PALM BEACH COUNTY — At the July 14 Board of County Commissioners meeting, the board took the following actions:

COVID-19 — received an update from Dr. Alina Alonso, director of the Florida Department of Health-Palm Beach County, and Emergency Management Director Bill Johnson on local COVID-19 mitigation efforts. In a one-week period (July 5-July 12), Palm Beach County reported 1,166 new positive cases. In 700 of those cases, it took nine days to get test results from commercial labs. “That makes all the time and money we’re spending on contact tracing useless,” Dr. Alonso said. Palm Beach County has reported a total of 22,279 COVID-19 cases with 624 deaths. The county’s positivity rate is 11.52%. Approximately 12.5% of county residents (188,104) have been tested at 75 testing sites countywide. County Administrator Verdenia Baker announced a pending executive order that would prohibit the sale of food and alcohol in restaurants from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., beginning at 12:01 a.m. Friday, July 17.

Roads — adopted amendments to the Five Year Road Program for Fiscal Year 2020 through Fiscal Year 2024 and approved the hiring of professionals to facilitate the property acquisitions necessary to accomplish the project goals of the program, as amended. Adoption included approval of the findings of fact of the Unified Land Development Code affirming that delays to several intersection projects will not result in any link or intersection on the road network to be operating at greater than the adopted level of service.

Budget — approved conducting a public hearing to approve the use of the uniform method of collecting non-ad valorem special assessments and adoption of the non-ad valorem special assessment roll and specifying the unit of measurement and amount of the assessment; authorized the mayor to certify the non-ad valorem assessment roll on electronic media to the tax collector.

Legislative affairs — received a final report on local priorities, appropriations and funding requests lobbied during the 2020 Florida Legislative Session.

SOE — approved a lease extension with RREEF America REIT II Corp. S through Dec. 31, 2023, for the use of 76,603 square feet of warehouse and office space in Riviera Beach for the Supervisor of Elections (SOE) support, operations and election vote tabulation. The annual rental rate is $593,673. The extension is needed to provide sufficient time to complete construction of a permanent facility at the county’s Cherry Road complex.

Land acquisition — approved the purchase of a 0.34-acre parcel with a 1,344-square-foot home on it located at 1759 East Main Street, in Pahokee, for $25,000. Acquisition of the property will facilitate redevelopment of a 42-unit apartment complex on adjacent property owned by the county. The building will be used for non-congregate sheltering activities as part of coronavirus emergency response.

Community Services — approved allocations totaling $12.976 million for continuation of current funding in the Behavioral Health, Homelessness and Domestic Violence/ Sheltering, Economic Stability/Poverty, Senior Services categories and noncompetitive service categories under the Financially Assisted Agencies (FAA) program, for the period Oct. 1, 2020, through Sept. 30, 2021. Funding for these allocations is included in the proposed FY 2021 budget.

Consolidated Plan — adopted a resolution approving the Palm Beach County Consolidated Plan for Fiscal Years 2020-2024; approving the Palm Beach County Action Plan for FY 2020-2021; and authorizing the county administrator to execute forms and certifications for the Community Development Block Grant, HOME and Emergency Solutions Grant programs.

Public Safety — adopted a resolution repealing and replacing Resolution No. R2019-1057; expanding the use of the Victims of Crime Emergency Support Fund to support the annual salary of an existing DUI project coordinator position to continue the enhanced response to the DUI/Impaired Driving-Related Deaths Program.

Substance abuse — approved the Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) nonprofit end user license agreement with Vanderbilt University, effective immediately with no expiration date, for use of the REDCap software by the county’s needle exchange program under the Infectious Disease Elimination Ordinance.

Tourism — approved on first reading and to advertise for public hearing on Aug. 25 the Tourist Development Tax Ordinance. It would establish a FY 2020 stimulus fund by reducing the 18.49% FY 2020 tax allocation percentage for Category C (beach improvement, maintenance, renourishment, restoration and erosion control) to 10.04% and transferring the remaining 8.45% ($2 million) to the Category E special projects category for marketing county tourism.Sinai Residences — adopted a resolution approving a plan of finance concerning the issuance of revenue bonds by the Palm Beach County Health Facilities Authority for the Toby & Leon Cooperman Sinai Residences of Boca Raton Phase II in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $185 million for the purpose of financing the costs of the project, funding a debt service reserve fund, if any, paying capitalized interest, if any, and paying certain expenses incurred in connection with the issuance of the bonds. No county funds, taxing power, faith or credit are involved.