Groveland City Council, August 20, 2026 minutes

Meeting Overview

Type: Three City Council sessions on one day: a Symposium on Water & Wastewater Capacity, a Special Meeting and a Special Executive Meeting Quorum: Yes (5 of 5 members present at each session) Duration: Symposium 10:02 a.m. to 12:14 p.m.; Special Meeting 12:30 p.m. to 1:37 p.m.; Special Executive Meeting 1:57 p.m. to 2:50 p.m. Location: E.L. Puryear Building, 243 S. Lake Avenue, Groveland

Record: The three sets of minutes are posted as scanned PDFs without a text layer. This record reads them through OCR of the scans (Tesseract 5.3.4; mean word confidence 90.0 for the Symposium file, 94.8 for the Special Meeting file, 93.4 for the Executive Meeting file). Quoted passages and vote lines were checked against the page images of the minutes. The attached slide decks read poorly by OCR and are not quoted.

Attendance

• Present: Mayor Keith Keogh, Vice Mayor Barbara Gaines, Council Members Amy Jo Carroll, Michael Jaycox and Stephen Shylkofski
• Staff Present: Interim City Manager Tim Maslow, City Clerk Virginia Wright, Sergeant-At-Arms Lieutenant Sammy Anderson, Interim City Attorney Richard Geller; also appearing, Public Works & Transportation Director TJ Fish, and for Woodard & Curran, Vice President Justin deMello and Senior Program Leader Rich Niles. Litigation defense counsel Jennifer Barron attended the Executive Meeting.

Agenda Items

Special Meeting Item 1: Resolution 2026-54, Clean Water Facilities Plan, Groveland Utilities North Water Reclamation Facility

• Type: Other (utility facilities plan for State Revolving Fund eligibility)
• Case Number: Resolution 2026-54
• Location: A City-owned site of approximately 25 acres; the Symposium minutes place it "along Villa City Road"
• Request: Adopt the Clean Water Facilities Plan "dated July 30, 2026, prepared by Woodard & Curran." Mr. Fish "clarified that approval of the resolution would approve and transmit the required planning document to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) and would not obligate the City to borrow funds or proceed with construction."
• Staff Recommendation: Construction of the new North facility, "based on projected capacity needs and lower life-cycle costs," initially "approximately 1.5 million gallons per day (MGD), with the ability to expand in the future"
• Action: Approved
• Vote: "Motion passed 4-1 with Council Member Shylkofski, Council Member Carroll, Vice Mayor Gaines, and Mayor Keogh voting aye; and Council Member Jaycox voting nay."
• Conditions: None added. Council Member Jaycox asked that Section 3 be amended "to expressly state that contracts, grants, loan applications, and other project-related actions would require prior City Council consideration and approval"; the Interim City Attorney said existing procurement requirements and the City Charter already require that, and "the consensus failed 4-1."
• Notable Discussion:
  • Cost: FDEP asked for more analysis of disposal options, and the revised plan expands the City's rapid infiltration basin site "through lined reservoirs." That raised the planning-level construction estimate "from approximately $82.2 million to $87.3 million"; the overall planning-level cost is "approximately $101.3 million," with annual operations and maintenance of "approximately $2.2 million."
  • Funding: Mr. Fish said the financial strategy combines rate-supported debt capacity "with development agreements, prepaid impact fees, capacity-reservation fees, developer commitments, and other funding opportunities," and that the facility "was substantially growth-related."
  • Growth and debt: Mayor Keogh said the City should avoid a situation "in which additional residential growth was necessary simply to generate sufficient utility revenue to service the debt" and stressed balancing residential growth with commercial and other nonresidential development. Interim City Manager Maslow called for a project-specific pro forma and for Comprehensive Plan policies "to ensure that an appropriate portion of future capacity supported non-residential development." Mr. Niles advised "it would not recommend advancing construction of the full 1.5 MGD facility without sufficient development commitments and capacity reservations to support the investment."
  • Impact fee prepayments: under the City's improved policies, developers who prepaid would pay the difference if the fee later rises; Mr. Fish noted "older prepayment arrangements did not always contain that protection."

Symposium: Water & Wastewater Capacity

• Type: Other (utility capacity briefing)
• Request: Interim City Manager Maslow introduced it "as a non-action item intended to provide City Council with an update on the City's potable water and wastewater capacity, planned infrastructure improvements, and future capacity needs."
• Action: No action (non-action item)
• Notable Discussion:
  • Entitlements: "Approximately 19,000 residential units remained within existing development entitlements after accounting for revisions to the Bright Hill development."
  • Wastewater concurrency: about 3,668 equivalent residential units (ERUs) of approved development are expected to use about 917,000 gallons per day. Pending developments, "including additional phases of Bright Hill and Villa City, could not receive wastewater concurrency until additional capacity became available," and staff projected the existing and expanded facilities "would approach capacity by approximately 2031."
  • Sampey facility: operating at "approximately 110 percent of its permitted average daily flow capacity"; the expansion from about 0.99 MGD to about 1.67 MGD could again reach about 86 percent by 2028. About 900,000 gallons per day from already-approved development has not yet reached the plants, and Sampey and Sunshine "could exceed 90 percent of their available capacity by approximately 2031."
  • North facility: about 1.5 MGD initially, expandable to about 3 MGD; "approximately 0.8 MGD of the proposed capacity could be associated with pending development." The design-phase State Revolving Fund request was reduced to about $6.1 million, and the funding would "initially be a loan rather than a guaranteed grant."
  • Impact fees: the combined water and wastewater impact fee is about $13,900 per residential unit, about $10,600 of it wastewater, with wastewater fees scheduled to rise about 3.4 percent on October 1, 2026. Mr. Fish said preliminary calculations indicate the wastewater fee "may be insufficient"; the Raftelis study will evaluate it.
  • Coming ordinance: Mr. Fish advised "an ordinance was being prepared to strengthen the City's utility capacity and prepayment policies," with possible "capacity reservation charges for developments relying upon facilities not yet constructed, utility base charges for platted lots reserving system capacity, and possible charges associated with entitled developments seeking future capacity."
  • Cherry Lake Tree Farm: listed on the projection as IMG, the name used when it was adopted as a Planned Unit Development; it "was annexed into the city and had residential future land use entitlements but remained agriculturally zoned and had no current development proposal."
  • Potable water: permitted withdrawal is about 4.1 MGD, and the City is seeking about 6.5 MGD. The Villa City Road Water Treatment Plant (about 4.3 MGD, funded through about $25 million in grants) could accommodate about 7,700 ERUs, with future Villa City development "anticipated to participate in the cost of the expansion."
  • Mascotte: the City's agreement reserves up to 275,000 gallons per day for Mascotte. Mr. Fish "agreed that the original agreement had undervalued Groveland's contribution"; an agreement anticipated for September would have Mascotte transfer about $7.8 million toward its portion of the Sampey improvements.

Public Hearings Summary

• Number of speakers: One member of the public on Resolution 2026-54; none on Resolution 2026-57 or at the Executive Meeting. The Symposium minutes record no public comment.
• General sentiment: Concern about the cost of borrowing
• Key concerns:
  • The total debt obligation over the full financing term and the debt service in the first years
  • Whether the debt is paid by existing utility customers or by growth-related revenues such as impact fees

Key Signals

• Groveland adopted the North Water Reclamation Facility plan, 4-1. Resolution 2026-54 sends the plan, at a planning-level cost of about $101.3 million, to FDEP for State Revolving Fund eligibility. Staff said approval does not obligate the City to borrow or build, and that loans, design and construction contracts return to the Council. Council Member Jaycox voted nay.
• Pending development waits on wastewater capacity. Staff told the Council that pending projects, including further phases of Bright Hill and Villa City, cannot receive wastewater concurrency until new capacity exists, which staff aim to have by approximately 2031. About 19,000 entitled residential units remain.
• Capacity charges are coming to the Council. Staff described an ordinance in preparation with capacity reservation charges, base charges for platted lots, and charges for entitled developments seeking future capacity, and said the current wastewater impact fee may be insufficient.
• Leaders tied utility debt to the growth mix. The Mayor warned against residential growth needed "simply to generate sufficient utility revenue to service the debt," and the Interim City Manager proposed Comprehensive Plan policies reserving a portion of future capacity for non-residential development.
• The Council authorized a court action against its utility contractor. After the closed session, the Council voted, with all members present voting aye, "to authorize counsel to file an appropriate action in court against Woodard and Curran, Inc. as to the litigation at issue." Woodard & Curran prepared the facilities plan adopted that day and operates the City's water, wastewater and reclaimed water systems.

Raw Notes

• Special Meeting Item 2: Resolution 2026-57, extending the Ethics Advisory Committee's deadline to October 30, 2026 and directing it to review ethics provisions in the Employee Handbook, passed with all council members present voting aye. The Interim City Attorney said the request was his recommendation, not the Committee's, and that he had not yet brought it before the Committee.
• Special Executive Meeting: an attorney-client closed session under section 286.011(8), Florida Statutes, on Lake County Circuit Court Case No. 2022-CA-001874 (Consolidated), for "settlement negotiations and a strategy session with respect to litigation expenditures." The minutes state that a certified court reporter would transcribe the entire session and that the transcript "will become a public record" at the conclusion of the litigation.
• Symposium, contractor relationship: Mr. Fish estimated Woodard & Curran's annual operations and consulting cost at about $8 million to $9 million, "subject to verification," and Mayor Keogh asked for a separate discussion of the relationship and its costs.
• Scrivener's issue as found: the Special Meeting minutes open "The Groveland City Council held a workshop" and say the Mayor "called the workshop to order," under the heading "City Council Special Meeting."
• The agenda's item title cited a plan dated June 30, 2026; the minutes cite July 30, 2026.
• The member of the public who spoke on Resolution 2026-54 is not named here.
• The Executive Meeting file also carries two emails about Ethics Advisory Committee attendance in September; not part of the minutes' actions.
• Sources (scanned; OCR text, machine-read): Special Meeting minutes, https://groveland-fl.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_08202026-1455; Symposium minutes, https://groveland-fl.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_08202026-1452; Special Executive Meeting minutes, https://groveland-fl.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_08202026-1454. Agendas at the same addresses under /Agenda/.
• The September 8, 2026 consent agenda approved the August 20 special and executive session minutes. At the September 3, 2026 workshop, Mr. Fish referred to "the recently approved Clean Water Facilities Plan."