Archer City Commission votes to surplus Senior Center, discusses citizens advisory board, cuts Commissioners’ pay in half

BY DAVID LIGHTMAN

ARCHER, Fla. – At the June 9 monthly meeting, the Archer City Commission agreed to pay Kimley-Horn $193,000 using their Ameris line of credit, moved forward with a mural ordinance, discussed forming a citizens advisory board, agreed to surplus the Senior Center, and planned a budget workshop for July 1.

Public comments

During opening public comments, Karen Fiore suggested using Wild Spaces and Public Places funds to pay for expenses like the splash pad, the Community Center, and playground equipment instead of using General Fund revenue. She also suggested adding more details to agenda item descriptions.

City Manager Deanna Alltop confirmed that the Ameris VISA account is paid through June and not delinquent, responding to a public comment from the previous meeting.

Linda Green of the Archer Farmer’s Market said the market is open every Tuesday from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Archer Railroad Depot, and they will have a special Bo Diddley Day on June 24 when Diddley’s daughter will be there. Mayor Fletcher Hope complimented Green on the meticulous care given to the Depot grounds by her group.

Roberta Lopez announced that the Bethlehem Methodist Episcopal Cemetery will have a cleanup event on Saturday, June 28, starting at 9 a.m. and continuing until 1 or 2 p.m. Hot dogs and potato chips will be provided for volunteers, and everyone is encouraged to help.

Gene Arnold said he “was not happy” with Hope leaving during the previous meeting to speak at the Newberry City Commission meeting, but he thought Hope had done a good job representing Archer and his public comment in Newberry didn’t seem to cause any problems.

Alltop announced that City Hall will be closed on June 19 for Juneteenth, and the next monthly Commission meeting will be on July 14 at 6 p.m.

Kimley-Horn payment

The first item of business was the Ameris line of credit payment to Kimley-Horn for $193,000, to finish the wastewater FDEP permitting process. Alltop said Newberry City Manager Jordan Marlowe had told her there wasn’t enough time to finalize any loans from Newberry to Archer to pay Kimley-Horn by the end of June, so Alltop asked for permission to pay Kimley-Horn $193,000 using Archer’s Ameris line of credit. 

Vice Mayor Iris Baliey made a motion to pay Kimley-Horn, and Commissioner Marilyn Green seconded the motion. City Attorney Kiersten Ballou stressed the importance of completing the wastewater permitting process as soon as possible so the City would not miss out on any grants. 

During public comments on the motion, Gene Arnold urged finding a different engineering firm in the future because he thinks Kimley-Horn does not have a sense of urgency to help Archer.

The motion passed 4-1, with Green in dissent.

Adding murals to the sign ordinance

The next item was painting on private and public property. Attorney Ballou said, “This is the item that you requested that we bring back… At the last meeting, we were presented with the question of, ‘What are the restrictions in the City regarding painting on buildings, both public and private?’ and we had taken a look at the sign ordinance. Your sign ordinance is very broad, and we would like to make some changes to it… I’m not clear on what things wouldn’t be a sign under your current definition… We provided you with three ordinances [from different towns] for your review, and to just let us know if there’s something that you like about them, what you don’t like about them, and then we can craft you an ordinance.”

Commissioner Joan White said, “I just want people to be able to do on their property what they want to do. All [three] of them look really intense to me, and that’s not what I want. You’ve got people that have private property – a woman with a fence, she wants to paint a mural. She doesn’t want to put nude figures, she doesn’t want to put profanity, she wants to put flowers and bees.” White mentioned putting murals on park buildings.

Ballou said under the current ordinance, all murals would be considered signs, so the ordinance would need to be adjusted for what is allowable as a mural, as opposed to a sign. Responding to White, Ballou said High Springs has an extensive permitting process for murals.

White said she does not want to require permits for murals and only wants to prevent things like politics and profanity. Ballou said, “Okay, okay. The barest minimum murals ordinance that I can possibly come up with.”

Citizens advisory board

Discussing the proposed citizens advisory board was the next topic. Alltop said she had made a list of “stuff that staff would like help with.” Hope pointed out, “Gainesville has over 19 citizen advisory boards with multiple committees in those boards… Newberry has over four boards.” Hope said they would need to pass a resolution before appointing a board. 

Ballou said, “The important piece is, if they are making recommendations to this Commission, they are subject to the Sunshine Law. That just is reality. So they will need minutes. They will need open public meetings. It will need to be advertised, just in the same way that we do with any other meeting.”

After some discussion, Ballou clarified that citizens are always free to meet together without any legal restrictions and come up with recommendations for the City, “as long as you are not delegating them the authority to do that… You can’t create a board.” Vice Mayor Iris Bailey said, “I like that idea.”

Bailey asked, “So what is the problem with them forming their committee and coming to us and us not being the delegators of it? What is the problem with that?”

Hope answered, “I don’t want 12 members coming individually as a board because they’ve selected 16 items they want to look at at one time… How long are we going to act with fear instead of receiving the value that’s being offered to us in a very small community with a lot of citizenry that wants to help?”

Bailey continued, “If they form a group, they’re intelligent enough to know what to bring to us.”

During public comment on the topic, Fiore said the only tasks on Alltop’s list were things like sweeping sidewalks and playground maintenance – not any serious accounting or budgeting work.

Roberta Lopez said, “I think I started a lot of this, but my intention was because of the circumstances that we’re in – was just to help Deanna, just to come in and offer our services. This has blown up to be a big balloon that I can’t even understand… We’ve always had committees.” Lopez suggested that Allltop should meet with the 12 people who signed up to volunteer.

Alltop responded, “Do you know what it’s like to be here 10 years yesterday, and all the work all of us have put in? It took six years to get where we’re at. We’re eight months in, but all of a sudden I’m supposed to have it fixed just like that. It’s very defeating to sit up here and be hatefully spoken to, like with hate, when all I’ve done is do everything for you guys. The help I need is on the sheet. If you don’t want to do that, then I guess we’re out of help. So go ahead and call the news again, because I’m pretty much done.”

Alltop’s daughter spoke at the podium: “I’m Alicia Alltop, and I’m a resident. I just have a question. If you say you don’t want her job, then why do you act like you do?… I’ve got a question… I am 27 years old, and where in the world do you hear where citizens come into a city and try to help and run it? Why do we need more help?… It’s the citizens that are the problem.”

After several more minutes of arguing about whether Alltop could benefit from outside assistance, Bailey made a motion to table the item until the next meeting, and White seconded the motion. Fiore returned the podium and said that she is only looking to help and not take over anyone’s position. The motion passed 4-1, with Hope in dissent.

Discussion about revenues and expenses

The next topic was a discussion about ways to increase revenue. At the previous meeting, Commissioners decided to shut down the Archer Facebook page and reduce meetings to one per month. Alltop said the Health Department recently shut down the splash pad because the pump was broken. White made a motion to ask the County for Wild Spaces funds to repair it and keep it operational for the remainder of the year. Bailey seconded the motion, and it passed 5-0.

Baliey made a motion to surplus the Senior Center, and White seconded the motion. Commissioner Kathy Penny suggested looking into available grants to help return the Senior Center to a state that would allow it to be used. Hope said it would cost too much to maintain, even if a grant could help to refurbish it. Hope continued, “We have one Archer Community Center now that is a burden to try to manage at a standard that we can trust.” The motion passed 5-0.

Hope said they could surplus City Hall and hold meetings in the Community Center because it would cost too much to bring City Hall into ADA compliance. White said, “We are trying to maintain too many buildings in this city that we don’t have the money for, and City Hall and the Community Center take a lot of maintenance.” Hope said they could talk more about it at a future meeting, and having a long-term plan to relocate might be helpful if they ever face any ADA challenge.

A motion was made and seconded to cut Commissioners’ pay from $500/month to $250/month starting July 1, through the end of the calendar year. After some discussion, the motion passed 5-0.

Hiring a City Manager and Accountant

The next item was advertising for permanent City Manager and Accountant positions (Alltop’s title is City Manager, but she is considered the Interim City Manager). Hope said the hiring process for those positions will take at least six months. He made a motion to advertise the positions, but the motion died for lack of a second, and Commissioners raised concerns about being able to afford to hire anyone else.

Budget workshop

Hope introduced the topic of budget workshops. After asking the other Commissioners, he suggested July 1 at 6 p.m. as the time for the first workshop, and everyone agreed that this was acceptable.