Angel de la Portilla appointed as Ocoee District 3 commissioner

OCOEE  The Ocoee City Commission will have five members for its first 2016 meeting for the first time since the retirement of Mayor S. Scott Vandergrift to end July.

Since then, District 1 Commissioner John Grogan has served time as interim mayor and former District 3 Commissioner Rusty Johnson has been elected mayor. Both of their seats will be up for election in March, as well as the District 3 seat, which the commission filled by unanimous appointment at its Dec. 15 meeting.

The appointee is Angel de la Portilla, who has been a resident of Ocoee for a decade and started serving on the Planning & Zoning Commission in 2010.

De la Portilla said he would not seek reelection in March because of commitments to his family and his career. The whole commission agreed appointing someone not seeking election in March would be fairest, so it chose de la Portilla as the person to swear in at its Jan. 5 meeting.

De la Portilla emphasized continuing collaboration with Winter Garden and Apopka, as well as further pursuit of the economic development of Ocoee, as his focuses for his time on the commission, which could be less than three months.

WATER METER UPGRADES

The commission unanimously voted to accept a matching cost-share grant from the St. Johns River Water Management District.

The agreement includes funding support from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to upgrade more than 500 water meters to Advanced Metering Infrastructure with AquaHawk Alerting functionality.

The grant amount is not to exceed $55,735.

Designated neighborhoods for these water meter replacements include Coventry, Hidden Glen, Lakewood Manor, Richfield and Silver Bend.

SCOREBOARD FUNDING

Former Ocoee Commissioner Gary Hood asked the commission to approve funding of almost $18,000 to improve scoreboards for Ocoee Little League and Ocoee youth football. 

Grogan said the city has a responsibility as owner of the scoreboards and the fields of these organizations to maintain them. Other commissioners agreed and checked with City Manager Robert Frank to see whether contingency funding was left in the budget.

The commission ultimately voted 4-0 in favor of funding improvements to the scoreboards.

NEW CULTURAL CELEBRATION

Resident and Human Relations Diversity Board member Bill Maxwell presented on behalf of a large subcommittee aiming to organize Ocoee World Fest, an event celebrating the multicultural history and present of the city through cuisine, dance, art, music, pageantry and more.

Maxwell, the subcommittee chairman, said plans would be to hold the event May 13 and 14, with a parade on the latter day.

Expenses for this proposed replacement of Fiesta de Colores would be around $118,000, per subcommittee estimates, he said. He set $68,000 as a fundraising goal and said $57,000 in revenue could be generated, including $15,000 from the city.

The commission encouraged Maxwell and the subcommittee to pursue funding for the event.

Contact Zak Kerr at [email protected].