By Dr. Marc Crail
District 4 City Council Rep.

I've selected several of the items from our Mount Dora City Council meeting held Thursday evening 9/13 that I thought you would want to hear about. Regular readers know my often repeated admonition that I am just one of seven City Council members so what follows are my thoughts which don't necessarily represent City Council as a whole.

The most significant decision to come out of our meeting was to establish our new Fire Assessment Fee at $219 for residences. This is up from $50 Fire Assessment Fee we've had over the past 3 years. The money collected from the soon to sunset $50 fee has been earmarked for the lease/purchase of 2 new fire trucks. Those new trucks have been in service now for about a year and they replaced 2 old vehicles which were outdated and costly to maintain. The $219 annual fire fee will be used to build 3 new fire stations over the next few years. Our fire and EMS response times are more than double the national response times recommended to keep our residents and our homes safe. Our response times are getting worse due to higher traffic volumes and the poor location of our 2 fire stations currently in operation. This is a big increase but public safety is our top priority and after a year of study and ongoing discussion this difficult decision had to be made. The vote was 6-1. For comparison Fire Assessment Fees in some nearby locations are Tavares $142, Lake County $193, Osceola $212 and Fruitland Park $213.

Another fire related resolution was the acceptance of a $1.29 million S.A.F.E.R. (Staffing for Adequate Fire & Emergency Response) Grant which will help cover the cost of additional fire fighters and EMS personnel. This grant was provided by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security. That is good news.

We approved the purchase of property located at the corner of N. Baker and E. 3rd. Ave. which will become a surface parking lot for about 60 cars and will have restrooms for downtown visitors. This is one step in the quest for more convenient downtown parking.  The cost of this property is $795,000. Community Redevelopment funds and Discretionary Sales Tax Funds will be used to pay for this purchase.

The lengthy project to rebuild the cul-de-sac on Magnolia Ending (Dogwood Mountain) that was severely damaged during Hurricane Irma is finally nearing completion. The estimated road and drainage completion date is the end of October. FEMA funding should eventually help pay for the lions share of this work.

I'd like to share a quote from Booker T. Washington who said; "A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesn't become good just because it's accepted by a majority."

Thank you for allowing me to serve as one of your representative on City Council. Tonight was an example of how tough some decisions are to make. Trying always to make the best use of tax dollars while providing for the safety of our residents is a balancing act.

Dr. Marc Crail
District 4 City Council Rep.

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By Marc Crail
Mount Dora City Council Member, District 4
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Three meetings were all rolled into one marathon afternoon/evening beginning at 3:00 and wrapping up shortly before 11:00. I've said this before but it bares repeating... I am not the spokesperson for Mount Dora City Council and I''m only one of the seven members so what follows here is just my opinion of a few selected items that I thought you might be interested in reading about.

We began with a Work Session that included a positive report from our Auditors and a review of our proposed 2018-19 budget which is still being tweaked but is getting close to being finalized. Our City Manager thinks that there will likely be no millage increase this year. You might recall that our millage rate was set last year at 6.3 mills. Because of property value increases this year we will collect some additional money and should be able to back off from the 7.0 mill rate that you saw on your recent TRIM notice. This has not been finalized yet but it seems likely to me. One other piece of good news is that we believe that Mount Dora will be approved to receive a "SAFER Grant" which would help pay the salaries of new fire fighters over the next several years.

The Regular Meeting included several important items.

On a 5-1 vote we passed a resolution giving preliminary approval for 387 new single family homes to be built as a PUD (Planned Unit Development) on 155 developable acres off of Round Lake Rd. just north of Round Lake School. There will be lots of green space, walking and bike trails, ball fields, a pool, and a tot lot playground. Two entrances to the development are planned to/from Round Lake Rd. and a traffic light is being constructed right now on the corner of Round Lake and Wolf Branch Roads.

Parking solutions for downtown have been sorely needed for a decade or more. Rather than building a monolithic parking structure which I believe would not fit in well, we are concentrating on developing smaller surface parking lots. We approved a Capital Improvement Revenue Note which is a bank loan for up to $4 million at 3.85% to begin purchasing several properties near the corner of Third Ave. and Baker St. consisting of an old barn and some houses that will soon become a parking lot with 60-85 spaces and much needed rest rooms for downtown visitors. Please don't let that $4 million figure confuse you. This parking lot and restrooms should cost about half of that but we can (should we choose to) also use the same loan to fund a second surface lot which could be located on Donnelly St. where the post office sits now. No decision has been made on that Donnelly St. lot and the property owner hasn't said yet if that property is going to be for sale. If it becomes available, we are "pre-approved" to get the funds to purchase it if we decide to do so. CRA funds are available to be used to repay the bank loan.

The owner of the Renaissance Building located at 411 N. Donnelly St. would like to construct a deck to be used for outdoor dining above the sidewalk on the front side of the building. Although the design looked appealing to me, on the advice of our Historic Preservation Board and our Planning & Zoning staff we declined to approve it on a 5-1 vote.

We are continuing to work toward the possible creation of a downtown "Entertainment District' which would enable adults to carry beer, wine or other adult beverages on the streets in that area. After a discussion among council members and suggestions from the community our legal counsel will incorporate the latest suggestions into a draft ordinance to be considered as a pilot program at our next meeting. More on this soon!

With the recent passing of Senator John McCain we have been reminded of the bravery and old fashioned patriotism and integrity that defined his life of public service. My favorite John McCain story demonstrated his decency when in the midst of his 2008 campaign for

President he quickly but politely intervened when a woman in his Town Hall event audience began to make untrue, disparaging remarks about McCain's opponent, Senator Barack Obama. "I can't trust Obama. He's an Arab," she said implying that Obama was not an American. "No ma'am." McCain said as he took the microphone back from her. "He's a decent, family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about. He's not."

In my estimation, that is what America should be all about.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to serve as your District 4 City Council Representative

Marc Crail
District 4 City Council Representative

During a special meeting held on Tuesday, August 21, 2018, the City of Mount Dora City Council voted unanimously to sever ties with the firm of Stenstrom, McIntosh, Colbert & Whigham, P.A.

The discontinuation was based on a number of factors which resulted in the City Council’s lack of confidence in the firm’s ability to properly represent the city.  

Specific factors which contributed to the discontinuation of service with the law firm began with the negative interactions by one of its attorneys with city staff members in 2017 and continued with the code enforcement advisory issue surrounding the Starry Night mural which garnered national negative publicity and the publicly embarrassing de novo hearing last month for a proposed Boathouse Row restaurant, as well as an overall lack of satisfactory service from the law firm. 

During the special meeting to discuss the law firm's future, council members were united in their severe lack of confidence in the City's legal representation and voted unanimously to terminate the relationship.  

The City will soon issue a request for proposals for municipal legal services.  Meanwhile, the law firm of Bell and Roper, another firm that represented  the City during the Starry Night mural litigation, accepted the council’s offer to serve as interim City Attorney.

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For the last few months, a strange entrance feature has graced the eastern edge of Mount Dora.  

Now demolition crews are scheduled nightly from August 13 through 28 and will close State Road 46 at U.S. 441 to finish removing the bridge. Traffic will  detour via Wolf Branch Road and Round Lake Road as noted on the map below. The work will occur nightly from 8:30 p.m. – 6 a.m.

S.R. 46 between Round Lake Road and U.S. 441 will be open to local traffic only  at night. Electronic message boards are in place and law enforcement officers will be on site to help direct drivers. Wet weather and other unforeseen circumstances could delay or prolong work.

This activity is part of Wekiva Parkway which began in October of 2017. Work is scheduled to finish in spring of 2020. This 3-mile stretch of non-tolled road improvements includes widening S.R. 46 and U.S. 441 to six lanes, sidewalks and other pedestrian improvements, and building a flyover ramp for the heavy traffic that will be trying to get to the parkway.

For more news and events in Mount Dora, Tavares & Eustis, click here. To get the area's top stories in your inbox once a month, sign up for the free monthly issue of Mount Dora Buzz here. ​​​​​​

The Lake County Animal Shelter is launching a new program to help decrease the feral cat population countywide. “Operation Community Caturday,” a partnership between the shelter and LEASH, Inc., will seek to sterilize up to 600 free-roaming cats per year.  Read more

A referendum on the ballot for the August 28 primary election will ask Lake County voters to consider a school-safety property tax of 0.75 mills, or 75 cents for each $1,000 of taxable property value.
 
This week, Lake County Schools launched a series of pages on its web site to explain the referendum. The pages can be found at www.lake.k12.fl.us/SchoolSafety.
 
The pages include an overview of the need, a breakdown of the cost for a taxpayer, the referendum resolution, language that voters will see on the ballot, links to voting information on the Lake County Supervisor of Elections web site and a flyer that can be printed and shared.
 
If the referendum passes, the tax would generate about $16 million per year to help the district cover the cost of adding resource officers and implementing mental health, alternative education and in-school suspension initiatives to support troubled students.

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Please remember my usual admonition that I am just one member of Mount Dora City Council. I don't pretend to represent the council as a whole. What follows are my own thoughts on several of the of the more important items on today's agenda that I thought you might like to read about. We had a very full agenda but after a nearly 5 hour meeting, a great deal was accomplished.

The TV and print news medias began reporting a couple of days ago that City Council would be considering a Settlement Agreement with the owners of the "Starry Night" mural house. As a result of our attorney's preparation for then pending litigation and her review of recent Federal Court "Free Speech" court decisions, the City was prompted to reconsider its position and make another settlement effort which was accepted by the homeowners. The City's Code Enforcement case has now been closed and the associated fines released. The Settlement Agreement calls for the payment of $15,000 for the property owners' legal fees. Unlike what you might have read in the newspaper, this amount and the legal fees for the defense of the City are being covered by the City's insurance carrier. I'm glad to have this matter resolved.

A couple of months ago I told you about a possible deal with Waste Management who picks up our residential trash, recycling and yard waste. We decided to extend their contract until September 2027. There are several important parts to this agreement which begins in October. Waste Management will provide fully automated, unlimited pick up of our trash, recycling and yard waste once per week. They will be switching to quieter and cleaner trucks powered by compressed natural gas. If your pickup day is Monday, you will put your trash can, recycle can and your yard waste at the curb and all 3 trucks will come by to pick your items up on the same day. If your designated collection day happens to be a holiday, everything will be picked up the very next day.

Our residential trash, recycling and yard waste bills will be reduced by $1.94 per month or 9.15%. and that savings will be passed along to our residents. There will be lots of publicity and "education" leading up to the transition. If you'd like a larger trash can, your old can will be picked up and a new one will be delivered to your house. One last thing, eight trash enclosed trash compactors will be installed in the downtown area. With trash and recycling disposal cost expected to rise substantially over the upcoming years I think that locking in those costs will pay off.

About $800,000 worth of stormwater infrastructure improvements will be coming to the Northeast section of town which often floods during major rain events. $750,000 is a stormwater improvement grant we received and $50,000 will come from the NECRA. That's good news for the residents in that neighborhood who have suffered flooding multiple times.

We spent a good deal of time discussing the merits of three related Financing Resolutions. Let's see if I can explain this briefly. We have established a list of our top priority construction projects. Theses include; improving parking in the downtown area, building a new public works building to replace our current crumbling facility and replacing our two current fire stations with three new ones in order to significantly reduce our emergency response times. Now we are taking the first preliminary steps to address these priorities. I need to stress that we did not commit to borrowing any money but we did approve three "Bond Funding" resolutions which could eventually allow the City to sell bonds to borrow the money needed for these construction projects.

Over the next several meetings and in depth discussions we will need to decide which if any of these projects should be tackled. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. While interest rates are still near historical lows we will need to figure out how much money we can afford to borrow and what kind of payments we can commit to making. Do you remember how much you and your spouse agonized over the decision to borrow money to buy your first house? The numbers seemed huge and the decision kept you up at night.  Sure you wanted that house but committing yourselves to a 20-30 year mortgage and the monthly payments was agonizing. That's the process we are going through right now. I will keep you updated on this one!

I've mentioned before that Waterman Village is interested in expanding their campus to property across Donnelly St. form their current facility. That project is moving forward and will involve building 327 units on about 37 acres surrounding Fiddler's Pond.

Elie Wiesel is a well known Nobel Laureate. I love his thoughts on this topic. "Always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor never the tormented."

I get excited by the opportunities that we have to make a difference in Mount Dora and I appreciate that you have given me the opportunity to serve you as a City Council member. I think my wife appreciates a little bit of peace and quiet in the house while I'm out of her way!  Thanks for the opportunity to serve.

​Dr. Marc Crail
District 4 City Council Rep.