joint meeting - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-28T18:56:07Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/joint+meetingBoca Raton: Beach and park district seeks audience with City Councilhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-beach-and-park-district-seeks-audience-with-city-counc2016-03-02T18:48:07.000Z2016-03-02T18:48:07.000ZChris Felkerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/ChrisFelker<div><p><strong>By Steve Plunkett</strong><br /><br /> The Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District plans to hand-deliver a check for $3.7 million — as soon as the City Council finds time to accept it.<br /> The money is half the local cost of renourishing the city’s beaches from the Boca Raton Inlet north to the southern end of Red Reef Park. District commissioners decided at their Feb. 16 meeting that they would pay for half of the bill, up from their previous contribution level of one-third of costs.<br /> But District Chairman Robert Rollins added one stipulation: “Let them know I’ll deliver the check at the time I address the council.” <br /> The district and the council have been going back and forth since mid-August trying to schedule a joint meeting. In January the district put the joint meeting on a back burner and asked Boca Raton to schedule an appearance by Rollins at the council’s Feb. 22 workshop. Whenever he appears before the council, he plans to talk about what he and his fellow commissioners call the “strained” relationship between the two government bodies.<br /> Arthur Koski, the district’s executive director, emailed and phoned City Hall to confirm the Feb. 22 appearance, but did not receive a reply. Rollins said he, too, got the cold shoulder.<br /> “I placed a call to the mayor’s office last week. No communication from their office regarding that,” Rollins said. <br />He did not speak at the workshop.<br /> Boca Raton has been counting on getting the $3.7 million from the district since a joint meeting in June, when district commissioners informally agreed to pay the higher amount. The district had budgeted $2.6 million for the beach project and will dip into reserves for the difference.<br /> But district commissioners said the 50 percent contribution was for this project only, and that they will consider future renourishment projects on a case-by-case basis. Boca Raton has proposed the district commit to paying half of all beach costs for 30 years.<br /> The dredging is scheduled to start this month and should be completed by the end of April. <br /> “The week of March 6 they’ll start pumping sand on the beach,” said Jennifer Bistyga, the city’s coastal program manager.<br /> Photos of the work will be posted at <a href="http://www.myboca.us">www.myboca.us</a> under “Central Beach Renourishment Project.” <br /> Bistyga said under the permit granted by the state Department of Environmental Protection, workers must take “every precaution possible” to protect nesting sea turtles. Sea turtle nesting season begins March 1.<br /> The renourishment will cost $11.3 million, with the state and county paying about $4 million. That left about $3.7 million each for the district and the city if they split the local share.<br /> Koski also told commissioners he had received bids for the first phase of rebuilding the boardwalk at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center but he had not yet evaluated them. The bids range from $581,000 to $1.2 million, he said.</p></div>Boca Raton: Hot topics pulled from agenda of planned joint meeting of beach district, city councilhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-hot-topics-pulled-from-agenda-of-planned-joint-meeting2015-12-02T18:19:44.000Z2015-12-02T18:19:44.000ZChris Felkerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/ChrisFelker<div><p><strong>By Steve Plunkett</strong><br /><br /> A week before a Dec. 7 joint meeting with City Council, commissioners of the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District abruptly pulled two items from the agenda.<br /> Off the table will be any talk of interlocal agreements to replace grass sports fields at Patch Reef Park with artificial turf and to give the city $2 million for beach renourishment. Commissioners also decided not to discuss user fees that park patrons pay.<br /> The reason: The city spent five months revising the agreements, then returned them Thanksgiving week.<br /> “I’m disappointed in how this was presented to us,” Commissioner Dennis Frisch said at a Nov. 30 special meeting called in hopes of resolving the issue.<br /> Arthur Koski, the district’s interim executive director, told commissioners the proposals “will require a significant amount of dialogue and discussion” before they talk with the City Council.<br /> “You cannot be expected to have waited five months to get a document, receive it a week before a meeting — and during that week, you know, I’ve just come off a holiday — it just is the type of short-fuse kind of timing,” Koski said.<br /> The proposal for the beach renourishment money would make the district also financially responsible for dredging the Boca Inlet, something it’s never paid for before. The draft of the sports field agreement also incorporates several other interlocal agreements between the city and the district and changes some of the finances.<br /> “This document is throwing all those (other agreements) away and rewriting our obligations,” Commissioner Robert Rollins said. “I didn’t see anything wrong with the agreement that we signed because that’s the agreement that the city drew up for us to sign.”<br /> “The agreement changes the relationship between the city and the district that has been in existence for the past 40 years. So it is not something that I recommend to you that you take lightly, and I’m sure you will not,” Koski told commissioners.<br /> Commissioners worried that the city’s proposal gave short shrift to people who live inside the Beach and Park District but outside city limits.<br /> “There are things that we cannot do in transferring powers or duties of this district to another agency that is not a representative of certain of our constituents,” Koski said.<br /> “I can’t agree to this,” Commission Chairwoman Susan Vogelgesang, one of the non-city residents, said after the meeting. “They want us to pay for everything.”<br /> “I think they look at us as their piggybank,” Commissioner Steven Engel said.<br /> “I think that we have to be very careful so we don’t become a funding agency. We are an independent agency,” Rollins said.<br /> Any discussion of park user fees was dropped from the agenda because the proposed agreement says the City Council will be in charge of setting the rates. The council raised fees for youth sports leagues to play at parks in September without consulting the district.<br /> Koski launched an analysis of who pays how much to use park facilities and how the city and the district split the fees. Some commissioners have asked whether any fees should be imposed on residents who paid for the parks with their tax dollars.<br /> Still on the district’s agenda is the city’s proposed comprehensive waterfront plan (the district wants to be included) and the recent Royal Palm Polo annexation (residents there are not inside the district’s boundaries and do not pay district taxes).<br /> Frisch said he hoped council members would agree to let the district start on the second phase of DeHornle Park, which will be getting additional grass fields and restrooms.<br /> Commissioners said a good starting point for ironing out the friction might be for Koski to meet regularly with City Manager Leif Ahnell as well as more scheduled meetings of the district and the council.</p></div>Boca Raton: Council, parks district see progresshttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-council-parks-district-see-progress2015-07-01T16:00:00.000Z2015-07-01T16:00:00.000ZChris Felkerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/ChrisFelker<div><p><span class="font-size-4">Related story: <a href="http://thecoastalstar.ning.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-different-agencies-same-complaint-lack-of-communicatio">‘Free flow’ is focus of airport board</a><br /></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-2"><strong>By Rich Pollack</strong><br /> <br /> It took a little under two hours for the Boca Raton City Council and the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Parks District to resolve several lingering issues during a joint meeting last month which was four years in the making. <br /> What was clear at the outset was that both City Council members and district commissioners were frustrated by the inability of the two groups to resolve outstanding issues.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-2"> “Everyone expressed frustration over the lack of communication,” said Boca Raton Mayor Susan Haynie. <br /> By the end of the meeting, however, several items — including the development of grass and artificial turf fields at two parks, funding for repairs and improvements at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center and funding for future beach renourishment projects — had been addressed. <br /> At the meeting, city officials pointed out that it had been four years since the two organizations — both comprised of elected officials — had met and that many major projects had stalled. For their part, leaders of the beach and parks district expressed concerns about the relationship between the two groups, saying they did not feel they were considered partners by the city. <br /> Under existing agreements, the district — a special taxing district — helps fund beaches and parks within Boca Raton, while the city is charged with maintaining those recreational facilities. To enhance communications, and in doing so resolve stalled issues more rapidly, both groups have agreed to meet again, possibly in the fall, and on a regular basis. <br /> “I think we cleared the air, which was very important,” Haynie said. <br /> Arthur Koski, legal counsel and interim executive director for the district, said the resolution of several lingering issues was a positive outcome. <br /> “The board was very pleased that we had reached consensus and can move forward on several projects,” he said. One of those projects is the replacement of the boardwalk loop at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, which has been closed since February. <br /> Bids for the design of the boardwalk loop replacement are being prepared jointly by the city and the beach and parks district; construction, which should begin later this year, is expected to take between four and five months.<br /> The boardwalk is in the process of being inspected and city officials hope to have the $1.75 million project completed before turtle season begins next March. The beaches and parks district will provide the funding for the repairs, as well as for repairs to pipes to improve the flow of seawater into tanks for sea turtles and other marine life at Gumbo Limbo. <br /> During the joint meeting, beach and parks district commissioners also agreed to split the cost of beach renourishment projects evenly. In the past, the city paid two-thirds of the cost and the beach district paid one-third. “We decided it was more equitable to share the cost equally,” Koski said. <br /> The most discussion at the joint meeting focused on rectangular fields at two major parks and debate on whether to use artificial turf or grass on those fields. <br /> Following much discussion — and several years after the issue first surfaced — both the City Council members and district commissioners agreed to build four grass fields at deHoernle Park and convert three fields at Patch Reef Park to artificial turf. <br /> In addition, the meeting cleared the way for development of restrooms at the city’s dog park, construction of a maintenance facility at deHoernle Park and a road to connect the dog park with deHoernle Park.</span></p></div>