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Highlands Today

AP Council Reinstates 3 CRA Advisory Boards

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By Joe  Seelig | Highlands Today

Published: January 13, 2009

AVON PARK - Concerns about ongoing construction projects convinced the Avon Park City Council to unanimously reinstate its three Community Redevelopment Agency Advisory Boards, after an appeal by John Barben, Airport CRA member.

However, the CRA is not going to spend any additional taxpayer money until it meets with a Florida Redevelopment Agency (FRA) representative on Jan. 26.

The council voted before Christmas to temporarily suspend all CRA activity, including its advisory boards, until the FRA could answer questions about some legal issues.

"It's my concern we've got ongoing projects," Barben told the council. "I just feel we need to keep meeting. Just because I get a speeding ticket doesn't mean I'm not going to drive to work. We need to keep going forward, is what I'm trying to say."

Barben referenced a $750,000 construction project on the new Fixed Base Operator building, a 5,000-square-foot structure that will become the Avon Park Executive Airport's business center at the airport, with a pilots' lounge.

The bulk of the project is funded through a Florida Department of Transportation grant. The new building will also house the office of the airport's Executive Director C.B. Shirey.

"The Airport CRA Advisory Board has been working on this project since 2003," Shirey said on Tuesday. "And most of the time, the money from the Department of Transportation was phased – waiting to be put into place.

"Construction began late last summer. It will be completed in the middle of next month."
The airport advisory board would like to give its final blessings, so to speak, to the project, Shirey said.
Councilman George Hall told council members Monday the fixed base operator project will be completed within 60 days.

"I think they (the Airport CRA Advisory Board) need to meet to keep the day-to-day operations going," he said. "The end-all solution to everything out there is an airport authority."

By a unanimous vote, Councilwoman Brenda Gray was appointed deputy mayor.

Gray was concerned that holding up the CRA facade grants was stopping several (12 to 15) construction projects under way in the Southside CRA district, including that of a man trying to get a business going.

"As far as we know, we've done everything right," she insisted.

Questions were raised whether actions taken by the CRA should have first had an advertised public hearing.

City Project Manager Maria Sutherland said Tuesday the issue began when a resident made a public records request concerning any public hearings held regarding changes made to any of the city's Community Redevelopment Plans.

The CRA advisory boards comprise volunteers who decide how to spend the agency's tax increment finance funds, she said.

Board and city staff began to look at how they would deal with various non-profit groups and the scope evolved into how, who, why and how much money could be spent.

"They didn't change their plan – it was only the methodology of how they were going to spend their money," Sutherland said. "Nothing in their comprehensive plan changed. We didn't need to."
Contrary to what's been published, nothing has changed in the plan, she said.

"All we ever did was to collect the data, which turned into the methodology of how they spend their dollars," she said. "The plan was to provide the information to a consultant.

"They (the media) were very quick to accuse the staff of wrongdoing, without actually speaking to the person who did the work. That was me."

The city has to change its CRA plan every 30 years and since the CRA's plan was created in 1986, the city has until the year 2016 to create a new plan, Sutherland said.
Sebring just created its new plan and it cost them $30,000, she said.

Sutherland said she had a conversation about this with Sebring's Community Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Pete Pollard, who concurred with her assessment of the situation.

Pollard said, based on what Sutherland told him, they had just done some budget amendments which do not require public hearings.

According to a previous report, establishing or changing a CRA plan requires a public hearing, but the CRA board hasn't had one since March 2007. The CRA board has amended CRA budgets several times at public meetings, without holding a public hearing.

"If you're just amending your budget to carry out your (development) plan that's allowable," Pollard said.

"That's just like the city amending its budget during the course of the year. If they changed the scope of work the redevelopment plan calls for then they've changed the plan and that requires a public hearing; actually it requires more than that."

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