Ocoee City Commission approves final site plan for Kids Community College

OCOEE — The Ocoee City Commission approved the final site plan for the relocation of Kids Community College-Orange County Elementary during its Jan. 20 meeting, voting 5-0 in favor of the plan.

The school will move from its kindergarten to fourth-grade building on Citrus Oaks Avenue, between West Colonial Drive and State Road 408 in Gotha, to the back of Lake Olympia Square in Ocoee, in the southeast corner of the intersection of Olympus Drive and East Silver Star Road.

This charter school received a special exception for this 6.22-acre site at the Oct. 7 meeting of the commission and is currently on schedule to open in time to begin next school year in August.

In addition to a two-story, pre-kindergarten to fifth-grade school building of about 31,055 square feet, the campus will consist of a playground, a basketball court and an unlit 20,000-square-foot activity field, with a fence or wall along all sides of the property but Silver Star. Construction also calls for a stormwater retention pond on this property, which will aid with drainage problems for the neighborhood downhill from this site, to the south.

There will be one access point along Silver Star, and two commercial outparcels will remain along Silver Star.

The school will support 350 students once it reaches capacity, and a lottery will occur to determine who will be selected for the school, with the possibility of preference given to those nearest to the school, Kids Community College officials said.

SPEED CAMERAS

Ocoee Police presented a proposal for cameras in a ring around the city to track Florida license plates, with the possibility for cameras on various poles and speed trailers. The cameras will not be used on state roads, per state policies. Commissioner Rusty Johnson said he liked the potential to compare plates with crime records, to know what kinds of criminals are traveling in Ocoee.

Police officials are also working on procuring technology to enable security footage to transmit directly and immediately from buildings to the police station and patrol cars. This could help with area canvases.

EMERGENCY HEALTH INSURANCE FUNDING

Based on a recent spike of $400,000 affecting the city’s health insurance fund, city staff recommended allowing City Manager Robert Frank to make an emergency transfer of $125,000 from the city’s general fund to its health fund, as well as a loan of $400,000 from the road impact fund to the health fund.

The $125,000 paid for insurance claims, whereas the $400,000 loan should cover health insurance claims for the remainder of the fiscal year, as long as claims do not increase. Repayment to the road impact fund should occur via a transfer at the end of the fiscal year, if sufficient funds are available.

The commission unanimously approved the plan, although Mayor S. Scott Vandergrift wondered whether a better manner of addressing a situation of this nature could be possible in the future.

CODE ENFORCEMENT

The commission passed Ocoee’s code-enforcement agreements with Oakland and Windermere, with an overtime clause and an adjustment of 3% to cover the city’s costs.

In the agreement, Ocoee will continue to make one of its code enforcement officers available to Oakland and Windermere to enforce codes up to eight hours per week. The expectation is that the officer will perform such services in two four-hour segments on nonconsecutive days in each town.

For more than eight hours per week, an overtime rate of $44.18 per hour would be applied. The 3% adjustment pushes the hourly rate from $28.59 to $29.45.

IN OTHER NEWS

• As part of the consent agenda, the commission approved a budget surplus for the replacement of Ocoee Fire Department Unit 402F, a 2003 Pierce Enforcer Pumper truck with more than 112,000 miles on its odometer. A guaranteed minimum trade-in value of $30,000 for this truck applies to a new 2015 Pierce Enforcer Pumper. Unit 402F will be the city’s relief pumper until the new unit arrives.

• Commissioner Rusty Johnson and city staff presented a video of highlights commemorating the 2014 Ocoee Founders’ Day Festival. Johnson also announced that the 2015 festival would take place Nov. 13 to 14.

• Commissioner Rosemary Wilsen reminded attendees of changes to the recycling schedules in Ocoee. More information is available at ocoee.org.

Contact Zak Kerr at [email protected].