Archer City Commission opposes Levy County sand mine, seeks funding from County for engineering invoices

BY DAVID LIGHTMAN

ARCHER, Fla. – At their May 12 meeting, the Archer City Commission voted to send a letter to Levy County opposing a sand mine, agreed to seek infrastructure surtax funds from the County to help pay their debt to Kimley-Horn, and changed the rules for locking the gate at Public Works.

Public comments

The meeting began with public comments. Laurie Costello asked, “For the Water Fund employees, insurance is $3,000-plus. Is that for all the employees, and if it’s not, which employees is it for?” Costello also asked about the “audit policy” and where it can be found online. She asked, “I would like to know when my questions are going to be answered from [a previous meeting].” Mayor Fletcher Hope answered, “By state statute, 30 days.” 

Costello continued, “The April 28th meeting was supposed to be our financial update meeting, which we were not updated on anything. And again, no profit and loss, and most of all, there was no discussion on the letter from DOGE that the City received days before the meeting, asking for items that we didn’t have… Citizens are wondering about all these items, also. We want an update on all that information… We have a massive amount of code violations. We have unanswered emails and questions, public records requests backlog.” She added that there are problems with time cards, including abuse of overtime. 

Matching funds grant for stormwater project

The first agenda item was a request for approval to send a letter of intent to the Suwannee River Management Water Management District to ask for a matching funds grant. City Attorney Kiersten Ballou said the letter was “one of the requirements in order for us to move forward with the Holly Hill Stormwater Project.” 

Vice Mayor Iris Bailey made a motion to send the letter. Commissioner Joan White seconded the motion. It passed 5-0.

Levy County sand mine

Hope said, “Next is the letter to the Levy County Board of County Commissioners in opposition to the proposed sand mine that we spoke about at the last meeting.” Commissioner Marilyn Green made a motion to send the letter. Bailey seconded the motion. 

During public comments on the motion, Miss Green said, “Please let’s don’t oppose these businesses that are going in. People need to work.” The motion carried 4-1, with Hope in dissent.

Equipment declared as surplus

The next item was declaring certain property as surplus. Ballou explained, “The resolution itself lists the property that the City owns, which staff has deemed as surplus and no longer needed, and are requesting to be able to sell via GovDeals.” From the agenda, the items are two 2020 Kubota Zero Turn riding mowers, a John Deere Motor Grader, a Bobcat side-by-side, a 1994 dump truck, and a Kubota BX2200 tractor. 

White made a motion to approve the resolution. Bailey seconded the motion. After some discussion, it passed 5-0.

Request for infrastructure surtax funds to pay engineering invoices

Ballou introduced the next item: “As you all know, we have quite an outstanding debt that is due to Kimley-Horn for the services that they provided regarding our wastewater projects. Based on the contract that Kimley-Horn has, which is a very standard engineering contract, until the invoices are paid, the work that they’ve done on the invoices isn’t distributed to us, so the work product isn’t distributed until we pay the invoices. As it turns out, we need that process to move along. We need those products so that we can finish our FDEP permit. So Deanna and our office have been working really hard to figure out what we can possibly do to get these invoices paid. In discussions with the County, we found out that there’s right around $253,000 in infrastructure funds that the County has flagged for the City of Archer infrastructure projects. Now, we haven’t gotten approval from anyone in the County yet. We have to put in an application. There’ll be two applications: one for the water project, and one for the wastewater project… Generally, these are matching grants, so we have to put up the money, and then it’s reimbursed… Our request to the County will be, ‘Hey, this is really good for the county as a whole, we’ve been good partners,’ and we’re hoping that they’ll give us the $253,000, which we’ll then reimburse after… [we receive the FDEP] grant.” Ballou said the $253,000 would cover most of the $290,000 that Kimley-Horn is owed.

White made a motion to ask the County to add the issue to their May 27 agenda, make a request for the infrastructure surtax funds, and put the issue on the Archer agenda for May 27. Bailey seconded the motion. Hope suggested writing a letter to the County as soon as possible. 

During public comments on the motion, Gene Arnold said, “If I’m not mistaken, Kimley-Horn did such a poor job that you fired them and you brought in Woodward and Carter…  And now they’re playing hardball about the money that they want, because we kind of need it, I guess, is what I’m hearing… They didn’t meet grant deadlines, they didn’t do a lot of things right… If you’re not doing your job and you’re not performing, you don’t usually get paid all your money. That’s just the way the world works… I would recommend our attorney step up and get into it a little bit… Am I the only one who thinks something is wrong here?”

Ballou answered, “We have absolutely no indication that, as of today, there’s any default in the contract between us and Kimley-Horn or that there are any requirements on Kimley-Horn’s part that were not met in a way that that could not be addressed… If we do not get our FDEP permit done and submitted on time, we will not meet the deadlines for this [wastewater] project. If we do not meet the deadlines for this project, then we will owe several million dollars to the City of Newberry, which obviously we do not have.”

Commissioners and members of the public raised questions about Newberry having enough wastewater capacity, since they are building so rapidly. Ballou agreed to “get it in writing” that Newberry will have enough wastewater capacity to serve Archer’s residents.

The motion passed 5-0.

Gate policy at Public Works

Interim City Manager Deanna Alltop introduced the next item, quotes to install an automatic gate opener at Public Works. She said it is too inefficient to have staff open and close the gate “hundreds of times a day… so they got three quotes for the remote open and close.” She said she recommended approval, although they also have to pay for a large repair at the Community Center (the air conditioning) and they probably only have enough money for one project.

Hope said, “I have a hard time believing they open and close those gates hundreds of times a day.” Hope said he thought the gate should be kept closed at all times because they “have a fuel loss problem.” White disagreed, citing new cameras that record all visitors. 

White made a motion to no longer require keeping the gate closed during the day. Bailey seconded the motion. There was some discussion among the Commissioners focusing on the cameras and a Sheriff’s Deputy who is often in the area.

During public comments on the motion, Brenda Skinner said, “They may have to assess a job and go back to get something, but they shouldn’t be going back four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, whatever number of times to get what they need… It’s called planning… Locking a gate behind you doesn’t take that much.”

Laurie Costello said, “If they are going in a hundred times, in and out, you have just described an extreme dysfunctional Public Works department. If they’re going fifty times, that’s an extreme dysfunctional department.”

A man said, “The gate should be locked, and if people fail to lock it, there should be consequences for the lack of doing their job. The other part of that is, you lock it for theft [of fuel and tools], but you have to look at, now that school’s getting out, you’re going to have kids running around. What happens when a kid gets in there, no one’s around, and they get hurt?”

After more public comments, White and Bailey withdrew their motion and second. 

White made a motion to have staff look at putting a lock on the fuel pump only and requiring the gate to be locked at the direction of the Public Works Director. The motion was seconded. 

Skinner spoke again: “I agree that locking the fuel tank, I think, will be a big step in the right direction. I still think the gate should be locked whenever possible.”

The motion to lock the tank and leave the gate unlocked part of the time failed 2-3, with Hope, Green, and Kathy Penny in dissent.

A motion to require locking the gate only when no one else is remaining at the Public Works/utility compound was made and seconded. It passed 4-1, with White in dissent.

Mural policy 

The last topic was painting murals or artwork on private and City property. White said someone had asked her about painting a mural on their fence. Ballou said no City of Archer ordinances address this question unless the artwork can be classified as a sign. 

Hope asked if other towns have ordinances that affect or protect murals. Ballou answered that High Springs has a comprehensive sign/mural ordinance that she personally wrote. Hope asked if they could allow Ballou time to collect more information about the other local ordinances and come back in a month, and everyone agreed. 

White said, “I’m just telling you right now, our city could use some beauty.” 

During final comments, Alltop said, “I just want to make sure everyone understands how serious of a financial situation we’re in right now, because I really don’t think – we can talk about it at the May 27^th meeting, but I don’t think everyone understands where we’re at here. So if you could please keep an open mind for the May 27^th meeting, because some of the ideas, some of us – I’ve talked to a few Commissioners already – are quite drastic.” She said she will be open to ideas from the public for how to cut costs.