City Commission Meeting 9/2:
This short meeting contained nothing notable, aside from 4 women who spoke out against a rumor that some unnamed person supposedly has proposed renaming Southern Blvd. "Donald Trump Blvd." The mayor and commissioners had no comment on that matter. Slight kerfuffle: the commissioners are supposed to vote on a new annual budget for the police department in October. City protocol demands that they are not allowed to meet with the police chief to discuss it. Instead, the mayor has directed them to submit their questions to the city administrator. Commissioners Ward and Fox complained about that restriction.
CRA meeting 9/2:
There was a presentation about the 2026 CRA budget that contained assorted pie charts showing
what regions of the city get which funds. The overwhelming majority of "2026 targeted initiatives" (85% of the $5.1 m total) go toward 3 areas (Pleasant City, Northwood Village, and the Currie Corridor). The DDA receives $8.2m from the CRA, yet pays back $3.8m to the CRA within the same year. DDA director Teneka James-Freeman explained that the 2 mills of proposed property tax revenue allotted for the DDA in 2026 is deceptive: they're only going to levy .95 mills. The only reason why it's listed as 2 mills on the property tax proposal (we homeowners all received in the mail a month ago) is that is the maximum the DDA is allowed to levy, by law. It's all a bit opaque and confusing, and it's a shame that the .95 mills is not seen or explained on the 2026 property tax proposal.
There was also a presentation by WPB.go, which is partially funded by the CRA. The whole goal of WPB.go is to reduce the number of cars commuting for work downtown. Commissioner Ward mentioned offhand that she supports the idea of a 1% sales tax to help fund WPB.go and Tri-Rail
City Commission Meeting 9/15:
City Arts Director Sybille Canthal gave an interesting presentation on assorted public art pieces by Carolyn Salas and GT2P to be installed in the NORA district. Total cost: $960k. Commissioners approved this unanimously.
Commissioners also unanimously approved the sale and rezoning of city property at 2410 N. Australian to make way for an 8-story, 155-unit apartment building that will be built by The Breakers to house their employees. 79 of the units will be designated "workforce housing" and the Breakers will provide a regular shuttle-bus between the new building and The Breakers to reduce car traffic.
DDA Board meeting 9/16:
The board saw a presentation by Radius, consultants who want $55k to provide a marketing survey to help downtown businesses.
Also, Kimley / Horn did a study of downtown areas that need improvement in street light coverage, especially along Clematis, Dixie, Evernia, and "the Great Lawn." Their estimated cost for implementing their recommendations: $758k.
9/29
The first portion of the 9/29 interminable city commission meeting (4hours, 20 minutes) described a cornucopia of downtown street projects in an attempt to improve traffic flow. These projects are partially funded by mobility fees collected from downtown developers. Approved projects include:
---Fern Street extension west across the Tri-Rail tracks to Australian Avenue
---new "smart" signals installed along S. Dixie Hwy. downtown to (ideally) improve traffic flow
---Sapodilla between Fern north to 10th Street will be calmer, curbless, and cuter
---6 different "corridor studies" downtown to improve traffic flow & bike lanes
Commissioners also heard a presentation by developer Great Gulf who wants to build a 31-story condo tower at 5400 N. Flagler Drive. Commissioner Lambert asked if they will also want boat docks at some future date, and Great Gulf agreed that 4-8 docks will be desired if they get the condo tower approved. Like other condo tower projects in that neighborhood, Great Gulf wants the city to grant a rezoning to allow them to build on 3 acres, where city code generally wants at least 4 acres for a building of comparable size. Lambert and Fox expressed some concern about the street-side aesthetics: a preponderance of concrete and perhaps not enough greenery. But the rezoning passed unanimously.
The final issue of the night entailed considerable wrangling, since it was a revisit of an issue already unanimously approved by commissioners 4/16/25: Palm Beach Atlantic University's desire for a 25-story dormitory and an 11-story adjacent parking garage. Immediately after the approval on 4/16, Mayor James expressed dissatisfaction with the excessive size and frumpy aesthetics of the proposed parking garage, calling it "a monstrosity" that would be a blight on a major entrance to downtown. So, PBAU presented a revised parking garage design 9/29 which reduced the height to 8.5 stories (the .5 referring to rooftop parking) and included more windows and decorative metal grills in the shapes of "icthys fish", otherwise known as "Jesus fish," a traditional symbol of christianity. Commissioners all seemed to accept the enhanced aesthetics, but Commissioners Warren and Peduzzi objected to PBAU's loss (in the revised design) of 175 parking spaces---especially since they'd all been formally approved 4/16. This led to many minutes of respectful swordplay between the mayor, who wanted the revised design approved, and Peduzzi who thought that PBAU was getting a raw deal under duress. The first resolution failed 2-3, followed by 2 more votes on improvised revisions of the revised parking garage, which both passed---Peduzzi in dissent. I'm still not sure exactly what portion of the revised design was passed....
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