Mount Dora City Council Update: September 7 meeting

By Marc Crail
Mount Dora City Council Representative, District 4

First allow me to apologize for being so late in sending out these meeting notes. I've been experiencing "technical difficulties" since last Friday that prevented me from sending or receiving email from the City's platform. If you've sent me an email and I haven't responded I will soon. We're good to go now although what was once Breaking News has turned into Yesterday's News.

Our 9/7/21 city council meeting was just shy of 5 hours long with many important discussions and action items. I've selected a few of them that I think you might be most interested in. As usual, please understand the I'm not reporting on behalf of Mount Dora City Council, what follows comes from me alone.

We heard an encouraging update from city staff regarding the rail-trail project. Tavares and Mount Dora have each approved sharing the project costs. Lake County Commissioners also were meeting on 9/7 and hopefully they have also committed to spend about $15 million of their American Rescue Plan funds on this important project. I haven't heard the results of their meeting yet. If all the partners are in, we will attempt to strike a deal with CSX Railroad to purchase their right away.

There was another long discussion and vote following our City Attorney's presentation on the petition seeking to amend the City Charter with language limiting building heights in the Historic District. This may seem like an open and shut issue but like many things, simple answers to complex questions are not adequate. Here's the quick and dirty version from last night's meeting, from a non-lawyer's perspective. Here goes...

Council had asked our City Attorney to give us her best thinking on a "Sufficiency Determination" in regards to the petition on building heights. I am not an attorney so I readily admit that I have no expertise in the legalities involved. I depend on our City Attorney to guide me. In essence, our City Attorney strongly suggested that because of several changes in Florida case law over the past decade or so, this kind of land development code issue would not be able to be the subject of a City Charter amendment. That is her legal opinion. Other attorneys may have other opinions but our attorney was adamant in her advice to us.

After the discussion a motion was made to waive the improper form used by the petitioners (it lacked either the signer's date of birth or the signer's Voter's I.D. number) and to move forward allowing the petition being validated. That motion failed in a 3-4 vote. Voting "yes" were Doug Bryant, Pam Burtnett, and Cathy Hoechst. Massy, Rolfson, Gunther and I voted "no".

I suggested that in order to work toward resolving this issue that is creating such ill will and divisiveness among our residents we should convene a blue-ribbon commission (not unlike a citizens' Charter Review Commission) to carefully study and come up with a set of recommendations that would meet the needs of our citizens and help mend the rift we are experiencing. We need to get to work on this asap.

The petitioners seem likely to proceed with their plans to ask the Lake County Supervisor of Elections to verify the signatures and if they have a sufficient number, they can come back to City Council then Council will consider it again.

Plans were approved for adding 20 additional parking places at the W. T. Bland Library.

You're probably aware that we are looking for a new City Manager. We had over 50 applicants and cut the field to 9 semifinalists. We ranked those semi-finalists at the meeting and will invite the top 5 to come for in person interviews, meet with city staff and have a reception to meet and greet the Mount Dora public later this month.

After months of work we have decided that we can reduce the Fire Assessment fee down from $219 per house to $209 per year.

You'll recall that just to be safe, we had preliminarily proposed a maximum millage rate of 6.2 mills for owner occupied houses for next year. Our goal was to reduce that initial tentative millage 6.2 mills to 6.0 mills. We were able to come in a little bit under that at 5.9603 mills.

That's what I have for you today. Please be sure to fact check and double-check that information that is being circulated about current issues. It's important to make certain that you are getting factual information. That leads me to a quote by Mark Twain who said; "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes".

Thanks for allowing me to serve as your District 4 Mount Dora Council member.

By Marc Crail
Mount Dora City Council Representative, District 4

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