south palm beach town council - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-28T09:17:11Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/south+palm+beach+town+councilSouth Palm Beach: Council members hear from three who want to join themhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/south-palm-beach-council-members-hear-from-three-who-want-to-join2024-02-28T16:16:36.000Z2024-02-28T16:16:36.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Brian Biggane</strong></p>
<p>Three applicants for the vacant seat on the South Palm Beach Town Council that opened up when Robert Gottlieb resigned in December each made a case to the council at its February meeting.</p>
<p>Council members had considered moving quickly and making their decision then, but they decided to wait for the March meeting to select their choice, with the fifth member then set to be sworn in at the April meeting.</p>
<p>All three applicants are women: Elvadianne Culbertson and Arnelle K. Ossendryver, both residents of the Southgate Condominium, and Jennifer Lesh of Palm Beach Villas. </p>
<p>Gottlieb, whose term was supposed to end in March, wound up not seeking reelection during the November qualifying period. After his December resignation, the town planned to hold a second qualifying period for his seat in January, but ended up not reopening the race.</p>
<p>Council member Monte Berendes asked all three why they hadn’t filed to run during the qualifying period for the March election. Culbertson said she didn’t want to run against</p>
<p>Gottlieb, while the other two said their circumstances had changed in recent months.</p>
<p>A look at the applicants:</p>
<p><strong>Elvadianne Culbertson —</strong>The only applicant to read from a prepared script, Culbertson, 81, said she has missed only three council meetings in 18 years, served on the council for three years, has written the town newsletter and served on several committees.</p>
<p>With the Town Hall building project expected to start soon, Culbertson also said she has experience in architecture and building plans from her time working with Navy ships, which she said since the 1980s have been designed with laser-guided sandwich panels.</p>
<p>“As the name implies,” she said, “they’re pretty much the same as SIPs and have a similar prefabrication process. I dealt with the trade-offs in the design and ultimately cost.” The</p>
<p>Town Hall will be built using SIPs, or structural insulated panels.</p>
<p>Culbertson proposed updating and refining the Town Charter, pointing as an example to job descriptions of the town manager, of which she said a half-dozen exist, none of which specifically defines that role.</p>
<p>In a theme that was repeated by the other two candidates, Culbertson said there needs to be more interaction among people in the town. “We need to work toward knowing each other better,” she said.</p>
<p><strong>Jennifer Lesh —</strong> An educator who spent 25 years with the Palm Beach County school system working with students with exceptional needs, Lesh said she has been president of the condo board at Palm Beach Villas for 10 years and was vice president before that.</p>
<p>Lesh, 60, earned a doctorate from Barry University in Miami in 2013 and joined the faculty of Lynn University in Boca Raton, where she is in charge of the special education program.</p>
<p>“I have volunteered for over 17 years for the Council of Special Education at the local, state and national level, and have been the president of the international organization, so I am familiar with Robert’s Rules,” she said.</p>
<p>A resident of South Palm Beach since 2002, “with a slight break involving Delray Beach,” Lesh said she never plans to move and called the town “a little slice of paradise.”</p>
<p>Asked by Vice Mayor Bill LeRoy how she would encourage citizen engagement, Lesh said she would send out surveys to presidents of the condo boards asking what they’d like to see.</p>
<p>“In my condo people are not engaging. Maybe if we got ideas it would help,” she said.</p>
<p><strong>Arnelle K. Ossendryver —</strong> A resident of Southgate, Ossendryver migrated from South Africa 26 years ago and spent 24 of those employed by the Chesterfield Hotel in Palm Beach, promoting and helping to brand the property for visitors from around the world.</p>
<p>When the chairman of the company died two years ago, Ossendryver said “the whole team left” and she started a consulting business from her home. Among her clients is a group of geology professors from London.</p>
<p>With so much of her background in branding, Ossendryver, 61, was asked by Mayor Bonnie Fischer what she would do to brand the town.</p>
<p>“I would talk to people, ask them what they like about the town. What are the key points? Come up with some ideas, where we see the town going, how we should brand it, it’s going to be right. Once you brand it and it has an identity it’s good.” </p></div>South Palm Beach: No one ran for council seat; now at least three want ithttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/briny-breezes-no-one-ran-for-council-seat-now-at-least-three-want2024-01-31T17:40:40.000Z2024-01-31T17:40:40.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:left;">After no one filed in November to run for a seat up for election this year on the South Palm Beach Town Council, and still no candidate stepped forward when a special second filing period took place in January, it’s now up to the council to appoint someone to the seat.</p>
<p style="text-align:left;">The council passed a resolution that it would formally accept applications for the seat vacated by the resignation of Council member Robert Gottlieb until Feb. 12. It plans to interview applicants at its Feb. 13 meeting and expects to appoint the new member the same day.</p>
<p style="text-align:left;">As of Jan. 24, Town Clerk Yude Davenport reported three residents had applied: Elvadianne Culbertson, who resides in the Southgate building; Dr. Jennifer Lesh, of Palm Beach Villas; and Arnelle Ossendryver, also of Southgate. </p>
<p style="text-align:left;">The council appeared set to make the appointment continue through March 2026; no town election will take place March 19 because no one qualified to run for Gottlieb’s seat or to challenge Council member Raymond McMillan, who thus won another term automatically. </p>
<p style="text-align:left;">Gottlieb, who had served on the council for 18 years, announced his resignation at the council’s December meeting.</p>
<p style="text-align:left;">He cited a combination of factors including his health as well as Form 6, which requires elected officials to make a detailed list of their financials, which is then made public.</p>
<p style="text-align:right;"><em>— Brian Biggane </em></p></div>South Palm Beach: Council formally OKs refund of sewer chargeshttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/south-palm-beach-council-formally-oks-refund-of-sewer-charges2021-04-28T16:48:57.000Z2021-04-28T16:48:57.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Dan Moffett</strong></p>
<p>The South Palm Beach Town Council unanimously approved refunding to customers some $455,000 in improper sewer charges assessed since 2016. The town expects all customers to be compensated before November.<br /> The remittances are the result of an audit by the Palm Beach County inspector general that found the town did not adequately give public notice to rate increases during that period. The inspector found “no indication of willful misconduct” in the action.<br /> Town Manager Robert Kellogg, in his response to the county watchdog, wants the inspector to extend his audits to monitor the “franchise agreement holders to determine if the proper amount of fees are being remitted.”<br /> A franchise agreement is a negotiated contract between a municipality and a utility service provider that grants the utility the right to serve customers in the city’s jurisdiction. South Palm Beach has franchise agreements with Florida Power & Light, Florida Public Utilities and Waste Management Inc.<br /> Towns such as South Palm Beach collect tens of thousands of dollars a year from these utility fees. The concern is that adequate oversight is lacking.<br /> “We don’t have the capability to audit those fees,” Kellogg said. “But the inspector general does. It would be a great service to municipalities to look into this.” <br /><br /></p></div>South Palm Beach: Town council shuns developer’s height requesthttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/south-palm-beach-town-council-shuns-developer-s-height-request2016-06-01T17:55:35.000Z2016-06-01T17:55:35.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Dan Moffett</strong><br /><br /> Developer Gary Cohen and two of his lawyers spent more than an hour trying to persuade the South Palm Beach Town Council to vote on a charter amendment measure that might allow him to build his condo project 5 feet higher on the old Palm Beach Oceanfront Inn site.<br /> It didn’t work.<br /> “We would beg of you to make a motion and have a vote,” Mitch Kirschner, an attorney for Cohen’s Paragon Acquisition Group, said during the May 24 town meeting.<br /> Council members sat silently and then moved on to the next item on the agenda.<br /> The council’s cold shoulder is because building heights are a “hot-button” issue in South Palm Beach, said Vice Mayor Joe Flagello. Officials remember the angry outcry from residents six years ago when the property’s previous owner, Pjeter Paloka, wanted to build a 14-story condo. Voters responded by overwhelmingly putting strict height limits in the town charter.<br /> “This is through no fault of your own. It’s with the previous history. We get that. We know you’re not the previous group,” said Flagello, who told Cohen he should understand why the town is “gun shy” about height. “But you do know the history and what has occurred in this town. And it is a very hot-button issue. There are people who are very passionate on both sides of the fence.”<br /> Flagello told Cohen that he should take the other route that remains available — bypass the council and go directly to the town’s voters and get the petitions needed to put a charter change amendment on the November ballot. To do that, Paragon would need to collect signatures from 15 percent of the town’s registered electorate, roughly between 150 and 200 voters.<br /> Cohen said afterward he was undecided about what his next step would be. “It’s something we will discuss internally,” he said. He called the prospect for getting petitions “certainly feasible.”<br /> Paragon has admitted that the original architect for the project miscalculated the height for the six stories with 30 condominiums that would sit above the parking garage, failing to include the 5 feet needed for five floor plates. Cohen has said the building must have 10-foot ceilings to be competitive in the luxury condo marketplace, requiring a minimum height of 65 feet, not 60.<br /> “We have a problem that makes our project unmarketable in 2016,” Kirschner said.<br /> Cohen has partnered with DDG, a New York-based real estate investment group, to help sell the project. Prices start at about $2.3 million for a 2,900-square-foot unit with two bedrooms and three baths. The dispute between council members and Paragon also has caused friction with Town Attorney Brad Biggs.<br /> Councilwoman Stella Gaddy Jordan proposed seeking outside applicants to take over the town’s legal work, saying the council needed more advice and information than Biggs was providing. Councilman Woodrow Gorbach seconded her motion. He said Biggs “can be hard to get a hold of.”<br /> Flagello was solidly on Biggs’ side: “He has my full confidence.” After first abstaining, Councilman Robert Gottlieb voted with Flagello.<br /> Mayor Bonnie Fischer, after a couple minutes’ hesitation, rejected Jordan’s motion, which failed 3-2. Fischer said the council was likely to take up the Biggs matter again at the June 28 meeting, however.</p></div>South Palm Beach: Council keeps tax rate steadyhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/council-keeps-tax-rate-steady2012-10-03T15:00:00.000Z2012-10-03T15:00:00.000ZDeborah Hartz-Seeleyhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/DeborahHartzSeeley<div><p>The South Palm Beach Town Council approved a $1.75 million budget during September public hearings that will hold the tax rate at $4.32 for each $1,000 of taxable property value, the same as this year’s rate. </p>
<p>The town will dip into reserves for $117,000 to keep from having to increase the tax rate.</p>
<p>Property values dropped an average of 1.7 percent townwide, meaning many condominium owners will see a decrease in town-imposed taxes. </p>
<p>The town will spend $58,000 for Town Hall improvements, including landscaping, new audience chairs and an improved audio-visual system. Employees will receive no cost-of-living pay increases for the fourth consecutive year. </p>
<p><i>— Tim O’Meilia</i></p>
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