MOUNT DORA UPDATE: Recap of September 17 City Council meeting

By Marc Crail
Mount Dora Vice-mayor and District 4 Representative

I've selected several important items for our September 17th City Council meetings to report on. Please keep in mind that I'm not sending this on behalf of City Council in any official capacity. It comes from me alone.

We learned that a traffic light will be installed by FDOT within the next several months at the intersection of SR 44B and Way Cross Road near Lowes. This isn't a Mount Dora project but many Mount Dora residents will benefit from it.

City Council approved a plan to design sidewalk extensions and traffic calming near the intersection of Lakeshore Dr./Heim Rd. and Sylvan Dr. This will be a city project. It is needed because Lakeshore Dr. is a heavily cut-through route causing safety issues.

I've written several times about the budget building process for FY 2024-25 that your City Council has been working on for months now. As anticipated, we were able to balance the City's budget with a millage rate of 6.3 mills. This is less than the maximum millage rate we saw on our TRIM notices that we got in the mail several weeks ago. It is 11.22% over the roll-back rate of 5.6642 mills. We unanimously voted to approve this final resolution.

After evaluating our City Manager, Vince Sandersfeld's performance, council members voted 4 to 2 to give him a raise of 3.5%. We all agreed that his performance has been excellent and we appreciate his first class work since he took over as our Interim City manager in late January. Some council members favored a larger salary increase of 8%, but the majority thought that given our financial circumstances we should give the manager a more modest raise.

Now that the recent water main break caused by a contractor's negligence has been repaired, I want to assure our residents that the contractor will be billed for the full cost of the repair work.

Our quote for today comes from President Theodore Roosevelt. "This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in."

Thanks for your continued interest in our city!

By Marc Crail
Mount Dora Vice-mayor and District 4 Representative

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