Good evening everyone and thank you so much for being here. Tonight marks the official kickoff of the town of Lake Placid strategic planning process. This effort is about making thoughtful decisions on purpose rather than reacting later when choices become more
difficult or more expensive. At its core, strategic planning helps a community decide where it is going and how it will get there while staying true to its values. how our plan works together. It is important to start by explaining how the
tan town's plans fit together. First, the comprehensive plan is a legal requirement under Florida law. Every municipality must have one and it sets the basis for rules by where our homes, our businesses and public facilities can
be located, how land can be used, how infrastructure such as roads, water and sewer should grow over time. The comprehensive plan answers the question, what is allowed and where is it allowed? What it does not always answer is what
should happen first? What matters most to residents? right now or how to turn policies into real projects. That is the role of a strategic plan and that's why you are all here. Why strate Why does strategic planning matter? The strategic plan helps the town to set
priorities, use tax dollars responsibly, plan improvements before problems arise, and make sure that decisions today still make sense years from now. This strategic plan is designed to work alongside our current downtown
revitalization plan, which focuses on strengthening our downtown as a place to live, work, shop, and gather, and our upcoming parks and recreation master plan, which will guide investments in our parks, recreation, and our public
spaces. When these plans are align aligned, the town avoids working in silos instead and moves forward with a clear direction. Utilities planning is coming up at our upcoming town council meeting on Monday where we will be discussing
infrastructure, especially our water, our wastewater, and our utilities. This is one of the most critical pieces of our long-term planning. Town council will have a request to initiate a strategic utility master plan and this plan will be developed to work
alongside our existing and evolving regional utilities framework. The purpose of a strategic utility master plan is to evaluate the current and future capacity needs. Plan for growth in a responsible and an affordable way. Coordinate with regional utility
partners. Protect rateayers by planning investments ahead of time rather than reacting later and ensure that utility decisions align with the strategic plan and comprehensive plan. Utilities are long-term investments that last decades.
Planning not now allows the town to avoid emergency projects, improve grant reliability and eligibility, and ensure infrastructure decisions to support but not limit our future and our growth. So why does the community play a vital role
in this? Because planning is especially important for our small towns. Without it, decisions tend to happen one project at a time without a clear long-term vision. Communities across Florida that have planned early and intentionally
have seen strong results. I'll give you a few examples. Winter Park used coordinated planning to encourage redevelopment while protecting its character. Mount Dora aligned downtown parks and economic planning to strengthen tourism and the quality of
life. And our very own Sebring used long-range planning to guide downtown investment and infrastructure improvements which we have all seen. These communities did not grow by accident. They planned, prioritized, but they also followed through. What this
means for the town of Lake Placid is that this process will help us prepare for future growth while protecting what makes the town very unique. It will align our infrastructure, public safety, utilities, parks, and our downtown investment. It also strengthens our
ability to secure grants and outside funding. And this makes decisions for our council, for our residents that are clear, fair, and transparent. The strategic plan and the future strategic utility master plan will guide budgets,
our capital projects, and policy decisions, not just this year, but for many years to come. We have many opportunities for the public to be involved. Tonight is just the beginning of this process. It is not the end. There will be additional sessions where
residents, business owners, boards, and partners can share their input and help shape the priorities. These conversations matter because good plans reflect the community that we serve. You do not need technical knowledge or planning experience to participate. If
you live here, you work here, or you care about the town of Lake Placid and you call the town of Lake Placid home, your perspective is important. At this time, I would like to go through some of the slides. So, our goal tonight is to provide an
enduring living document for elected officials, decision-making bodies, and the community to review and access on a regular basis. A strategic plan will define the vision for the future. It will identify the goals and the strategies, prioritize
those goals, and identify the steps that we need to reach the shared vision. It should be easily shared and understood and it will guide the local decision-making. Our strategic plan will give us our first vision and mission and also our
guiding principles. And then this is the QR code where you can do a survey. Is that up and running now, Jennifer? It is. Okay, it is up and running. So, we have future plans. Um, we have a Tuesday, February 3rd, there will be a session with our local
businesses and the faith-based organizations. We have February 18th with the town of Lake Placid residents. And then we have a wrap-up session on Wednesday, March 4th. They will all begin at 5:30 and we plan to end at 7:30.
At this time, I would like to move into the next portion where we'd like to introduce Mr. Ken Small. We are pleased to welcome him who has over 40 years of experience in Florida municipal government. Mr. Small began his career in Port St. Joe, Florida and
later spent more than 31 years with the Florida League of Cities. During that time, he worked directly with the cities across the state of municipal finance, budgeting, revenue options, and operational efficiency. He also previously served as a city manager and
in the county administration as he assisted with the Lake Placid and past efforts for our communication tax. Mr. Small is here to help us explain how thoughtful planning supports financial stability and responsible
decisionmaking. At this time, I'd like to welcome Mr. Ken Small. >> Thank you very much, Charlotte. Mayor Hullbrook, members of the town council, it's a pleasure to be here tonight. Um, it's nice being retired.
Um, traveled the state tremendously for 30 over 31 years and helped a lot of cities and I'm here as a retired Florida League of Cities person trying to see what I can do to help you out.
talking about the planning aspect. Your planning parts is more of your expenditure side. The big part is how you going to pay for it. And we have I guess the legislaturator's throwing us a curve this particular later this year.
Um the session is just now starting. They said they're going to have one or more constitutional amendments on the ballot uh affecting property taxes. We're not sure which way it's going to
go. Uh they have numerous uh legislators have said that when they put it on the ballot, they're going to have provisions that says they're going to protect what they call essential services. And it seems their definition of
essential services are public safety, police, fire, teachers, and education. So, what I'm hearing right now from a variety of sources is as it affects the town of Lake Placid,
they're stating that they're going to have statutory language that you cannot uh lower the police department's budget if these provisions of lowering property tax do pass and go into effect.
Right now I want to go over from a high altitude thing what revenues cities basically have available to them. One very important part is
municipalities in Florida have very limited resources when it comes to their choice of being able to fund their government. To start off with, the Florida Constitution grants local government,
not state government, the right to levy the property tax. It's in the Constitution. The Constitution says that municipalities can levy up to 10 mills, $10 per thousand of taxable value. It
also says that with a voter referendum to your residents, you can go above that 10 mil cap, but it's good for two years if the voters approve it. I'm aware of one city who's done that, and they used to do it every two years until property
values got high enough they didn't have to be above 10 mills. They're a very wealthy city in Dade County. beyond property taxes which is pretty well years ago the legislate the constitution
set that up as our primary source of revenue. It also stated the legislature may by state law Florida statute may grant cities additional re um taxes. In that case they have it was following
World War II. They gave cities the ability to levy the public service tax. That's the statutory name. We know it as the municipal utility tax. The industry of the utilities, they call
it mut mu for the abbreviations. In that case, you can levy up to 10% tax on electric service, metered and bottled gas and water service.
Tele there telephone used to be in there, but around 2000 2001 they um were lobbied by the phone industry to um make it a different tax. Which then puts
us to the second tax that the legislature created for us and it's called the communication services tax. Some people call it CST, some people call it the telecom tax. Um, when they set it up, they looked at
what each city and county's revenues were from taxes and fees on telecommunications on communications. At that time, the town of Lake Placid
had very very small amount of revenues coming in and thus their conversion rate when they established it to bring in the same dollars was a 1% levy. Um the legislature in that particular
act gave each city and county the ability to go above that rate which uh the town probably around 2002 raised it to the 5.22% which was the maximum rate um allowed.
There are other jurisdictions, cities in Florida that have higher rates, but that was because their conversion rate gave them a higher um percentage. The final the third tax that they gave us was called the local business tax. Um
I saw on your website that you do levy it here. I don't know at what rate. The problem with that was the year that it was created, probably around 1995, um they stated that you can appoint what
was called a um equity study commission made up of appointed by the city of some business people. they could come together and if they considered um possibly raising rates within certain limits, you could rate you could do
that. Based on their recommendation, city council passed an ordinance and uh you could go with a higher rate. I am not sure a lot of cities did not do it. uh they I tried to explain to different
cities at the time if you don't want to raise your rates but why don't you just simply appoint an equity study commission let them meet one time and say that we don't want to do anything and it would have given you some
additional uh revenue options in the future but they did a lot of cities majority of the cities didn't do it so whatever you have you can't change those Now there are what we call home rule revenues.
Um basically it's um fees, charges, special assessments. These this is the area um where you have the ability to charge for water service, for um sewer service, for
various services that your city provides, the ability to levy permit fees, um things of that sort. Special assessments, I'm not going to go into that very I'm just going to touch on that. Um
there are two areas of special assessments that I see more frequently used. One is to provide fire service. Um the town does not provide fire service, so there's no need to talk about that
one. Another one is a um using special assessment to fund your storm water program. Um, God, it was years ago we in chapter 1973632,
we got the legislature to allow special assessments to be put on the prop the county tax collectors uh property tax bill so that you didn't have to collect it individually.
And um there's a process for doing that. And um basically you give notice to the tax collector and property appraiser so much in advance of when the tax roll would come out almost a year and um you
could work towards that. I understand that you do not have a storm water program as of yet but that's a an opportunity to use a funding mechanism like that to pay for it.
All right. I've spent some time with Charlotte and with Rachel and going over some of your things and I have some observations. Um just said you don't have a storm water
program in place. Um there I'm assuming there is no natural gas um in your city limits. It's basically bottled gas, propane. Um,
under the area of utility tax, it appears that you're you're you're levying it on electricity and bottled gas, but you haven't levied any on the area of water service.
This is portable water as well as reclaimed water that is sold within the city limits. That's a tax of up to 10%. Uh, a lot of cities levy a 10% tax on water service, but like the town here,
if they don't levy it on everything, it's usually they don't levy it on their own water, but that's an option. Your millage rate of 3.65 mills is in the lower threshold in the state. Um, I
haven't had an opportunity to look at the current millage rates in ascending or descending order, but I'm very very sure that you're well below the average millage rate and you're probably fairly
well below the um median millage rate in the state. 365 is um definitely in the lower half. I didn't have time to go through your funding of the utilities and whether the
city has a program like many other cities have of doing a transfer of fun of excess funds usually in the area of 10% of your water water and sewer revenues to come back to the general
fund as a transfer to general fund. A lot of cities in the utilities areas have those transfers back. Some cities have that at a lower rate and they create an indirect cost uh program where different areas
um in the budget primarily those and other funds that have revenue sources. They reimburse general fund for their portion of the uh fixed cost um of running the city. actually their
applicable part of that. Um because anyway, here's an area I guess I was very surprised. We were talking about we got into the discussion of garbage and
your equipment about replacing equipment and different things of that sort. And I asked the question, well, what are your garbage rates for residential? And I guess the answer was, we don't charge for garbage.
That's a real luxury these days. Um, if you can do it, that's wonderful. uh comes out of your basically out of your um your property tax, but it's an area that I know some cities that were in
financial distress. Um city of Miami was one of those and they had been doing that and the state was trying to get them to start charging for garbage collection, both residential and commercial, as a way to solve their
financial difficulties. And I think they rejected it for a long time and finally were able to do it. And to a lesser degree, whenever I've gone into a city, and I know whenever I went to work at a city and got into user
fees, just your various user fees where you charge for different things within your city. I've always found them Let's just say always isn't the right word, but it was
rare that I ever found a city or county that updated their user fee charges regularly. A lot of them that I went to, they may have set them 25 years ago and never changed them. Um,
but again, you can look at those. You don't have to spend all this time going through them all at one time. You can pick and choose which ones you want to evaluate and go from that aspect. And be sure to get your fringe B employ. A lot of
people look at only the salary the um hourly salary of the employee. They don't compute into the cost of fringe benefits into that as an hourly basis. And um you miss an awful lot that way.
including vacation and sick leave and things like that because those are all applicable cost when you're doing you're trying to reimburse yourself for various user fees. I guess at this point um I can entertain
questions of anything in a related area that you may have. I know I tried to cover it very broadly. So if you get into specifics, I'll do my best to try to answer any kind of specific question you have. Ju
>> just clarification on the garbage. We do charge for residential garbage. So, was there some miscommunication? Yeah, it's a non-ad Laurum tax on the property tax bill. It's like 290 a year now,
>> right? I I think what it was in Yes, ma'am. You're correct. I think and Rachel um I was looking for you to help out on this but when we did the calculation once you calculate out everything they're basically getting it for for pretty well nothing even though we are there is a charge whenever we go
through and calculate staffing gas and all of the other that comes into it. It basically ends up being pretty well nothing in the wash that they're so they're getting it there there is a charge to them but whenever you calculate everything in it's pennies. So
that's how the charge has been calculated. But the residents do each have a garbage >> okay >> bill. How we calculate it is a whole different discussion if we're losing money on it. It was just increased what $40 a year. I
mean it was a 20% increase recently. Okay. >> And so you this is all good on the revenue side, right? >> What's that? >> I said everything you just talked is how we can raise revenues. There's a few areas, very few. Probably your largest
one would be the utility tax on water >> that's that's absent today because we do have the 10% tax for town residents on electric. We also have franchise um 10% on franchise fees.
>> I figured you've already got Yeah, >> it's standard to have franchise fees on your electricity. Uh telephone is out of that now with the communication services tax. Um if you're if you got commercial haulers uh handling your commercial
garbage and um waste um many times cities set up a franchise um program for the companies to pay the city percentage of their revenues.
But um I didn't again it was a cursory review. I hadn't had a lot of time to work and go through it piece by piece. I wasn't able to be here and go sit down and spend a day going through. But those
are your ones that that I was able to to see that provided what I thought might be significant revenue. user fees, you know, they're going to be small compared to
what you what you would get on a util the utility tax on water service, for example. Um, I don't know how you're set up on your transfers from water and sewer utilities, whether there's monies coming
back to the general fund or not. We never got into that. Um, yes, ma'am. >> Yes. I had a question on that. Not that we just raised our rates just to make try to get ahead to balance out our utility fr our utility department. So,
we just did raise rates just to make it work. We're working on that. But I was interested. So, you say that you could transfer 10% of utility. Well, you could transfer money from the utility into the general
fund basically, but a lot of our customers are not in the town limits or not in our jurisdiction. So, could you eventually if we considered that whenever um how does that work when people are not in
the town limits to trans? >> It doesn't matter. There's no bearing >> because you're basically >> um >> I don't I've been I've been go I've been retired now 9 and a half years. There used to be a provision in statutes where
you could levy a tax of up to 25% on residents outside the city limits. There's been discussions I've seen over the years where the legislature was wanting to get rid of that. But the area that I'm talking about doesn't it isn't a tax on individual
customers whether you're in or out. It's the thing of the operation of your city utility as a whole. >> Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you. And when I said 10%, I was just saying
for example, um the city manager of Madison a number of years ago had me come up to their city and try to get their council from flying
into a state of financial emergency. They were transferring from their water department an amount equal to 105% of the charges for water service.
I've never heard of anything like that. But of course, the city their utility was collapsing because they had no money for maintenance. So when you establish your rate structures,
I always suggest I don't recommend I suggest you keep the transfer at a lower end and you build your you know with your engineers when you do your rate structures you make sure that your rates can cover your repair maintenance as
well as your expansion from time to time with your system. So this is all on the revenue side which is you know growing money for us to spend. What's equally as important is to look on the cost side to see what
efficiencies can be in place to kind of reduce cost. So then you know you've got excess money there. Is that something you're going to be looking at also? And this is just the revenue report out of where we are today, but maybe some opportunities we might have.
>> No, that's that's a very complic that's like hiring a consultant or having staff go through and review that on a department by department basis. I'm I'm just here as a um
free speaker with a lot of knowledge on the revenue side and operating cities and I just wanted to I was asked to um give a presentation to try to educate you on possibilities
you have going forward not only with the your comp plan your comp plan and your other planning needs you're looking at, but what you're going to do if the legislature um you know, a year from now, you're
faced with dramatic reductions in property tax revenues. I mean, I'm happy to offer tips over the phone on how to look at stuff like that, but um that's really something between administration and the department heads
to get in and look at what is it you're really trying to do and are we doing it in an effective efficient manner. >> Okay, >> I've got a question on the transfer of money. Make sure I understand this
right. If a utilities, we're not in the position to transfer any money from the utilities to the town right now. We're just trying to get back on even ground. But if that day ever came, I thought there had to be like a separation of accounting between the utility fund and
the general fund. But you're saying you can transfer >> um every city, practically every city I know of decent size, they probably couldn't do
without it. City of Tallahassee, city of Lakeland, these are cities that have electricity, natural gas, and stuff. they have large sums that they transfer from their utilities to their general fund. Even smaller cities, it's
a routine because there's you're providing a lot of um central costs that each department utilizes and it's a way of recouping. I don't know what the case law is where
they do it, but it's in cities across Florida who have utilities, the vast number of them do that. in city of Madison. I they can't be four or 5,000 population,
but they just I don't know how in the world they got to where they were doing that, but I always tried to get people to be reasonable and keep it on the lower end rather than go overboard. And I mean, it raises the cost of utilities. You know,
you probably don't even want to think about this that this aspect at that because if you're going to be having if you're going to be forced into looking for additional revenue, you probably would look at the utility tax
on water service and not even venture with that at this time. If I could make a comment. Um, Councilwoman Charles, Mr. Mark Lawson is a municipal utility attorney that Mr. um, Kin has put us in contact with. And
so he specializes in regional in utilities and also in sanitation. And then coming before you on the Monday night meeting, you will also hear about Mr. Fred Blower. I don't know that I'm saying his name correctly, but he is from FAU. And so that will also be
before you. We discussed that today in the regional utility meeting. So those will be other avenues where they will be able to look at that. >> Any other questions? Any question you've always wanted to ask? I mean I at the league if somebody
couldn't answer a question I was the one that got them. If they didn't even know what the question was, they couldn't figure out the question. I got those calls. >> Okay. >> And Mr. Small worked with um Councilwoman I mean um Commissioner Tuck
when she was a clerk and also with Rachel and as I stated before helped get the communication tax. So he he's very vested in the town of Lake Placid and seeing us succeed. So we thank you for your time. >> We'll be in touch. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> And he also said he would answer
questions. Did you all hear that? He said that he would be happy to answer questions if you have any and you'd like to contact him. >> You're free to give me a call sometime. Rachel has my number. I mean, Charlotte's got my number.
Is that it? Thank you. With your permission, I'd like to stand sideways so I don't have my back to everybody. Is that all right? Okay. And Ken, I appreciate your generosity and offer and answer questions. So any questions that I get, I will make sure that I highlight you to
answer those for me later today. But anyway, good evening and thank you for the town council and for everyone here uh for inviting me to be a part of this important conversation. Uh strategic planning is about shaping the future. Uh, and I'm here to share how small
businesses are vital to Lake Placid and how the Florida SBDC at USF can support them. Before I jump into that, I did want to just for those who are not aware of the SBDC, just kind of share a couple slides. The Florida SBDC at USF is part
of a national network of small business development centers. So any state or US territory you go to will have an SBDC. And this year marks the 50th year that the SBDC has been a program. So we're we've been around a little bit. Uh we are primarily funded through the SBA. Uh
and we do get some state and local support to match those dollars. The state of Florida is broken up into nine SBDC regions. Uh the Florida SBDC at USF serves the 10 counties in West Central Florida, which includes Highlands
County. Uh you can see us there on the bottom left side. We are the largest SBDC uh region in the state of Florida, not by land mass, but by just size, population. Um, for comparison's sake, just for the scope of of the size of our
region, our 10count region here in Florida is comparable to the entire state of Alabama's SPDC if you look at the population and scope of service. So, we are quite large for SBDC standards. And this is a closer look at our 10
county region. And I know it may be hard to see, but all the red dots are where we have either satellite offices or circuit ride offices where we either rotate through on a scheduled basis or have a full-time presence. So you can see we have um a couple locations here in Highlands County, a couple over in
Hardy and Dodto, and of course throughout the rest of our 10 county region. Um this is our mission and vision. Uh we do want to be Florida's trusted principal provider of business assistance and help small businesses launch and grow through resources and
advocacy. Uh and I won't get too far in the weeds, but everybody has a mission and vision statement. So I wanted to share that with you guys. Um and I'll just leave the slides for that. So in a nutshell, the mission of the Florida SBDC is to help businesses launch, grow, and thrive. And we do this through
confidential and no cost consulting services and training. We do this. Um, some examples of what we offer are business planning and financial projections, guidance on managing cash flow and profitability, help accessing capital, whether through banks,
alternative lenders, or SBA programs, uh, marketing strategies and digital presence, and some specialized support for government contracting and growth planning. And this is just an overview on the February 3rd strategic planning session that's focused on local business
and faith-based organizations. We're going to take a deeper dive into the full range of SBDC services and how we can partner with Lake Placid entrepreneurs. So, back to the small businesses. Small businesses are the backbone of communities like Lake Placid. They do
more than provide goods and services. They create jobs. They keep dollars flowing and circulating locally. and they give the town its unique character. When you think about what makes Lake Placid special, you think about local shops and restaurants and service providers, all of which are small
businesses. And I'll share a quick example. My daughter-in-law bought her wedding dress right here in Lake Placid after an amazing experience at Bner's Bridal, cancelling appointments that she had at Big Box Bridal Shops than the following weeks. That's the power of
local businesses. They deliver personal service and they strengthen community ties. Small businesses also build economic resilience. A diverse base of businesses help cushion the impact of economic shifts. And beyond economics, they contribute to civic life. Owners serve
on boards, sponsor events, and invest in the community. In fact, if my research is correct, all of the town council members have entrepreneurial small business experience in their backgrounds. A 2024 analysis by Dr. Mansour Kamatov
from Indiana University shows that big box retailers and small local shops can coexist and even benefit each other. Big retailers draw traffic while small shops capitalize on personalization and agility. Local expertise, hosting
community events and private sessions, all advantages that big box stores can't match. Excuse me. I'm old enough to remember when they opened the Lake Wells Walmart across the street from uh Bridgemasters Tackle and and Fishing Shop. If you're familiar with that area on Highway 60 on your way out to Lake CM
and all the other lakes out there, many assumed that Walmart would put them out of business. But Bridgemasters leaned into their strengths and still thrives today by offering services that Walmart can't match, including rod and reel repair, custom rod building, taxiderermy, prop repair, licensing, and
by maintaining a large and more complete selection of bait and tackle, including live bait. So, some of the success themes for small businesses include deep local roots, tap into the community needs that you know best, host local events, develop partnerships with local
artists and community organizations, personal service and unique offerings, provide curated products and high-quality services that resonate with your target market. Agility and adaptability. Launch pop-ups, rotate your offerings, and employ agile
marketing and strategic partnerships. Tap into programs and channels like chambers of commerce, main streets, and other um uh excuse me, other main street, local, and trade associations. Excuse me, lost my spot there.
The Florida SBDC at USF is here as a partner, not to lead in the planning, but to make sure the voice of small businesses is part of the conversation. As priorities emerge, whether it's revitalizing corridors like Main Street or improving permitting, we can help translate those goals into practical
steps for business owners. After the plan is adopted, we'll be available to support implementation by working directly with businesses. As Lake Placid plans for the future, thriving small businesses will be key to achieving your vision. If you own a
small business or know someone who does, please connect them with us. We're here to help you succeed. And when small businesses succeed, the whole community benefits. Thank you. Any questions for me as well? Kendall will take those.
Anything from the DA? anything from the group here? I know I did a good good job, but I didn't know it did that good of a job. So, >> and and just so every know you will be back on the third. >> Yes, sir. I will. >> So, we'll get more in depth with the uh
with the businesses at that time. >> Yes, sir. That that's those slides I pulled out. That's usually like a 20 minute presentation that talks about much much more of what the SBDC does. But I was asked today about to talk about how small businesses fit in >> to strategic planning and the role that they play. So, I didn't want to spend a
lot of time talking about my organization. I wanted to spend the time talking about the role small businesses play. >> Right. Thank you. We look forward to seeing you on the third. Any >> one last thing is um if you didn't get one of these little brochures on the way in, it has some information about the SBDC and our services and how to contact
us. If you didn't, I believe Charlotte put them on a table. >> That's correct. >> On the way out. So, please visit our website. There's a lot more information there. I look forward to seeing you on February 3rd. >> Thank you. All right. Good evening, commission. Uh Jeff Schmucker with the regional planning council. Good evening,
everyone. Um I'm going to go through just a very quick few slides um to talk a little bit about um Lake Placid today. just a couple of maps that I hope will invoke some thought, some questions. I
think the intent uh tonight is to not necessarily leave here with all the answers, but as you leave here tonight, be thinking about Lake Placid, thinking about the greater area of Lake Placid, thinking about the discussions and the
speakers that you heard tonight with the upcoming workshops um and events that we're going to have to bring those questions back as we go through this process. um some of the things that we've heard in a number of other workshops uh recently with some of the downtown
master uh plan work that we're doing. Um what what is Lake Placid? What represents Lake Placid? It's welcoming. It's safe. It's walkable. We like the small town charm. I think everyone um kind of echoes this and and we hear this again and again when we we talk about
Lake Placid. I'm going to skip through those and I'm going to go right here. When we think about the town of Lake Placid, what do most people think? They think about the corporate limits of Lake Placid. Now, the folks who live in Lake
Placid may be aware that there's there's other areas of Lake Placid, the greater area of Lake Placid, but when most people think Lake Placid, they think the corporate limits of Lake Placid. Well, that's the green area that you see there. 4.93 square miles.
Population in 2025 of just north of 2,000 people with a median age of 44.2. Um total households being 1,030 with those households having a household median income of about $48,000.
However, there's a larger area of Lake Placid and it's what's called the Lake Placid Regional Plan. This is a joint effort between Highlands County and Lake Placid. It's a growth planning area for what Lake Placid could be in the future.
This is in the comprehensive plan. This is in the land development code. both the town as well as the county as growth comes towards Lake Placid in the outskirts of the town there's opportunities for that growth to be shaped the way that the town wants to
see that happen with eventually that area coming into the town. So when we look at the greater Lake Placid regional plan area that's another 33.86 86 square miles. That's a considerably larger area than the town itself at 4.93.
The population in this area minus the corporate limits of the town is 5,000 5,000 residents. That's more than double what the town of Lake Placid is with a median age range of 62.5. Uh total number of households in this
area, 2,495 homes with the median income of these households in 2025 at about $51,000 a year. Again, looking out beyond the greater Lake
Placid uh regional plan area, the greater Lake Placid area holds with a number of historical uh subdivisions that are both developed, developing, and then a lot of area that still hasn't developed yet. But within those yellow
areas that you see on the outskirts of the Lake Placid Regional Plan area, you've got a 2025 population of almost 12,000 people. All right, that's almost five times what the town of Lake Placid corporate limits is today.
Again, median age range here, 54.6. Total number of households here, 5,000. That's double the amount of households or I should say five times the amount of households that the town of Lake Placid has today with a 2025 median household income of about $62,000 a year.
Why is that important? When we talk about the strategic plan for the town of Lake Placid, it's more than just that green area. It's more than just the corporate limits of the town. The town has to think about
that greater um Lake Placid regional planning area and it has to take into account those yellow areas that you see on the outskirts of that. The reality is the town of Lake Placid is the nucleus of this area. Where do most people go
for their goods and services? Yes, a lot of people probably go up to Sebring or they may go east or west on 70 to get specialized things or certain things that the town doesn't have today. But for daily needs, good services, for your pharmaceutical goods, for your grocery shopping, most of these people are
coming into the corporate limits of the town of Lake Placid. So these are critical things that the town needs to think about in this strategic plan when we think about the future. We do have to keep in mind that we have a corporate limits, but there's an area that's going to grow as growth continues to come.
Ken, yes. >> When you're doing these numbers, those numbers 112 >> that's >> that 11,000 is just the yellow areas >> the total the total population in all of
this is about uh 19,390 people when we incorporate the LPRP and then the corporate limits of the town. Yep. But what's very telling here is you've got about five times the amount of population living on the outskirts of the town, but they use your services.
They impact your infrastructure. They use your roadways. These folks have to go somewhere to get their groceries, get their goods and services. Many of the folks in the room here tonight. I don't know if you live in the corporate limits or you live just outside, but I'm sure you do your grocery shopping at Publix or you come
into the town to to get the things that you need. So, there's there's impacts on the town that the town needs to consider when we think about the greater area. Whoops. So, I don't know if we we call this necessarily benefits and challenges. It's some of the things that I was just
me me mentioning. As growth occurs, and it will occur, um there's benefits to that. There's innovation that comes with that. There's opportunities that come with that. um new new goods and services that might come with that where we might not need to drive to Sebring anymore
because there might be an opportunity for some new development in or near the town that might serve the needs of the residents and the the the the adjacency um of the corporate limits of the town. But what you see here, this is a map of vacant lands,
uh, looking at the greater Lake Placid area, the Lake Placid regional planning area, including the town. Uh, which represents an enormous amount of growth opportunity. And I say potential growth opportunity. And the reason we say potential growth opportunity is when we
consider the amount of population that's that's out here. There's going to be a market driven there's going to be market driven development that's going to occur. Private sector will say we have a population. We have a product
that we want to sell whoever that may be and we're not tapped in yet and we know that there's an enormous number of people in this area. we want to go there. Whether that comes into the town itself, whether it comes into that Lake Placid regional plan area or it comes to the
outside of that area, the probability is is at some point in the future that market driven development is going to come. So, the town needs to be thinking about this. What are the things that we're deficient in? What are the things that we would like to see more of? Uh, you heard a
little bit about revenues. You heard a little bit about small businesses tonight. um small businesses and big businesses can work together, right? Um as these things start to come to the table and these considerations that staff and the
commission and your your planning boards and your utility boards need to take into consideration is a lot of this stuff is going to eventually come. Where do we want it to come? Where do we want to see it come? Is it the right things that we want to see coming? How does it
support the rest of the goals and the visions that we see for the town of Lake Placid? But the takeaway that I wanted to to bring to you tonight is let's not just think about that corporate limits of the town. We got to think about the greater area of Lake Placid and how
that's going to help the town of Lake Placid itself. Again, I mentioned we're we're working with the town right now on a downtown master plan. How does all of this feed and work with the goals and the visions of the downtown master plan and the development that may be coming into the downtown as well? So all of
these things need to be thought of comprehensively um as we work through this strategic planning process. So again, very high level tonight, um, just by show of hands, how many folks were aware of
the greater Lake Placid area in some of these historical subdivisions on the outskirts? >> So this is just from last year. We use a product called business analyst through our GIS program and it runs a market analysis market analysis using experian
and other uh market driven um variables. >> So we did not pull seasonal. So this this is permanent um residents but we can we can pull those numbers. Yeah. With seasonal uh commuters um your functional population. Yeah, that's a good question because
that's another series of of folks that are using your infrastructure as well. Yeah. >> 32,000. Okay. Um these numbers >> at at peak at peak considering your seasonal residence as well. Gotcha.
Okay. Any questions from the commission or All right. Thank you all. Appreciate it. And I'm going to turn it over to Brenda. She's going to close us out tonight and we're going to talk about quality of life. All right.
So, we will be shifting our focus to quality of life, which is a term that's kind of talked about a lot when you're thinking about your strategic plan and the strategic pro um planning process that we are on. Um when we talk about quality of life, we talk about um the
everyday experiences of living in Lake Placid. Um, examples include um how easy it is to get around, access um to services, um how easy it is to start a business, raise a family, age in place, and um and just feel connected within the
community. Um this section will be um a reflection of conversations that we've had with um community residents, stakeholders um and community leaders um and what we gathered from those conversations,
meetings, and feedback during our community conversations that we've had. Our goal was to listen, acknowledge, and plan forward based on real experiences from the community and what they had to say as far as um
opportunities and challenges within the Lake Placid community. We asked um residents and those who are attended our community conversations um to openly talk about what's working within Lake Placid and where we may need
to improve. Um what stood out was the strong sense of pride within the town um paired very with very practical concerns about growth, services and infrastructure. Um when we asked about the greatest asset, several themes um rose to the top and those included that
um people love the small town community feel and the importance of both um the youth and our elderly populations as well as the role of small businesses within the within shaping the identity of the city. Um location was also brought up a couple
of times and um Lake Placid is seen as a place with strong potential um just because of where it's located within the region. Along with those strengths, um there were the committee was also very honest about challenges and um those challenges
included um infrastructure especially water, wastewater, storm water and transportation. Residents also emphasized the need for um healthc care services, better youth engagement opportunities and thoughtful planning as the town continues to grow.
>> I'm sorry. Yes. We also discussed uh mobility um and the community shared that desire for more options and better connections. Some of the ideas to consider um regarding mobility is to increase transportation choices through public private
partnerships such as ride shares um dedicating more funding towards trans transportation and improving trail connections both within town and the surrounding area. Overall, people wanted um mobility solutions that support
residents of all ages and not just drivers. And the concepts and ideas that I'm going to be um sharing here today um are just things to get you um thinking about what your strategic plan you would want it to look like. Um we will be
asking a few questions to get a little bit more of your prioritization and ideas. But these are just things that the community has um shared with us and just to consider of um what you would like to implement and um apply within
your strategic plan. So we also covered housing um and um they provided the feedback of um providing more code enforcement um clear concise process for new development. So eliminating development
hurdles, provide home repair for the elderly through community partnerships and the need for more affordable housing and housing options. for health and wellness being um they wanted to see um parks to serve um
different age groups um and generations um include programs linking multiple generations and then um providing special programming for special needs communities as well as um provide health education for wellness and disease
prevention and um promote um fitness use of the trails and provide um fitness centers and classes. Um I believe I'm missing a slide, but I'll touch on economic stability. Um
residents um also shared that the importance of keeping Lake Placid visible, businessfriendly, and welcoming in new investments while still supporting existing businesses. Ideas included small business incubators, training opportunities, removing development hurdles, encouraging
residents to shop local, and exploring alternative revenue sources beyond property taxes. Um there was also a strong interest in exploring young pe uh exposing young people to entrepreneurship early on. So again, like I said, uh these are just
all elements regarding um quality of life and things to consider as you uh prioritize and we develop our goals and strategies within the strategic plan. I will turn it over to Mary Beth who will
be um facilitating our poll today. Um and I can also answer any questions you may have. Good evening. Thank you so much for having us here today. Um again, my name is Mary Beth Soderstrom with the regional planning council. So to kind of
move our conversation in the direction. So I I was thinking about you know what is the purpose of today's meeting versus the other sessions we're going to have and a kickoff really determines the direction of where we're going. Right? So, as we have talked about um some
revenue, some maybe opportunities that might be there, kind of the landscape and what it looks like, where are we as far as um you know, what the community truly looks like both within the town and then everything surrounding the town and how those play together and then what we've already heard from the
community and as community members, right? like I hope that those things kind of rang true with you or were at least somewhere in um where you could see oh I could see how somebody might say that. And so we do have we we try to keep it light tonight. So, I have just two questions that we're going to work
through and, you know, we can uh we can chat as much as you would like to and all of our speakers are still here, so I'm going to refer to them for questions. But, um, if you would go to plev.comhl2060, so you can go, if you have your phone, you can go in your browser, you could
use that QR code and that'll take you directly to the question. Um, or you can also just do it by basic texting. So you could text um uh let's see and so you the number I'm sorry the number that you text to is 22333
and then you the text you send is HL2060 and it'll get you connected in with our system. Does that make sense? And the first thing that we kind of just we're going to explore a little bit is how can we improve the quality of life
in Lake Placid. Um this is going to be a word cloud which means try to keep your answer a little shorter but as words up. Okay. So now if we could switch over um to the display and I will still have the
other pieces if you still need to log in or you need help with that and we'll see some of the results come in and then we can discuss. Oh, I have responses.
Um, you know what? I wonder I'm sorry. I apologize. I think how we have it set up, you're going to you're acting as a participant versus a viewer up there on that screen. All right. Well, I think although it's
really pretty when you see the word cloud, I don't know. I might just have to share with what we've got. So the first word that I am seeing pop up very large is generations which means at least a few people said something to do with generations. Is
there anything um related to that that anybody would like to expand on when it goes to improving the quality of life and generations? it. So, people have been putting their results in, and I apologize. Um, the results aren't on the screen up there,
so it's kind of hard to see, but when we've we're asking, how can we improve the quality of life in Lake Placid? So people in the room um are saying things like growth, generations, recreation, lakes,
parks, younger, restaurants, friendly, grow, protect, retire, recreation, >> I apologize. So more um if if any of those words were some of your words that you put forward, if you want to expound
or or share kind of why you know somebody said charming. We know why we're charming, but how can we improve the quality of life in Lake Placid? Do we want to be more charming? >> Okay. creating connections between
um let's see what else is coming up. Yeah, >> I was showing it so they could see that this is what she's referring to when it it should have generated and created what they call a word cloud. So she's
pulling it from there and the main one that's sticking out where the one I'm hovering over says knowledge but on her screen it's generation. So that was the predominant word that was coming up through the poll. And if you want to take it for a minute, I can try and get this up because it's way
more fun when we can see everybody's answer. >> Is everyone confused by the uh >> Was everyone able to sign in? We were just trying to take some simple polls. Did you take the picture of the QR code? Can we go back to the If you want to
>> Yeah. >> There we go. If you take if you take a picture of that code, should get a little box at the bottom and you click on it, it should open up that >> I'll sure for those who haven't done a word cloud activity like this, what's
really neat about it is the more often respondents submit a word, the bigger the word gets. So you get to see all of the answers on the screen, but as themes start to present themselves, that word will start getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And that's what Mary Beth was referring to as she was looking at that
word cloud, which she's going to be sharing here in just a minute. That was kind of like the big word that was showing up, but all of your answers were showing. So that data is still being received. But she was trying to identify kind of uh that that main theme and see
if any of you who may have answered with that word wanted to expand on what you meant by it is Mary Beth's not yelling at me. So I think I'm on track with what she was saying. So >> she's getting close and now you know her password. It's dot dot dot dot dot dot.
So you can hack into all of her stuff. And the other thing we had talked about in the planning meeting coming up to this the planning for the planning was we really looking for those answers and some of these questions that Mary Beth is sharing so that we can kind of use those to kind of drive the agenda for
the future meetings. You know, the things that you're interested in, the things you're commenting on are things that we can bring forward. And now Barry Beth is gonna bail me out >> and jump back on the microphone. >> Okay, this makes more sense, right? Um,
>> all right. So, how can we improve the quality of life in Lake Placid? Ultimately, the strategic plan, the goal of the strategic plan is to improve the quality of life. Well, how do we go about getting there? Um, so some of the
different things that we talked about today, you know, is there, let's see, and it's going to keep jumping around as people add in, but park and recreation and activities, lakes, all of that stuff is really coming to the top. Um, are
there certain aspects of those features of our community that we feel are missing or do we think we need just more of what we have >> or do Yeah, >> I'm not That's okay. >> What would that do for the community to
connect the multi-use path into the downtown? >> Exercise >> exercise, school system, the circle. area without using the people walk.
bring the last 25 years now. >> Okay. So I'm definitely hearing a lot of to go. I don't know where to start you all. I don't know where any of that
stuff is at. So, public information as far as letting people know what is out there. >> Okay. And I hope to go out every day. >> I was going to say I feel like you're going to get some volunteers really fast to tell you, but um yeah, absolutely.
So, it's one thing to have amenities, but if we if we don't know how to find those amenities or if visitors from the outside can't find those amenities when they're here, it it doesn't um you know, always make for the best visit. So, if if we can improve their visit, right,
that improves how much they spend that you know, it all trickles down. Um, okay. I have to ask pork chops. >> It's dinner time. I see barbecue, >> right? And barbecue >> and it's time to eat. So, we can improve the quality of life
in Lake Placid with more barbecue. Is that what we're That's what we're hearing. Okay. >> Listen, >> something signature event that's something that a lot of people are known for. That's something
incorporated into your brand. >> There's a new business coming. >> Okay. So people are excited. >> You know what? Now that you say that, >> there is not. >> Um, all right. What? Okay. Uh, so we've
heard All right. walkability, trails, multi-use paths, all connected, especially trying to get connections from the residential areas into the downtown. >> Um, >> all right. There's a few words here and this is also a theme that we've heard
before, but if anybody here wants to kind of dig in a little bit more or give us help give us kind of direction of what we need to be looking for or as we go through these different sessions, what are the questions that should be asked or um on generation
children? Um, we've heard about like youth and opportunities for youth or activities for youth within that realm. Recreation kind of loosely goes with that. Um,
so do we not have the uh let's see, is it that there's nothing to do or is it that there's a perception that there's nothing to do? Because sometimes
those are two different things. Okay. So, there might be things to do, but access and financial reasons might hinder that. >> I have a question about generations answer. You mentioned activities. You
know, I raised two boys, so I mean there was basketball, baseball, soccer, but all the youth sports. So um a lot of times what you know so there's a lot of activities I'm assuming here in lake class as well for the youth but are is is the p people answering that question
saying that there's not activities for the other generations like there's not adults >> there's activities for these kids how to sign up >> we don't have a radio station >> Facebook
in the schools >> generations. So I'm wondering if >> maybe they feel like there's a gap in activities for the different generations. We talked for I guess the park out to some other
beach volleyball. They'd like another basketball court there possibly more things to do at the park. I kind of thought What about a community volunteer day if the city doesn't have money? Could that be organized
peopleunt one there in the past. >> Fishing pier. Yeah. >> On the other side. >> Y >> at Bishop Park. years. >> And the parents of a lot of the youth
want after school activities, okay, sports, but but everybody doesn't play baseball and and and a lot of the sports are organized except for their youth baseball league. It's organized at the school sports. So, you know, it's a lot of the kids, you know, it's like after
school, you see them just hanging around somewhere. So, there is not a lot. There's no organized things like that. Now, on the flip side, for the seniors, what they told us when we went around and campaigned is there's not much in the town for the seniors. There are no organized activities. So, you know, I
know a lot of the bigger cities will have a full-time recreation department where they have the combination of both. and you're bringing the seniors and the youth together. A lot of the seniors said, "Hey, we'll help tutor. They would be glad to volunteer and get involved in
things like that." So, I think those are the items that I put on is that the feedback is try to invest in our youth. What is there to do for the youth in the town? Um, you know, the bicycling, you know, bicycle rodeos, they gave us a lot of
ideas too of where they came from. somebody came from another city that had some type of activities like that. So that to me is the generational, you know, and of course, let's not forget the in between generation, too. But that that's kind of the what's missing how we
could improve Lake Placid. And again, not just for the town, but it's the greater Lake Placid. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Music. >> Music. Yes. Is there Okay. Uh, is there live music anywhere on a regular basis?
There is. Okay. >> But that's not for the youth. That's like in the evening. In the evening down there, >> people don't drink, >> right? Okay. in some place. Maybe the churches could
have music, the band, the you know, just different bands like they do at the Highland Park once in a while grass or whatever that would bring all the people together. >> Well, and you have general plaza, but that's not just for people that drink
because there's the ice cream place there, there's the coffee place there. I mean, it just so happens that the that the entertainment is usually at the wet dog side, but often times on Saturday at least, it's it's outdoors and you have that big area of that grass area and and
kids go and play their soccer, they chase their ball or do whatever. Um, so that's that's a nice area that that Ken got built down there. It looks looks good. Ken, >> we had some good feedback also for music in the park for the families and the
youth. you know, you set the band up in the gazebo, people can bring their blankets, they can bring their, you know, the little lawn games and that and then that brings people together. So, it was a broader than, you know, I appreciate Journal Plaza, but it was like, wow, we've got this beautiful Deain Park. Is there something with
music in the park, karaoke, something along that? Right. So, it sounds like there's there's definitely interest in more organization of recreation activities in some way, shape, or form for different
groups. Um, potentially adding amenities to our current parks. Connect getting to the parks is a thing, right? Like that that's on our infrastructure list. And I apologize. No, I was just going to um we also found out when we were knocking on doors uh there were some people would
say that they worry about the teenage kids because they go out of town to find entertainment and then sometimes they drive home after a couple beers and they would really like to keep their teenage kids or the 18 year olds and so forth in town.
>> Yeah, I would I have an answer for the park, the Bishop Park water park. the tariffs came and the equipment went skyhigh. So, she's still going to do it, but it was put off for a year to give time for the um the tariffs and that sort of thing to recoup for the
additional cost. Um I also had a conversation with the gentleman for maybe bringing YMCA here. Um he's very gung-ho. I don't think we need to talk to to somebody about that because that would solve a lot of our problems. But
it goes all back to connectivity again, too. Now, we had a beach volleyball setup over by the middle school for years. I never saw one person playing out there. Not Not one time. And and I
live downtown. I never saw anybody using and so they finally just did away with it. But I think it goes back to connectivity, too. These children can't get to in town. I mean, they it's all drivability and they don't drive. So,
how can the youth participate in town when they go ride their bus home and they can't get back? So, I don't know if the connectivity would be the trails and paths to be able to come back in because then you're letting your youth go out there to the world, but I'm just saying
that that has been a big of the problem. It's not that we don't have some facilities that we could expand on, but how are you going to get those kids here when their parents are working two jobs and there's nobody to drive them here and they can't get here? Um, that's a hard nut. But I do think that we should
maybe try to go do a reach out to maybe YMCA and to some of these organizations that have programs and then the children could stay in school and maybe stay there until the kid the parents get off work and come pick them up. And now we've got it all solved.
Ask and you shall receive. >> There we go. >> I have a meeting actually scheduled tomorrow. He's coming to the office tomorrow at 10. Great. >> Is that wonderful? Okay, that was fast action. >> There we go. It's crazy. >> All right. Uh let's see. Anything? So,
one of the questions I wanted to ask because I'm trying to see I don't think I see it. So, how about art? Right. You know, the first time I ever came to Lake Placid, obviously the murals are what you pay attention to. If you Google Lake
Placid, the murals, right? Um is but I'm not seeing that. I haven't heard anything about that. So public art, is there an interest in continuing that tradition? Is there is that something that you guys would see as a benefit to the quality of life?
>> Okay. I was going to say I think it depends on who you attract to because we do have art classes that would probably participate in that. Um I believe Mr. Leblanc and I have had this conversation because in some communities they have the downtown where they'll allow them to
come down and they'll do the um like the chalk art is what he talked about. And so some of the art classes would like to do that but it goes back to the facilitation. Who's going to facilitate it? How do we bridge that gap? because we do work with very limited resources
in the town. Um we had the ribbon cutting I mean the groundbreaking today for the police department and the largest comment that we heard was we did not realize that the town worked with so little staff and pulled everything off. So putting that into perspective as
councilwoman Charles said is we don't have a recreation department and then we have to find a way to be able to fund that or do we are or is there a way we can connect with the schools create a program or something I think that's where bringing them to the table right >> partnerships finding finding those right
partners >> but but on that note south col South Florida College just opened up an art lab >> and they're they're you know it's reaching out to the community and art classes and and It's I think it's what a month old if if even that. So I think
that's something that as it becomes known cuz I asked her today how's that doing? She said it's good but they've got to get the word out more because it's parents and kids and it's two days a week two two evenings a week for different art activity.
>> Connecting dots and I think that also ties back to some of our initial conversations or or comments about communication. How do you find out about what are the what are the things? All right, I'm going to go to the last question. Let's see.
Okay, so this question is what do you think? Well, already what do you think the key principles of the strategic plan should be? And remember when we were talking about key principles uh is those bigger overarching
kind of um topics like infrastructure, recreation, like those kinds of over overarching words to be able again to give us direction and to have these next conversations. What should these key principles be
considering? Okay, I think yeah, you might have to change that one. Ch. Yep, there you go. >> Thank you. All right, so livability is currently taking the lead. Growth,
controlled management, infrastructure, jobs. Well, you made it here tonight. How did you find out about tonight? Okay. >> Otherwise, a lot of stuff that happens. So, it's not
radio secret. Okay. >> But what where uh where would you connect with that? I mean is is radio the answer? Is Facebook the answer? Where would you where would you expect to see these things?
>> The radio. >> Okay. >> TV commercial. >> Okay. >> TV is different because you have everyone with the internet with the cable and so on. I personally don't um but at least radio at least the information I have been getting recently
has been on the radio. >> Okay. >> Okay. They have >> community board somewhere >> on the radio. They have h heartland happenings. We have we have one radio station has four different stations, one one radio provider and it has Heartland
happenings and you as a as an organization leader I have to contact them and give them my item or whatever it is. But H Heartland happenings comes on two or three times a day on all of these radio stations. I don't know exactly when, but it's it's, you know,
available and it's it's out there. though and Hartland happenings is is motivated by the people like me who are presidents of organizations or whatever that submit those things to Hartland happenings. Okay.
>> You see all these retired veterans that sit up there and sometimes what's going on. >> Okay. >> But not because >> we can't put signs because the planner over there says we can't put signs. Every time we put signs out, she pulls
them up. Oh, that'd be a fine. You got to have a permit. >> Um, all right. I'm looking at the words coming up. Jennifer, are there any that you have questions about that you want
us to get any clarification on? I'm curious about grow. But are you more grow people There's a lot of people living. So I think
I think we're not always controlreasing businesses. So I think to put the brace in this town
we need to understand you have you can't outgrow your infrastructure. You have to have infrastructure before you can have planned or or in my mind proper annexation and then you can have growth. But you're right, Ken. A lot of
the previous folks that have sat in these seats didn't want any growth. But you have to grow. But you have to grow sensibly. You can't grow without your infrastructure. You can't just grow like cancer. You have to grow with some some
planning. That's great. We have a plan. We have to run the lines. We have no money to run the line. >> The flip side is rational growth because a lot of people have moved here because of those first charts. Quaint little town.
And so they came from and this is what they told us when we knocked on doors. They came from Vero Beach. They came from Port St. Lucy. And now even the people in Sarasota, the overdevelopment that's taken place because of the interest to
grow. And a lot of people don't like that. So the whole balance is growth, yes, but rational growth. Do you put big box stores downtown? Do you where do you put them? Where do you overdevelop where now we, you know, a lot of us, I've only
been here 17 years, two stop lightss, now we're going to be four. Well, soon it's going to be a lot more. And are we going to be like a Seabbring with a stoplight every so far? So, so that's the balance, right? Why do we like this town? Small, quaint town. And now this
session, grow, grow, grow because we want all this stuff and bring everybody in and overdevelop. And then you're going to It'll be interesting. Let's just leave it like that. It is. It's a balance. And that's why it's rational growth, not, you know, let's just grow to grow.
>> But you have a population coming here. So, you have to be sustained for what you currently have because I moved here six months ago and I lost my job trying to open up a business, trying to find a job, trying to do all kinds of things and it's very
I understand that I personally came here because of a But at the same time, there's not enough. >> That's that's the challenge. Right. >> Correct. >> That's the challenge. >> I I think the word growth is showing up big, but it's skewed. What's not lost is
there's the words controlled growth, >> uh, reasonable, rational, and so forth. >> Smart. But because they all use the same word growth, growth is getting a big billing. If that is not that people want growth, they want all the adjectives
along with it. I think though that's where I'm going to be the one that talks on the generations aspect because we are known as a retirement community, but as you see from the census, we are no longer a retirement community. The median age is between 44
to 46. So what that means is that they want to live in this area but they want to have the offerings and that's where it's the hard divide and the join of the the bridge of the generations because yes people move here to retire but the reality is a lot of what we want to keep
here are our legacy families who have said we want to keep our children and our grandchildren here and so they're being able to keep them here because we're being able to grow in other areas but now they're going to Sebring or they're still traveling to other areas
because we haven't grown enough and that's the feedback that I've received. So then the question is everybody talks about because like you said >> correct >> but at the same time but there's going
to be limitations there's a tradeoff there's always I moved here 10 years ago not to retire but because of the atmosphere >> and because they said you going to like
and that's what I think is needed when the age group between 30 and 60 before you actually retire is okay for smart but you don't get to come here and then all of a sudden want everything to be
So my point is why not >> the question is if we now 44 to 46 and I do not disagree what got that demographic here
but that is not true of Our property taxes just went up 18% the utilities had to go up% to continue providing town services that
are going to be reason. >> Hence the reason for developing a strategic plan. These are conversations that are circular and ongoing. With that, we have two last questions to end the night. Uh one is mine based on
the wordle. What does empowerment mean? that came up in the questioning and just wondered if anybody would want to shed any light on that. But empowerment is up there. Oh,
it's now towards the bottom, the bottom right. But that can mean so many things and I know the town continues to work on ongoing transparency. Is that related to
transparency or is that overall the community community champions taking ownership of the path forward? What does that mean? >> I would think it would mean population.
You have different way to help guide you know things like the regional utility. It's I think it's also giving access to the information. It's the shared decision making, but
then having access to the information so that it's out there for everybody for transparency. So, we've been increasing that in the town, making sure that even down to our financials, they're being explained in meetings now where it's being broken down where they understand it better, where the where the sources
are, what where the constraints are. Um, and the capacity building I think is another one. Having the skills and the knowledge and the resources to develop properly. >> I think that communication is everything. I think that um during some
of these recreation, you know, discussions, where's the pool? We you need to build a pool. Well, we don't have a full-time pool, but the high school when they're not in session has a pool. They have swimming lessons. They have it open to the public, but nobody
knows that. So, they all think there isn't one. Well, there is one, and it is does have some restraints, but they even have lessons. I'd like to see, you know, people get Florida has more water, I think, than any other state could
possibly have. And we have ponds and lakes and beachfront and people need to know how to swim, but nobody even knows it exists. And um I did talk to the lady and um we'll be getting a schedule for the summer, but maybe we need to let the public know. Now, I'm saying that these
aren't just we hear a lot from the county residents, but they think that of course the town should build a swimming pool because they want a swimming pool. But we have one. We c we cooperate as a small town with a with the school for
the tennis courts and for the pool. And it's sad that people just don't know. back back to that uh communication component. Um >> we we have one final question. I I
promise this dialogue uh is very very helpful. Um but in so many communities just across the country and literally across the world they struggle with the same challenge. Why did we come here?
That small town feel. So many folks also come and of course we're in a high growth state overall. So our our last question for you tonight is when you think of the places you've been or lived that have achieved that ultimate goal
where they were faced with growth but they were able to maintain that small town character but still were able to see the opportunities for growth. Where are those areas? And I think what we're seeing here is
kind of back to some of the concepts that have kind of morphed over the years. But these areas where they are high growth areas have preserved that core core sense of community downtown and then built in those greater areas.
Mount Dora, I think of the area on the lake, those small local businesses, the transitional area where I may have owned a home and now I'm allowed to also have my planning office and maybe my home in the back. And maybe over time it'll
morph into a full-time planning office. But these communities here have been able to achieve that goal of keeping that small town core but bringing their character on the periphery where they've have grown or annexed for example.
And all of these have walkability. all those things that you all said that connectivity to even what may be in their community but preserving that charm. Okay. I have to say, you know, be being on the
tourism board and that um I think one of our biggest assets are our people and I hear this is what I hear in addition to our beautifification and different things we try to do. People love it here because people are just nice. They open
the door for you. I mean, even you can go to other small areas, they're just not nice. But that is that is a real compliment. But that is our people and that's whether they're in the town or not in the town. They're kind to each other. They're good to each other. And I don't know how you preserve that. I I
don't know. But I know that that is our one of our that is probably our biggest asset we possibly could have >> and it's contagious. I was going to comment on that as well because we um Dana Dana Redell, our town planner, we met with a developer right
before the holidays and he does business in 21 countries and only does business um 5% in the United States and we asked him what attracted him to the Lake Placid area and he he smiled and I smiled back and he said, "Your teeth,
you smile. We get to see you smile and you're pleasant." And so I caveat that because it's definitely what they say is we're a friendly town and it gives them that warmth of welcomeness that they're all here. And Jennifer, before we close out, I just want to say Mr. Small had a
comment he wanted to make for the public as well when we go to close out. >> Nope. Uh that that is all of our questions and we'll also go back to the original PowerPoint so we can have the uh workshop information up as we uh have public comment. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Here we go. Thank you. I just want to make it clear that the revenues that I spoke about today were those that you have abilities to to deal to control and levy or not levy. There's a lot of other
revenues that are state shared local option. They're all formula driven. So there's nothing you can really do about them. You just get what they produce to you. On the property tax, I left out a part that I thought was quite important. Save
Our Homes started back in '92. 95 it was implemented around 2003, four, five, six. property values took off and the legislature came in and said, "We got to do something about
property taxes are skyrocketing because values are skyrocketing." They keep saying that local government is out of control on raising property taxes. Well, back in
the 03, 04, 05, 06 time frame, they amended the law that says when you levy your millage rate, it said it if you're going to increase above the roll back rate,
it's going to take a super majority vote to go up to 10%. This is in chapter 200. If you want to exceed a 10% increase, the statute says you have to have a unanimous vote. And their
rationale was this will solve the property taxes going up because in one instance, two commissioners can keep it below 10%. that well no you have
one commissioner can keep you from going from roll back to plus 10%. Okay, my brain's not working right now. A 4-1 vote can raise you to that. Two commissioners can block it. If you're
going to go above 10% above the roll back rate, it says you have to have a unanimous vote and one commissioner can stop it. And the legislature said that if the issues are so strong that they have to go above 10%.
All commissioners have to agree to it. And if there's one that doesn't, then they can block it. And they put that in there and said that should solve our problem. So when they say they're totally out of control, those are limitations that they
put in there to try to solve the problem. So I just wanted to add that one part. >> Thank you. Are we all good? I think it's been very good. Thank you for everyone who has attended. On the screen, you will see
that we have a um a community survey that is floating around. It was a little long initially. However, we're trying to get as much feedback as possible. Um, Mary Beth was working on simplifying that a little bit. We also have the upcoming dates for the future um,
strategic planning sessions. The next two sessions will take place not in the council chambers. It will actually take place in the community room. So, it will be a little bit more informal. So, that will be on Tuesday, February 3rd with the local businesses and faith-based organizations. The third one will be um
on t for the town of Lake Placid residents on February 18th and we have a wrap-up session that will take place here in the council chambers chambers on March 4th. All of them will start at 5:30 and attentively go from 5:30 to 7:30 and I'm looking at the clock and it
is 7:26. So we all did great. Thank you so much for coming.