City Council Highlights – April 27, 2020
Last updated on April 27, 2020
City Council Update 4.27.20
General Items:
COVID-19 Update
Good afternoon and welcome to today’s virtual City Council meeting.
This meeting format allows us to ensure that city projects, programs and services are moving ahead, while also ensuring public participation as we all practice physical distancing. This afternoon we have an expanded public participation process that includes the option to provide public comment remotely during the meeting.
We want to send our appreciation to our City of Orlando staff for continuing to serve during this trying time. It’s so reassuring for our community that city employees continue to deliver critical municipal services.
Commissioners, thank you for serving as advocates for our residents and businesses and helping ensure our community’s collective health and well-being.
We also want to thank our entire community and offer even more encouragement. We’ve made great strides and we know we can keep it up.
Although we look forward to the day that we are all together again, it is critical that we continue to keep the rate of infection down. This must be done strategically and in a way that does not undo all the good we have accomplished together so far.
Over the coming weeks, our city leadership will be meeting to discuss a phased approach to determine the health and safety measures that will be put into place to ensure our employees and the public are safe while working or visiting our facilities.
As we await further direction from Governor DeSantis, the City of Orlando will maintain our current work status and continue to offer more than 300 municipal services online. Additionally, City Hall and other city facilities will remain closed to the public.
Just as our City operations are preparing for our new normal, so are our businesses.
We continue to seek ways to provide some relief to our business community during these trying times.
Last week, we launched a new online request form for businesses to request a reduction in their garbage service if their operations have been impacted by COVID-19. This will reduce the fee billed for garbage pickup, which is typically included in a business’ OUC bill. Businesses looking to request a reduction in garbage service should visit orlando.gov/garbagereduction.
Items of Note:
C # 1 – Main Street COVID-19 Recovery Assistance
Continuing our efforts for businesses, on today’s agenda is an item that will provide funding relief to our Orlando Main Streets districts and their businesses who are facing unprecedented challenges as a result of COVID-19.
In an effort to provide immediate relief to our Main Street districts and their businesses, we are looking to amend these agreements to allow for each district to draw down the remainder of their appropriated funds for the fiscal year without the required match of funds.
We will also allow the $10,000 originally dedicated to beautification projects to be put toward COVID-19 recovery and support.
With local businesses being the backbone of our local economy, and at the heart of everything we do as a community, we believe this item puts our small business community one step closer to beginning the path to recovery.
A # 1 – EV Charging Stations
Last Wednesday we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. As we recognize Earth Day and close out Earth Month, we are pleased that on our agenda today is an item that will help us make even more progress to support the growth of clean, zero-emission transportation solutions, helping make Orlando one of the most sustainable cities in America.
Under this agreement, the City will partner with OUC’s Commercial EV Charging Services Program to expand our EV charging stations at 94 additional public locations including downtown parking garages, city parks, neighborhood centers and on-street parking throughout the city.
Installation will begin on May 1 and will be completed in this upcoming October.