Commission mulls asking voters to approve more debt to pay for flood prevention
Winter Park Playhouse, Bank of the Ozarks purchase remain in limbo while the City Commission works to balance $200 million budget
By Beth Kassab
As they attempted to balance the city’s budget, Winter Park City Commissioners on Wednesday floated the idea of asking voters to agree to take on more debt for three new programs — flood prevention, upgraded public safety buildings and the acquisition of more park land. The city’s more than $200 million budget has a shortfall of at least $30 million for projects desired by the commission.
The first of the bond referendums, which will ask voters to approve borrowing money for specific purposes, could show up on the ballot as early as March 2024, though a specific timeline is still unclear.
Mayor Phil Anderson indicated a top priority is repairing and enhancing the city’s stormwater management system, which was overtaxed with severe flooding in the wake of Hurricane Ian.
“Our residents want to have a really good flood prevention system,” said Anderson. “We’ll probably have to come forward with a capital bond issue for $20 million worth of stormwater improvements.”
But the city is still awaiting consulting reports about what kind of work needs to be done and how much it will cost — a process that is likely to extend into next year.
Vice Mayor Sheila DeCiccio expressed frustration that commissioners are being asked to assign dollar figures to projects without yet knowing the true costs.
“It’s hard for me to work on the budget without having an engineering report on stormwater,” she said. “I don’t have a clue what figure to plug in … I’m frustrated because I don’t know where to go from here.”
Anderson suggested the city begin by prioritizing $2 million for work in various neighborhoods that city staff already know is critical.
DeCiccio noted that up to $14 million is set aside in the city’s Community Redevelopment Area fund to buy the Post Office — a purchase the city has sought for years in order to expand Central Park, but without success because the U.S. Postal Service is not interested in selling. With the CRA set to dissolve in four years if Orange County does not approve an extension, that money could be used to fix flooding problems on the west side of the city or other priorities, several commissioners agreed.
Commissioners will devote a public meeting in August to specifically hash out the CRA budget.
For now, they remained non-committal on other items such as setting aside money to help the nonprofit Winter Park Playhouse find a new home or the acquisition of the Bank of the Ozarks property on Orange Avenue to expand Seven Oaks Park.
Commissioners left the dollar figure next to the Playhouse line item blank in hopes that $4 million or more from Orange County’s Tourist Development Tax would come through, though staff noted it could be well into 2024 before the county approves grants of that size for local arts and culture groups. The local theater is set to lose its current lease on Orange Avenue next year.
The board also discussed whether to purchase the vacant land owned by the Bank of the Ozarks to augment the new Seven Oaks Park and some expressed support for a special bond referendum to raise money to help the city acquire more park space.
No decision was made and it’s still not clear whether a purchase of the Ozarks land is possible or if the owner, who refused the city’s first offer, wants to sell.
“My crystal ball is cloudy,” said Commissioner Marty Sullivan, who has tried to orchestrate a deal on the property in recent weeks.
The other large unfunded project on the city’s wishlist of capital projects also remained up in the air: a new $18.5 million downtown parking garage.
Anderson suggested transportation fixes, specifically $700,000 in technology enhancements, could negate the need for more parking and a new garage. He said commissioners will know more about that after the Transportation Master Plan is discussed.
Commissioners also expressed interest in acquiring property on S.R. 436 near the 7th hole of the Winter Park Pines Golf Course, which the city bought last year, to provide space for a restaurant along the lines of The Taproom at Dubsdread. The popular eatery at the city of Orlando’s Dubsdread Golf Course in College Park appears to be the inspiration for how Winter Park envisions developing the golf course and adding another revenue stream to the mix.
“For it to be first class like the Winter Park 9, then it’s going to need that property,” said Commissioner Todd Weaver, who zoomed into the meeting from a sailing trip.
The owner is asking about $2.6 million for the property.
“This could make a lot of money,” DeCiccio said. “Could we get a business case on this?”
City Manager Randy Knight said staff will bring back more details for review.
When it came time to set the city’s property tax millage rate, Sullivan and Weaver made a brief attempt to raise the millage by a quarter mill or about $75 a year for the owner of a house with a taxable value of about $300,000.
“We’ve been diving into how much money we’re going to need and it looks like either we are going to have to cut some things we really feel we need or we’re going to have to raise the millage rate,” Sullivan said, adding the move would allow the commission flexibility between now and when the final budget is adopted in September.
But Anderson, DeCiccio and Commissioner Kris Cruzada said the millage rate should stay the same, particularly after Knight reminded the group that it recently approved higher fees for residents for everything from park services to stormwater to garbage collection.
“We raised our user fees,” Cruzada said. “I don’t know if we want to go double-barrel and also raise the millage … The Fed raised interest rates another quarter point today. If we move forward to bond, it’s going to be a higher interest rate. It’s a reflection of the time we are living in and residents and homeowners are feeling it. I just want to be sensitive to that.”
DeCiccio and Anderson noted that strong property values along with new construction to be added to the tax rolls will continue to boost city revenues while keeping the millage rate the same — at least for the time being.
Questions or comments? Email the editor at WinterParkVoiceEditor@gmail.com
The debt isn’t for flood prevention.
The debt is to pay for all the pork in the 2023-2024 budget.
Flood prevention should come from the general fund.
But because the Commissioners are spendthrifts they want to put the residents in debt top pay for it.
This isn’t correct. There is a stormwater management fund, but it hasn’t been able to keep up with critical needs despite fee increases. This has been discussed at meetings several times. There are a lot of needs in the General Fund including police, fire etc. It can’t be assumed that the general fund can cover every need.
Muffin man says that if we didn’t have our expensive event center with attached reading room, or donate 1 million to the Dr. Phillips Center, we might not be in knee deep water in some places. The fact is that the budget needs to be modified to pay for one of the most important budgetary priorities-flood prevention. That should be funded first, even if we have to postpone other projects and make other cuts. The delays have already had a negative impact on some residents. Need to do this now.
Can we stop with the “no millage increase” and “we have a balanced budget” chicanery? (state law requires a balanced budget). Revenues to the city’s general fund have increased almost 50% in the last 8 years. 87% in the last 13 years. There has never been a reduction or belt tightening. It’s always, “we didn’t raise your tax rate”. OK. Then who is paying the 50%/87% revenue increase?
In an economic time that is difficult to understand and predict, wouldn’t a little bit of a refund (reduced millage rate) to the taxpayers be a good idea? Instead, we get higher property taxes. Higher electric costs. Higher garbage, water, sewer fees. And we’re told, “we didn’t raise the millage rate and we balanced the budget!” Hooray, right?
Right. They learned that trick from Leary & Co. when your folks were on the Commission. You weren’t complaining then. You were applauding them for no millage increase.
Nope. No applause for them, but I was applauding Pete Weldon. If you’re honest you’ll look at Pete Weldon’s term on city commission and see that every year he proposed millage reductions. No commissioner ever seconded his motion. I always supported his efforts. And that is why I went back 13 years, too. This commission is the same sauce when it comes to millage.
I’ll help you out. Minutes from one year, (July 25, 2016) but trust me, he attempted every year:
“Motion amended by Commissioner Weldon to request that the Commission agree to send a proposed millage rate to the county appraiser reduced from 4.0923 to 4.00. Motion failed for lack of a second.”
To your point though, I am not applauding a fallow OAO, a $4,000,000 Pointless Park on a street with 15,000 commuters blowing by every day, a $2,000,000 turn lane at Denning and Fairbanks, a freebie undergrounding “plan” that has 2/3rds of customers who paid already subsidizing the 1/3 that get it for free, and so forth.
Don’t believe me? Look it up. I accept apologies with grace.
Weldon did receive one second on lowering millage rate. But only one. And only on first reading.
Now now Pitt own up.
Or did you simply forget that you never criticized Leary, Sprinkel, Seidel, and Cooper for leaving the millage rate unchanged?
And that you had nothing but praise for Leary, Sprinkel, Seidel, and Weldon while they were on the Commission?
Hmmm?
Well?
Not raising the millage is a political shell game. When property assessments go up, taxes go up, while the Commission boasts about not raising millage. For our taxes to remain the same, with ever increasing property assessments, they would HAVE to lower the millage. But, like Pitt says, it’s double-speak chicanery.And how about fixing our brick streets so we don’t all have to get a wheel alignment on our cars every three months? It’s supposed to be underway, right? Haven’t seen anything in our neck of the woods. At least Tire Kingdom is happy.
City just spent thousands of dollars for the smart city proposal and needs analysis. A bunch of sensors to let us know when things aren’t going well. Very limited public feedback and education about it and no opportunity to ask the consultants about their report. But, would it now make sense to integrate the smart city ideas into the budget if we are going to have a smart city? Also, where is the cost-benefit analysis on all this? Is it all lost?
Stop putting this beautiful City of Winter Park in Debt.
There was and still is a lot of unnecessary spending that has not done the City any good. Actually it’s becoming many more of long-time WP residents moving out of the City because of the nonsense.
LOL! It’s been a game for years. Did I criticize them? Absolutely. But one thing Mayor Leary, Commissioners Sprinkel and Weldon never did was vote for a tax rate increase during the Summer of Covid, 2020. 11.5% rate increase. Commissioners DeCiccio, Weaver, Sullivan and Cooper did! Ms. DeCiccio had the wildest rationale: “To roll back taxes now would be fiscally irresponsible, in a pandemic which the commission has never faced before, when revenues are way down and there is a substantial projected shortfall for next year.” IOW, she’d rather take care of government than the thousands of taxpayers in WP who were hurt by Covid restrictions.
This year, Commissioners Sullivan and Weaver wanted to
do it again. Sheila is running for Mayor so she wasn’t touching this with a 10′ pole. But based on past decisions, we know she’d opt for another increase rather than Steve Leary’s “taxpayer first” position on the 2020 tax rate increase: “…. you do it (lower the millage rate) during times of hardship to show the residents who are paying these salaries through their taxes that we understand the struggles they are going through too and we are willing to tighten our belt. That’s why you do it.”
Today we have higher water, electric, garbage, sewer, parks fees. And the commission wants to buy more land. Can’t say that ever occurred during the Leary/Sprinkel/Weldon years. They were friendlier to the taxpayer. By far. Belt tightening would be a wise move.
One idea is to stop building these huge box houses with astroturf and concrete on the several feet of exposed earth around the edges, and build moderate sized two story houses on stilts. Like beach homes. This would mitigate flooding not only for the new homes, but for the existing homes. Water would sink into the ground where it has for thousands of years and flow in a natural direction and would not flood the elevated homes.