CRA takeover? Lake Worth Beach commission may appoint itself to board, but would it have time to run it?

LAKE WORTH BEACH — Unlike other cities in Palm Beach County with a Community Redevelopment Agency, Lake Worth Beach commissioners do not sit on the CRA board.

Instead, the city's seven-member CRA is appointed by the mayor and four commissioners and acts independently.

But that may be changing.

Discussion of a possible takeover of the CRA is on the agenda at Tuesday's city commission meeting.

Three commissioners — Vice Mayor Christopher McVoy, Reinaldo Diaz and Kim Stokes — have been critical of the CRA and show a willingness to replace the board with themselves. Mayor Betty Resch and Vice Mayor Sarah Malega are adamantly opposed.

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According to a city attorney's report that will be presented Tuesday, a 3-2 majority vote would be enough for the commission to add the CRA to their duties. No vote is expected to be taken Tuesday, but the commission could direct the city's legal staff to draw up an ordinance spelling out the change, and voting on it later.

"I have no interest in doing that," Malega said Monday. "We would be doing a huge disservice to the residents and the business owners of the city if we took over the CRA."

The purpose of a CRA is to carry out redevelopment projects that reduce blight while encouraging public and private investments within its established district.

Malega said she and her fellow commission members — each of whom has a fulltime job beyond their political responsibilities — don't have the time necessary or the "fundamentals" to effectively run the CRA.

"The CRA is an intricate entity ... and we are a part-time commission," Malega said. "You can say, 'I want to take over the CRA.' But if you don't know what the hell you are doing, you're just going to run it into the ground."

Communication between Lake Worth Beach and CRA isn't good

Lake Worth Beach's CRA was a target for Resch, Malega, McVoy and Stokes in their 2020 campaigns, specifically for the agency's support of a downtown five-story, 125-apartment complex known as The Element.

After winning office, the new commission got the widely-panned project squashed and relations between the two bodies, which included a rare joint meeting last year to air out differences, remained calm.

But that changed on Aug. 16.

While the city commission was declaring a housing crisis and hearing from residents forced out of their homes by skyrocketing rental costs, the CRA was meeting across town voting on financial incentives given to the developers of the Gulfstream Hotel.

Diaz called the CRA "incompetent at the very least" for scheduling their August meeting on the same date the commission was gathering, especially with each group considering important topics. CRA officials said summer vacation schedules caused its August meeting to be set for the same date.

Stokes said communication between the CRA and commissioners "historically has been poor" and added, "it's clear now there is no communication between the CRA and the city."

McVoy announced there were three votes to look into a possible CRA takeover, setting off an angry back-and-forth conversation between Resch and McVoy, Stokes and Diaz. Malega did not attend the Aug. 16 meeting.

How do CRAs work in other Palm Beach County municipalities?

According to a city staff report, nine other cities in Palm Beach County have CRA boards. In each case, the city commission or town council doubles as CRA members.

"An elected body running the CRA board will ensure greater accountability to the public, and better alignment between the city's and CRA's redevelopment objectives," said Ty Penserga, Boynton Beach mayor and CRA chairman.

Accountability, McVoy said, is a major issue. Commission members are elected and must answer to the public as opposed to political appointees, he said.

"I know that the CRA staff has had at least a decade and a half of very weak board supervision and, at a minimum, it bears shining in some light," McVoy said.

The CRA receives around $5 million in ad valorem taxes from the city and county. Stokes said commissioners must assure "an appropriate amount of accountability and oversight" which "under the existing structure ... is not there."

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CRA Chairman Brendan Lynch said it's not the first time the board has been threatened during his two terms with the agency, and that the trouble usually revolves around a particular issue.

This time, he said, it was the Gulfstream project.

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"The bottom line is when the CRA voted unanimously to support this project, we were listening to voters, taxpayers, residents and neighbors," Lynch said. "No one in the world can say the Gulfstream is a project the majority of people in Lake Worth Beach do not support."

The Lake Worth Beach CRA was created by the city commission in 1993. In 1997, the commission declared itself the CRA board and allowed for two additional appointees, before reversing course in 2001 by going back to appointing members.

Two decades later, the city's elected officials face the question again.

"I would like to think that wisdom, logic and common sense will prevail," Lynch said. "But it’s anybody’s guess.”

Jorge Milian is a journalist covering Boynton Beach and Lake Worth Beach at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jmilian@pbpost.com and follow him on Twitter at @Caneswatch. Help support our work, subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: CRA takeover? Lake Worth Beach commission may appoint itself to board