Mount Dora City Council update: May 3 meeting

By Marc Crail
Mount Dora Vice Mayor

I've selected several interesting presentations, discussion items and action items from our Tuesday, May 3 City Council meeting to tell you about. As always, this report comes from me and not on behalf of the entire City Council.

Our Mount Dora Electric Utility has been awarded the RP3 award by the American Public Power Association. Only 275 public power utilities out of over 2,000 have earned this award. RP3 refers to reliability. We have fewer than average outages and when we do have outages, they are repaired more quickly which makes Mount Dora Electric exceptional. The entire Department was on hand to be recognized for a dangerous job well done. In this case, small is better than big when Mount Dora is compared to much larger utilities including Duke Energy, Leesburg Electric, etc.

The long awaited new Public Works facility that will share a campus on Limit Rd. with new fire station #34 should break ground in October, subject to supply chain issues. We heard a report on the nearly final design features. Construction should take about a year. The cost will be $15.9 million. The new fire station which will be closer to Limit should also break ground, probably in August of this year.

We had a Public Hearing to review and discuss the second draft of an ordinance for a Building Height Charter Amendment that will be on the November ballot. I continue to support these building height limits but I adamantly oppose inserting building heights in our City Charter. We will all be hearing more about this ballot initiative in the upcoming months leading up to November. This was a "first reading". The second reading will presumably be at our next meeting.

There was a good deal of discussion and majority support (5-2) with members Walker and Cataldo voting no, for sending a letter to Lake County Commissioners in support of proposed legislation by Lake County designed to promote public safety by forbidding people from standing on road medians or within 4 feet of highways to solicit money, hand out literature or advertise.

This next item wasn't on the agenda and was not a part of the 5/3/22 meeting. It's an update, mostly for Lakes of Mount Dora residents that I'm inserting in this report as an update on a LoMD issue that came to my attention over the past weekend.

There are widespread concerns that LoMD developer, Medallion Home is planning to burn piles of pine trees that they will soon be cutting down in order to construct new houses. Fire Chief Rich Lower has contacted The Florida Department of Forestry which is the agency responsible for granting burn permits and monitoring burns. The City of Mount Dora does NOT have regulating authority. Like it or not, burning brush is quite common in Florida. When a developer plans to burn they must obtain a permit. Forestry has strict regulations for permit issuance including weather conditions, vegetation dryness, and required setbacks from streets and buildings. As of May 3, Medallion Home has not pulled a burn permit and according to their spokesman, options including burning are still being considered. If residents have concerns or wish to voice their opinions please contact The Florida Department of forestry.

My quote for today is compliments of William Shakespeare. "Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."

Thanks for allowing me to represent District 4 and serve as your Vice Mayor.

By Dr. Marc Crail
Mount Dora Vice Mayor

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