HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes Council 081671REGULAR MEETING
August 16, 1971
CITY OF PALM BEACH GARDENS
The Regular Meeting of the City Council of the City of Palm Beach
Gardens was called to order by Mayor DeLonga at 8:00 P.M. August 16,
1971. The meeting was held at 10500 N. Military Trail in the Assembly
Room, and opened with the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
ROLL. CALL: Roll was called by the City Clerk and present were: Councilman Orr,
Councilman Kiedis, Vice Mayor Wiley and Mayor DeLonga. Councilman
James was absent due to business and City Manager, Robert Carlson was
on vacation. Attorney Brant was present.
MINUTES: The reading of the minutes of the Regular Meeting of August 2, 1971
was waived and approval unanimously on a motion by Councilman Orr,
seconded by Councilman Kiedis.
PETITIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS:
1. Mayor DeLonga read a communication from John D. MacArthur
authorizing the Palm Beach Gardens Youth Athletic Association to use
the building at Lake Catherine for their meetings and storing of
equipment.
2. Announcement was made of the open house for the Twin City Mall
First American Bank, Wednesday, August 18, 1971 and for open house at
the Klock Company on September 16, 1971 all day.
3. Chairman of the Palm Beach Gardens Bowmen Association spoke before
the Council requesting the sponsorship and the cooperation of the City
for a statewide competion to be held in April of 1972. The State
Chairman of the Florida Archers Assocation spoke and stated the City
has a good chance of getting this tournament and the preference for
the location was at the entrance to the City at Garden Boulevard.
They will contact Mr. John D. MacArthur. The tournament would
probably bring in somewhere around 1000 people. Council was in accord
that they work through woody Dukes, Recreation Director. Council
voted unanimously to support and back the tournament, on a motion by
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Minutes of Regular Meeting August 16, 1971 Page 2
Councilman Kiedis, seconded by Councilman Orr.
Mayor DeLonga acknowledged receipt of the following letters:
1. From Robert Culpepper, County Commissioner on receipt of Resolution
#26 to retain the 1970 Tax Roll.
2. From Jerry Thomas on receipt of Resolution #25 opposing school
busing.
ORDINANCES - SECOND READING:
ORDINANCE #7 Motion made and seconded to read,by title only, Ordinance #7 - amending
SWIMMING POOLS:
Chapter 27 - Swimming Pools. Read by the City Clerk and adopted
unanimously on a motion by Councilman Kiedis and seconded by Vice Mayor
Wiley.
ORDINANCE #12 Motion made and seconded to read, by title only, Ordinance #12,
COUNCIL
MEETINGS: establishing a meeting schedule for the Council, read by the City Clerk
and motion to adopt by Vice Mayor Wiley and seconded by Councilman
L
Kiedis. Vote 4 ayes and O nays.
RESOLUTION #29 Council discussed changing the meeting day from Monday night to Thursday,
ESTASLIHSING
DAYS FOR and unanimously voted to set the days at the first and third Thursday
MEETINGS:
for Regular Meetings and second and fourth for Workshop Meetings, and
make the effective day of the Resolution to be September 2, 1971.
Resolution #29 was read by the City Clerk and adopted unanimously by
the Council on a motion by Councilman Kiedis, seconded by Councilman Orr.
The next Regular Meeting will be scheduled for September 2, 1971.
ITEMS PRESENTED BY CITY MANAGER AND CITY CLERK:
Councilman Kiedis expressed his dissatisfaction at the playing surface
of the City's football field. After considerable discussion with Mr.
Devine, Public Works Director, Council authorized him to proceed with
sodding the football field. Use of the High School football field will
be requested until the grass gets a good start. Mickey Neal and Mr.
Martino will be contacted. Motion by Councilman Kiedis authorizing the
expenditure of funds from contingency for replacement of sod up to
Minutes of Regular Meeting August 16, 1971 Page 3
$450.00 contingent upon the Youth Athletic Association accepting the
use of the High School field for temporary use. Seconded by Councilman
Orr and unanimously approved.
Vice Mayor Wiley stated he felt there was a lack of communications as the
Council had not been informed of the change of the Court fees. Chief
Pecht stated this was a policy of the Judge or the Supreme Court and
will present the Council with information regarding fees.
Vice Mayor Wiley questioned why the trees which Joe Crocker had donated
to the City had not been picked up and transplanted. Mr. Devine stated
he had not found time to get to them as yet.
Mr. Devine will find out from other Cities what there schedule is on
large trash pick ups in order to eliminate employees working long hours
on individual pick ups.
Vice Mayor Wiley: "I read in the newspaper that the Teenagers had a
meeting last Monday night and met downstairs and that they will have a
meeting tomorrow night and had a car wash last Saturday. Mrs. James was
there. Unfortunately Woody is not here to defend himself but I take
particular offense to finding out things in the newspaper that happened
in the City particularly something that the Council is interested in
such as these two rooms downstairs. It bothers me that somebody didn't
bother to tell us during the Council meetings that happened at the same
time and we were here longer than they were. It seems like wetre being
asked to support various things and yet we are expected to find out what
is going on by osmosis or something. It seems to me there is a
tremendous communication breakdown here and here again another knock for
Woody but I think his title is Director of Parks and Recreation, and I
think you Leonard, take an undue criticism here on maintenance of parks
in the City. You have the equipment you have the know how perhaps to
get in there, but my question here was, we just discussed sod for the
baseball program and during the course of the conversation indicated
Minutes of Regular Meeting August 16, 1971
Page 4
that over a month ago, where were we a month ago in the planning for
this ball field. Why wasn't our Director of Parks or somebody else who
is cognizant of the sports program, not you certainly. You don't have to
worry about the scheduling, you should be taking care of other things and
the Parks Director should come over and say, Leonard, and he should have
told you two months ago, this fields got a problem; it doesn't take that
much to see it and not that much foresight to plan these things but
somebody ought to be doing this and I think that is the function our
Parks and Recreation Department has to coordinate more closely. They had
the same problem last year and we get this problem it seems like, year
after year and unfortunately Woody is not here to defend himself but I
really don't think there is any defense. It seems like there is break-
down of communications in recommendations to the Council and recommend-
ations to other departments in the City. To me it's almost inexcusable.
We're having to reartange the Youth Athletic Association schedules and if
we had been on the ball three weeks ago to get the grass in there�we
would have made the same decision 3 weeks ago and this grass could have
been in."
Mr. Devine stated he felt there should be a cut off date so that the
department could get in and work on the fields in between activities.
Mayor DeLonga will confer with the Recreation Director regarding this.
Councilman Orr reported that the Beautification and Environmental
Committee had met and will meet again September 8, 1971 for election of
Chairman and start on their master plan.
Director of Public Works was requested to contact the County regarding
the repair of the macadam sidewalk on Northlake Boulevard as school
children would be using this soon.
Mayor DeLonga made these statements in regards to the 1970 -71 Budget
'-� Review:
it I made a very interesting observation in my review, that from last year
to this year the budget has increased approximately $102,000 or $103,000
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Minutes of Regular Meeting August 16, 1971
Page 5
and I'd like to comment that when I went through the budget last night
and I tried to determine where this increase of $103,000 came from I found
that $100,713 could be attributed to cost of living increases and merit
raises or increases in personnel so that was rather an amazing discovery.
There was only about a $3,000 increase in the rest of the budget, $100,000
related to personnel expenditures and that was quite surprising. I might
add that in this $100^0 that there was monies for about 5 new personnel
and 2 in public works department and 3 in police department, of course this
would account for a considerable portion of the $100,000. I was quite
surprised to see that this was where the major increase did occur. Mr.
Carlson had indicated that he had $50,000 in the Capital Outlay to which
he will come back to the Council and discuss the various projects that we.
may want to undertake. Of our overall proposed Budget of $940,000, .
$523,000 of it related again to the personnel expenditure which is about
56% of our Budget and I'd like to know and I'm going to ask our City
Manager how this stacks up with the Bodgets of our surrounding Cities. I
talked with Mr. Franch of the Florida State Employment Bureau relative to
the recommended 6% cost of living increase. I asked what the cost of
living throughout the United States is and how much it has risen in the
past year and in the average City, the average increase is 4V6. Now when
you look at the Southeastern region of the Country which would include
Atlanta, which would be the major City according to their statistics,
include Georgia, South Carolina, Florida etc. the increase was approximately
5% cost of living and I think that in the adoption of our new budget when
we have opportunity to talk to Mr. Carlson, that we will probably want to
shoot for about 5%. Now I know the President made his speech last night
freezing all wages and prices and I am sure the City Personnel are very
much interested as to how this is going to affect them. To the best of my
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knowledge all wages including Municipal wages, I'm going to ask Mr. Brant
for an interpretation, would be affected. Our fiscal year starts
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Minutes of Regular Meeting August 16, 1971 Page 6
November 1 and this 90 day period would expire on November 12; if I
remember correctly and there is no reason why the Council cannot budget
.✓ and I am certainly going to recommend that we budget monies for the cost
of living and also for merit raises. However they would have to be held in
abeyance until after this 90 day expiration period, so fortunately, at least
what we know now the City employees would only be affected for this 12 days
in November before whatever the Council happens to adopt would take place."
Attorney Brant: "Unle4s further freeze is ordered after November 12 the
Council could consider appropriating these funds in the budget. My under-
standing is that it would not be retroactive, but at this time it is quite
loose."
Mayor DeLonga: "I want our City employees assured that the Council does
intend to budget for the cost of living increases and also Merit. How much
we budget is going to be a matter of discussion and as I indicated I am
going to recommend that we shoot for a cost of living of about 5% rather
~"l than the 6% recommended by the City Manager. The other comment that I would
like to make pertains to Mr. Carlson's recommendation of an 8% Utility Tax;
and the Council, as a body, we haven't met to discuss this thing but from
a rather brief calculation I'd like to indicate that I am not in favor at
this time of adopting an 8% Utility Tax because if you take into consider-
ation, the average homeowner is going to be actually paying more in taxes
than he would if he kept the 6.25 millage right now. In somecases he would
be paying quite a bit more and it would benefit without a doubt the
property owners before it would benefit the residents."
Vice Mayor Wiley: "There is one comment that I have reflected to me by the
citizens and that is particularly in the Police Department and Public
Works Department, which may be where a lot of the rationization is going to
have to take place but if you compare the City of Palm Beach Gardens with a
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little over 6000 population by the last census with the Town of Lake Park
with a little over 7000 in population, their budget is $766,000 proposed
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Minutes of Regular Meeting Auguist 16, 1971 Page 7
this year compared to our $940,000. This seems to be proportionately
inversed to each other that we are having to provide more services and
consequently more budget for less people than they are. I haven't made any
study to find out the land area and such or perhaps because they are more
developed than we are, but there seems to be an inconsistency. We do have
approximately twice the property valuation and think they are at $53,000.
and we are at $101,000. There seems to be just on a per person basis of the
dollar of the City budget an inequity here. Maybe they are more efficient
than we are or we provide services that are unique and different that they
don't have, but this is going to be one of the things that I want to get
out of the budget as to just what this difference is and perhaps we can do
better at less price."
Mayor DeLonga: "I would like to think that we provide more services that we
have a better City."
Vice Mayor Wiley: "Obviously we do but there is still some rationality to
be explored here. Seriously now if there is this kind of discrepancy in
our census I think we should do something about it because we are affected
quite heavily in the distribution of Cigarette Taxes and Gasoline Taxes
which are proportioned on a population basis. If our population is in
the order of 25% off I think we should do something about 'Iit particularly
growing as fast as we have been,to make this the fastest growing community
brought to the attention of the people who are distributing the revenues
and this will further help us relieve the taxpaper in advalorem taxes.
ADJOURNMENT: Motion made and seconded and meeting adjourned at 9:47 P.M.
ME
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Minutes of Regular Meeting August 16, 1971 Page 8
`- M yor DeLonga�-
Vice Mayor Wiley
Thelma Compton, Citlf Clerk
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Councilman Tames 1
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Co c'ilman Orr
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Co ilman Xi.edis