The room was rather crowded compared to most recent city meetings. All the council members were present and there were several guest speakers during the course of the meeting. The proclamation of Girl Scout Week in honor of the organization's 99 year anniversary was made by the mayor, but no representatives of the Girl Scouts were present.
Public hearings for the 2nd and final readings of 3 ordinances, 1272 (the closing of a street so a local church can purchase the property for expansion), 1273 (allowing mobile homes in R-4 mixed residential zoning districts once again), and 1274 (amended the requirements for unoccupied homes) had no public comment and were all approved by council 5-0.
Acting City Manager, Trudy Block, was approved for another 30 day extension.
The Evaluation Appraisal Report, commonly referred to as EAR, is part of a 2-step update of the city's comprehensive plan required by the DCA (Department of Consumer Affairs) every 7 years. A schedule of City planning board workshops to update this document was announced. Workshops will be held March 29th, April 19th (if needed), May 2nd (if needed), and a Transmittal Hearing will be held on June 13th, 2011. Further details on the times should be publicly posted. Following this information, Interim City Attorney, Tom Cloud, added that there is a draft bill sitting in the Florida House of Representatives that is likely to eliminate the EAR requirement in the future. Mr. Cloud felt that there is a 75% chance that this bill will eventually be passed by the Legislature. With the potential passing of this law growth management in the state will be totally changed. Many jobs in the DCA will likely be eliminated since many of these jobs exist solely to review these reports. EARs have been a requirement of all municipalities since 1985. If this law gets passed, reviews of comprehensive plans will be gone, but comprehensive plans can still be amended whenever needed. The current limit of 2 changes to the comprehensive plan per year will likely be eliminated as well.
The Polk City Founder's Day celebration for 2011 has been postponed due to lack of participation. Individuals whom had publicly stepped up to get the event organized for this April have since backed out. Councilwoman Adorno recommended that the date of the next Founder's Day celebration be tentatively set for the 2nd Sunday in April, 2012, unless Easter falls on that date. No council members had a copy of the 2012 calendar handy, so no one could confirm if Easter fell on that date or not at the time of the meeting. Since the meeting, I have confirmed that Easter is on that date, April 8th, so council will be adjusting this date accordingly. Ms. Adorno also suggested that each council person donate one month's salary, approximately $52 each, towards covering the costs for the event. When asked what kind of things Ms. Adorno envisioned for the event, she described small game booths for the children and other family oriented activities. Other council persons had little comment on the salary donation suggestion. No definitive agreement was reached. Other holiday events dates were also approved: Safe Haven Halloween 2011 scheduled for 10/28/2011 at 4-8 PM, the Christmas Parade scheduled for 12/3/2011 at 2 PM.
The Uniform Collection Agreement with Joe Tedder, Polk County Tax Collector, was the next item on the agenda. Little information was available to the public prior the meeting, so Acting City Manager/Vice Mayor Block provided some details. The water and sewer availability charges, also known as WAC and SAC, are currently being billed manually by the city. The city passed a motion to add these charges to the annual county tax bill, instead. These are charges placed on undeveloped building lots for access to water and sewer lines running past the property. Despite not having any meters or use of these services, the city officials approved this ordinance in 2009 so these annual fees can be collected to pay for the "maintenance" of these pipes. These annual fees will charged indefinitely unless the ordinance is repealed. Councilman Kimsey made it very clear that he is willing to repeal these unfair charges if there is enough support from the other council members in the future. In many cases these fees amount to $500 - $800 per year when both water and sewer run past the property. Land zoned for agricultural purposes is exempt from this ordinance. Due to the overwhelming public outrage by the 600 parcel owners to these charges, the city has experienced difficultly collecting these fees since the passing of this ordinance. In the November 15, 2010, City Meeting the amended budget in Ordinance 1270 reflected actual cash flow for the fiscal year rather than anticipated cash flow. These adjustments are evidence that the city projected to collect "Privilege Fees" (disguised WAC & SAC) of a combined $169,450. Instead, the city was only able to collect a total of $26,090, a shortage of $143,360. Ms. Block stated that the main reason for these billing changes is to save on printing and mailing expenses for the city. What was not mentioned, but seems pretty obvious to us, is that the city is also hoping the collections of these fees will have more muscle if the fees are included on the tax bill mailed out by the county. Ms. Block stated that this week the city will be working on sending out invoices for past due 2009 WAC/SAC fees. First she stated that a penalty for late payment would also be included on these bills. When challenged by a city resident, Laura Lambert, during the public comment section of the meeting, Ms. Block recanted this statement by saying that property owners would be provided a notice to pay before penalties would be assessed, but future notices would include penalties for late payment. Manual bills for 2010 fees will be going out shortly, as well. The fees for these charges are sent out for the previous year, not in advance of the fiscal year. City officials indicated that they plan to bill for 2011 fees via the regularly mailed tax bill from the county. It was unclear during the meeting if the county has already agreed to add this fee to the tax bill. The adding of this extra line item may cause some issues in the formatting of the tax bill due to the number of line items already present on in-City tax bills.
Ordinance 1275 on renewing the 20 year contract with Lakeland Electric for the majority of the city residents electric services was tabled until next month's regular meeting. Mr. Cloud stated that Lakeland was presented with the new contract last week and has requested more time to review the document. Mr. Cloud stated that the franchise fee of 4%, the tax that the city collects through the electric bill as direct revenue for the city, will remain the same as it is currently. Mr. Cloud stated that other municipalities average a 6% franchise fee on their utilities. Upon hearing this average, Mayor LaCascia was quick to ask if the city can increase this fee to 6%, as well, to generate more funding for the city. Mr. Cloud advised that considering the public is not very happy with other fees, increasing the franchise fee would not be a wise move.
Mr. Mark Durbin, of Range Riders, was present during the discussion of the next step in the search for a new City Manager. He gave a brief summary of how council narrowed down the initial 60+ list of applicants, to the 12 candidates whom were contacted by City Clerk, Patricia Jackson, for further information. Many candidates were no longer being considered by some council members after their salary requirements were stated as being significantly higher than the budgeted $65 K, plus benefits. With this additional information in hand, each council member was asked for their top 5 candidates to narrow it down further. The 5 candidates who were mentioned by more than one council member moved on to the next round. Ms. Block tried repeatedly to convince council to consider two others whom she felt might settle for a lower salary than originally stated. Mr. Durbin and other council members felt there was little to no chance of this happening considering the individual she was fighting the hardest for had recently been offered a salary of 70K by the city of Mascott, FL, where he is the Acting City Manager currently, and still declined the offer. This article by Kevin Bouffard of the Ledger Polk City Manager Candidates Are Narrowed to Five goes into more detail about the individual candidates. Mr. Durbin recommended that a $35 criminal background check be run on the remaining candidates before scheduling the 1st round interviews for Saturday, April 30th, 2011. Council agreed to reimburse mileage at a rate of $.55 per mile for candidates to travel to the interview. No other expenses for travel will be paid by the city. All council members and Mr. Durbin agreed to be present for these interviews. If anything questionable comes up in the criminal checks, council will be notified.
Acting City Manager/Vice Mayor Block represented Polk City during a recent high school student art exhibit at the Polk Museum of Art and attended a Polk water Co-Op meeting where alternative future water sources for Polk County were discussed.
Representatives from Woodard & Curran, the new water and sewer company, were present and introduced. An update was provided. Frank Sanderson has resigned effective at the end of the month, so he can be closer to his home and family in Citrus County. Mr. Sanderson has been the main utility consultant, the $1,700/week man, during the time FGUA was assisting the city and also stayed on during the transition period as an employee of Woodard & Curran. In April, Woodard and Curran will begin drafting the new consumer confidence report, which is typically distributed in May or June. This is a required report that provides the public with information on water quality and current levels of certain contaminants. GAI reports are almost done. A city workshop will be scheduled in April to discuss the results of these reports.
The 3rd Annual Polk City Yard Sale will be held Saturday, April 30th from 8 AM - 4 PM. Registration is required, but the usual permit fee will be waived for city residents and individuals who are current customers of Polk City Utilities. Details were mailed out in the recent water bills and are also available online at Polk City's web page.
During the public comment section of the meeting, Mrs. Laura Lambert asked several questions about the Lakeland Electric contract renewal and how these contracts with utility providers work. The contract with TECO has historically been renewed on a 30 year basis. Ms. Block stated that the city typically makes between $48,000 - $64,000 in revenue from electric utility Franchise fees, which will vary based on customer usage. The actual budget figures from last fiscal year in Ordinance 1270 show that the actual revenue generated last year was $85,168, up $5,168 from anticipated revenue. Mrs. Lambert also asked for clarification on the difference between Impact Fees and WAC/SAC charges that the city charges. The Mayor and Mr. Cloud explained that Impact Fees are charged to recoup capital expenditure costs to provide these services and are charged one time when permits for development are acquired. Currently impact fees for the county and city have been temporarily waived to encourage growth. WAC/SAC fees are charged to maintain the availability of the services to the property parcel and are charged annually until the property is developed. It appears the city is trying to substitute permanent and recurring income with these fees, since lack of growth has been generating little to no Impact Fee revenue. When council was questioned if some Mt. Olive properties are being assessed at different WAC/SAC rates than in-city properties, there was some confusion in the answers provided by council. Ms. Block offered to provide this information to Ms. Lambert if she wanted to come to her office to discuss it further.
Lisa Shifflett requested that the regular reports which are approved with little to no discussion by council at most city meetings be made readily available to the public on the city's web page. She was informed that all of this information is readily available if a public records request if made to the city clerk. Ms. Shifflett stated that rather than providing multiple public records requests to multiple people on a regular basis it would be much more time saving and cost efficient to the city to just provide this information on the web page, since the web page is already designed to have this information posted and merely needs to be updated regularly. Patricia Jackson stated that she has had others request this information as well, and will be working to get this information updated on the website within the next couple of weeks. Ms. Shifflett also asked for an update on the possibility of the well drilling ban for irrigation being repealed. Mr. Cloud stated that it was not very likely since existing city bonds/loans from state agencies such as the DEP agreed to these bonds/loans based on increased water revenues expected to generated by this ban being in place. Mr. Cloud said that these fees could not be repealed without violating these loan agreements. Ms. Block clarified that Swiftmud does not have any restrictions on well drilling, but will only issue a permit if the municipality will issue a permit, which Polk City will not.
Another Mount Olive resident spoke up and stated that recently an individual had put down a $5,000 deposit to purchase a property in Mount Olive Shores North. After placing his deposit, he forfeited his deposit and withdrew his offer after finding out what typical water and sewer charges and other fees and taxes typically cost. This has not been the first time this has happened. It is becoming close to impossible to sell undeveloped building lots and values of these properties are decreasing due to these excessive fees from the city. The resident pleaded for the city to reconsider the many unreasonably high fees being charged.
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