Mount Dora, FL City Council Meeting Overview - June 4, 2019

Our video of the 77 minute June 4, 2019, Mount Dora, FL City Council meeting is HERE!

Below is our overview of the issues discussed with some comments:

The City of Mount Dora City Council met yesterday, June 4, 2019, and no fist fights or committee member firings happened

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That is a good thing and the Council all got along!

Tech note:  This article was written right after the meeting at Maggie's Attic Wine Shop on a Samsung tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard with the assistance of a single glass of house Cabernet.  

 

Some of the issues covered were:

 

• The fire department went through a study by an insurance rating group which ranks the capability of every fire department in the nation.  That study results in an ISO (Insurance Service Organization) ranking that is used by the insurance industry to set property insurance rates in that community.  Mt. Dora Fire moved up from a ranking of 3 to a 2, which should result in lower local insurance rates.  The attachments in their agenda provided many details on how the rankings are calculated and I will write a later article on the process.
• The city placed several historic markers in the city which cost $147,   I think it is great to provide such markers to increase the historic knowledge about the area.
• The city spent $48,000 on an advertising program with Orlando Fox 35, which included TV spots and ads on their website.  I looked at the claimed success metrics provided for the social media portion of the campaign and question the value.  The ad program was 50% funded by the Lake County Tourism Development Council and was designed to build awareness of Mt. Dora.  However, the social media ads were for a contest but no customer lead data was collected for follow up.  So you had a campaign and a contest that didn't do anything with the data.  I suggested to the Mayor they should always offer some type of deal and track conversion rates like professional marketers do.  The staff only cites CTR (click through rates) rates that seemed much lower to me than industry averages.  Apparently the video TV ad was nice, but a rule in advertising is that you need to MEASURE "conversion" actions like booking a hotel room, etc. not views.
• I gave public input that they needed to start making videos of meetings, work sessions and planning and zoning board meetings like the County and Eustis do.
• The City Manager discussed an issue not on the agenda during her end of the meeting report.  She read a letter sent to the Lake County Board chair asking for meetings to discuss ISBA agreements between the City and County related to areas of growth and annexation.  It was pitched as a move to "work with" the County to plan orderly development. I assume they want to define areas where the City can grow and annex land for development.  Local residents and landowners currently in Lake County near Mt. Dora should watch this process and attend meetings or they could find a high-density City approved development right in their back yard. (There is a lot of this going on in Lake County).  
• A later discussion was about returning to "Action oriented minutes" which are very skimpy and don't include actual statements by Council members.  This is contrary to good transparency and seems designed to hide true comments by Council members.  It is even worse if there are no meeting videos, and you would have to listen to the entire audio recordings to even know a dispute occurred on an issue.
• The City Council approved a hardship application process for local residents to get a 50% discount on fire assessment fees on homes.  Most of the Council liked the idea.  But there was no cap, or limit on applications, so like many government programs, will this be abused?   Is it fair to others who pay the full fees?  Why don't they just follow the process to attach liens to property records until repayment is made.  Why just give away a discount?  Are the rules for eligibility strict, or loose?   I don't think I heard any requirement to track the number of applications and give a report of the cost of discounts given each quarter or year.  And there was no talk about requiring a payback plan even via a lien on the house.
• The city has acquired two classic, but rundown homes at 3rd and Baker to be torn down for more parking. One council person asked that preservationists be allowed to tour the house in order to remove any architectural items that could be converted into art work, and it was approved.
• Councilman Crail wants the city to consider adopting an ordinance like Orlando to prohibit use of plastic straws, utensils, plates etc. at City-run events.    There was confusion over a recently proposed state law that would have prevented local city actions, but it was vetoed by Gov. DeSantis.  But the City staff was asked to research adopting similar rules for City run events (not prohibiting plastic at businesses, but only City run functions).
• Recently, the City Council removed a member of the Planning & Zoning Committee for "questionable comments" and that member had been appointed by Councilman Harmon Massey.   Massey read a statement about the firing, and honored the volunteer for his service, but agreed the action was needed.
• In the Council Reports section, Councilman Rolfson also talked about the plastic prohibition issue and complimented Governor DeSantis for vetoing a bill that would have prevented home rule decisions on such actions.  Florida city councils are aggravated over State legislators trying to prevent local home rule on issues like tree ordinances, etc.
• The meeting also included about 15 local students who were part of a Fire Dept. run program to learn about city government.  They all sported custom city shirts.    
• There were no controversial issues discussed that generated public input, so the meeting was peaceful and finished fairly quickly.

Note: Earlier in the day, the City Council had a work session which I missed.  There were several interesting subjects covered, so I might have to listen to the audio recording.  I really wish they, and all cities and local government agencies were REQUIRED to make videos of these types of meetings.

Uploaded June 5, 2019

Vance Jochim

FiscalRangers.com