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Highlands Today

Commissioners Award Recreation Grants To Avon Park

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By JIM KONKOLY

Highlands Today

Published: December 3, 2008

SEBRING - Highlands County commissioners voted Tuesday to award a total of $236,300 to help fund recreation improvements in Avon Park, and rejected a proposed lease for a private marina and convenience store on Lake June in Winter in Lake Placid.

Commissioners also awarded a $750,000 federal block grant to help pay for construction of an assisted living facility in Sebring that is expected to open in late 2009 and provide more than 50 jobs.
Avon Park will receive $161,310 from county recreation infrastructure funding to improve the soccer fields, the concession stand and restrooms at Memorial Field, and $75,000 toward constructing restrooms at the Durrah Martin baseball complex.

Sun 'n Lake of Sebring also was awarded a recreation grant of $13,221 to help fund installation of new playground equipment.

All of the grant awards were recommended by the Highlands County Recreation and Parks Advisory Committee.

In a 3-2 vote, the commissioners not only rejected a proposed lease with Rick Bateman to build and operate a marina and convenience store at H.L. Bishop Park on Lake June, but also said they won't consider similar proposals in the future.

Commissioners Don Bates, Edgar Stokes and Barbara Stewart voted for a motion rejecting the project, while Commissioners Guy Maxcy and Jeff Carlson voted against.

Under the proposed lease, the county would have been paid $100 per month rent, 2 cents per gallon of gasoline sold to boaters, and 10 percent of the sales in the convenience store.

June Fisher, community services division director, and Vicki Pontius, parks and recreation director, recommended not leasing the park land.

Fisher said her main concern is that Bateman's investment of more than $200,000 to construct the facilities could fail in this economy, and that would leave the county in charge of the project.

Bateman said the marina would not provide storage or repairs, but simply operate as a fueling station which is needed on this popular lake. There are more than 1,200 boats and other watercraft docked on the lake, and many more launched on the public boat ramp, he said.

"It would be an amenity at no cost to the county," he told commissioners.

Even if the project failed, he said, the county would simply have a building plus docks that could be used to expand areas for fishing.

"I think it's good for the lake and it's good for the people who use the lake," Bateman said.

Pontius said H.L. Bishop Park is already over crowded and the marina/convenience store would fuel that problem.

"This is not a good fit for this park," she said.

Bates said the boat and watercraft traffic on Lake June will support a marina, but he didn't support leasing county land to locate it in Bishop Park.

"I agree with Commissioner Bates," Stokes said. "I'd like to see a marina on that lake, but I don't see that this is the area for it."

Stewart also called a marina on Lake June "a very good idea." But, she said, "I don't feel a fuel site on the county's property is in the best interests." Because of the nature of the park, she said, a marina and convenience store would detract from "the character and the full utilization of the park at this time."

Bateman said he has been negotiating with the county since the commissioners voted in 2005 to approve the concept of a privately run marina and convenience store at the lake and seek a proposal.
Maxcy said the marina and convenience store would have been "an asset to the folks who use Lake June."

By rejecting the lease three years after the county commission approved the concept, he said, "we've caused that man (Bateman) a lot of grief and a lot of money."

"I'm disappointed in this board and I'm disappointed in staff," Maxcy said.

Carlson said the commission should not have ordered negotiations on a lease three years ago if it wasn't committed to the project.

As a job creation project, the commissioners approved awarding a $750,000 federal community development block grant for construction of the Villa Bella Assisted Living Facility off Schumacher Road behind the Sebring Wal-Mart.

The Florida Department of Community Affairs approved the grant as an economic development project under the condition that it create at least 22 jobs.

Jose Garcia, president of Advanced Developers LLC, of Miami Beach, which will build and operate the facility, said it will house between 60 to 80 residents. At least 50 jobs will be created, he said.

The $5 million facility is scheduled to be under construction in the spring and should open in late 2009, Garcia said.

Jim Konkoly can be reached at 863-386-5855 or e-mail jkonkoly@highlandstoday.com

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