By REID TUCKER
There’s simply no telling if the DeFuniak Springs City Council’s support for Alabama was the tipping point that gave the team victory over Clemson in the thrilling college football national championship Monday night. However, it is a matter of public record that two of the four Council members present – Ron Kelley and Janie Griffith – enthusiastically uttered the words “Roll” and “Tide” in their closing comments on the night of Jan. 11, so the reader may draw his or her own conclusions.
Whether or not the board members wanted to hurry home to watch the game, the City Council started the new year off by flying through the assembled agenda in less than an hour. The Council primarily addressed Chautauqua Hall of Brotherhood rental fees during the Christmas Reflections goings-on and discussion on a policy regarding the use of remote-controlled aerial “drones” within the city limits, though both items were tabled for more talks at an upcoming meeting.
Discussion about Chautauqua Building rental fees from the day after Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve took the longest, with the board eventually deciding to revisit the issue at the first meeting in June, after the Christmas Reflections committee has issued its annual report. The current resolution, passed in December 2012, set an additional fee of $3 per guest to help cover Christmas Reflections’ gate costs. Another additional fee on top of normal building rental fee is $50, collected to help pay for an elevator at the building – though there is a good prospect of securing a grant for the $497,000 needed to finish to project, Mayor Bob Campbell said.
The Council also tabled discussion about a city policy on the use of drones by the public until Public Works Manager Tilman Mears can gather input from citizens, other department heads, DeFuniak Springs Police Department representatives and the individual board members about the issue. Mears said there were several instances of Fourth of July visitors using drones to take aerial photographs and video, raising safety concerns among other visitors at the event, which draws hundreds if not thousands of people to the Lakeyard for the annual fireworks display. Current state statute disallows drones to be flown within five miles of airports, but Mears said the regulation is largely unenforceable as it is now, thus his desire to work with the DFSPD and others to develop a more comprehensive plan to help mitigate possible safety hazards and privacy concerns.
Other items on the agenda were dealt with even more quickly.
The board members voted unanimously to approve April 19, May 17 and May 24 as the dates for joint meetings between the Economic Development Committee and the City Council regarding the Department of Economic Opportunity’s Competitive Florida Economic Development Grant. Flyers advertising the public meetings will be included in city water customers’ monthly bills.
Fire Chief Charles Burney informed the Council of the favorable result of the Insurance Service Office’s report on the fire suppression services provided by the Fire Department for DeFuniak Springs. The city received a ranking of 5 out of a possible 10 (with 1 being the best possible classification), an improvement of one classification level since the last ISO assessment in 1996, but from now on assessments will be made every three or four years to keep the information current. The ISO considers various factors such as water supply, hydrant location, telecommunications and firefighter training and whether or not a given property is within five land miles of a fire department when making its assessment.
Burney was pleased with this result, but he also said the city could attain a classification of 4 without the need for additional cost to the taxpayers. This process of increasing efficiency was already underway as of the first of this new year, Burney said. The full ISO report is available online at http://defuniaksprings.net.
