City of Mascotte City Council (acting as LPA) — July 7, 2026 (Agenda)

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: [not available — agenda document; minutes not yet published] Duration: [not available]

Attendance

• Present: [not available — agenda document]
• Absent: [not available]
• Staff Present: [not available]

Agenda Items

Item 1: Council Meeting Minutes from May 5, May 19 and June 2, 2026 (Consent)

• Type: Other (minutes approval)
• Applicant: City Clerk Stephanie Abrams
• Request: Approve three sets of minutes at once — May 5, May 19 and June 2, 2026.
• Staff Recommendation: Approval
• Action: [scheduled — outcome not available]
• Notable Discussion: Three meetings' minutes bundled onto one consent item; the June 2 agenda had carried no consent section at all.

Item 2: Participation in Lake County Community Development Block Grant Program (New Business)

• Type: Other (intergovernmental funding election)
• Location: Citywide
• Applicant: City Manager Annamarie Reno
• Request: Informational. Lake County qualifies as an HUD Urban County Entitlement Community and invited Mascotte to participate in the CDBG program for federal fiscal years 2027, 2028 and 2029. Correspondence was received June 9, 2026 with a response required by June 12, 2026. Staff report states: "As in previous years the City of Mascotte is not moving forward in participating with Lake County."
• Staff Recommendation: Informational; decline participation
• Action: [scheduled — outcome not available]
• Notable Discussion: Staff's stated reasoning: participation would authorize the County to submit for and receive CDBG Entitlement and HOME funding on Mascotte's behalf for a three-year qualification period and all successive periods; Mascotte would be barred from applying for State CDBG appropriations during that period; HOME allocations would flow only through the County; and Mascotte could not form a HOME consortium with other local governments. The report closes: "By moving forward with the County we would essentially be giving up our ability to design and implement strategies tailored to our City, rather the design of our City would be in part, decided by the County." Staff noted the County provided no time to clarify how funding would be distributed. Exclusion of a municipality reduces the funds available to all of Lake County.

Item 3: Midway Avenue Elevated Storage Tank — Notice of Award (New Business)

• Type: Other (utility capital construction award)
• Location: Midway Avenue elevated storage tank site
• Applicant: Public Services Director Larry Walker
• Request: Award the construction contract based on the engineer's review. Bid opening was held May 27, 2026; three bids received and deemed complete:
  • Landmark Structures Management, LLC — $7,425,000.00
  • SGS Contracting Services — $8,663,700.00
  • Caldwell Tanks — $9,568,300.00
• Staff Recommendation: Award to Landmark Structures Management, LLC in the amount of $7,425,000.00
• Action: [scheduled — outcome not available]
• Conditions: Any award will be processed and forwarded to FDEP for approval to award SRF funding for the project.

Item 4: Knight Street Water Treatment Plant Improvements — Notice of Award (New Business)

• Type: Other (utility capital construction award)
• Location: Knight Street Water Treatment Plant
• Applicant: Public Services Director Larry Walker
• Request: Award the construction contract based on the engineer's review. Bid opening was held May 27, 2026; four bids received and deemed complete:
  • SGS Contracting Services — $8,706,700.00
  • Talcon Group — $9,158,523.00
  • Vogel Bros Building Co. — $9,449,430.00
  • Prime Construction Group — $10,540,900.00
• Staff Recommendation: Award to SGS Contracting Services for $8,706,700.00
• Action: [scheduled — outcome not available]
• Conditions: Any award will be processed and forwarded to FDEP for approval to award SRF funding.

Item 5: Resolution 2026-07-867 — Preliminary Rate Resolution, Street Lighting Services and Facilities Assessment FY2026-2027 (Resolutions)

• Type: Other (special assessment rate)
• Case Number: Resolution 2026-07-867
• Applicant: Finance Director Dolly Miller
• Request: Establish the FY2026-2027 street lighting assessment rate at $60.00 per Equivalent Residential Unit — unchanged — and authorize the annual assessment process. Total assessable street lighting cost $203,179; residential ERUs 2,742; non-residential ERUs 644.36; total ERUs 3,386.32. Non-residential properties assessed on building square footage divided by 1,670 square feet per ERU. Governmental and institutional tax-exempt properties remain exempt (revenue adjustments of $11,658 and $2,341 respectively). Estimated assessment revenue $189,180, with the balance funded through other City revenues.
• Staff Recommendation: Approve at $60.00 per ERU
• Action: [scheduled — outcome not available]
• Notable Discussion: On May 19 staff had recommended raising the rate to $80–$97 per unit to eliminate a ~57% General Fund subsidy and fund Dark Sky lighting conversions. The preliminary rate resolution abandons that recommendation and holds the 2016 rate.

Item 6: Resolution 2026-07-868 — Preliminary Rate Resolution for Solid Waste (Resolutions)

• Type: Other (special assessment rate)
• Case Number: Resolution 2026-07-868
• Applicant: Finance Director Miller
• Request: Establish the preliminary residential solid waste assessment at $484.50 per dwelling unit annually, estimated to generate $1,549,916, collected through the property tax bill under the Uniform Method (F.S. 197.3632) pursuant to Ordinance 2013-07-514.
• Staff Recommendation: Approve
• Action: [scheduled — outcome not available]
• Conditions: Final rate scheduled for adoption September 10, 2026.
• Notable Discussion: The City Manager is working with Waste Pro to amend the contract to exclude recyclable material collection, which "may result in a lower overall contract cost and corresponding reduction in the final assessment rate."

Item 7: Resolution 2026-07-869 — Fee Schedule Update (Resolutions)

• Type: Text Amendment / Fee Schedule (by resolution under §166.041(1)(b), F.S.)
• Case Number: Resolution 2026-07-869
• Location: Citywide
• Applicant: City Manager Reno
• Request: Adopt an updated City fee schedule effective July 1, 2026, driven by HB 803, signed in late May 2026 — described by staff as "an overhaul of the State's building permit framework."
• Staff Recommendation: Approve
• Action: [scheduled — outcome not available]
• Notable Discussion: Staff's summary of HB 803's most prominent impacts: it exempts homeowners from obtaining permits on projects valued at $7,500 or less where no electrical, plumbing, gas, mechanical or structural modifications are involved; mandates deadlines for process approvals; expands the private provider framework; prohibits HOAs from requiring building permit approval as a precondition of HOA architectural review; and exempts local governments from requiring a permit for temporary residential hurricane walls. Because of the bill, the City is changing its building permit fees — "most fees are a flat rate fee now instead of being based on the value of the home or project." Staff reviewed a year of fees to verify overall cost neutrality; manufactured homes and pool installations decrease, the electronic permitting administration fee decreases 2.5%, and some project types see slight increases. All other fees hold through at least October, when staff will re-evaluate. The fee schedule descends from Resolution 2008-04-394 (April 21, 2008) through roughly thirty prior amendments.

Item 8: Heartland League of Cities (City Council)

• Type: Other (regional association)
• Applicant: City Manager Reno
• Request: Informational — the Heartland League of Cities seeks members for its legislative, budget/finance/audit, marketing and nominating standing committees.
• Action: [scheduled — no motion needed]

Public Hearings Summary

• Number of speakers: [not available — agenda document]
• General sentiment: [not available]
• Key concerns: No quasi-judicial public hearings and no land-use applications were noticed on this agenda; every item is checked as Resolution, Motion and Approval, or Discussion & Direction, and none is checked "Local Planning Agency."

Key Signals

• Mascotte put $16.13 million of water infrastructure out for award in a single night — and the low bidder on one project is the second bidder on the other. Landmark Structures Management's $7,425,000 elevated storage tank bid came in 22% under the high bid; SGS Contracting's $8,706,700 water treatment plant bid came in 17% under the high bid, and SGS also bid the tank at $8,663,700. Both awards are contingent on FDEP approving SRF funding. Against a city whose entire FY2027 ad valorem levy is about $3.3 million, this is roughly five years of property tax revenue committed to two water projects — financed by state revolving loans pledged against utility revenues, not taxes.
• HB 803 preempted Mascotte's permit fee model, and the city rebuilt the schedule in six weeks. Signed in late May 2026, the bill exempts homeowner projects at or below $7,500 from permits, imposes statutory deadlines on approvals, expands private providers, and — a structural change for the corridor's HOA-governed subdivisions — bars HOAs from requiring a building permit approval as a precondition of architectural review. Mascotte's response converts most building permit fees from value-based to flat rate. Every corpus city on a value-based fee schedule faces the same rewrite; Mascotte's is on the record first.
• Mascotte declined Lake County CDBG participation again, and said out loud why: county-designed development. The staff report frames the three-year FY2027-2029 election as surrendering the ability "to design and implement strategies tailored to our City, rather the design of our City would be in part, decided by the County." The County sent the invitation June 9 with a June 12 deadline. For a city that is simultaneously negotiating a no-annexation-zone agreement with the County and building its own wastewater alternative to Groveland, this is the same posture applied to federal housing money: keep the decision local, pay for it locally.
• The street lighting cost-recovery case collapsed between May 19 and July 7. Staff documented a ~57% General Fund subsidy and recommended $80–$97 per unit; the preliminary rate resolution holds $60 — the 2016 rate, for the eleventh straight year. The Dark Sky LED conversion program that increase was meant to fund goes with it. What survived is a research assignment on buying out SECO's poles.
• Solid waste is about to become Mascotte's largest single household assessment, and recycling is the variable. At $484.50 per dwelling unit the solid waste assessment raises $1,549,916 — more than eight times the street lighting assessment and roughly half the city's ad valorem levy. The City Manager is negotiating to strip recyclable collection out of the Waste Pro contract before the final rate is adopted September 10. Residents should watch that September hearing: the recycling decision sets the household bill.

Raw Notes

• Source: Mascotte CivicWeb agenda packet for July 7, 2026 (document 81835, 304 pages, text via pdftotext -layout). This is an agenda-only harvest — the July 7 minutes were not published as of the harvest date and did not appear in the August 4, 2026 packet, which carried no consent agenda.
• The packet's pages 4–23 contain the May 5, May 19 and June 2, 2026 minutes, which were used to complete the corresponding meeting documents in this harvest.
• The updated fee schedule attachment (packet pages 271–295) is a scanned image with no text layer; individual fee amounts could not be extracted and are not reproduced here. Only the staff narrative describing the changes is available without OCR.
• Heartland League of Cities (137 South Lake Drive, Leesburg, FL) officers named in the call for committees: President Ed Freeman; First Vice President Joe Elliott (legislative); Second Vice President Dennis Dawson (finance, budget, audit); Second Vice President Bryan Bain (marketing). A Bryan Bain also serves on the Clermont City Council — the letter does not identify affiliations, so the identity is not confirmed here.
• Bid openings for both construction contracts were held May 27, 2026, eight days after Council approved Woodard & Curran's $50,000 bidding and contractor-selection scope on May 19. Mayor Sheffield's May 19 disclosure — that the company he works for planned to bid and that he would recuse at contractor selection — attaches to these two awards; whether he recused cannot be confirmed without the July 7 minutes.