RECAP: April 21st City Council meeting

 By Marc Crail
Mount Dora City Council, District 4 Representative

​I have chosen several discussion or action items from the City Council's April 21 meeting to tell you about. Please keep in mind that I'm not reporting to you in any official capacity on behalf of City Council.

Sixteen years ago, in 2010, the city purchased a parcel of land outside the city limits on Thrill Hill Road. I'm not exactly sure what the plans for the property were back then, but the acreage is no longer needed, and it's not adjacent to the city. Council approved an addendum to a contract to sell it for $500,000.

We approved a warehouse type development on 4.92 acres located at 1649 Lincoln Avenue.

Each budget cycle at the mid-year point we amend our city budget. There are always changes from what was anticipated when our budget was approved 6 months ago. This year, the flood event of October 26 changed our budget priorities significantly. Our local costs for flood-related repairs have been about $3.5 million. Just like with your family budget, if the roof starts leaking or the transmission on the car craps out, those high-priority items mean that we need to change our plans in order to deal with emergencies. We have the money in our budget, but we need to shuffle it around to meet critical needs.

Another thing that we can count on every April and May after our dry winter months is that reclaimed water is hard to come by. We have several "perk ponds" in which to store reclaimed water, but Florida is in a drought, and those storage ponds are running low. That will change dramatically once the summer afternoon rains begin in June, but for now, we are pumping underground water from an augmentation well to help, but there are intermittent outages. Reclaimed water users are asked to limit lawn watering to once per week and not to water between 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Thanks!

Our quote for today Ronald Regan; "We are a nation that has a government, not the other way around."

Thanks for your interest in Mount Dora.

By Marc Crail
Mount Dora City Council, District 4 Representative

​For more news and events in Mount Dora, Tavares & Eustis, visit the area's website and sure to follow Mount Dora Buzz's Instagram  and Facebook page for more local info

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