Martin County Currents

Indiantown’s Village Council members learned at their Sept. 26 meeting that the presence of Timer Powers Park within Indiantown’s village boundaries handicaps efforts to expand the village’s recreational land.

The county-owned park doubles the village’s available recreational land required by its Comprehensive Growth Management Plan, although Timer Powers Park cannot be used to add sports fields or other recreational amenities for Indiantown residents.

The village’s Comp Plan requires that five acres of land be set aside for recreation for every 1,000 residents. Since Timer Powers Park is included, the village appears to have 10 acres of land already set aside for each 1,000 residents.

As a result, land developers are not required to provide any additional recreational land for village residents in their development plans. Yet, according to the 2023 Indiantown Parks and Recreation Master Plan, an additional 40-60 acres of land is needed to meet the village’s goal of a robust sports and recreational program.

In addition to the Youth Sports Fact-Finding Committee report that examined the sports programs for 13 Florida cities, the council gave their unanimous approval to raising the millage rate to 1.825 to make up for the loss of revenue over the previous four years.

The increase will grow revenues by nearly half a million in 2025, giving more leeway in the budget to hire additional personnel and provide matching funds for current and future grants.

Both the budget PowerPoint presentation and the line-item budget for the 2024-2025 budget year are available on the village website, or contact Village Clerk LaRhonda McBride at [email protected] to get a copy.

The council also approved the first reading of an ordinance to change the village’s Land Development Regulations for special events. It streamlines the process and eliminates permits for events at Timer Powers Park, for family or business events on privately owned, school, or church property, entitles applicants to a pre-application meeting with village officials, gives authority to the village manager for approvals or denials, thus eliminating the need for full village council approval of event permits. If a permit is denied, however, the applicant may appeal to the village council.

Mayor Carmine Dipaolo requested that additional language be inserted into the LDRs to prohibit events being held on the village's athletic fields.

“We’re talking about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on these fields for sports for the kids,” he said. “…this is just to protect that investment…”

Although the village does not currently have the estimated $300,000 to restore the Booker Park athletic fields at this point, Dipaolo suggested the village should prohibit potential damage caused by heavy trucks, numerous golf carts and food trucks crossing back and forth over athletic fields and buried irrigation lines.

He likened the situation to having a flat tire, and choosing to repair the flat to stop the damage, instead of driving on the tire’s rim causing damage that’s more costly to repair. No motion followed the mayor’s request for additional language to protect athletic fields.

Instead, the discussion devolved into the pros and cons of the SwampFest, which uses the former baseball and soccer field at Booker Park for their now-annual festival hosted by the Concerned Citizens for Booker Park.

Vice president of that group, Kim Jackson, accused Dipaolo of “throwing up obstacles” to prevent approval of their current permit application for their inaugural Black Heritage Festival in February 2025, which plan for a smaller crowd than attends SwampFest.

“…We’ve bowed down and done everything, everything, that we were asked to do,” she said. In fact, the village staff had recommended approval of the permit.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Dipaolo said. “That (permit) is already approved.”

Actually, the permit was not yet approved, because it was processed under the old special-events rules. Had the new rules, (which were the topic under discussion) been in effect, the application would not have been required to have council approval.

After the council approved unanimously the proposed changes to the LDRs for special events, they also approved the permit for the 2025 Black Heritage Festival permit. The final hearing on the changes to the LDRs for special events will likely be at the Oct. 12 council meeting.

The council also will be seeking volunteers with an interest and/or experience in youth sports for appointment to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, the next step in tackling the issues facing the establishment of a youth sports program in Indiantown.

Some call it “growing pains,” and simply the result of a new village trying to define itself. Others call it “government overreach.” Still others call it “discrimination.”

No matter the name, the village government set rules at last night’s village council meeting (August 22) that will bring much-needed stability and financial soundness to the fledgling government.

“We’re five years behind the eight ball,” said Councilman Carmine Dipaolo. “We needed to catch up so we can go forward.”

The council voted unanimously to accept the staff’s proposed budget based on the higher millage rate of 1.825 for 2024-2025. Few questions were asked, and no changes were made. The budget presentation is posted on the village’s website.

The new millage rate calculation was based on what the rate should have been over the previous four years in order to offset the government’s rise in operating costs and to compensate for the two years in which the village’s revenues dipped.

The four social policies demanded by the federal Housing and Urban Development program prior to receiving the $550,000 grant to harden the Indiantown Civic Center also were approved.

The grant was awarded to the village in May 2022 with a 30-day deadline to forward the policies to HUD; however, the policies had never been written. Without the grant funds, the village cannot be reimbursed the $40,000 they spent in May 2022 to cover the cost of engineering plans for the Civic Center project.

They also voted to accept higher water utility rates, as well as a policy for automatic incremental increases in future water and sewer rates recommended by staff in order to meet the stipulations set by the Department of Environmental Protection’s $12.5 million grant for the water utility. Without a sound financial policy and a sustainable rate structure, the village likely would be unable to qualify for any future DEP grants, according to village officials.

Part of the new rate schedule was an increase in the late payment fee from $5 to $35, which caused consternation from some council members, until Finance Director Mike Florio explained that 400 to 600 ratepayers of the village’s nearly 2,000 total are consistently late.

The late payments interrupt the flow of cash into the department, thus the village cannot pay its bills, Florio added. The only other solution was to increase water rates even higher — thus, those who pay on time would be subsidizing those who don’t.

Council members voted to accept the higher rates on the condition that a workshop be held, in addition to the notice in water bills, to inform ratepayers of the new fees.

Village staff also recommended that the new special-events permit for the Concerned Citizens for Booker Park be denied; however, no vote was taken.

The staff had determined that the group’s parking plans were inadequate, since they planned to use only street rights-of-way for parking at the Black History Fest in February 2025. The group also did not qualify under the village’s LDRs, which state a permit should not be issued for a new event if the group did not comply with the conditions of a previous permit.

They also questioned that the DJ listed on the permit for the Black History Fest was the same that used a semi tractor-trailer for a stage at SwampFest.

The meeting erupted with the familiar accusations by the CCBP organizers that they were being treated differently than other groups.

Councilwoman Vernestine Palmer suggested a round-table meeting sharing a meal, either lunch or dinner, “with all sides bringing their complaints to the table to find a solution,” Palmer said.

Any solution they find still will need to meet all the requirements of the LDRs that were in place when they filed their permit. Since they intend to have alcoholic beverages available and amplified sound, the village council still will need to approve their permit application.

The next village council meeting will be Thursday, Sept. 12, in the Village Hall. It will begin with the swearing-in of new Councilwoman Phyllis Waters Brown. Also scheduled at that meeting is a report by the Youth Sports Fact-Finding Committee.