Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (5 of 7 voting members present) Duration: Adjourned 7:49 PM. Noticed start was 5:00 PM, giving roughly 2 hours 49 minutes.

Source note on the date and start time: The minutes are titled "Thursday, May 7, 2026," but the opening paragraph reads "held a meeting on Thursday, April 2, 2026" and "called the meeting to order at 11:00 a.m." Both appear to be carryover from the April 2 minutes template: the consent item on this agenda is the April 2 minutes, the May 7 agenda noticed a 5:00 PM start, and the recorded adjournment is 7:49 PM. This document treats the meeting as the May 7, 2026 regular meeting and records the noticed 5:00 PM start. The 11:00 a.m. line is preserved verbatim in Raw Notes rather than resolved silently.

Attendance

Present: Zach Decker (Chairman), Robin Hoover, Kerry Lambert, Alisha Kissee, Marty Proctor
Absent: Michael Archer, Brandan Dixion, Bill Mathias (non-voting)
Staff Present: Benjamin Schafer, City Attorney; DeWayne Jones, Planning and Zoning Manager; Alan Booker, Senior Planner; Maria Ramirez, Recording Secretary
Presenters: Deputy Chief Armando Loney (Police); Deputy Chief Erich Thiemann (Fire)

Agenda Items

Item 0: Consent Agenda — Approval of April 2, 2026 Minutes

Type: Consent
Action: Approved
Vote: All Board Members present voted aye (motion by Marty Proctor, seconded by Robin Hoover)

Item 0.5: Vote — Election of Chairman and Vice-Chairman

Type: Procedural / Board officers
Request: Seat the Chairman and Vice-Chairman for the new term
Action: Zach Decker reappointed Chairman; Robin Hoover reappointed Vice-Chairman
Vote: All Board Members present voted aye on both
Notable Discussion: Decker was nominated by Robin Hoover and Marty Proctor; Hoover moved the reappointment, Proctor seconded. Hoover was nominated by Marty Proctor and Kerry Lambert; Kissee moved the reappointment, Proctor seconded. No competing nominations were recorded.

Item 1: Ordinance 2026-5 — Langley Industrial Annexation

Type: Annexation (voluntary, F.S. § 171.044)
Case Number: Ordinance 2026-5
Location: This headnote gives none. The Ordinance 2026-7 headnote places the Rutland International property on Republic Drive, south of US Highway 27, east of Democracy Street and west of State Road 19.
Owner: Rutland International, Inc. (per the ordinance headnote)
Request: Annex 6.2 +/- acres of real property not embraced within the present limits of the City of Groveland
Acreage: 6.2 +/- acres, per the ordinance headnote
Action: Approved (recommendation to City Council)
Vote: 3-2. Ayes: Alisha Kissee, Marty Proctor, Chairman Zach Decker. Nays: Robin Hoover, Kerry Lambert. Motion by Proctor, seconded by Kissee.
Notable Discussion: None recorded. The Recording Secretary read the ordinance headnote into the record; the minutes capture no board discussion, no staff presentation, no applicant presentation, and no public testimony on this item.

Item 2: Ordinance 2026-6 — Langley Industrial Small Scale Comprehensive Plan Amendment

Type: Comprehensive Plan Amendment (small scale, F.S. § 163.3187(1))
Case Number: Ordinance 2026-6
Location: Same parcel as Item 1
Request: Amend the Future Land Use Map designation from Lake County Industrial to City of Groveland Employment Center
Acreage: 6.2 +/- acres
Action: Approved (recommendation to City Council)
Vote: 3-2. Ayes: Kissee, Proctor, Decker. Nays: Hoover, Lambert. Motion by Proctor, seconded by Kissee.
Notable Discussion: None recorded. Headnote read into the record; no discussion captured.

Item 3: Ordinance 2026-7 — Langley Industrial Rezoning

Type: Rezoning
Case Number: Ordinance 2026-7
Location: Republic Drive, south of US Highway 27, east of Democracy Street, west of State Road 19
Owner: Rutland International, Inc. (per the ordinance headnote)
Current Zoning: Lake County Light Manufacturing (per the ordinance headnote read into the record)
Proposed Zoning: City of Groveland Light Industrial
Action: Approved (recommendation to City Council)
Vote: 3-2. Ayes: Kissee, Proctor, Decker. Nays: Hoover, Lambert. Motion by Proctor, seconded by Kissee.
Notable Discussion: None recorded. Headnote read into the record; no discussion captured.

Presentations

Presentation A: EAR Update — Police and Fire Levels of Service Review

Police — Deputy Chief Armando Loney

Chair Decker asked the national police response time benchmark. Loney: urban 911 is 5 to 10 minutes; rural 911 is 15 minutes or more.
Board Member Proctor asked whether a location shown in the presentation was the police shooting range. Loney confirmed it was. Board Member Hoover encouraged continued community sharing of shooting-range training, noting she has participated.
Board Member Lambert asked whether police have a neighborhood watch program. Loney: not presently; no requests received; Groveland is currently low in crime.
Lambert stated vandalism and trespassing are an issue in her subdivision. Loney noted police need permission to enter. Lambert asked about a community liaison; Loney said not at this time due to manpower.
Lambert asked whether officers have mental illness training. Loney: once a year, de-escalation tactics training.
Chair Decker asked how many officers Police currently has. Loney: forty officers. Decker stated there is no doubt departments run lean and do an excellent job. Decker asked whether a fourth zone could be covered with current staffing; Loney said it needs two shifts at minimum, four officers each shift.

Fire — Deputy Chief Erich Thiemann

Board Member Hoover asked whether engines are always in Groveland. Thiemann: not when calls are issued.
Lambert asked whether staff and paramedics are trained on stroke victims. Thiemann: yes, stroke and heart attacks. Asked where Mobile Stroke Units go; Thiemann: depends on the situation, and Fire can air lift if needed.
Chair Decker asked what the ideal response-time path is to bring it down. Thiemann: it is an urban average and may potentially have a reduction.
Decker asked whether the Ford F-150 has enough space to carry medical equipment. Thiemann: yes.
Decker addressed that Fire needs two more stations. DeWayne Jones stated staff is already working Fire. Thiemann stated a fire station is being considered.
Decker asked about response agreements with Mascotte and Clermont. Thiemann: there is a mutual agreement to respond when necessary, sending the closest unit.
Decker asked whether three firemen per vehicle is reasonable to maintain. Thiemann: one is a medic; ideal is four per truck.
Board Member Kissee asked whether Fire's technology is staying up to date. Thiemann: heart monitors, computer-driven trucks, defibrillators, software, and cameras.
Lambert asked about community fire prevention. Thiemann: Fire does the least of those, but announces fire prevention safety through water bills and social media, and hosts fire station tours in October.

Public Hearings Summary

Number of speakers: 2 (recorded under Public Comments; no speakers are recorded on the three Langley ordinances themselves)
General sentiment: Neither speaker addressed the Langley package. Both raised city-wide mapping, cost, and land-conservation concerns.
Key concerns:
- A resident was concerned with the cost of service, requested a landscape update, and asked how to reach the zoning maps.
- Mayor Keith Keogh (spelled "Kieth Keogh" in the minutes, which give no title; see Raw Notes) had questions on the maps presented, specifically the yellow shaded areas. DeWayne Jones stated they are the discrepancies. Keogh recommended that the Board speak to the attorney on mitigation or agriculture land, and that staff enforce the flag code or else change it back. He noted there is "no money to buy land conservation."

Key Signals

Groveland's industrial-annexation template drew its first dissent — from the board member who moved the last one. All three Langley ordinances passed 3-2, with Vice-Chairman Robin Hoover and Kerry Lambert against. Six months earlier, on November 6, 2025, Hoover personally made the motion to approve every ordinance in the Gadson Street annexation package — the same annex-plus-plan-amendment-plus-rezone template, approved unanimously with no public comment. Nothing in this record explains the reversal. Because only 5 of 7 voting members attended, the package advanced to City Council on three affirmative votes out of a seven-member board. The February 6, 2025 minutes record Mayor Keogh directing this board that no item should go to Council unless the vote is unanimous and that dissents be documented with reasons; this vote is neither unanimous nor accompanied by any recorded reason.
Zero recorded discussion on 6.2 acres of new city industrial land. The minutes show the headnote read, a motion, a second, and a tally — three times — with no staff presentation, no applicant appearance, no board questions, and no public testimony. The substantive deliberation at this meeting went to Police and Fire capacity, not to the land-use decision. Anyone tracking how Groveland processes industrial entitlement should read the procedural speed here as the norm rather than the exception.
Benjamin Schafer sat as City Attorney, and the minutes record nothing from him. The minutes list him present as City Attorney at this meeting, the first after Anita Geraci-Carver's April 2 farewell, and record no legal opinion, statutory framing or ordinance commentary from him. On April 2 the minutes had recorded her legislative update on SB 180. Other city records name the office differently: this board's July 9 minutes list Kurt Garber as City Attorney (groveland/2026-07-meeting-PZB.md), and the City Council minutes of May 4 and May 18, 2026 list Richard S. Geller as Interim City Attorney. None of these documents says how the three relate.
Fire needs two more stations and Police runs forty officers — capacity is trailing the growth the same board is approving. Chair Decker put the two-station gap on the record; staff answered that one station is "being considered." Police cannot staff a fourth patrol zone without two shifts of four officers each, has no neighborhood-watch program, and cannot spare a community liaison. Groveland leans on mutual aid from Mascotte and Clermont to hit response times. For a buyer comparing south Lake County addresses, this is the service-level picture underneath the subdivision marketing.
The Future Land Use Map has known, mapped discrepancies, and the city is working through them. Under public comment, DeWayne Jones confirmed the yellow shaded areas on the presented maps are discrepancies, and Alan Booker was reported still working on the Future Land Use Map. Each correction that reaches this board changes what a parcel may become, so each one is worth reading on its merits.

Raw Notes

Source: the May 7, 2026 minutes, posted as a scanned file at https://groveland-fl.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_05072026-1425 and read by OCR.
Verbatim date/time discrepancy, preserved: the minutes header reads "Planning & Zoning Board Meeting Minutes / Thursday, May 7, 2026," and the body immediately below reads "The City of Groveland Planning and Zoning Board held a meeting on Thursday, April 2, 2026. Board Member Chairman Zach Decker called the meeting to order at 11:00 a.m." The April 2, 2026 meeting is a separate, already-harvested meeting that did convene at 11:00 AM. The recorded adjournment here is 7:49 PM and the noticed start was 5:00 PM.
Name spellings vary within the source. The minutes use "Alicia Kisse" and "Alicia Kissee" in the vote tallies and "Alisha Kissee" elsewhere; "Brandan Dixion" here versus "Brandan Dixon" on the agenda roster; "Kieth Keogh" in public comment. This document uses the agenda-roster spellings for board members and preserves the minutes' spelling where a name appears only in the minutes.
The Ordinance 2026-7 headnote read into the record states the current zoning as Lake County Light Manufacturing.
The commenter recorded as "Kieth Keogh" is identified here as Mayor Keith Keogh. These minutes give him no title. The City Council minutes of May 4, 2026 (https://groveland-fl.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_05042026-1424) and May 18, 2026 (https://groveland-fl.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_05182026-1428) each record Mayor Keith Keogh calling the Council meeting to order, and this board's July 9 and August 6, 2026 minutes record "Mayor Keith Keogh" speaking under Public Comment (groveland/2026-07-meeting-PZB.md, groveland/2026-08-meeting-PZB.md).
Attest block: Zach Decker, Chairman; Maria Ramirez, Recording Secretary.
The July 9, 2026 minutes (https://groveland-fl.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_07092026-1437) record these minutes approved on consent, all members present voting aye.
Adjournment: motion by Marty Proctor at 7:49 PM, seconded by Robin Hoover.

Groveland Planning & Zoning Board, May 7, 2026 minutes