MOUNT DORA CITY COUNCIL UPDATE: April 16 Meeting

By Marc Crail
District 4 City Council Representative

​I've selected a handful of items from our April 16 Mount Dora City Council meeting to share with you. Of course, I'm writing from my own perspective and not on behalf of City Council as a whole.

COVID-19 vaccinations have wrapped up now at the St. Patrick Church site. Our community owes the members and leadership of St. Patrick Church a huge debt of gratitude for their generous and long term use of their campus that was very well suited for administering over 31,000 immunizations over the past few months. I am also proud that our city stepped up and led the way to make sure that our residents had a local option to get their shots. Our police and fire departments were supported by their colleagues from Eustis and Tavares along with lots of volunteers worked tirelessly to staff the St. Patrick site. Thanks to all who made this possible. Another interesting statistic is that as of yesterday 42% of Lake County adults have been immunized. That is substantially higher than Orange County's 34% and Seminole's 34%.

Speaking of COVID, we were provided with a packet of statistics from the Department of Health, C.D.C. and other expert sources and discussed the possibility of relaxing mask requirements. The current data doesn't support relaxing mask or social distancing requirements at this time but it seems likely that over the next few months either the Governor or the C.D.C. will move to do that but for now please continue to mask up.

Over the past few months we've been discussing making amendments to our Land Development Code particularly as it relates to our Wolf Branch Innovation District. Our city staff has worked with interested property owners and potential developers looking for ways to promote appropriate development there. Today we approved a "first reading" of that ordinance. There could still be more tweaks because a second reading is required.

At our last meeting we appointed Charles Revell as our Acting City Manager. We had discussed having him serve for a few weeks until we could find an Interim City Manager who would run the city until we have found and hired a permanent Manager. That process will likely take 5-6 months. We have now asked Mr. Revell who retired in 2019 after many years running our electric utility to stay on as our Interim City Manager and we will begin the search for a permanent manager asap. An Executive search firm will be hired to conduct the search. I think this is a good move since Revell knows our city and the city staff very well, is highly regarded and has hit the ground running.

I've got a quote for you today from Jacob Wind. "If you are an American, your heritage is either Native American, slave, refugee or immigrant. That's it."

No matter how and when you and your family got here to Mount Dora, I'm glad that you are here. Our mixture of diverse people and cultures make Mount Dora and America someplace special.

By Marc Crail
District 4 City Council Representative

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