Riviera Beach adopts customer bill of rights; council debates enforcement and fairness

The Riviera Beach City Council adopted a customer bill of rights intended to set unified expectations for courtesy, responsiveness and transparency when the public interacts with city staff. Staff described Resolution 72-25 as a policy to reframe customer service standards across departments, including timeliness of correspondence, attire expectations, and empowerment of frontline staff to resolve issues. The presenter said the resolution will be posted where the public convenes and signed by the executive management team. "The intent behind this document is to reframe and reestablish the relationship with the public and the public that we serve to look to provide more superior services within the department," staff said. Council discussion focused on enforcement. Several members asked whether discipline would be applied uniformly across employee ranks and whether an independent reviewer might be necessary for fairness. City Manager Jonathan Evans said the enforcement arm would be the city————existing progressive-discipline process and that executive staff, including the manager, would be required to adhere to the policy. City Attorney Dawn Wynne advised that policies and HR procedures are commonly adopted by resolution because they can be changed more easily than ordinance; she said an ordinance would have stronger enforcement authorities but that staff had not proposed specific ordinance-based enforcement for this policy. Council approved Resolution 72-25. The vote recorded the measure passing with one dissenting vote.