Okay, let's call this meeting to order, please. Welcome to this regularly scheduled meeting of the Book of Retone Community Redevelopment Agency. It's Monday, April 21st, 2025. It's 1.30 pm. Please everyone, let's rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I'm quite a wee bit into the flat, the high of the United States of America and to the republic of the religious stands, won my nation, the ground, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Missedans, please call the roll. Chair Wigter. Here. Vice Chair Thompson. Thankful to be here. Commissioner Drucker. Here, Commissioner Naclas. Here, Commissioner Sanger here. All present. Very good. Are there any amendments to the agenda Mr. Brown? No amendments to staff. We're going to tanks. Are there any corrections to the minutes if not entertain a motion to approve? So moved. Second URL. All in favor. I. I. Very good. There are no presentations today. Nor are there any quasi-judicial or related public hearings. So now we'll open the floor for public requests. Any person wishing to discuss any item in the downtown can come up to the microphone and have up to three minutes. Please come up to the microphone and state your name and address related to the downtown Going once Going twice Senior this moral sure It's okay Okay, my name is Judy moral 1305 northeast 5th Avenue Avenue and I'd like to say I've been to Patrief and I saw the beautiful awning for the pickleball courts and it looks very, very nice and I want to know if the city got back the drawings from Tier of Frisbee. If you knock down all 10 tennis courts, are you gonna put up more than four in a drawing, and when it will be on the city website? Also, I'd like to just kind of make a comment about when I go to Patch Reef, tennis center center, or I go to Swim and Racket, they have beautiful advertisement layout flyers for classes, clinics, all kind of nice things. And it would be nice at Boca Raton Tennis Center if we'd have the city do more PR, you know, public relations or something, or advertising. And when I used to work for the City of Fort Lauderdale when I was going to college, I had a very tough boss. And I felt very lucky that I never got fired because every six months she would hire, would fire one of the new employees that she hired to do to work with the senior citizens in the handicap, which is what I worked with also. And what they had to do, these new people out of college, is they had to increase participation. They had to come up with new classes, new things for the senior citizens, and the handicap to do. And if they didn't do it in six months, they were fired. I mean, she went through people like you wouldn't believe. But I managed to stay because she'd give me a paper and say, teach this class, do this. You know, make sure nothing happens are not. But Boca Raton Tennis Center, we need more advertising. We need maybe a sign up there because to get a private tennis lesson, you know, used to be $60 an hour. Then $70 an hour in the city. And $90, I mean mean the price just keeps going up very, very high. And it would be very nice if the city of Boca at the Boca Raton Tennis Center, before you knock it down and hopefully replace it with as many tennis courts as we can with more people That you do some more put up a big sign in front of the building and maybe say You know children under 10 your first lesson is free or something like that But you can't just have people in the city say oh oh, tell your friends to come and play. Miss Marl, thank you. So, okay, thank you. And do you have any good news? Thank you. We'll get to it later. Thank you. It is still open for public requests. Anyone wishing to speak about the downtown? Seeing no one come forward, we will close the time for public requests. Mr. Brown, I don't know if you care to make any further comments where we are with the Recreation Master Planning. We will have an Recreation Master Plan update from staff this afternoon in the workshop and as far as the plans for the government campus go, we are waiting for Terra Frisbee's updated interim plan to come before us, which would be in a few weeks. We'll know more about the specifics of their plans for tennis downtown then. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And just on another note, yes, I do agree with you, yes, inflation and the cost for things has been noticeably increasing substantially. And I do see it also. I share those sentiments and certainly marketing. All the great things that we're doing in the city is something that we're going to do, including tennis as well. So I appreciate the comments. There are no other business to consider in terms of resolutions or other business. So we will turn it to the director's report, Mr. Brown. The first report, Ruby Riley, downtown manager is going to update us on some of the appearance projects that we've been working on downtown. A regular update here. Thank you. Ms. Riley, welcome. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Chair, members of the board for the record. I'm Ruby Riley, Downtown Manager. And today I would like to give you a brief overview of our continuing efforts to update and refresh the downtown. Starting with Meisner Park, we had some paper pads installed around the cafe tables and chairs and umbrellas so that we were in compliance with ADA for a clear path around the area. We've also started fountain restoration starting with the North Fountains and then they will work their way to the South Founts. These are the smaller fountains on the North and the South and the final renovation will be with the center main fountain. Prior to work on that, they would like to wall that area off for safety as it is a rather larger area and kind of contain some of the dust and debris. and we hope to have all completion of the fountains done by the inded june. So we will be taken a break for the centennial and then we will go back to the main fountain. Also we've had water meters installed for a line to connect the drinking fountains in the center of the POA and we're awaiting another meter to be installed in the south end in the upcoming weeks and once we get that in then we will go forward with the installation of the water drinking fountains with the doggy bowls on them. Also in Meister the cultural arts center is currently being repainted and we hope to have that completed by the end of May. And the continuing maintenance and upgrade items, the recycling bins have been placed throughout the park. Repainting of the benches and trash bins to black has been completed. They are still working on the light fixtures, so that is not quite yet done. And the re-sodding is underway. The south end is complete. And we've actually changed out. We've looked at a couple of different types of grass and we come up with what we feel is really nice. It looks really good in the south end. It's nice and lush and green. And so we are working on the remainder of the north end and the center. And we also have some electrical conduit, as you can see, from the picture there with the pavers that have had to be pulled up. We're doing some conduits for the future project installing the security camera. So we're getting ready for all that work that will take place. Also throughout the downtown, if you haven't noticed looking at our downtown book, a website, we did a recent updated look, refreshed to it. We are still working with a vendor on the interactive map, so that is still coming, but we gave it a little refresh and it looks a lot cleaner and hopefully a lot more user-friendly. And also the number and location of trash bins throughout the downtown is currently under review. We did add one, as you can see in the photo, to the Meetered Lot east of the post office. And we are currently reviewing and monitoring the needs of additional trash bins throughout downtown and that concludes my presentation. Thank you very much. I did notice the new website and the new look and the interactivity. I thought that was really great, great job on that. Thank you. Commissioner's any comments or questions? Mr. Thompson? As it relates to the placement of the trash cans, I had read anecdotally that Walt Disney when he was first building Walt, you know where I'm going with this, right? When he was first building Walt Disney World, he sat and he watched the behavior of the residents at the park. And he noticed that everybody, if they didn't have a trash can within 30 steps, they were likely to dump it. And so if you go to Disney World, you'll find that there are trash cans within every 30 paces. I like to think that our residents are a little bit more environmentally friendly than that. And I'm sure it probably would be willing to carry their trash for longer than that, but maybe that would lend itself to some kind of ideas to how many we might need in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Riley. I said a question on the recycling bins. Are they being used? Are they being used correctly? And as far as I know, I have not gotten any word that they're putting trash in them or anything like that. We are coordinating with the ones in Miser. We're coordinating with Brookfield and they've been cleaning them out on a regular basis. So it seems to be working as far as I know. All right, good, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair, thank you. And just to give a counter view, because I think what we have now is working, Japan is very few public trash cans. And on the retail side, more and more retailers who own shopping centers are taking trash cans away and forcing people to change their habits too. So I'd say, do what you're doing, I appreciate the different perspective and I always enjoy the history. So I think my colleague is stronger or we can get him from Japan then. Thank you Miss Riley because you mentioned the dog of fountain stations. There's dog poop station trash cans in that area. I think so. I think I've seen them in my department. Yes. Okay. Just making sure I couldn't remember. Yes. Perfect. It is doggy friendly. Thank you. Any other comments? Thank you, Mr. Riley. Thank you very much. Mr. Brown still your report. Next we're going to have the CRA Annual Financial Statement's presentation, as well as a compliance report. and Mr. Service as CFO is going to bring staff and our Auditors up for the presentation And Miss Jenkins Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Zervis, welcome. Yes, good afternoon, Chair and members of the board. This afternoon we're going to present the audited financial statements for the redevelopment agency. Ms. Jenkins, the Deputy Chief Financial Officer of the city is going to make that presentation and then you'll hear from the independent auditor as well and we'll be here to answer questions. Thank you Chair Wigter and Commission members. As Mr. Zervis mentioned my name is Carly Shajinkins I am the Deputy Chief Financial Officer. This afternoon before you is the presentation of the financial statements of the Vulgarate's Home Community Red Development Agency agency for the fiscal year ended September 30 of 2024. The year in audit and process to prepare the annual financial report for the CRA takes a tremendous effort to get to the finish line. So I would just like to acknowledge our financial services teams, some of which are in the audience for their work in preparing the statements. The CRA is a component unit of the city so its financials is included in the broader financial statements of the city. This presentation is specifically for the CRA. As you all may know, the CRA is required by Florida Statute to produce standalone financial statements. You will receive a presentation at the City Workshop for the City's financials. The CIA financial statements include the Auditor's Report, the management's discussion and analysis, the basic financial statements, the notes of the financial statements, and other required supplemental information. The first section after the Auditor's Report is the management's discussion and analysis, also known as the MDNA. Included in the MDNA section, you will see tables that have specific numbers, some of which are highlighted here on this slide. This slide shows on the top left that we ended the fiscal year with over $143 million in total assets of which $47.3 million is related to the CRA's capital assets. And the bottom left, you will see that we ended the year with $575,000 in total liabilities and $58.5 million in deferred inflows related to future lease payments that the CRA will receive for the four Myzna Park leases. You will also find that the CRA ended the year with the net position of $83.9 million of which $36.7 million was restricted. In this slide, it shows that the net position for the CRA was about $16.7 million, higher than the previous year. I want to point out that this year, the revenues were just a little higher and that was due to the tax increment. And page 7 of the MDNA summarizes the change in that position. Page 7 of the MDNA also shows a chart of the governmental activities revenues by source. There you will see that the CRA collected $21.4 million in tax increment revenues and approximately $4.6 million in charges for services. This slide shows a budget to actual comparison, which is also found on page 9 of the MDNA, that shows the budgetary comparison. The CRA generated a positive variance of approximately $17.5 million between the final adopted budget and the actual results of operations. The actual revenues were greater than final budgeted revenues by $2.5 million due to an increase of revenue in tax increment and charges for services above the budgeted amounts. Actual expenditures during the year were less than the final budgeted expenditures by $14.9 million. This positive variance is due to the elimination of a budgeted refund of tax increment to the taxing authorities into actual operating costs that were less than anticipated for capital outlay of about $3.3 million. The other sections included in the financial statements are the actual basic financial statements which are found on pages 11 through 16, which is consistent with the summary presented and the information displayed in the MDNA section. The notes to the financial statements which are on pages 17 through 30 and other required and supplemental information to follow that. This slide shows the content of the balance sheet for the operating fund using modified accrual, which focuses on the current financial resources. You will also find a reconciliation on page 14 that shows the differences between the net position and the balance sheet displayed here. On page 15, you will find a statement that looks similar to an income statement. It also shows current financial resources compared to statement of activities that focused on the economic resources. I want to highlight note seven, which you will find on page 30. Pursuant Sephora Statute 163.37, this note shows where the money came from within the CRA and where the money was spent. So you have the deposits on the left column and the withdrawals on the right. And this slide here shows the other required information, which is also found on page 33, which reflects data elements as required by the Florida State Statue, as well as the rules of the Auditor General. These are different elements that were required to be reported on by the CRAA, and it has a requirement to be included in our financial statements as well. This concludes the financial report presentation. If there are not any other questions, I can address, if there are any other questions, I can address them now. If there are no questions, I will ask for Hermes to come to address your board to speak about the auditors report. Commissioners, any questions? Very good. Good afternoon to the Chair, Vice Chair, Commissioners and Executive Director. My name's Hermes Garzon and I'm the Senior Audit Manager on the fiscal year 2024 Audit of the CRA. And I'm here representing our audit firm, which is CBCPAs. You will notice that that is the main difference in the auditor's report. If you were compared to last year, we had to rebranding back in November of 2024, which has made us essentially the seventh largest accounting firm in the United States. So that's additional resources that we also offer here to see it city and the CR as well. So I'll go ahead and start my presentation with page one of you free free, sorry, feel free to follow along. And the first paragraph into the opinion sub-patter simply states we are already in the financial statements of the governmental activities and the major fund of the Bocca's Raton's Community Rear Development Agency, which is a component unit of the city of Bocca Raton as of September 30 of 2024. second paragraph before that is the most important paragraph. It's actually our opinion paragraph, and I'll read that briefly. In our opinion, the accompanying financial statements referred to above present fairly in all material respects. The respective financial position of the government to activities and the major fund of the CRA as of September 30th and the respective changes in the financial position for the fiscal year than ended and accordance with generally account accounting principles generally except in the United States. That's what we refer to as an unmodified opinion or a clean opinion. It's really the only opinion that the CRA will want to be associated with. It's the highest regard one could obtain at the conclusion of a financial statement on it. And I think that's testament not only for decisions that are made throughout the year by the CRA Board, but also the people you have at the helm as well. And under the basis for opinion, paragraph below that, we just simply state that we conduct our audit under two auditing standards. One is the auditing standards generally accepted in the United States. And the second one is governmental auditing standards as this is a governmental entity. If we follow along with me to printed page 34, this is our independent auditors report on internal controls over financial reporting and compliance and other matters. This is different from the first independent auditors report I went through which which applies on the financial statement numbers. This actually applies on your internal controls and any compliance matters in addition to that. So any agreements, provisions of the CRA that are not being followed or any deficiencies in your internal controls are essentially would be listed here, were required to listed in writing.. So happy to report that there were no issues on either on the internal control side and on the compliance with any provisions and agreements and such such for it. If you follow along the printed page 36 this is our management letter in accordance with the rules of the auditor general of the state of Florida. This letter essentially highlights several key factors, which one of them is if there were any prior audit findings, we were required to state what, if they were actually rectified. So this is where we would also state that, again, there were no issues noted last year as well. So nothing to report here. And then on printed page 39 is our independent account and to report on compliance pursuant with section 218-415-163-387. That's just a fancy way of saying if you're complying with your investment policies and your provisions as such. And again, nothing that we noted during our audit at all, that would warrant any disclosures in this letter as well. And just lastly, in addition to our compliance reports, we're required at the conclusion of our audits to issue a communications letter to those charged with governance. That's a separate document that would have been included as well in your packet. It's about three pages. But essentially there we just highlight if there were any significant delays in our audit any disagreements with management. If we had any delays and receiving information and things of that nature and I could tell you personally It's been a pleasure working with the finance department here. We've never had any issues as far as receiving information and and just the work product that's provided to us It's really top-notch. So that does help in the audit process as well. But that's kind of concludes my presentation on the CRAs. I'll be more than happy to answer any questions if you may have any. Thank you. Couple questions. I'll start. Mr. Zervis, perhaps. Can you explain, I guess in the last year, a couple years, the way that the ground lease has been treated from Eisenhower Park that there's been a change in the way that's been treated? Can you just touch a little bit on that? Sure. Historically, the leases were not included on the balance sheet of entities. Public or private? There's been changes over the past five, seven years, what Carly should may know that the date of the pronouncement. But in both sides, private sector and what we adhere to in government accounting standards that require those lease assets and liabilities, frankly, if the city has a lease liability, the agency has a lease liability, it would show up on the balance sheet to keep off balance sheet financing, transparent and included in the financial reports. Meaning we show an asset for the future revenues of the Meisner Park leases. It's calculated at the base revenue level. So there's both a base revenue and then an upside participation, I can't remember exactly what we call it, but a participant percentage rent that's on top of that base that the agency receives. So the calculation that you see in the financial and the face of the balance sheet, as well as detailed in the notes of the financial statement are calculated on that base rent. So it shows up as an asset, but because it's not an asset available for the redevelopment agency to spend, and it's not income because we haven't received it yet, there's this deferral. So you see deferred inflows, deferred outflows that handle these lease obligations that offset it by the same amount. So the pronouncement change was really an effort to increase transparency for transactions like this that they show up on the face of the financial statements. But it is a change that changed happened, I want to say three, three years ago, 22, as close. Yes, yes. Yeah, it's been a little while. But as you said, the percentage rent clause of this percentage rent is not, because we don't know what that's going to be each year. So it's not listed in the financials. That's correct, because conceivably it could be zero. If you have another pandemic that shut everything down and those leases no longer were productive, then we would just receive the base rent. The base rent is what's required according to accounting standards to be included in the financial reports. But when you look at our actual revenue this year, in fact, the percentage rent was more than the base rent, is that true? That's correct. And that's been going on, I think, for several years. For several years, just based on the current market and whatnot. And how many years are left on the Meisner Park least? Do you recall it's like 63 or something? Something like that? I'll have to check the note here. Somewhere in the 50s or 60 year range, something to that effect, but there's significant time left. That's okay. One other question. Miss Jenkins, you talked about about the significant change in that position this year and from the budget to the actual, you know, it was like a $17 million switch. Number one, can we talk a little bit about Mr. Zervers about why that occurred? And number two, can we also, can you also with touch base on the fact that that this money is not just sitting in the bank that we have allocated this towards special projects towards the infrastructure, towards perhaps the portion of the community center or the downtown government campus and the other large projects that we need to do? Yes, it would be happy to. So it's effectively a timing issue with respect to when we complete capital projects. So the capital projects, you know, we're in the planning phase right now for example for the downtown redevelopment campus project which almost all of that project falls within the redevelopment agency and there will be a number of capital improvements necessary infrastructure, kind of real infrastructure improvements needed in order to accommodate that. That evaluation is ongoing right now. This last year we had several projects that were slated on our capital list, but some of them were affected by this other project moving forward. Others are still in the planning phase. The result of the financial results on page 15 of your financial statements, which are under the modified accrual basis of accounting, show a positive change in fund balance of about $15.8 million. So meaning we had revenues in excess of current expenditures of about $15.8 million. million dollars. That's resulting in an ending fund balance of about 35.2 million dollars. That money isn't just being held, that money is being held and allocated towards projects. And that will come forth in the update to your plan that's going to be forthcoming as well as the upcoming budget. It's envisioned that that money will be invested into those infrastructure improvements needed to move forward with the downtown campus redevelopment projects. And again, those will be infrastructure-related improvements needed for things like drainage, water sewer capacity, streets, roads, those kinds of infrastructure because this facility is those improvements on this existing facility are quite aged. And I would also add if you look on page 33, it kind of gives you the amounts that were budgeted versus the amounts that were spent in this fiscal year. As Mrs. Zervis mentioned, it's a timing delay with construction projects. Thank you. Thank you very much for the explanation appreciate it Commissioners any other questions? The CRA No, Mr. Hooker very well Thank you very much Appreciate it Mr Brown still your report that concludes our report this afternoon for the CRA Appreciate it Mr. Brown Mr. Cailer. I have no report. Thank you very well Commissioner's Mr. Thompson. No report. Appreciate it, Mr. Brown. Mr. Kailer. I have no report, thank you. Very well. Commissioners, Mr. Thompson. No report, thank you, Mr. Chair. Very well. Mr. Nockles. No report today, thank you. Commissioners. No report, thank you. No report, thank you. Thank you. And I will have a brief report. Thank you. everyone touched base on everything. Very nice. We did have a leadership bokeh with Mr. Nockles and I did have a chance to talk about all the things happening downtown with the team there and walk them around. The Meisner Park to the Brightline train station, which was really nice. As Mr. Zervis and Mr. Brown Brown have talked about our CRA projects are divided into some recognizable categories. We're talking about long-term infrastructure, the things that Mr. Servus just said. Some mid-term and some short-term that Miss Riley talked about in her report. Obviously Palmetto Park Road has been very much in our discussions over the past year or two years, and the government campus as well. Mr. Brown has also talked about the fact that we will need to update and rewrite our 4035, which is our downtown zoning ordinance, I guess. Some major projects, the infrastructure, are longer term. It takes many, many years to complete, and of course, Mr. Zervaz, we appreciate that the city is kind of getting ready to do these and that we're allocating some funds to do this so we don't overly burden the taxpayers, which is always a concern of everyone here. As the mayor and my colleagues point out that the bright line has been an opportunity that we've been able to seize and we try to continue to do so. I guess many people would think that getting a train station involved is supposed to be a long-term project, but my recollection is that time of the essence components have turned it into a very midterm or short-term project, but there's still a lot of things that we talk about that are necessary to be completed in terms of the northbound platform. And as we've talked about for a couple of years now, a pedestrian bridge potentially connecting the bright line crossing the tracks so that you can get from the northbound to the southbound platform and then perhaps crossing Dixie Highway and Federal as well. As Ms. Riley talked about this as well in my walkarounds, I noticed that there's some small but important infrastructure projects going on. As Miss Riley said, there was a lot of fiber optic electrical work going on in my zone of park over the last couple of weeks. I thought actually, you know, people say, oh, what about all these pavers, but as you could see, because the streets there are, you know, are covered with pavers, they're able to lift up the pavers, do the work that they have to do, and put the pavers back. So it actually gives you some optionality as opposed to repaving every time or having a lot of patch. So I thought that was really, you know well planned out, but gives you some optionality for future planning in terms of fiber optic. Now we're planning our downtown government campus. Of course, we could also include fiber optic. But maybe we have an opportunity to leverage utility vendors to get free or substantially reduced cost Wi-Fi for everyone in the entire area. Not just the library. I'm not bringing this up as any fancy idea. They did it in my community, which is when they ran the fiber optic, fiber optic company as a result of that, gave free Wi-Fi to free basic cable to everyone in our community. So, again, there's a competitive environment here that we're going to have an opportunity to do when we do this new infrastructure that's going to include fiber optic in the downtown government campus area. So, we're going to have to look at these opportunities as we plan for the future, but they are opportunities to do, to give Wi-Fi to do things that we don't have yet. And so there's some things that we can be explored that I encourage people to look into. Of course, our focus is on strategic planning and larger priorities. We're continuing to work on these short and midterm projects as Mr. Brown, Mr. Riley, Mr. Servicively, we've all talked about. We're going to focus on these things. Of course, in my walk arounds I saw this time capsule for Meisner Park. Mr. Khmer, you'd be interested to see that your name is on that plaque. But I'm just going to read the top of it. Meisner Park was built for the people of tone by a public-private partnership of the city, the CRA, and the developer. Sounds familiar, right? In many ways, this original P3 has defined Boca's growth, vibrancy and attractiveness and the quality of life for this generation. We have an opportunity to do this again. And obviously the history shows that it can work and that it's a useful exercise. So I am excited about this. As Ms. Riley said, if you explore the downtown boco.org website, it is, it has been revamped. It's more intuitive. There's a night market in May 1st. But look at the map. It shows locations of parking and even the locations of EV chargers. And of course you could link to Boak and Quebec, Boak Connect, our own demand service. Now goes to the Barry Ryland and Mr. Brown is working with staff on getting it to go a lot of other places. So having this map be more interactive I think is something that we'll all appreciate in the downtown as we're very project based for these next couple of years as we got a lot to do. So yeah, that's all I have everybody. Thanks very much for staff and everyone getting us to this point, we had a lot of stuff going on Mr. Brown and team, so we appreciate all the hard work. So without anything further, we will adjourn the CRA meeting at 207 PM and reconvene with the workshop soon thereafter.