Fruitland Park commissioners got an earful Thursday night when Vice Mayor Chris Cheshire unveiled his commission agenda for 2015.
Cheshire is presumptive leader of the commission’s new majority, which includes Leesburg insurance executive Ray Lewis and Rick Ranize, manager of Pat’s Sales in Leesburg.
Some background: Lewis and Ranize roundly defeated long-term incumbents in November for their commission seats, promising voters they would help bring a new direction to a city plagued by missteps, mishaps, a tawdry sex scandal and more than a million dollars worth of settlements in recent years.
More background: The Villages of Fruitland Park starts selling 2,000 new houses in the city in April, doubling the city’s size and doubling the volume of services the city provides residents. That’s still a big win for the city — new tax revenues will result in a million-dollar-plus windfall.
Cheshire’s commission speech caught everyone by surprise. A Villages health care provider with degrees in Oriental Medicine and Acupuncture, Cheshire usually prefers to work behind the scenes, consulting with City Manager Gary LaVenia.
At commission meetings, Cheshire rarely speaks more than a sentence at a time.
“That’s the most I’ve ever heard him say,” Commissioner Lewis said earlier today.
Cheshire’s “punch list” of priorities include:
• Completion of County Road 466A that connects the Villages of Fruitland Park with the rest of the city;
• Architectural design standards for the CR 466A corridor before massive commercial development begins next year;
• Fixing the city’s inadequate sewer treatment system;
• Upgrading the city’s volunteer fire department to professional status;
• Improving Public Works, expanding the downtown facility that maintains streets, water mains and sewer lines;
• Changes at the police department, which will double in size next year to serve the Villages of Fruitland Park;
• Upgrading Recreation facilities and programs to attract more working families to the city;
• Upgrading the city’s code enforcement division, which hired attorney Ashley Hunt as Code Enforcement Magistrate in September;
• Supporting the Fruitland Park Historical Society, which was announced last week at an artist’s reception of historical drawings at the City Library.
Earlier Cheshire zeroed in on the biggest issue facing the commission: those new tax revenues. Besides the Villages of Fruitland Park, more than 1,500 new homes are planned in the city outside the Villages project, and millions of dollars worth of new commercial development is anticipated over the next few years along CR 466A from the Villages eastward about 1.5 miles.
“We are the commission that will set the foundation for how these new revenues will be allocated,” Cheshire said. “We have an obligation to our residents and to newcomers in Fruitland Park to exercise the wisdom and foresight that will benefit future generations,” he said.
“We have this enormous opportunity before us and we cannot squander it,” he added.
Commissioner Lewis, contacted by phone earlier today, said he agrees wholeheartedly. “When he was finished I wanted to applaud,” Lewis said.
Commissioner Ranize expressed similar support today. “He hit every nail on the head,” Ranize said.