HomeMy WebLinkAbout1983-05-18 - City Commission Joint Special Meeting MinutesMAIL REPLY TO:
P.O. BOX 25010
"TAMARAC, FLORIDA 33320
5811 N0RTIHWEST 88TH AVENUE TAMARAC, FLORIDA 3332.1
TELEPHONE (305) 722-5900
May 16, 1983
NOTICE OF JOINT
WORKSHOP MEETING
Please be advised that at the request of the Code Advisory Commission,
Mayor Falck has arranged for a Joint Workshop Meeting with the agreement
of the Charter Board Chairman,
The Joint Workshop Meeting of the Council, Charter Board and the Code
Advisory Commission will be held on Wednesday, May 18, 1983, at 3:30 P.M.
in the Council Chambers at City Hall, 5811 NW 88 Avenue, Tamarac,
Florida.
The public is invited to attend,
-a
Mari1y er lholf
City Clerk
Pursuant to Chapter 80.105 of Florida Law, Senate [till No. 368!
If a person decides to appeal any decision made by the City
Council with respect to any matter considered at such meeting or
hearing, he will need a record the proceedings and for such
purpose, he may need to ensure that a verbatim record includes
the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based.
CITY OF TAMARAC, FLORIDA
JOINT WORKSHOP MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL,
CHARTER BOARD AND THE CODE ADVISORY
COMMISSION
May 18, 1983
CALL TO ORDER: Mayor Walter W. Falck called the meeting to order at
3:30 P.M. on Wednesday, May 18, 1983, in the Council Chambers at City
Hall.
ROLL CALL: PRESENT: CITY COUNCIL
CHARTER BOARD
CODE ADVISORY COMMISSION:
Mayor Walter W. Falck
Vice Mayor Helen Massaro
Councilman Philip B. Kravitz
Councilman David E. Krantz
Councilman Jack Stelzer
Sydney Stein, Chairman
Melanie Reynolds
Alice Norian
Irving Epstein
Moni Avidon
Oscar Tucker, Chairman
Harry Goldman
Harry Rosenfeld
Carl Alper
Absent and Excused: Ray Kaliski - Code Advisory Commission
Mayor Falck read the call into the record and said the purpose of this
meeting is to clarify any misunderstanding concerning allegations by
the Charter Board that the Code Advisory Commission has held meetings
in violation of the Sunshine Law.
Mr. Tucker, Chairman of the Code Advisory Commission, said every board
and committee in the City works as volunteers including the Council,
since their salary is merely a token. He referred to a memo sent by
5yd Stein, Chairman of the Charter Board, to Mayor and Council which
said, "To our knowledge, the Advisory Code Study Committee does not meet
in City Hall and does not publish any notice of their meetings. It is
our opinion that the Commission should meet in City Hall and that notice
of such meetings be made public". Mr. Tucker said this is a judgmental
declaration that is a complete falsehood and libelous. He said he
received a memo from C/M Krantz dated 4/13/83 which was directed to
Syd Stein, which stated that over the past few months he had attended
two meetings of the Code Advisory Commission and both were in the West
Conference Room.
Mr. Tucker said neither he nor members of the Commission were given an
opportunity to refute Mr. Stein's accusations. He referred totheminutes
of a Charter Board meeting held 4/8/83 in which Mr. Stein said that "the
Code Advisory Commission does not meet in City Hall nor any building
owned by the City and the public is never given notice of such meetings".
Mr. Stein requested that Mayor and Council change the situation immediately
and that, if they do not, the Charter Board will declare that committee
unconstitutional as they are violating the Charter. Mr. Tucker said
the assumption of power by the Charter Board to declare another board
unconstitutional is unheard of in the history of this City. He said in
these same minutes, Mrs. Reynolds contradicted Mr. Stein by saying, "the
Code Advisory Board did advertise their last meeting which was in January,
when Mr. Tucker assumed the role of Chairman". Fie said there has been
no proof presented by the Charter Board that there were meetings held
anywhere but City Hall.
Mr. Tucker said this committee operates at the pleasure of Council and
has no other superior and there is no place in the Charter where the
Charter Board is given the right to supervise and direct another committee
with respect to its duties. Mr. Alper said that Melanie Reynolds, member
of the Charter Board, said that the Code Advisory Commission does not
always meet at City Hall during a Charter Board meeting held 3/26/83.
5/18/83
/pm
Mr. Alper referred to another meeting of the Charter Board on 6/12/79
when a statement of similar quality was made and the Chairman said she
had made a statement at a previous meeting which he took literally and
he questioned if she knew her statement was false and she replied
affirmatively. Mr. Alper said it is the duty of all members of the
Charter Board to uphold the Charter.
Mr. Stein admonished the character assassination and refuted Mr. Tucker's
comment that accusations made by the Charter Board were libelous. He
said on reviewing the minutes of the Code Advisory Commission, it
revealed that they met on 10/30/79, 12/11/79, 1/15/80, 11/19/81, 11/16/82,
1/17/83 and, since this time, they have had regular meetings. He said
he would conclude from this that either they have not met other than
these times or that there are no minutes of their meetings. Fie said
there have been corrected suggestions at various dates which have no
correlation to these dates. He questioned how these suggestions came
about. He said Mr. Tucker was given an invitation to conference with
the Charter Board, as was nearly every other committee, and the Chairman
refused and took this procedure instead.
Mr. Stein said these two boards are not equal since Charter Board is
an elected board and the Code Advisory Commission is an appointed board
serving at the pleasure of Council. He said the Charter Board has a
right to review any accusation of impropriety by any official or committee
in this City. He said he had asked both the City Manager and the City
Clerk for the calendars of this time to see the notices of these meetings
of the Code Advisory Commission and he has yet to get them.
Alice Norian said when she was a member of the Code Advisory Commission,
there was seldom a meeting and Oscar Tucker made a point of repeating
exactly what the purpose of the Code Advisory Commission was because
there were questions regarding the activities. Mr. Stein put in the
record a paragraph from the minutes of the Charter Board meeting of
3/22/83 which stated: "Mr. Stein said he has the Resolution which created
the Code Advisory Commission and he does not know whether it is illegal
to meet outside of City Hall. However, meetings should be at City Hall
and have representatives from all districts.
Mr. Tucker said the first he heard he was invited to meet with the
Charter Board was 4/14/83 in the form of a memo from the secretary of
the Charter Board. He said before this memo was issued, the Charter
Board had already made their Judgmental declaration that the Code
Advisory Commission was in violation. He said when he received this
memo, he addressed a memo to Mrs. Norian which stated that he would be
pleased to arrange a joint conference on a mutually agreeable date upon
appropriate conditions. He said he went on to request she furnish him
with the following information:
1. the purpose and agenda of such conference
2. the relevant details of the request made at your Board's meeting of
4/8/83
He said he stated in%the memo that upon receipt of the above information
he would transfer same for consideration by the Commission memhPrrt, HP
said he then received a memo of 4/28/83 from the Chairman of the Charter
Board which said that regular Charter Board meetings are held the second
Friday at 9:00 A.M. and the fourth Tuesday at 7:30 P.M. of each month
in Council Chambers and requested that he indicate a date convenient to
him.
Mr. Stein said the record shows that they sent the memos requesting Mr.
Tucker's presence and he repeated his question about where and when
this work was done by this Commission. Mr. Tucker said this commission
has been in existence since 1977 and they have made numerous contributions
to the Code. Fie said there came a time when it was decided that since
the codifiers were doing the basic work, they should wait until the
codifier issued supplements. Fie said they also, at times, wrote
legislation at the request of the Mayor and other members of Council
and sometimes several times a year the codifiers would issue supplements.
Fie said these supplements would be distributed to all of the members and
usually meetings were called to consider the important features of these
supplements.
- 2 - 5/18/83
/pm
Mr. Tucker said at these meetings various duties would be assioned to
write any recommendations to Mayor and Council as to suggestions with
respect to those supplements. Each member of the Code Advisory
Committee was empowered and authorized to send further suggestions to
ape Council. He said if Mr. Stein has a specific memorandum
he would try to give an explanation and Mr. Stein asked if it were
true that the only meeting they held in 1981 was on 11/19, Mr. Tucker
said this may be so he was unsure at the moment. Mr. Stein said he
had, as a result of that meeting, on 12/7/81, suggestions for supplement.
He said, however, on 6/2/81 Mr. Tucker issued a list of suggestions for
supplements and he questioned how these came about since there was no
meeting. Mr. Tucker said he went to City Hall and dictated a memo to
Mrs. Bernhardt and sent copies of that memo to other members of the
Committee asking them to submit any comments.
Mr. Stein said in reading the minutes of this committee, he sees no
democratic form in any of the meetings since nothing is put up to the
members to vote and there is no input by any other member except the
Chairman or, in some cases, the one person who did the review. Mr.
Stein referred to a memo of 6/2/81 and he asked when this came about
and at what meeting it happened. Mr. Tucker said at that time there
were 3 members on the committee and one would undertake to submit a
memo to the Council with the understanding that the other 2 members
could issue or submit supplemental memos. He said there was no necessity
for a meeting because the Chairman decided there was none.
Mr. Stein said Mr. Tucker's statement supports his accusation that the
minutes that are in City Hall do not reflect the work of this committee.
He said the committee has done a great deal of work to Mr. Tucker's
credit, however, his problem is that it is not being done under the
statutes of the State or the Charter of this City. He said Mr. Tucker
has no right to say it is not important to have a meeting as to the
suggestions. He said those members were appointed by the City Council
and should have the right to give input. He challenged Mr. Tucker to
show him anywhere in the minutes where discussion is shown or a vote
taken.
Mr. Tucker said, after examining a set of minutes, there was discussion
by the four people present at that meeting and the person who submitted
actually gave great detail of his work which was approved by the
committee. Mr. Stein asked where the voting is shown in the minutes
and Mr. Tucker said there was no vote necessary. He asked Mr. Tucker
if it were true that his committee did not meet for close to two years
and Mr. Tucker said whether they did or did not meet for a year has
nothing to do with meeting secretly. Carl Alper said the record should
show that the committee meets only when they get, from the City Clerk,
an Ordinance and a notice of a meeting. He said this is sporadic and
that is why there are not monthly meetings scheduled and no paper left
the Code Advisory Committee without the full agreement of everyone in
attendance.
C/M Stelzer suggested Council has heard enough discussion on both
sides and should make some sort of decision. C/M Kravitz said he knows
that on several occasions the Council secretary was on the phone for
long periods of time and afterwards there were either minutes, memos,
letters, etc. in reference to the Code Advisory Committee. He said he
does not remember seeing any minutes or notices of actual meetings and
approximately October, 1982 he brought up, at a Pre -Agenda meeting, the question
of why there is no Council liaison to this committee and why they are
not meeting and Mayor Falck said he would investigate this. He said he
also mentioned that every committee must elect a chairman -and he has
never seen where Oscar Tucker was elected Chairman. He said he received
minutes recently of the meeting of 5/9/83 which states that he was
elected Chairman but the committee was not yet appointed.
- 3 - 5/18/83
/pm
Mr. Tucker read from the minutes of the Code Advisory Committee dated
5/9/83 which stated that he said he was trying to get a replacement
for himself as Chairman of the committee for 2 years due to his health.
He said Mr. Alper said he would take over and asked Mr. Tucker to write
out the duties and obligations of the Chairman and Mr. Tucker agreed to
do that.
Jon Henning asked that it be put in the record which minutes are beinr
referred to during the discussions and Mr. Stein said: the Code Advisory
Minutes of January, 1980, the Code suggestions of a meetina.of 6/2/81, 11/16/82.
1/17/83 and 5/9/83. C/M Krantz said for the record he'attended two
meetings of the Code Advisory Committee and he found they work very
hard for the City. He said both Charter Board and the Code Advisory
Commission are doing excellent work for the City and he hoped that there
will be a unity reached for the good of the City.
Harry Rosenfeld said it was his belief that the sole purpose of this
meeting was to ascertain if there were any violations of the Sunshine
Law and he has been a member for over 6 years and every meeting he
attended was in this building and based upon notice on the bulletin
board in this building. Melanie Reynolds said one of the difficulties
is that they do not know how this committee is supposed to work.
Harold Goldman said he was just appointed about 6 months ago and during
that time, every meeting that he attended was by written notice by the
City. Mayor Falck said it seems there is room for improvement in all
areas. He said he asked the City Attorney prior to the meeting to make
some observations to him and he suggested that these be distributed to
members of Council and staff, members of the Charter Board and the Code
Advisory Board. He said he would like everyone to take these observations
and review them at their convenience and, hopefully, there can be another
meeting with a better understanding of what the Code Advisory Committee
is about. He said if there were violations, he is certain they were
unintentional.
Mayor Falck adjourned the meeting at 4:45 P.M.
qSISTANT CITY CLERK
This public document was promulgated at a cost of $ MJ, ��Z or $ 1,92
per copy, to inform the general public and public officers and employees about
recent opinions and considerations by the City Council of the City of Tamarac.
- 4 - 5/18/83
/pm