Click here for live link to City Commission Meeting of 11/15

Click here for back-up and agenda.

New Business items A, F, G, H, and I have been pulled for consideration at a later date - motion made by Commissioner Maxwell.  Commissioner Maxwell is Vice Mayor, Commissioner Amoroso is Vice Mayor Pro Tem.  Commissioner Mulvehill is not present.  They are making the various representative appointments now.

They are now at the Census Complete Count Committee presentations.  Neither Annabeth Karson and Shauna Collican could attend tonight's meeting - previous obligations.  Ms. Karson says that they have fulfilled their contractual obligations.  Commissioner Maxwell is upset that they are not there and the City Manager says they can't compel them to come.  He says there is no back-up regarding the expenses related to the effort and he wants to hear it from the people who performed the service for the city.  Kathleen Margoles was going to make the presentation.  They have already been paid - by the City Manager - after she made the decision that the terms of the contract were met.  Commissioner Maxwell doesn't agree.  He is asking for the City Attorney to look in to legal recourse - the Mayor is now asking for the physical report of their effort.  Margoles is saying that they reported to the City Manager throughout the period that they were doing the work.  The City Attorney has to go back and re-read the contract.  Amoroso says that he needs to know what the research is - he is saying that we were going to get a report that would give us a full break-down on various population groups.  He thinks that they have the information and he is frustrated that the principals are not there to present the data.  The Mayor is asking what is the measure of whether their effort was a success or a failure.  Maxwell wants certified letters sent to them to ask them to attend at a future meeting.  It looks like it is coming back December 20th - they are going to look at the contract.

Public participation - I hear there are a lot of former city employees in the audience tonight.  Interesting story that Barbara Aubel told about finding what turned out to be a black-throated monitor lizard in her back yard.  It's an exotic endangered species that has never been found in the Florida wilds before.  It is now at a lizard zoo in Miami.  It is a female and she was concerned that it might have laid eggs in an unkempt city owned lot on J Street and wanted the city to mow and maintain the lot.  Another comment caught my attention.  Marshall Pass, while pointing out - along with many others - about the non-working speaker system in the hallway, also pointed out the locked City Manager area at the end of the hall leading to the Commission Chambers.  Besides being against fire codes, he observed a certain person from the Palm Beach Post using the keypad for entry into the area that is not otherwise accessible by the public, but apparently this person has a free pass.  Lynn Anderson also made the request to get the history of the city back on the walls - pictures of past Commissions and Mayors.  Brian Smith also brought up the IT allocation for the library as being excessive at $96,000 and when asked questions about it was told, by the City Manager, to refer the matter to the Inspector General.

Commissioner Maxwell brought the door and the lock of the City Manager's door - Stanton said that it will be down tomorrow.  She also said that the history will be put up during the coming week.  Makes me wonder where these orders were coming from...McVoy is bringing up the security issue and is referring to the Gabby Giffords incident.  He wants to hear why the locks and the doors came about.

Some of the Consent Agenda items were pulled - A,B, and C - since the Mayor had questions on them.  Mary Lindsey spoke under comment that this item was indeed one of those "shiny objects" that the Commission has talked about and it should be looked at and perhaps not be approved.  McVoy took issue with someone from the public who knew nothing about this system and is questioning a professional, Becky Mattey, and essentially blew her comments off.  Both Commissioner Maxwell and later Peter Timm under additional public comment expressed how improper that was for a Commissioner to call out a member of the public like that.  McVoy didn't apologize.

I was in and out of the room the rest of the time that the meeting was going on.  Fill in the blanks by commenting below.  There is a BIG workshop looking at beach and casino building related expenses this coming Monday at 6 p.m.  By the way, the meeting was adjourned at 9 p.m.  Mayor Triolo did a great job. The tone of the meeting, with the exception noted above, was much lighter in tone than other recent Commission meetings.  Maybe it is o.k. to laugh again?