By Marc Crail
District Four, Mount Dora City Council Representative
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I've selected several items from the September 16, 2025 Mount Dora City Council meetings to comment upon today. As you probably know, I'm reporting to you as one city council member and not on behalf of city council in any official capacity.

During the meeting of our Downtown Community Redevelopment Agency Board we voted to renew our Freebee shuttle service agreement. You've likely seen the Freebee electric vehicles zipping around the downtown area on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Freebee has transported about 23,000 riders over the past year and achieved over 99% satisfaction ratings. We have applied for a state grant that may help reduce our costs. If you haven't tried Freebee, you'll soon be hearing more about how, when and where you can get shuttled to the downtown area and back again. Freebee is one way we can free up parking places downtown.

This is Hispanic Heritage Month. We recognized the many contributions of our citizens of Hispanic descent in a proclamation. I for one enjoy celebrating our many diverse ethnic, racial and religious groups, America at its finest!

You've been following the multi-stepped city budgeting process for several months now. We approved a series of resolutions this evening setting the final millage rate at 6.3000, approving the city budget for FY 2025-26 and approving an updated master fee schedule which will go into effect on October 1.

One annual budget related item is City Council members' evaluation of our city manager, Vince Sandersfeld. He is responsible for virtually every aspect of the workings of our city, our hundreds of employees, not to mention our $200 million budget.

I've been on city council for almost 10 years and I can say without question that our city manager doing an very good job. Staff morale is better than I've ever seen. Vince has our beloved city moving in the right direction and has been a skilled and hardworking leader for a year and a half now. His salary has been below average for comparable sized cities in our area so we set his new salary to reflect his worth to us and recognize his skills and effort. His new salary will be $201,300. That is certainly not the highest city manager's salary in Lake County but it is more in line with his peers.

I've heard from several people who enjoyed our "Advice From an Old Farmer" quotes from our last meeting. As it turns out, that farmer has lots more advice for us. Here are a few more of his admonitions;

"You can't unsay a cruel word."

"The best sermons are lived, not preached."

"Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen anyway."

"If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging."

"Good judgement comes from experience and a whole lot of that comes from bad experience."

Thank you for your interest in all things Mount Dora.

By Marc Crail
District Four, Mount Dora City Council Representative

The City of Mount Dora will host a public workshop to review and gather community feedback on proposed options to improve downtown parking.   The lack of a long-term parking solution in the city's downtown core has been a topic of concern among residents and visitors for several years. 

The options under consideration include:

• Reconfiguring parking spaces to address public safety concerns
• Converting Alexander Street, Baker Street, and Tremain Street to one-way streets
• Downtown paid parking

“Our goal is to not only explore long-term solutions for parking but also to address public safety,” said Mount Dora City Manager Vince Sandersfeld. “Aside from the discussion about paid parking, this project aims to eliminate safety issues associated with the current parking layout while planning responsibly for the city’s future needs.”

The public is encouraged to attend and provide input on the proposed options during the parking workshop on Monday, September 8 at 6 p.m.  in the City Council chamber at Mount Dora City Hall located at 510 N. Baker Street. 

For more news and events in Mount Dora, Tavares & Eustis, visit Mount Dora Buzz's website, its Instagram  and Facebook page.  Download the area's free mobile app for info on the go.  For local food recommendations, follow Mount Dora Foodie's Facebook and its official Instagram account.