HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes Council 032395CITY COUNCIL
WORKSHOP MEETING
CITY OF PALM BEACH GARDENS
MARCH 23, 1995
The Workshop Meeting of the City Council of the City of Palm Beach Gardens,
Florida, was called to order by Mayor Russo at 7:30 P.M. in the Assembly
Room of the Municipal Complex, 10500 North Military Trail, Palm Beach
Gardens, Florida, and opened with the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag,
ROLL CALL The Deputy City Clerk called the roll and present were Mayor Russo, Vice
Mayor Furtado, Councilwoman Monroe, Councilman Clark, and Councilman
Jablin.
ANNOUNCEMENTS Mayor Russo stated that the announcements were as posted on the City's Bulletin
Boards.
PRESENTATIONS
LAKE CATHERINE/
MACARTHUR BOULEVARD
REDESIGN Since litigation was still pending between the City and the Association, the City
Attorney recommended the following:
(1) That there be no public comment;
(2) That the City Council refrain from any public discussion, but to take
notes and address any concerns regarding mitigation plans with staff
subsequently.
CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MEETING, 3/23/95
PAGE 2
City Engineer Mr. Lindahl introduced Lynette Lanning and Cindy Kendrick of
his staff, and George Gentile, Landscape Planning consultant. Mr. Lindahl
reminded the City Council that when they had decided to move forward with
lighting the ballfields that staff had been directed to examine existing conditions
at the Lake Catherine Park and along MacArthur Boulevard and to formulate
components of an overall plan which would buffer the Lake Catherine
community from activities in the park. Staff had identified traffic (parking and
utilization of MacArthur Boulevard Roadway), sight, and sound as the three
areas to be addressed. A three —tier approach was formulated, with the first tier
covering: (1) reconstruction of the park to reduce the expanse of light (2)
consolidation of the park into an activity center for purposes of enhancing
control, and (3) expansion of off — street parking to locate it as far from the
neighborhood as possible. The second tier was reconstruction of MacArthur
Boulevard to provide greater control of traffic and regulation of speed, and to
quiet the traffic; and the third tier was the creation of physical barriers between
the park and the neighborhood. Ms. Lanning and Mr. Lindahl reviewed the
reconstruction of the park, use of geotextile fabric for grass parking, changing
the road to two 12 —foot wide lanes, stacking lanes for the entrances into the park,
the Lake Catherine Community, and the school; deletion of the merge lane off
of Northlake Boulevard; widening the east sidewalk to accommodate bicycles
and pedestrians; a pedestrian bridge across the canal; as well as possible parking
CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MEETING, 3/23/95
PAGE 3
on the west side of MacArthur Boulevard across from the school. Mr. Gentile
discussed proposed additional landscaping on both sides of the roadway to
extend from the entrance to the Lake Catherine Community to the edge of the
community across from the park. Mr. Lindahl suggested that if the Lake
Catherine Community extended the solid wall to the edge of their community
that noise would be greatly reduced. City Manager Herakovich pointed out that
the decreased fields would limit usage to youth programs. Mayor Russo verified
with staff that the proposed plan would meet recreation needs, and complimented
staff on an excellent presentation.
ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION:
ABACOA City Manager Herakovich explained that staff had met several times with Town
of Jupiter officials to work out the City's concerns regarding the Abacoa project.
Attorney Brindell discussed issues that had been addressed, which included a
request for copies of the required air quality study; the impact on short and long-
term improvements by the possible switch of the FAU campus with a spring
training facility; I -95 sound barriers between Northlake Boulevard and Donald
Ross Road; and the determination of land use if either the FAU campus or the
spring training facility did not materialize. Kahart Pinder explained the
unresolved issue of measuring traffic vs. calculating and estimating traffic.
Attorney Brindell commented that the Town of Jupiter was to provide
justification for the amount of non residential so that its impact on the City's non
residential could be determined. The issue of whether the section of AIA
CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MEETING, 3/23/95
PAGE 4
between PGA Boulevard and Burns Road would be widened was discussed,
since DOT, Palm Beach County, and TCRPC standards were inconsistent.
Consensus of the City Council was to work together with the developer on the
I -95 barriers, and to work with the Town of Jupiter regarding traffic calculations
versus traffic measurements.
LUAB CORRIDOR
SUBCOMMITTEE
RECOMMENDATIONS Councilwoman Monroe explained that the Planning Forum Implementation
Committee had not seen the recommendations, and that after they had approved
the content that the Corridor Subcommittee had planned to break up into small
groups to meet with each local municipality for their consideration, and if they
were in agreement each local government would apply their own projected
growth rates.
VISIONING /DISCUSSION City Manager Herakovich explained that this item had been included on the
agenda because staff needed direction whether to come up with a plan or to go
into the community with some type of focus group. Vice Mayor Furtado
suggested continued evaluation based on an inventory of light industrial as one
component. Councilwoman Monroe suggested a brown bag planning fest in
order to involve the residents in the visioning process. Discussion ensued
regarding how to further involve residents. Mayor Russo cautioned against
spending too much time on visioning and suggested discussion at next week's
workshop of the priorities of parks and housing for the Police Department and
CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MEETING, 3/23/95
PAGE 5
City administration. Direction to staff was to continue working on a plan
including light industrial, and to determine what type of meeting would be most
beneficial in order to encourage public involvement.
RETIREMENT PLAN
DESIGN —
ADMINISTRATION Finance Director Olson explained that a retirement plan was needed for
employees who did not participate in the existing plan and that the City needed
to meet its obligation to provide a pension plan for the City Manager, and
reviewed the proposed defined contribution plan, along with recommendations
for options within the plan. The City Manager explained that 18% of salaries
had been contributed during the past year to make the existing General
Employees Pension Fund actuarialy sound, and that under this proposal the
employees already in that plan would remain in that plan until they retired but
no employees would be added, so that the expense would continue until all
employees in that plan had retired. The new plan would be voluntary, would be
vested after one year since it would contain employee contributions, and possible
tax consequences were discussed in the event that an employee decided to leave
the City's employment after one year. Jack Hanson, City staff member, stated he
had been in the existing defined benefit plan for several years and considered it
an employee contract, and that he had made financial decisions based upon that
contract.
CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MEETING, 3/23/95 PAGE 6
ADJOURNMENT There being no further business to discuss, motion was made by Vice Mayor
Furtado, seconded by Councilwoman Monroe, and unanimously approved to
adjourn the meeting at 10:10 P.M.
APPROVAL
"/RJOERUSSO
VICE MAYOR LAUREN FURTADO
COUNCILW N LIN -A MONROE
J,
COUNCJLMAN ERIC J*1
COUNCILWOMAN DAVID CLARK
ATTEST:
CINDY HARVEY, DEPUTY CITY CLERK