In the words of City Manager Terrence Moore, Delray Beach is planning a “full-scale renovation” of City Hall.
The building dates to 1961. Despite a makeover in 1997, it looks faded and cramped on its best days. Officials have talked about a new facility for several years. Commissioner Ryan Boylston told me Friday that timing helps to explain the city’s preferred option.
Delray Beach also needs a new police station. The city will finance that project with revenue from the public safety bond that voters approved in March.
Rather than rebuild on the current site at 300 West Atlantic Avenue, the new station would go on land just to the west—three blocks that the community redevelopment agency owns. The CRA once envisioned a mixed-use project with a grocery store on that site, next to the Fairfield Inn.
In 2020, however, the CRA terminated the contract with the developer it had chosen the year before. BH3 and the CRA are in court, but the only dispute is whether the agency would owe the company money. So the site is available.
After the new police station opened, Boylston said, City Hall employees would work out of the old station during the rebuild of the municipal complex. If that happened, the city would have to determine where to hold meetings of the commission and city advisory boards.
And, of course, the city would have to pay for the new City Hall. Boylston said the project could cost less than expected because of the employees who wouldn’t work there.
The human resources department, Boylston noted, soon will move into offices in the historic train depot near Atlantic Avenue and Interstate 95. People who regularly visit the building department seeking permits and on other business, he said, would prefer that the office not be in City Hall and thus offer easier access.
After the new City Hall opened, the old police station would be torn down, and commissioners would decide what to do on that site. Boylston said the focus would be on housing and space for community events. The commission especially would seek input from the northwest and southwest neighborhoods.
Delray Beach, he added, has no venue that seats between 250 and 300 people. Demand for such a banquet hall is high. The city has held its Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast in Boynton Beach for the last three years. Some of the proposals for Delray Beach’s golf course included such a venue, but the commission has killed the idea of a public-private partnership.
The first step would be to hire consultants for a study of how much space the new City Hall would need. Commissioners will discuss the plan next month.
Boca discusses new office for building department
Boca Raton officials also have talked for years about a new City Hall as part of a transformed downtown municipal complex. At this point, though, it remains just an idea. A previous city council rejected a consultant’s first study, finding the proposal too expensive.
But Councilman Marc Wigder reminded his colleagues of that idea this month when he objected to a resolution approving the hiring of an architect to design what would be a new downtown office for the city’s building department.
Wigder said it was “not a thought-out plan” to spend $25 million on something that might not fit with a reimagined downtown campus. He wondered whether those employees could work at the municipal complex north of 20th Street and near North Dixie Highway. He didn’t like “ramming it through” on the consent agenda—a collection of items that the council usually approves with one vote and little comment.
City Manager Leif Ahnell replied, a bit testily, that the staff had “exhausted all options.” They had looked for city property elsewhere. They had looked at buying or leasing property. Ahnell noted that a previous council, which didn’t include Wigder, had rejected privatizing trash collection. That decision, Ahnell said, meant that the city needs room at the municipal complex for garbage trucks and a maintenance facility.
Mayor Scott Singer noted Wigder’s point about a new downtown. He went along because the project still would be only in the design phase. Expect more discussion.
Boca council looks to expand staff
Would most Boca Raton residents believe that adding staff members for the mayor and council is a priority?
Not likely.
Nevertheless, at their June 12 workshop meeting, council members said the need is urgent.
This has been coming. At previous meetings, council members had complained that their meeting schedule was overwhelming them. They feel uninformed on issues. They spoke as if they were full-time legislators, not a part-time board overseeing Ahnell and his team.
Singer, Wigder said, “needs a chief of staff.” Yvette Drucker said she would like to have one person dedicated to each council member. The council now shares administrative assistants with Ahnell and other top officials.
But council members also want people to advise them on “policy.” Adding those staffers, Wigder said, would enable the council to be “super-visionary.”
Ahnell tried to keep track of how many people these requests amounted to. For now, it’s between three and five. Council members made clear that they would factor these new hires in the upcoming budget, which begins Oct. 1, if not before.
I’ll have more as the budget comes together.
PBC School Board to appeal transfer of funds to charter schools
It’s probably a losing fight, but the Palm Beach County School Board will appeal a decision forcing the transfer of even more money to charter schools.
In 2018, voters approved a property tax increase that provided money to hire specialty teachers and school security officers and give raises for teachers. The referendum stated that the money would go to “non-charter district schools.”
Nevertheless, two charter schools sued. In 2021, the district lost. Charters thus have received about $60 million from the second two years of the four-year plan. That case, though, did not address the first two years.
The charters want that money, too. They won at trial, when the judge ruled that sovereign immunity protected the district from retroactive payments after the legal issue had been resolved. A panel of three judges ruled 2-1 last March that sovereign immunity was not a valid defense.
Since the Florida Supreme Court declined to hear the 2021 case, the district’s attempt to have the high court hear this one almost certainly will fail. Like the state’s leading politicians, most appellate jurists in Florida are hostile to public education.
Still, roughly $40 million is at stake. From here, though, the issue is resolved. Last November, voters extended the tax another four years. The Legislature already had ordered that charters get money from all school referendums.
Boca’s pickleball woes
In recent years, Boca Raton residents have asked the city to build more pickleball courts. They tout benefits ranging from exercise to social interaction.
As the sport has proliferated, though, so have complaints. That conflict arose at a recent council meeting.
Residents of Parkside, a gated neighborhood in southwest Boca Raton, said their community’s courts had created an “untenable situation.” Unlike the Broken Sound community, one man said, where courts are 600 feet from houses, Parkside pickleballers are very near homeowners who hear the pock-pock of paddle on ball constantly.
There have been “altercations,” one man said. The crowds have been “increasingly noisy.” Some residents were contemplating a cease-and-desist order.
Noise complaints are increasing everywhere, even from courts on public land. Pickleball advocates are seeking solutions such as more landscaping to buffer the noise. Fences can be wrapped with soundproofing material.
The most likely form of city intervention would be code enforcement after noise complaints. Boca Raton, like other cities, surely will face the effects of the pickleball boom.
