Winter Park City Talk

Please excuse our digging & temporary disheveled appearance…

We are enhancing City Hall. In conjunction with the interior renovations of City Hall, we have begun the exterior beautification/re-landscaping of our City Hall property. The plan and vision is to establish a new and inviting park-like setting for our City Hall property. Public Works is relocating the retention area between the City Hall West Wing and Park Avenue. This relocation will allow for the installation of a large, inviting public lawn area shaded by a magnificent live oak, creating a welcoming and attractive vista for all of our City Hall guests. Sprinkled throughout the property will be many flowering trees with an emphasis on seasonal color framing and accenting the beautiful open views across the newly expanded lawns, as well as vibrant annual flowerbeds and clusters of colorful potted accent groupings.

As with any relandscaping project, our City Hall property will look a lot worse before it looks much better, especially as the existing sod is sprayed and removed. But please be reassured, shortly afterward you will see the installation of a new zoysia lawn spreading toward Lyman and Park avenues establishing an inviting, green oasis. We thank you for your continued patience during this interior and exterior City Hall renovation project.

CoffeeTalk begins June 8

Initiated in 2005, CoffeeTalk has become the place to be for citizens that have “a latte beans to grind” or who simply want to “espresso their thoughts.” The purpose of CoffeeTalk is to give citizens the opportunity to talk to their city leaders in a more casual, informal environment and avoid the stage fright that is often experienced at large meetings.

Below is the schedule for the upcoming 2012 CoffeeTalk series:

• Friday, June 8: Mayor Ken Bradley in conjunction with the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce’s “Good Morning Winter Park”

• Thursday, July 19: City Manager Randy Knight

• Thursday, Aug. 16: Vice Mayor Steven Leary

• Thursday, Sept. 27: Commissioner Sarah Sprinkel

• Thursday, Oct. 18: Commissioner Carolyn Cooper

• Thursday, Nov. 15: Commissioner Tom McMacken

All CoffeeTalk sessions will be held at 8 a.m. at the Winter Park Welcome Center located at 151 W. Lyman Ave. Please mark your calendars for a cup of conversation and great coffee courtesy of Palmano’s Café, Coffee & Wine Bar.

Click It or Ticket

The Winter Park Police Department (WPPD) has joined state and local law enforcement agencies all across the nation for the 2012 “Click It or Ticket” seat belt enforcement campaign. This specific campaign began on May 21 and runs through Tuesday, June 3. Officers will be focusing their traffic enforcement efforts toward unbelted vehicle occupants around the clock during this time. Seat belts clearly save lives. In 2009 alone, seat belts saved 12,713 lives nationwide.

Regular seat belt use is the single most effective way to protect people and reduce fatalities in motor vehicle crashes. When worn correctly, seat belts have been proven to reduce the risk of fatal injury to front-seat passenger car occupants by 45 percent, and by 60 percent in pickup trucks, SUVs and minivans, yet nearly one out of five Americans still fails to wear a seat belt when driving or riding in a motor vehicle.

In 2010 nationally, 61 percent of the 10,647 passenger vehicle occupants died in motor vehicle crashes between the hours of 6 p.m. and 5:59 a.m., according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. More regrettably, seat belt discussions too often revolve around adults in the front seats of vehicles. Child safety seats are often overlooked. Children have to be buckled up too. Your child seat can be installed by a certified police officer at WPPD by appointment. This is a longtime service that WPPD has been providing at no cost to the public.

The WPPD encourages everyone to wear their seatbelts and use proper child safety equipment at all times, but is asking drivers to have a heightened sense of awareness during the enforcement campaign. The agency is encouraging compliance in lieu of having to issue citations as costly reminders of a law that everyone should be following every time they are in a vehicle.

Remember now through June 3, it’s “Click It or Ticket.” Buckle up and encourage your loved ones to do the same. You’ll save the cost of a ticket and maybe even save a life.

“Call to Artists” for Art On The Green 2012

The city of Winter Park and the Winter Park Public Art Advisory Board has extended the Art on the Green 2012 “call for artists” deadline until Friday, June 1. Art on the Green 2012, a juried exhibition of eight sculptures in downtown Winter Park presented by the city of Winter Park and Massey Services Inc., will run from Saturday, Sept. 1, through Friday, March 1.

Olga Viso, Rollins College graduate and executive director of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, one of the most important contemporary art museums in the United States, will serve as guest curator for Art on the Green 2012.

Eligible artists nationwide are encouraged to submit entries for the competitive selection process. Complete details regarding artist entries may be found by visiting the home page of the city’s official website at cityofwinterpark.org and clicking on the “Art on the Green” button.

Winning entries to be included in the exhibition will be announced on Friday, June 22. Each selected artist will receive a $1,000 honorarium. There will also be a $500 “People’s Choice” award presented to the artist with most the votes from the public during the exhibition.

For more information regarding Art on the Green, a project of the Winter Park Public Art Advisory Board, please call 407-599-3498.

Ways to save water & money

We have now entered the rainy season where we can expect some sort of precipitation almost every day. We have all seen it — sprinklers going off during a rainstorm or shortly thereafter. We all know why that happens — our irrigation systems are set and they are not manually changed or turned off.

The problem is three-fold:

1. Overwatering a lawn promotes weeds, bugs and weakened grass roots.

2. It wastes water and money — lawn and landscape irrigation accounts for more than half of all residential water use.

3. It is against City Ordinance #2406-01 Section 1 that outlines water usage and restrictions. In addition, Florida Administrative Code 40C-2.042-5 requires anyone with an irrigation system installed after May 1, 1991, to “maintain and operate a rain sensor device or switch that overrides the irrigation system when adequate rainfall has occurred.”

Three easy solutions:

1. Install a rain sensor, soil moisture sensor or smart controller to sense moisture in the root zone and automatically turn off your irrigation system.

2. Remember to turn off your irrigation system on days that it has rained.

3. Make an appointment with the city’s Water Conservation Specialist by calling 407-599-3597 for a free on-site evaluation of your water/irrigation usage and receive suggestions of how to conserve water and save money. The city can help you verify optimal sprinkler head adjustment, identify leaks and correct controller settings for irrigation days and times — all for free!

Other easy ways to save water:

• Turn off the water while brushing your teeth.

• Wait until the dishwasher is full before running it.

• Find and fix leaks.

• Install low-flow toilets and showerheads.

• Take a shower instead of a bath.

• Use water-efficient appliances.

• Irrigate wisely only when needed, before 10 a.m. and after 4 p.m. only, and water for no more than one hour per zone.

• Know your days — mandatory lawn-watering restrictions specify the days when you may water. Homes with odd-numbered or no addresses water Wednesday and Saturday. Homes with even-numbered addresses water Thursday and Sunday. Nonresidential properties water Tuesday and Friday.

Visit the city’s official website at cityofwinterpark.org, find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.