News Update from Town Hall - January 29, 2021
ALAN FIERS- MAYOR

Dear friends, residents, and guests:

I hope that despite the Virus, all of you had a pleasant holiday season, enjoying families and the spirit of the season.  

Every once in a while, I check the weather in Green Bay, where I lived before I finally came down to the family home on the Inlet.  As I looked at the weather webcams, I remind myself how fortunate we are to live in the paradise of Palm Beach Shores, to steal a line from the Beach Boys, “The land of endless summer.”   But still, I must admit that every once in a while, I miss sitting by the fire on a cold winter night and watching the red foxes play on my woodpile next to the window. But then I quickly come to my senses!

Except for the continuing COVID-19 vaccine saga, the details of which are reported in Chief Steedman’s comments, the Holiday period brought a marked slowdown in the pace of Town business. As a result, no January Commission workshop was held and the January Commission meeting had a short agenda. Also, the pace of the various Town projects slowed as folks took holiday vacations.  Things are now returning to their normal tempo.

At the January Commission meeting the following items were addressed:

  • Community Center Plans: Frank Zizzamia provided a status update on the project to identify and select a professional Events Planner to manage the Town Community Center. This project is intended to materially improve the financial operation of the Community Center while at the same time maintaining the civic groups and residents' traditional use of the facility. The goal is to have this accomplished in a manner that is complementary to the Town’s character and charm. In advance of the Commission Meeting, a final copy of the Request for Proposal was shared with the Mayor and the Commissioners. It had been reviewed and approved by both Wendy Wells and Keith Davis. It is available on the Town website. The Request for Proposal is the formal document that is being used to solicit business proposals from a small group of prequalified professional event planners. The Commission unanimously voted to approve moving forward with the release of the Request for Proposal to the professional event planners. We expect to receive their actual proposals in February. By early March they will be evaluated, analyzed, and a summary will be presented to the Commission. The Commission will then discuss and determine how best to move forward.

  • Ordinance Approval: A housekeeping ordinance, which updated the Town procurement code was passed unanimously on the second reading. This ordinance clarifies that when negotiating and signing a Piggyback contract, three additional bids are not required. The question comes to mind- What is a Piggyback Contract? This is a contract for services of a vendor with an existing contract or contracts with other local municipalities and Government organizations for precisely the same service. Such contracts have already gone through the required competitive bid process and therefore, if the service being contracted is precisely the same, the prices and terms of the existing contract can be used by other municipalities or government organizations. Our code was written in such a way as to require three competitive bids even on such piggyback contracts, thus defeating the intent of the piggyback authorization. Most recently, we used a piggyback contract to procure the pipelining and backflow valve for the Lake and Bamboo storm sewer outlet pipe, which eliminate the saltwater flooding of Lake Drive.

  • Commission meeting change:  Due to personal schedules, the date of the March Commission meeting was changed from March 22nd to March 15th.  

  • Financial Report; December marked the end of the first quarter of the Town’s fiscal year. Revenue is on track at $2,948,576 or 61% of budget. The Town’s revenue is at a high percentage of budget due to the large receipt of property taxes in December. Compared to last year’s 66% we are slightly behind but that was simply timing as we received more in the first week of January. Expenditures are also on track at $1,569,259 or 28%. This percentage is higher than the 26% at the same time last year. The reason for the difference is the October debt service payment on the Undergrounding Debt which was $141,000 more than the previous October payment. This will even out in the next quarter.

  • Code Enforcement: A second Special Magistrate was appointed. This may be required. As you will read in Sgt Langevin’s report, enforcement of our codes governing motorized vehicles and bicycles on the Town pathway and walkways is governed as a code violation. So, as we ramp up enforcement measures to control such traffic, we need to ensure that we always have a Special Magistrate available to adjudicate any challenges to our citations. 

A special request: As folks who reside in the 300 blocks of Cascade and Bravado are aware, we had clogged sewer lines on those streets. Sewer gas and sewage water were backing up into several homes. Cascade was clogged with sand and shell rock. Bravado was clogged with non-soluble sanitary wipes and feminine sanitary products. The cost of clearing Cascade was $6,430; the cost of clearing Bravado was $5,800. The same block of Claremont was also checked out and cleaned out. It too was on the verge of clogging. Again, sanitary wipes and feminine sanitary products were the main culprits. The main message here is: PLEASE DO NOT DISPOSE OF NON-SOLUBLE ITEMS BY FLUSHING THEM INTO THE SEWER SYSTEM. Each section of the sewer line which requires vacuum cleaning costs around $6,000.

Undergrounding update:  The electrical FPL segment of the project is completed except for the installation of the automated switching transformer; which will enable switching of electrical loads between the three main Town feeder lines.  The target date for completing this is the end of May 2021. Two clerical tasks remain:

  1. Collecting the few outstanding junction box consent forms. If you have been sent a form and have not yet returned it, please do so. 
  2. Obtaining the final as-built drawings. These are essential so future Town officials will have an accurate record of what was done and how. 

The process of wire and transformer removal and topping the pole continues and will continue for another couple of weeks. Nine poles will require the use of a long arm crane to remove the transformers.  A big thank you to everyone for welcoming the crews as they work on your property. 

Comcast is about 60% finished with customer switchovers. The Multi-family units in the 100 blocks of Town and the southeast quadrant of Town including the southside of Inlet remain to be converted.  These conversions should take place as soon as the final conduit run is completed on Ocean between Cascade and Inlet Way. The drilling of this conduit began today, 1/29/21.

AT&T ran into a missing conduit on Lake between Cascade and Bamboo. I am sure you have all seen the drilling and digging as you travel down Lake. Once this is completed, they will begin running the fiber cables in the north half of Town (south side of Edwards to the southside of Beach). As soon as that begins the process of getting ALL AT&T CUSTOMERS to switch to the all-fiber service will begin. Remember, until all have made this conversion, the “topped”  poles will remain in Town.

And that is a wrap for this month. Tune in next month for the next exciting episode of Life in Palm Beach Shores.

EVYONNE BROWNING - TOWN CLERK
2021 TOWN COMMISSION ELECTION/APPOINTMENTS UPDATE

The Town Commission has been operating with four (4) members (Mayor Fiers, and Commissioners DeReuil, McCranels, and Stanton) and one (1) vacancy since November 9, 2020 following the resignation of former Commissioner Tom Mills. The Town Commission has made several unsuccessful attempts to appoint a successor into the vacancy created by Mr. Mills’ resignation; however, the vacancy remains at this time. 

On November 19th, 2020, Mayor Fiers read a Proclamation declaring that the election for two Town Commission seats (those held by Commissioners DeReuil and Stanton) would occur on March 9, 2021 and that the qualifying period for residents to run for those seats would be between Noon on December 1, 2020 and Noon on December 15, 2020. At the close of the qualifying period, Mr. Tracy Larcher had successfully qualified. No other residents, including the incumbent Commissioners, qualified (Note that two other residents attempted to qualify; however, the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office determined that there were technical errors in their qualifying paperwork and as such those candidates were disqualified).  As a result, in addition to the current vacancy left by the resignation of Mr. Mills, there will be one additional vacancy on the Town Commission after Mr. Larcher is sworn in at the annual re-organization meeting on March 29, 2021 (Note that all other re-organization related business will be continued to April 5, 2021 because Commissioner McCranels will be unavailable to attend the March 29, 2021 meeting).

On April 5, 2021, The Town Commission will, pursuant to Town Charter requirements, appoint one resident to fill the unexpired term created by the resignation of Mr. Mills – this is a one-year term, and another resident to fill the remaining open seat for which no resident successfully qualified – this is a two-year term. Once all Town Commission vacancies have been filled, the Town Commission will appoint a Vice-Mayor and all other Town officers, and will re-constitute the Planning & Zoning Board.

If you have any questions about the appointment process, please contact the Town Clerk, Evyonne Browning at
Ebrowning@pbstowhall.org or 561-844-3457  
TREVOR STEEDMAN - FIRE CHIEF
The COVID-19 Vaccine saga continues to confound us with new plot twists. Most recently, we received the news that the State is tasking the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine in Palm Beach County to the Publix supermarket chain. This mandate effectively pauses the ability of the PBC Healthcare District and independent Points of Dispensing (PODs) to receive and distribute initial doses of the vaccine. For the PBC Healthcare District, their last day of providing scheduled, initial vaccine doses is February 5th. Thereafter, only second doses will be administered by the PBC Healthcare District. Here in Palm Beach Shores, we are left wondering if we will receive the doses requested before the State’s decision or if the Governor’s edict is retroactive. As we aggressively seek this answer from the State, we encourage folks to continue to practice CDC recommendations and try to get an appointment through the Publix system. The Publix vaccine initiative will require time and patience. PBC Publix locations are receiving approximately 311 doses per store per week and appointments through the online system has been difficult to access. This is the link to access the Coronavirus vaccine at the Publix Pharmacy website ( Link ). We will publish our scheduling link to our POD registration as soon as we receive notice of the shipment.

Collectively, the County and the local Fire Services continue to assert to the State that we stand ready as resources to widely distribute the vaccines when more doses become available in the future. We will keep pushing to obtain vaccine uses for our POD and will inform everyone as new chapters of this story emerge. Please reach out with questions or if we can be of any assistance. tsteedman@pbsfire.org or (561) 296-3380.
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STEVE LANGEVIN - SGT. - DISTRICT #20
Welcome to 2021! The New Year has also brought us much activity around Town with many contractors about. Please drive with care as our Town streets are not all that wide, especially when pedestrians are present.

We are working on enhancing the signs throughout Town that let our visitors know about the laws we have in our ordinances, which govern the use of the Town’s parkway and inlet walkway.

Town ordinances do not allow motorized vehicles of any type on its parkway and inlet walkway. As folks find our Town, more bicyclists are finding the Inlet walkway a beautiful place to bike, however, some bicyclists believe they are in the Olympics and have cause pedestrians great concerns. Most folks give pedestrians a wide berth on the parkway, but there are always a few who refuse to be courteous.

A few years back a bicyclist traveling at a good clip ran the stop sign on Atlantic and broadsided a car traveling down Atlantic. Over the year’s other incidents, including a dog hit by a car at the parkway and the roadway. The dog was off the leash. In another incident, a person was struck by a car crossing the street at a parkways intersection.

Fortunately, no one or animals were seriously hurt, but the above are just a few of the incidents and near incidents that have and can occur on our roadways, parkway, and inlet walkway. Please be careful and courteous.
 
The Town’s attorney wrote, and the Commission passed a comprehensive way to enforce Town ordinances. The Town’s ordinances are not criminal offenses, such as walking a dog without a leash. Now a civil citation can be issued to the offending dog owner. Should a person wish, they can appear before a Town magistrate in a hearing setting. This is the last thing we wish to give a resident, so if you have some visitors down, please let them know, repeat offender fines can get high.



Sgt. Steve Langevin
“SEASIDERS SHARE
 by the SEASHORE”
Due to the pandemic, the Seasiders have had to cancel our annual Charity Bazaar. This is our biggest fundraiser of the year & helps us support our local charities that do not receive support from larger groups. Every year we dispense about $16,000.00 to places such as St. George’s Center, St. Ann’s Place, Jay Ministries & Ryan’s Cases for Smiles. These are all located in Palm Beach County & serve this area.
 
To replace this we are having a Seasider & Town wide fund raising drive starting January 30th thru March 31st. The “Best Little Town in Florida” has always supported the Seasiders and we hope you and they will continue to do so.
We will accept any amount of donations. Donations to the Seasiders are not tax deductible.
 
You can make your check payable to the Seasiders and mail it to us or drop it at the Town Hall at 247 Edwards Lane, Palm Beach Shores, FL 33404.


If you prefer one of our certain charities, please write that in the memo part of the check & we will make sure that charity gets your donation.
  
If you have any questions please call the Seasider President, Chris Mielke at 574-298-6503.
Greetings:
 
Thanks to several volunteers, the:

Garden Party to spruce up the picnic area by the beach is "ON" for this Monday - Feb 1 at 9 AM.
 
We will meet at the beach parking lot. I will bring plants, soil, fertilizer, mulch - extra shovels and clippers. You bring masks, gloves and what ever garden tools you may have.

Volunteers : Ron, Myra, Marie, Tricia, Dot, Grace and a maybe from Mary - F.
 
Garden Party on Wed
Feb 10 for TOWN Flower Boxes Only - is also On
 
Volunteers: Myra, Mary ( F), and Grace
 
The Garden Party to Refresh the garden by the back of Town Hall by the gazebo is on hold for want of volunteers.

If more folks do not sign up by Sunday I will reschedule or postpone. ( I don't want to buy the plants unless we can put them in - so that's why I need to know by Sunday )
 
Thanks to those who have volunteered. 

If folks would like to help but find Wednesdays no good - please email me what day works better for you and I will try to find a date that works for the group.

E.g. - Tuesdays are out for me
  
Grace Sterrett, EC Chair