By REID TUCKER
DeFuniak Springs resident Bob McKnight and Preble-Rish, Inc.’s Cliff Knauer proposed to work together to fulfill the duties of the vacant grant writer position with the city, and the Council got on-board.
The City Council had, at a Sept. 23 workshop related to filling the grant writer position, asked McKnight and Knauer, the two finalists for the grant writer position, to consider cooperating as co-grant writers. The councilmen suggested that both parties had something to bring to the table – McKnight, a former university professor who specialized in grant writing and Knauer, a representative of the city’s engineering firm – meaning that everyone would stand to gain if they worked together. At the regularly scheduled meeting of Oct. 13, the two men made known their intention to do just that.
“At the last meeting where we both presented to you, you asked us if we could come together and work out some collaboration and some cooperation,” McKnight said. “I think both of us are comfortable that we can fulfill that wish, and with that we’d appreciate it if the Council would move forward to whatever the next step is.”
Owing to the somewhat uncommon arrangement of effectively having two grant writers, the Council directed City Manager Sara Bowers to check with other municipalities in the state to see if there are any leads to go on when it comes to working out a contract. Meanwhile, McKnight and Knauer said they will put their heads together on a proposal and confer with Bowers, who will bring it before the Council at its next regularly scheduled meeting on Oct. 27.
Both McKnight and Knauer emphasized the importance of quickly “getting the ball rolling” on chasing down grants for the city, but both similarly agreed the city needs to develop a long-term strategic plan. They contended that a strategic plan is necessary if they want to be most effective at securing the kinds of grants that could most benefit the city.
Another major development to come out of the meeting was a motion by Councilman Ron Kelley to begin contacting property owners between U.S. 90 and Interstate 10, notifying them of the city’s intent to bring the land use and zoning designations into compliance. Kelley said there are 58 parcels where either land use or zoning, or sometimes neither, match up. This discrepancy (usually a case of the land being designated as agricultural despite being along a major commercial corridor) has already cost the city opportunities to attract businesses or industry to the DeFuniak and could further stymie growth once the widening of U.S. 331 is completed, he said.
Kelley proposed to rectify the dilemma in phases, first contacting property owners between U.S. 90 and I-10, and then moving to other areas of the city, setting up public meetings and workshop sessions with those individuals in order to gauge public participation. The object, he said is to be ready for business when the time comes, and the city therefore needs to get started soon. Councilman Mac Carpenter disagreed, saying that long-range planning had to be done before the city could begin determining these land-use categories, or else legal challenges could arise from property owners whose land suddenly became much more valuable, substantially raising their property taxes.
Nevertheless, Kelley’s motion passed 4-1, with Carpenter casting the sole nay vote.
Aside from those two main discussion items, the remainder of the agenda was business as usual for the Council, with several public works projects all getting the board’s go-ahead. Most prominently, the Council returned unanimous votes approving the use of $74,536 in Rural Development funds to cover Preble-Rish’s engineering fees on the water main replacement project, which will switch out the city’s old asbestos concrete water lines with new PVC lines. Additionally, the Council approved fee waivers for the use of the Community Center in three upcoming events: a Friends of the Library Book sale, a Halloween fundraiser for the Walton High School Class of 2005’s reunion, and the WHS Anchor Club’s Nov. 6 Hometown Heroes Banquet.
Finally (though it was first on the agenda, chronologically speaking), local student Dylan Gentile called on the City Council to create a “Walkability Committee,” the goal of which would be to confer on how to encourage and facilitate the development of pedestrian-friendly infrastructure. Gentile presented a slide show in support of his proposal, saying that increased pedestrian mobility could help DeFuniak Springs attract young, affluent health-conscious people looking to escape urban sprawl while combating obesity. The Council took no action on the matter, but Carpenter agreed with Gentile’s points and applauded his efforts, saying that improved walkability should be a major concern of the city as it moves forward with the development of its strategic plan.
