FY 2021 Budget Passes First Reading

Millage Rate Unchanged

Chickens Squeak Through

by Anne Mooney / September 10, 2020

Chickens will come home to roost

Despite emails indicating Winter Park was split down the middle on the backyard chicken question, the ordinance creating a two-year backyard chicken pilot program narrowly squeaked through its second and final reading on a 3-2 vote – with a few amendments.

Among the raft of amendments was reduction of maximum coop height to six feet, requirement for a fence to obscure the coop from neighbors and a requirement to obtain written permission from all neighbors whose property abuts the property with the chickens. A provision for 48-hour warning before inspections was removed, allowing Code Enforcement to make unannounced spot inspections. Coops can be in backyards only, not side yards. Chicken owners who receive repeated complaints will face escalating fines, and a “three-strikes-you’re-out” rule will remove the chicken owner from the program on the third complaint.

None of the current Commissioners will apply to keep backyard chickens.

Commission passes 2021 Budget, millage rate on First Reading

The FY 2021 Budget passed on a 5-0 vote with only one amendment, proposed by Commissioner Sheila DeCiccio, to grant up to 3.5 percent raises to City staff rather than freezing their salaries.

Mayor argues for rollback rate

The millage rate was kept at 4.0923 for the 13th year, despite arguments by Mayor Steve Leary to drop the millage to the rollback rate of 3.9509. The rolled-back rate represents the millage rate that would generate the same level of property tax revenue as the prior year, excepting growth due to inflation factor and new construction.

Dropping the millage rate to the rollback level would mean removing the contingency, but Leary said he felt comfortable the $17 million in reserves would cover any contingency.

Vice-Mayor: “Situation is too fluid.”

Vice-Mayor Carolyn Cooper disagreed. “I am not comfortable,” she said, “because the City is cutting services and curtailing and freezing staff. First, the City brought us a balanced, but curtailed budget. Then we were told that revenue projections were even lower, but that was followed by state projections that changed again.”

Cooper went on to point out just how fluid the situation might be. “Orange and Osceola Counties have a backlog of foreclosures stacked up until the moratorium is lifted. What happens then? What about people being evicted from apartments? And if empty property remains vacant, what will happen to property valuations? I believe it is prudent to hold back on costs and continue to accrue the same millage rate we have had for 12 years.”

The August 18 Orlando Business Journal noted Central Florida is still dealing with high unemployment and pandemic. “Orlando attorneys were prepared for a wave of evictions and foreclosures when the statewide moratorium neared expiration at the end of July.” According to the most recent data available, the unemployment rate for metro Orlando was 16.5 percent in June, while the rate in Florida was 10.7 percent.

  • author's avatar
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • reddit
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • reddit

    By: Anne Mooney

    Anne Mooney has assumed the editorship of the Winter Park Voice from founding editor Tom Childers.

    Mooney got her start in New York as a freelance line editor for book publishers, among them Simon & Schuster and the Clarkson Potter division of Crown Books. From New York, she and her husband and their year-old toddler moved to Washington, D.C., where the two ran a newswire service for Harper’s magazine. “We called it Network News,” said Mooney, “because it was a network of the Harper’s writers, whose work we edited into newspaper style and format and sold to papers in the top U.S. and Canadian markets. We were sort of like a tiny UPI.”

    The newswire ceased operation with the death of Mooney’s first husband, but Mooney continued to write and edit, doing freelance work for Williams Sonoma cookbooks and for local publications in D.C.

    In 2005, Mooney moved to Winter Park, where she worked as a personal chef and wrote a regular food column for a south Florida magazine. She took an active interest in Winter Park politics and was there when the Winter Park Voice was founded. She wrote occasional pieces for the Voice, including the Childers bio that this piece replaces.

    The Winter Park Voice is one of a large number of “hyper-local” publications that have sprung up across the U.S. in response to the decline of the major daily newspapers and the resulting deficit of local news coverage. The Voice’sbeat is Winter Park City Hall, and its purpose is to help the residents of our city better understand the political forces that shape our daily lives.

  • author's avatar
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • reddit
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • reddit

Share This