Renaming City Hall, Potential Tax Hike, and More

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July 21, 2020

Many disparate subjects were covered in the July 16 City Council Meeting. A quick summary can be found in the Palm Beach Post’s “Gardens council caps property tax rate at last year’s level… what it means for your taxes”    All Resolutions and Ordinances were passed 5:0.

Please note that at the end of the meeting, Mayor Woods suggested and the Council voted to start future monthly City Council Meetings (and special meetings such as the bi-monthly budget workshops in September) at 6 PM.

Additional items not covered in the Palm Beach Post article and comments:

• Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link updated the Council on the upcoming elections. Over 300K vote by mail (VBM) ballots have been sent out so far. Every ballot is counted. VBM ballots received by Monday night as well as early voting results are posted at 7 right after the polls close on Tuesday. Those that arrive on Tuesday are counted with the rest of the election day results. VBM is postage prepaid; can be dropped off at the 4 SOE offices and also at any of the 18 early voting sites. Early voting is at 18 sites, from 10am-7pm on 8/3 – 8/16; wait times will be posted for early voting. Real time voter turn out is posted and updated every 15 minutes throughout the day – down to the precinct level. On Election day polls are open 7am-7 pm and one votes in one’s own precinct. Safety precautions will include: Temperatures will be taken of pollworkers and filling out health survey; masks, facial shields, gloves, hand sanitizer will be used. Voters will have to wear masks unless for a health reasons.  SOE will provide if don’t have masks. Voters will also be given single use pens and gloves for holding the stylus to sign in. There will be transparent shields between the inspectors and the voters and social distancing will be marked off. Ms Link also described the ‘Adopt a Precinct‘ program – where an organization can use their volunteers to staff a precinct, and use the money that would normally go to the poll-workers as a donation to their organization.
• City Manager Report:
  • City Manager Ferris gave an update on Covid-19 status as of Thursday July 16 – PBGMC had 35 covid cases, 53 beds available, 6 icu beds available and total of 4 deaths; Jupiter Medical Center had 30 cases; 68 beds available and 10 icu beds available with 23 deaths total;  of the 1449 residents in ALF/Nursing Homes there are 26 covid patients among 9 homes.
  • Charlotte Presensky.. Leisure Services Coordinator played a video entitled ‘we are parks and recreation’ celebrating what her team and the City does for the community in honor of Parks and Recreation Month.
  • Mayor Woods and Vice-Mayor Marino honored Candice Temple, Public Media Relations Manager and Madelyn Marconi for their work in creating the State of the City video presentation – which can be seen here.
• Proposed Millage for 2020/2021 and setting the date for the September Budget hearings: PBGWatch will do a more in-depth article prior to the September hearings.   But it needs to be noted that by holding the maximum Operational Millage flat at 5.55 for the last few years, the Council has been RAISING YOUR TAXES. Despite the political ‘device’ Vice-Mayor (and aspiring County Commissioner) Marino uses every time the budget is discussed by exclaiming that ‘we are lowering the millage and your taxes only go up because the value of your house went up’, taxes go up because the Council votes to raise them.  Taxes are the amount collected.  The City Council CAN VOTE TO LOWER THE TAX RATE – apparently a novel concept to all the recent Council Members other than Council Member Marciano, who has contemplated lowering millage in past years.
• Mayor Woods introduced Resolution 49, 2020 to name the City Hall, the Ronald M. Ferris Municipal Complex. He had Steve Mathison, Tom Kearnes (PGA Corridor), Noel Martinez (Palm Beach North CEO and President) and Tony Bedalla ( President – PBGYAA) lined up to offer their support. There was no advance notice nor opportunity for other Public Comment. See Iris Scheibl’s opinion piece – A Disturbing Trend.
• PBG Mobility Plan – While the two ordinances regarding changes made to existing documents to accommodate the City’s Mobility Plan were administrative in nature, Palm Beach County, represented by Khurshid Mohyuddin, Principal Planner, Transportation Planning Dept, made Public Comment objecting to the City’s Mobility Plan.

The next City Council Meeting will be on August 6th at 6 PM.