Old School Square plan
To understand why the Delray Beach City Commission celebrated its approval Tuesday night of the special events policy, you needed to hear the discussion earlier in the evening.
At a special meeting with the Community Redevelopment Agency, the topic was Old School Square. About 15 months ago, the commission and the CRA were at odds over a redesign of the Old School Square grounds. A CRA consultant had recommended a $1.2 million plan that the commission considered too expensive and too intense. Because the city leases the land to Old School Square, the commission must approve any redesign.
So the CRA stepped back. Meanwhile, Old School Square’s new director, Rob Steele, settled in. Tuesday night, he presented a plan that pleased the commission because it differed so much from the previous version.
The goal, Steele said, is to “make (Old School Square) look and function like a park.” Out with “beer trucks and Tilt-A-Whirl.” In with a permanent home by the parking garage for the popular Green Market. “We have been using (Old School Square) too hard.”
To the commission, that meant allowing too many special events that turn Old School Square into what Mayor Carey Glickstein and Commissioner Jordana Jarjura called “a fairgrounds.” Almost two years ago, after they and their colleagues had heard countless complaints from residents about closed downtown streets, commissioners asked city staff to craft a policy that would bring order to a system under which the city not only allowed just about any event but also subsidized them.
In an email, Glickstein said he believes that the cost ran to about $300,000 per year for perhaps two decades. Though festivals required city services, festival organizers didn’t repay the city nearly the cost of those services. Since “no one in City Hall knew how much it cost the city to host these events, it should be no surprise why we hosted close to 80 a year.” The new policy includes a new cost structure that the city will phase in over three years. Glickstein said administrators used forensic accounting to help calculate the new prices for police, fire-rescue and other services.
Like any big change, this one upset special interests— notably festival organizers. Comments at meetings and postings on social media wrongly slammed commissioners for wanting to run iconic festivals out of town and of being insensitive to non-profit organizations that sometimes benefit from the festivals. Glickstein said, “We’ve been lambasted as Darth Vader.”
At an earlier discussion, Commissioner Al Jacquet lashed back at what he considered “lies.” Tuesday night, Glickstein did the venting.
“How can 80 events be ‘special?’” Glickstein asked rhetorically. Why did he get calls from “business people asking why we closed down A1A for falafel and funnel cakes?” Delray Beach, Glickstein said, “can’t be all things to all people anymore.” He has received no calls or emails from “any business owner objecting to this policy.”
Glickstein especially fumed at Nancy Stewart-Franczak, whose Festival Management Group puts on Delray Affair and the Bacon & Bourbon Fest. She had strongly resisted the new policy, and moved Garlic Fest to John Prince Park when the city—under the new policy— denied her the February date she wanted.
To Stewart-Franczak, Glickstein said, “I am personally offended” by her claim to “understand Delray better than we do.” He accused Stewart-Franczak of casting resistance to the policy in “patriotic terms,” yet not telling taxpayers about the subsidies. “Your sense of entitlement,” Glickstein said, “has been palpable.”
Glickstein’s colleagues may or not share his sentiment, but they share the goal. To event organizers, Glickstein said, Delray Beach is “a cool town. You’ve been getting a free ride. Now you’re going to get a bill.”
Steele takes charge
Ironically, Glickstein said, without “the very public and continuous thrashing” of Old School Square last year, the special events policy that is designed to protect Old School Square might not have happened. Residents, however, were “red-lining about events during the season,” as they had the year before.
Another key factor, however, has been Steele’s emergence in the director’s role. Jarjura cited the “change in leadership and the direction Mr. Steele wants to take” for “one of our landmark historic properties.”
Like the commission, Steele wants to make Old School Square more inviting. All but the core, Glickstein said, would be “a passive park. That doesn’t mean reduced commercial activity. That means no commercial activity.” Commissioner Shelly Petrolia called it “open and flowing. No barricades.”
Phase 1 is underway. That includes repairs to the outside of buildings and to mechanical systems. It also includes a $500,000, privately financed renovation of the Cornell Museum and creation of a Producers Lounge to help more private donors. Commissioners and Steele believe that the new emphasis will help Old School Square to raise money.
Phase 2, which has a budget of $1.2 million, includes, among other things, LED lighting to advertise events—out also with flapping banners—and a roof for the Pavilion so it can host more events and bring in more money, artificial turf for the Pavilion and $100,000 for a study to determine how to finish off the makeover in Phase 3. That last portion would include the park.
If there was what Glickstein calls “disconnect” on Old School Square not long ago, there now is none. Nearly three decades after it led the rebirth of Delray Beach, Old School Square is set to emerge as an even better asset for that reborn city.
Housekeeping note
Note to Delray Beach commissioners: Whatever the good intentions of having a joint meeting with the CRA board in the commission chambers—the last one took place in a cramped conference room with bad air conditioning—the optics look bad when the board members must sit in the front row, well below the commission dais. They looked like spectators, not participants.
Jacquet MIA
Commissioner Al Jacquet didn’t fume at critics of the special events policy because he wasn’t there. Jacquet missed Tuesday’s regular commission meeting and the meeting on Old School Square.
The absence continues Jacquet’s pattern of missing important meetings. Jacquet is campaigning for Florida House District 88, pledging to be there for the people.
And hats off
Discussion of the special events policy must include shout-outs for the Delray Beach administrators who persevered during the long slog. Most notably, that means Assistant City Manager Francine Ramaglia and City Manager Don Cooper.
Boca Chamber supports tax hike
The Boca Raton City Council may have taken no position on Palm Beach County’s proposed one-cent sales tax increase, but the Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce will join the campaign supporting the plan.
Having decided to back the 10-year program that would raise $1.35 billion for the school district, $810 million for the county and $540 million for cities, the Economic Council of Palm Beach County asked local chambers to help out. Troy McLellan, the Boca chamber’s director, told me that the board supported the plan despite concern among some city council members that the increase could put Boca retailers at a disadvantage if customers crossed into Broward County to save money.
The board considered that issue, McLellan said. As he put it, however, “We have some needs here.” Unlike Delray Beach, Boca Raton has no backlog of infrastructure projects that the new revenue would finance, but the plan would bring between $5 million and $6 million a year that the city could use as it wishes. “Maybe for economic development,” McLellan suggested. The annual total would depend on how much sales increased each year.
In addition, schools in Boca Raton would benefit. Example: Addison Mizner Elementary, which draws parents to its southwest neighborhood, would get $20 million worth of improvements. Boca officials consider the city’s schools, public and private, job recruiting tools.
As for the Broward angle, that might not matter. Two half-cent sales tax proposals are on that county’s ballot. Both must pass for the increases to take effect. If Palm Beach voters approve the plan, the increase would be capped at $5,000 on one item.
Karen Granger, director of the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce, told me on Tuesday that her board hasn’t discussed the sales tax but plans on doing so. Delray Beach is projected to receive between $3.7 million and $4.4 million a year. The city commission endorsed the plan, and city administrators have a project list.
In both cities, elected officials have griped that population—not point of sales—would determine the cities’ share. The distribution formula for such a proposal, though, is in state law.
Traffic notes
I wrote Tuesday about negotiations between Boca Raton and Delray Beach and All Aboard Florida on safety improvements at grade crossings. Traffic hassles from that work are over in Delray, according to All Aboard Florida, but they continue in Boca.
Though Palmetto Park Road has been closed at the Florida East Coast Railway tracks since Monday, the crossing is scheduled to reopen at 6 p.m. today. The Spanish River Boulevard crossing was closed Wednesday morning and should reopen at 6 p.m. Friday.
The intersection at Southwest 18th Street will be closed from 7 a.m. Friday until 6 p.m. Tuesday. On Saturday at 7 a.m., the Glades Road crossing will close. It is due to reopen next Thursday at 6 p.m. After that, the only other scheduled closing in Boca is at Northwest 20th Street for five days in mid-September.
Correction
Craig Ehrnst, who is running for Seat 1 on the Greater Boca Raton Beach & Parks District board, stated during the BocaWatch candidate debate that annual compensation for Art Koski—the district’s interim director, lawyer and construction manager—was $432,000 during the 2013-14 budget year. I reported Ehrnst’s comment. I also reported that board chairman Bob Rollins said Koski’s most recent annual compensation was $330,000.
In a letter to the board, the district’s auditor said the budget footnote—listed as “Related Party Transactions”— with the $432,000 figure that Ehrnst referenced included services over more than one year. In an email to Koski, Ehrnst said he had “incorrectly interpreted” the footnote,” though he also questioned “the accuracy of the footnote.”
Sugar Sand makeover
Separately, Ehrnst questioned the district board’s award of a contract to finish the makeover of the playground at Sugar Sand Park.
Ehrnst and other challengers to the district board incumbents have criticized the length of time to complete the project. The board recently gave the contract for Phases 2 and 3 to Lakeland-based Nujak, which did the first phase. The award included a change order of nearly $1.2 million over the original amount of about $488,000.
In an email to me, Koski responded that the first bid of roughly $1.9 million did not anticipate how rotted the wood was. (Only two companies bid, Koski said, because of “the project’s complexity.”) The district’s consultant recommended a three-phase project, but when it became clear how many timbers in the four-story structure had to be replaced, the first phase took longer, and costs increased.
Wishing to finish before high season, Koski said, the district asked the contractor for a bid to combine the second and third phases and meet the November deadline for completion. Koski said the change would result in a savings of $350,000 from the original bids.
Koski said that original $1.9 million went up by about $150,000 because of those unforeseen costs. Take that total and subtract the cost of the two contracts to reach Koski’s figure of $350,000. Before unforeseen costs.
