Windermere youth brings home silver from national pentathlon 1B Vol. 81 No. 34
In brief Sign up for Windermere Little League
Registration begins this week at George Bailey Park for fall baseball and softball with Windermere Little League. Returning players were given the chance to sign up starting Monday. For all others, the schedule is as follows: 6-8 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 20, Thursday, Aug. 28, and Tuesday, Sept. 2; as well as from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 23. For more information, go to windermerell.org. For girls interested in playing softball, the boundaries extend to the following schools: Citrus, Ocoee, Spring Lake, Whispering Oak, Dillard Street, Sun Ridge, Tildenville and Maxey elementaries; Hope Charter; Montessori of Winter Garden Charter; and Foundation and Cranium academies.
Police to teach self-defense
Ocoee police officers will teach a self-defense and safety awareness class for women from 6-9 p.m. Monday, Aug. 25, at the Ocoee Police Department, 646 Ocoee Commerce Parkway. The class is free and limited to the first 15 eligible participants. Officer Patera Scott, the class’s lead instructor, will utilize the S.A.F.E. curriculum approved by the National Self Defense Institute. Participants must be at least 13 years old. Preference will be given to Ocoee residents, but others may fill available seats. For more information or to register, contact Scott at (407) 905-3160, Ext. 3024, or patera. scott@ocoee.org.
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Thursday, August 21, 2014
Winter Garden, Florida
2014 Football Preview Section!
Previews of each high school team and much more!
Three Sections, 42 Pages
Winter Garden postpones downtown parking garage
INSIDE
Opinion…4A Winter Garden…9A Oakland...10A Ocoee...11A Windermere...12A Social…13A Deaths…14A Sports…1-4B Schools…5B.
I WO This week’s winner is
MYRNA BARBA See her photo on PAGE 15A
First day welcome
Students began new school year Monday
Vote on proposal pushed back two weeks for further review of packet, still boasts strong support By Peter M. Gordon More than 50 people attended last week’s Winter Garden city Commission meeting, anxious to see which way the elected officials would vote on the Community Redevelopment Association’s (CRA) recommendation to build a three-story, four-level parking garage on the site of the city’s parking lot south of Tremaine Street. City Manager Mike Bollhoefer called this vote “a critical decision for the city.” The garage would help make downtown “big enough to be sustainable yet small enough to maintain small-town character and charm.” Bollhoefer and CRA Chairman Larry Cappleman cited the lack of easily available parking as one of the biggest obstacles preventing downtown Winter Garden from achieving sustainability. The CRA board unanimously recommended the Tremaine location and agreed to provide $6 million to help fund the project. The Downtown Merchants
Association and Garden Theatre sent letters in support. Bollhoefer cited several advantages for the Tremaine location, including traffic flow superior to other potential sites, the highest percentage of businesses within 400 feet of the location and known environmental costs. The city manager said the garage must be welldesigned and safe and fit the character of downtown. The garage would provide a net gain of 400 spaces and promote infill of downtown. He showed pictures of Winter Garden’s blighted downtown in 1992, and reminded everyone how much conditions have improved since the CRA started. “We are very proud of our downtown,” Commissioner Bobby Olszewski said. “It is our crown jewel.” Mayor John Rees asked to postpone the vote (See Garage, 9A)
DOWN ON THE
FARM
Photo by Shari Roach
Fresh produce thriving in West Orange County
Felipe Braga and his mom, Leticia Braga, right, were excited for the first day of kindergarten class. Felipe’s teacher, Sue Remsteck, gave him a warm welcome to Winderemere Elementary.
Windermere officials want to examine fate of town facilities Existing offices are 98 years old By Tony Judnich
chicken and ducks to produce local, high-quality eggs for the public and educate visitors about the “farm to table” experience. With a store on-site, the farm also has a variety of produce, cheeses, antibiotic-free poultry with no genetically modified organisms and no added hormones, as well as pork, lamb, goat and bison — also raised free of antibiotics, growth hormones,
Windermere Town Manager Robert Smith likens the town’s tiny police station to “a glorified doublewide.” And he said the main town administration building has been “repaired with Duct tape and bubblegum” for the past several decades. “Now it’s time to actually decide what we’re going to do with (the existing town buildings), whether we’re going to refurbish them or tear them down and rebuild,” Smith said after the Town Council meeting on Aug. 12. That’s when the council, after much discussion, unanimously approved paying $70,000 to two firms that will create a long-term master facilities plan. The existing town office complex in downtown Windermere is almost a century old. The council supported the Town Facilities Selection Committee’s recommendation of hiring the topranked firms of Wannamecher Jensen Architects, of St. Petersburg, and Detroit-based Wade Trim to form the plan. The firms’ work will include analyzing the functionality, security and architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing features of existing town buildings. “I think the town residents need some input (on the overall issue),” Council Member John Armstrong said at the meeting. “This is pretty big. They need to be allowed to have some kind of say.” That will happen, Smith assured him. He said the firms will conduct stakeholder meetings, at which Windermere residents and others can give input on the facilities’ future. Smith said he would try to negotiate with the two companies in order to have them perform asbestos and lead paint tests, and provide estimates of rehab and construction costs, as part of the $70,000 contract. The completion dates for the various tasks also will
(See Farms, 16A)
(See Facilities, 8A)
Last chance for summer film at Garden Theatre
The Garden Theatre on Plant Street in Winter Garden is holding its final summer movies this week: “High Noon” on Thursday, Aug. 21, and “Batman” on Friday, Aug. 22. Films begin at 7 p.m., and tickets are $5 general admission.
50 Cents
Courtesy of Lake Meadow Naturals
Lake Meadow Naturals, in Ocoee, raises cage-free chickens that are fed a vegetarian diet and produce fresh eggs free of added hormones and antibiotics. Visitors to the farm can explore the grounds, pick out their own eggs and talk to the animals. By Shari Roach Wholesome food and produce has become increasingly more available throughout West Orange County, with farms offering distinct goods and services to residents — whether it be at farmers markets, door-to-door deliveries or on-site visits to see where it’s all created. Lake Meadow Naturals and Lee Farms Webster are two notable farms offering unique opportunities to
the area, such as farm-fresh eggs with public picking hours and assorted fruit and vegetable basket deliveries, respectively.
Lake Meadow Naturals
The inner workings of a local farm can be explored just down the road. Visitors can see exactly where their food comes from, help feed the animals and pick out their own eggs among the chickens. Lake Meadow Naturals, in Ocoee, raises cage-free
Oakland takes over historic black cemetery By Amy Quesinberry Rhode
Tucked deep in a wooded area just north of West Colonial Drive, mostly hidden among weeds, downed limbs, giant banana-spider webs and debris, are the final resting places of some of the earliest residents of Oakland. There’s James W. Walker, whose family was one of the first to settle in the town; another family member is buried nearby. There are many children, too, in the Oakland African-American Historic Cemetery, which the town now operates. The Cemetery Board quit-claimed the land, approximately three acres
in size, to the town so the cemetery could be better taken care of. The small board had not been active; one member moved out of state and another was an elderly man with health problems.
A history
The original land grant was documented in 1882, according to the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation. No one seems to know how many people are buried in this cemetery, some as early as the 1880s and as late as 1949. It is known that a large number died in the 1918 flu pandemic and are
Photo by Amy Quesinberry Rhode
A falling headstone stands among the weeds at the Oakland African(See Cemetery, 8A) American Historic Cemetery.