DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. — The Deerfield Beach City Commission is scheduled to take a first vote Tuesday night on whether to send a slate of nine City Charter amendments to voters in November, including one that would move city elections from March to November and extend the terms of the mayor and all four commissioners by roughly 20 months.
The vote is set for a 7 p.m. special meeting in the City Commission Chambers at City Hall, 150 NE 2nd Avenue. It is the first reading of an ordinance that would place the questions on the Nov. 3, 2026 general election ballot. Adoption Tuesday requires a 3/5 vote of the commission, and a second reading and public hearing are scheduled for Aug. 4. Even if the ordinance clears both readings, each amendment would take effect only if a majority of Deerfield Beach voters casting ballots on that specific question approve it.
The proposals grew out of a Charter Review Board review required by city code. The board's recommendations are nonbinding, and the commission has sole discretion over which items go on the ballot, their final wording and the timing of any election, according to the agenda item. Commissioners discussed the proposals and heard public comment at workshops on July 2, July 6 and July 15 before directing staff to draft the ordinance.
The amendment drawing the most organized opposition is the election-timing change. Under the proposed language, the city would shift commission elections from March of odd-numbered years to November of even-numbered years beginning in November 2028. To keep the commission's staggered terms intact during that switch, the terms of all current officeholders would be extended by about 20 months.
The draft charter text spells out the effect: no municipal election would be held in March 2027 or March 2029. Instead, the district 1 and 2 seats would next appear on the ballot in November 2028, and the district 3 and 4 seats and the mayor's seat would next be up in November 2030.
The ordinance frames the change as a way "to increase voter participation and decrease election costs" while maintaining staggered four-year terms.
Eight other questions would also go before voters. As drafted, the ballot would ask electors to decide, in separate questions, whether to:
- Amend the charter "for style, clarity and consistency," remove outdated provisions and conform it to state law.
- Replace the charter's lengthy legal description of the city's corporate limits with a map maintained by the city clerk.
- Require candidates for mayor and commission to have lived in the city, and in their district, for two years before qualifying, up from six months, with an exception when non-residency results solely from redistricting.
- Change election dates to November of even-numbered years and extend current terms by about 20 months (the election-timing item).
- Remove the requirement that voters approve, at a referendum, the sale, lease or transfer of city-owned property worth more than $750,000, with existing exceptions for a pier restaurant lease and pier and beach amenity rental contracts.
- Require a Charter Review Board to convene in May 2035 and every ten years after.
- Amend Section 11.01, which limits beach-area development, to remove only the floor-area-ratio regulations and the restrictions on mixed and accessory uses, while keeping the 45-foot commercial and 55-foot multifamily height caps and lot-coverage limits.
- Amend Section 11.02 to remove minimum parking-space-size rules for the main beach parking area, the limit on commercial use of that land to no more than 15 days a year, and the ban on using those spaces to satisfy other properties' parking requirements.
- Require a four-fifths vote of the commission before any future move to contract out, transfer or consolidate the city's police or fire services.
The beach-area and city-land questions target charter protections that supporters say voters put in place by petition roughly two decades ago. Attorney A. Thomas "Tom" Connick, who told Boca Post he wrote the language that became charter Sections 11.01, 11.02 and 7.09(2) and serves as pro bono attorney for the Original Save Our Beach citizens' group, said those referenda have "served Deerfield Beach well" in preserving the beach area and in governing the sale and lease of city-owned land.
In a July 20 letter to the mayor and commission, Connick argued the term extension is unfair to voters and that the city had a less disruptive option. Boca Post confirmed the letter's wording with Connick, who authorized its use.
Connick wrote the following in that letter:
"If election dates are to be changed, the fair solution available to the Commission, but not taken, is to shorten the terms of those elected in the next two March elections by four months — not to extend the terms of current officeholders by 20 months."
Connick, who said the views in the letter are his own, wrote that the votes of Mayor Todd Drosky, Vice Mayor Michael Hudak and Commissioner Tom Plaut, "acting as a three-vote majority," seek "to reduce existing voter authority, increase the power of the Commission, extend current terms beyond the periods for which the Commissioners were elected, favor increased development over existing citizen protections," and make it harder for future commissions to reverse the current one's decisions. He wrote that Commissioners Ben Preston and Daniel Shanetzky have opposed the term-extension proposal. Boca Post could not independently confirm how members would vote Tuesday.
Boca Post emailed all five members of the commission on Tuesday seeking comment on the proposals. Only Vice Mayor Michael Hudak responded before publication.
Hudak said his goal in creating the Charter Review Board was to let residents weigh in on how the city is run — something he said Deerfield Beach voters have not been able to do since 2003. "The last time a vote like this took place there was only 64,000 residents in the City of Deerfield Beach; now we have 90,000 residents, and those residents deserve an opportunity to guide our city's future," Hudak said in an email.
Hudak said he has "no opinion with regards to any of the items being placed on the ballot" and that his "whole goal was giving the residents of today the same voice the residents of 2003 had." He said he was aware of "a very vocal contingent of residents who are against allowing the citizens an opportunity to vote their opinion."
Resident April Bolowich, who circulated the ordinance to neighbors and to news outlets and identified herself with the Original Save Our Beach effort, urged residents to attend Tuesday's meeting and to wear white. "The residents are not the ones asking for this change," she wrote in a July 21 email. She said the city could instead place the questions on the already-scheduled March 2027 municipal ballot, "just four months later than the November ballot."
Bolowich estimated that canceling the two March elections would save the city about $60,000, which she put at roughly $1.15 for each of the city's approximately 52,000 registered voters. "Is your next opportunity to vote worth about $1.15?" she wrote. Boca Post has not independently verified the cost figure, which the city has not confirmed.
If the commission adopts the ordinance on first reading Tuesday, the second reading and public hearing are set for Aug. 4. Ballot language and required election materials must be submitted to the Broward County Supervisor of Elections by 5 p.m. Aug. 18 to appear on the Nov. 3 ballot. The next regular commission meeting is scheduled for Aug. 5.
The proposed amendments follow the process in Section 166.031 of the Florida Statutes, which lets a city commission propose charter changes by ordinance but requires approval by a majority of the city's voters before they take effect. The beach and land-sale protections now on the table were added to Deerfield Beach's charter by voter referendum in the early 2000s, according to the charter text and Connick, one of their original drafters.
Boca Post tracks Deerfield Beach City Commission votes, policy discussions, budget decisions, and land use matters through our Deerfield Beach Government reporting.
