “It was certainly worth having as a shot, because it shortened up the amount of time to realize that we’re still not going to be able to get a meeting scheduled that way,” Beach and Park Commissioner Earl Starkoff said.<br /> District Commissioner Dennis Frisch went to the council’s July 26 meeting to invite Mayor Susan Haynie and the four council members to use an app called Meeting Wizard instead of sending a letter from the district’s headquarters to the city manager’s office “that takes three weeks to get back. It’s gone on too long.” <br /> “I’m with you,” said Haynie, who separately last month became president of the Florida League of Cities. “Let’s just get this moving forward.”<br /> But by Aug. 15 only two council members had responded, said Briann Harms, the Beach and Park District’s assistant director. Meeting Wizard, which allowed people to issue invitations and respond online, shut down its operations Aug. 12, its website said.<br /> Starkoff said they should pick dates far in the future to avoid conflicts and proposed Jan. 30, May 15 and Oct. 2, 2017. <br />“We could actually continue [that pattern] in years ahead,” he said.<br /> But other commissioners held out hope for a joint meeting this year.<br /> “I sure would like to have something in 2016 to further the discussion on some of the projects,” District Chairman Robert Rollins said. <br /> Commissioner Steve Engel said the groups need to meet this year “to kind of clear the air so we can start 2017 with clean slates.”<br /> The officials decided to ask the council to commit to Starkoff’s three dates and to suggest a possible date in 2016. They also will ask the council to tell City Manager Leif Ahnell to meet every other week with Arthur Koski, the district’s executive director.<br /> The two panels have tried repeatedly since August 2015 to schedule a joint meeting.</p></div>