By REID TUCKER
First, the land purchase agreement to buy the current City Hall property is chugging right along. Second, the DeFuniak Springs City Council spent a sizable portion of its December meeting discussing how to go about selecting property upon which to build a new City Hall.
Every member of the Council put in a suggestion at the Dec. 8 meeting as to how the city might resolve the situation.
Councilman Mac Work broached the subject of getting a binder on the property, wherever that might eventually turn out to be, once the Council decides on where to build, and Councilman Kermit Wright opined that what is needed is a workshop to decide the best location. Councilman Henry Ennis made a motion to have a full analysis done on each of the front-running properties, but that met with some resistance from the other board members, who contended that such a move would invariably cost the city thousands of dollars in site appraisals and engineering fees. Councilman Mac Carpenter and City Manager Sara Bowers suggested compiling a list of all the available properties, including the site near Regions Bank on 20th Street and the former location of the Piggly Wiggly grocery store downtown.
That last idea of a list including prices, locations and pros and cons associated with each location, gained the most traction, and eventually the board voted 4-1 in favor of such a course of action. Councilman Ron Kelley voted against the motion on the basis that he was opposed to the inclusion of the former Piggly Wiggly site in the list. Bowers said she will present the finished list to the Council as a future agenda item after the first of the new year.
Other news coming out of the meeting was varied.
Rick Hammond of the Paces Foundation got the Council’s unanimous approval on a few requests related to his organization’s plans to construct upward of 150 apartment units for low-income families and senior citizens. The Council members voted to uphold city staff’s recommendation to approve land use and zoning changes for the property, located on 15.4 acres on North 20th Street, from agriculture to medium density residential and from agriculture to R-2 multi-family residential. Additionally, the request for a local government financial contribution of $5,000 to cover the Florida Housing Finance Corporation application for both projects was approved by the board.
City Marshal Mark Weeks got the Council’s unanimous approval to purchase four new Dodge Charger police cruisers for a total price of $107,220, less than the approved budgeted amount of $140,000. The reason for the discrepancy is a decision by the DFSPD to go out for separate bids on the installation of lights, radars, radios and other police equipment, using suppliers closer to the local area. Weeks said this plan should still bring the total cost within the budgeted amount while cutting down on the wait time for the equipment and improving the odds of quick service in the event of problems with the equipment.
The board also discussed the possibility of drafting and adopting a policy regarding how to handle requests from new historic district businesses for financing tap fees. The Council voted 4-1 to approve the motion, made by Carpenter, with Ennis casting the nay vote. That motion was the result of a unanimous vote in favor of granting the owners of the recently relocated Bogey’s Restaurant a request to finance their tap fees for 18 months.
This new tap into the water system is needed for fire suppression only.
