Telegraph Staff Writer
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS—Keystone Heights Mayor Karen Lake chaired her final city council meeting on April 3.
At the end of the meeting, Lake summarized some of the city’s accomplishments during her six-and-a-half years leading the town.
Other Council members, City Manager Lynn Rutkowski and City Attorney Rich Komando, thanked the mayor for her service to the municipality.
The mayor said that repairing a retention pond, making improvements at Keystone Beach, constructing Pickleball courts at Sunrise Park, and overseeing the city’s streetscape project on South Lawrence Boulevard were among the significant accomplishments the city achieved during her tenure as mayor.
Lake said she also loved recognizing citizens who made contributions to the community and added that she plans to remain active in city and civic affairs.
In other news from the April 3 meeting of the Keystone Heights City Council:
Changes proposed for airport board
Council Member Tony Brown said he wanted the council to consider changing the city’s independent airport authority into an advisory committee, much like the municipality’s Heritage Commission.
Brown said the change would increase the council’s oversight of the airport. Council member Chris Thompson said she also would like to consider changing how the airport is managed.
The council agreed to schedule a workshop to discuss Brown’s recommendation.
Brown’s suggestion comes one month after he upbraided airport board members for their criticism of the council over the council’s rejection of Chad Rischar’s application to remain on the board.
Brown said during the council’s March meeting that airport board members would have been terminated if the airport board’s public criticisms of the council had occurred in a private employment environment.
“I would have fired every dadgum one of you,” he said. “That ticked me off.”
After the council’s April 3 meeting, Brown denied his recommendation to reconstitute the airport board was retaliation for the airport board’s criticism. He said the departure of airport manager Maria Searcy spurred the timing of his recommendation.
“No, there’s no retaliation,” he said. “This is something that was brought up to me to look into, and it’s something that a previous city manager was looking into.”
Façade grants approved
The council approved façade grants to the owners of buildings hosting The Locker Room, Hatch Realty Services, Owens Law Firm, Healthy Living, Nutrition Retreat, Hometown Health & Wellness, Clyde’s Café, Keystone Barber Shop and The Village Doctors.
Repairs to the structures include painting, stucco rehabilitation, fence repair, lighting and awnings additions and other upgrades.
The city is making the grants through its Community Redevelopment Agency. Under the program, the agency will match 50% of a building owner’s costs. The maximum grant amount is $5,000; to obtain $5,000, the building owner would have to spend $10,000 of his or her funds.
Appointments to Airport Authority and Heritage Commission
The council reappointed David Kirkland and Scott Fryar to its airport authority board and appointed Helen Hersey and Karen Nagle to the Heritage Commission.
Nagle applied to the Heritage Commission in March, but council members selected Elise Moore instead.
However, Moore, who owns The Locker Room, was applying for a grant under the Community Redevelopment Agency’s façade program. Since the Heritage Commission is involved in approving the grants, Moore was told she would have to resign from the commission or withdraw her grant application. She resigned.
City Manager Lynn Rutkowski said Hersey has served on the Heritage Commission for some time and was seeking reappointment.
Before the council unanimously approved Kirkland’s and Fryar’s appointments, the panel agreed to schedule a workshop to possibly convert the airport authority from an independent agency to an advisory committee.
Kirkland defended his board’s performance and said the council’s action disheartened him.
“I’m just disappointed that I hear that you guys are disappointed with what we’ve done when in reality, there’s been some huge strides made at the airport,” he said.
