Maitland City Talk

Coming into 2011, our city of Maitland has some exciting projects and new development opportunities, as well as some immediate challenges. Our former Mayor Doug Kinson and our present City Council have laid the groundwork for some of these projects.

They are as follows: construction of the new fire station (to begin in January with completion by the end of 2011); construction of the new city hall (projected to begin in May with completion in May 2012); continue to move SunRail forward along with quiet zones (construction for the SunRail station is projected to begin in 2013); and, complete the updating of our land development code and pattern book.

While serving the remaining 15 months of Mayor Kinson’s term, I am going to work toward moving forward with a community park on the west side; updating the police officers and firefighters pension plan; reviewing and updating our city charter; creating a bicycle and pedestrian master plan; and updating our city development permitting process.

Renewed prospects for development in our Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) including our downtown are encouraging. To date they are as follows: the Residences at Ravinia site (the land immediately north of Publix); the Smith Property (at the northwest corner of U.S. Highway 17-92 and Horatio Avenue); and the Winn Dixie-Royal Plaza property.

Our city faces challenges because of the economic downturn, including reduction in property taxes, other state taxes and various fees. I will strive to maintain no increase in property tax millage rates; maintain a balanced budget; continue to move forward with our Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) schedule; and work with our cultural partners to find ways for them to become more financially independent.

It is important that our city continues to look for ways to reduce expenses and pursue as many outside funding sources as possible. This includes qualifying and applying for state and federal grants. Our city staff did an exemplary job securing a number of these grants and reducing our expenses in 2010. This resulted in no increase in taxes and the maintaining of a balanced budget last year. They have continued those same efforts with the ongoing pursuit of additional grants and our approved budget for 2011. However, as revenue projections for the city continue to decline, we not only need to continue our efforts as stated above, but we also need to find new sources of revenue without putting any additional tax burden on our citizens.

A major source of that new revenue can come from new development. As our economy recovers, we need to encourage “properly designed” new development throughout our city, especially on the west side and in our CRA, which includes the continued pursuit of the creation of our new downtown. This will provide much-needed new property tax revenue for our city, as well as tax increment financing (TIF) revenue to offset the substantial debt from infrastructure improvements in our CRA. It will also help achieve the goal of realizing our new downtown.

With the encouraging prospects for 2011 and with the continued efforts of our City Council, city boards, city staff and citizens, we can get through this challenging period and continue on the road to a brighter future for our city. I want to thank everyone for all their hard work to date, and encourage all of us to continue those efforts to realize the full potential of our city.