Recap of March 19th Mount Dora City Council meeting

By Marc Crail
Mount Dora Vice Mayor and District 4 Representative
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Your Mount Dora City Council met on March 19th. I've chosen several action and discussion topics from that meeting to tell you about today. Please keep in mind that I'm reporting to you only as an individual, not on behalf of city council as a whole.

Recruiting and retaining police officers has gotten very tough in recent years. Nearly every police department is struggling to fill their ranks. The inherent dangers of the job and negative public perceptions regarding first responders have significantly reduced the number of young men and women who want to become cops while the pay scales for police officers have lagged behind other careers. Frankly, our pay scale for police has not kept up while other cities and counties have bumped up their salaries (supply and demand). We approved a new pay scale providing a 13% increase which will make us more competitive with other area agencies.

If you've had occasion to drive down Limit Road recently, you might have noticed a good deal of construction on the north side of the road. The buildings going up there are the first phase of the "Simpson Groves" development. This property was an "enclave", meaning that this former 80.7 acre orange grove was completely surrounded by Mount Dora but it was in unincorporated Lake County. Now it has been annexed into the city. The developer will be required to pay a wide range of impact fees to support our city services. Annexation of the rest of the Simpson orange grove property located on the north side of Rt. 441 (between Publix and the Country Club of Mount Dora) will happen in the future.

At my request, we had another discussion about selecting a permanent city manager. We will have a public work session at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday April 4th. to discuss the qualifications and hopefully come up with a timeline and process.

According to our City Charter, we are required to review our Charter at least every 5 years. 2024 is a charter review year. The ad hoc Charter Review Committee will consist of 7 members, begin meeting in late April and will wrap up by mid-June.

Each council member will select a committee member. If you are interested in serving, please contact City Clerk, Jeanann Hand asap to fill out an application. Call her at 352.735.7126. Thanks in advance for your help.

Interim City Manager Vince Sandersfeld has appointed Acting Police Chief Mike Gibson to Chief and has also hired a City Arborist. In my estimation, it's good to see open positions getting filled by well qualified candidates.

This next item was not on our agenda but I've fielded several enquires about land currently being cleared just off SR 44 near the Lancaster neighborhood. This will be 120 townhomes and a small public park. Several people have asked me if it will be public housing. It will not be public housing but I don't know yet if the townhomes will be owner occupied or rentals.

Our quote for today comes from goodnews.global. It's not a traditional quote but as the grandpa of a 7 year-old it cracked me up. "When my daughter was 7 years-old she once interrupted a bedtime story to tell me, "In a pie eating contest, it doesn't matter if you win or lose because you get to eat pie."  Out of the mouths of babes!

Thanks for your interest in Mount Dora!
By Marc Crail
Mount Dora Vice Mayor and District 4 Representative

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