Recap of Nov. 18 Mount Dora City Council Meeting

By Marc Crail
Mount Dora City Council District 4 Representative

Our regular November 18, 2025 city council meeting was fairly brief. I've selected some items to comment upon. Please remember that I'm reporting to you as one individual city council member and not on behalf of city council.

The Mount Dora Kiwanis Club is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Kiwanis clubs for the past century have worked to promote youth and programs for young people. What a great history.

Small business Saturday is coming up. Please choose to shop locally and support our wide variety of Mount Dora businesses.

We adopted a resolution approving the 2024-25 year end budget amendment reflecting about $4.5 million of FEMA reimbursements that we will eventually receive to help cover city expenses from last year's Hurricane Milton. FEMA is notoriously slow to reimburse but eventually they will send us a check.

You might recall that we are implementing school-zone speeding fines. We are now concluding our 45 school day fine warnings. For safety sake and to save yourself from getting fined $100, watch your speed in school zones.

 I'm getting lots of questions about when Donnelly Street will get rebuilt and other flood related questions and concerns. Our staff has been working extremely hard to take all the right steps to get roads reopened and repair damaged infrastructure. Here some updates.

We are now about 3 weeks out from the flash flooding event that has been categorized as a "1,000 year" event.

The washed out area along and under Donnelly Street won't have more heavy equipment work until a contractor has been selected. That won't be until early in 2026. Here's what has been done so far on the Donnelly St. washout rebuild project.

Emergency Relief funding from the Federal Highway Administration should cover 80% of the estimated $4-5 million cost. We are currently completing our LAP (Local Agency Certification).

FDOT (Florida Department of Transportation) certification is required for getting Federal-Aid Highway Program funds. FDOT will be submitting the Sub-Recipient Compliance Tool (SCAT) for us. The Governor's required Executive Order for Emergency Relief was signed on October 29th. The Damage Survey Report (DSSR) has been completed and sent to FDOT. City staff have completed required Detailed Damage Inspection Reports (DDIRs). Engineering Drawings are being drawn up and should be ready in 3-4 weeks for biddable plans.

The pedestrian walkway grant that we had already been awarded (formerly replacing the boardwalk) along the washed out section of Donnelly Street is still viable. Our staff is talking with FEMA staff to enable us to keep that grant and build the sidewalk at the same time as the roadway is being rebuilt. This seems possible but isn't yet a sure thing. That would provide an additional $1.3 million.

The best guess on construction start date of the rebuild roadway project is likely be early 2026 based on design and an abbreviated 14 day advertisement time.

The Highway 441/ Fiddler Drive traffic light could be installed as soon as the first week of December.

A bunch of things are moving ahead at warp speed. it's all complicated and driven by excellent interagency cooperation and hard work by our city staff and our partners.

Our quote of the day is from singer and actress, Reba McEntire. "To thrive in life you need three bones. A wishbone. A backbone. And a funny bone."

Thanks for supporting our wonderful town as we recover together from a thousand year flood event.

By Marc Crail
District 4 City Council Representative

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