Is Winter Park turning 125 or 130?

How old is Winter Park? That was the question asked up on the dais Monday as commissioners grappled with the issue of the precise chronology of the city’s extreme age.

Mayor Ken Bradley was attempting to form a 125th Anniversary Committee to plan the celebration when he mentioned that the city’s official founding may not be so official, and the city may have accidentally forgotten to celebrate its 125th anniversary five years ago.

“We have some question about when the city was officially started,” Bradley said.

Commissioner Tom McMacken concurred, but said that the city didn’t celebrate a 125th anniversary in 2007.

“I don’t remember having a 125th (anniversary celebration),” McMacken said.

City Manager Randy Knight said that the city did celebrate a 100th anniversary in 1982, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the city being “established,” though not officially incorporated.

The mayor announced that he’d have city staff explore celebrating an anniversary, be that the 125th or 130th, to see if it would be worth having.

“I just think it’s a nice thing to call attention to our city,” Bradley said.

Safer streets

Winter Park may soon be on a path to safer streets after the City Commission voted Monday to pass a resolution in favor of a project that would make the city more walkable.

“It seems to be something that everyone supports,” Winter Park Chamber of Commerce President Patrick Chapin said. “I would highly recommend this.”

Early in the discussion, McMacken said that there was a danger of the program going too far, and having difficulty installing sidewalks in some areas with little wiggle room.

“To do this (in some areas), we’d either have to get new property easements or cut down every tree on the street,” McMacken said.

He later withdrew a proposed amendment that would limit the program to only arterial and collector roads.

Public records requests

Commissioner Carolyn Cooper pushed for uniform rules with public records requests, saying that some requestees were being charged for copies of public records, while others were not. There was a chance for favoritism to make it more difficult for some people to get records than others, she said.

“I don’t want there ever to be a sense of favoritism, that some people get things and they don’t pay, others do and they do pay,” she said.

Currently city staff is allowed to use discretion when fulfilling public records requests and deciding whether to charge for them, due to the labor costs of retrieving the records.

“If someone asks for one page, it costs us more to go to the register and charge them the 15 cents than it would to just give it to them,” Knight said. “That’s why we use our discretion.”

Workers fight for rights

City employees not part of the police and fire unions asked for the chance to organize for better pay and benefits, speaking at Monday’s meeting.

“We want the same rights as the police and firefighters,” Winter Park utility worker Andrew Jordan said.

In April, the City Commission voted to approve a $2,500-a-day contract with an anti-labor lobbying firm to talk to city employees about not joining a union.