Oviedo’s perpetual police building problem

On Election Day 2023, 64% of Oviedo voters rejected it.

On Election Day 2024, 59% of Oviedo voters rejected it.

And now, Oviedo voters have made their voices heard as to why they have continually said no to referendums for millions of dollars of bonds — $35.5 million in 2023 and $20.4 million in 2024 — to add to the already-approved $11.4 million in bonds voted for in 2016 for a new public safety/police building in a city-conducted survey asking why they voted no and how much they would be OK with voting yes for. 

Of the 152 residents who responded with an amount they would vote for, if any at all, 115 of them — or 76% — said $0 to $5 million. However, based on the written responses, most leaned toward $0. Nearly 12,000 people voted against the referendum in the 2024 election.

 “My tax burden is high enough,” another said. “Approving an absurd amount of money for a new police building will only further increase this burden. I will not approve a single dollar above the previously approved amount.”

“We voted no because we are taxed to death,” yet another said. “It’s ridiculous that the city cannot stay within a budget and keeps asking for more funds. Households cannot do that and must live within our means. Citizens are not going to give the city a blank check to spend, spend, spend. Enough is enough.”

“As new residents (1 year) … If the funds that were previously granted have sat for so long, with no action,” another respondent said, “why would more funds and higher buildings[sic] costs be any different? It isn’t the issue of money but lack of management of the funds.”

It hasn’t always been a hard no for Oviedo voters, as proven by the result of the 2016 approval. However, shortly after that vote, city officials said it was not enough for a new building, so the city waited to see if construction costs would decrease, city manager Bryan Cobb said.

They never did, at least to an amount that the city felt was enough to move ahead with the project.

Eight years later, construction and material prices have only increased – almost doubling – according to Eddie Petrow, an owner of Oviedo-based contracting company Central Florida Equity Builders, and a contractor since 2009, and the city is in the same spot it has been for nearly a decade, still grasping for a solution to its crumbling-police-station problem. 

Petrow said prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, he saw average construction costs increasing 3% to 5% every 18 to 24 months, but during and post-pandemic, it has risen dramatically. 

“During the Covid timeframe, we had a price increase almost every quarter, and then one of those years we had five increases in one year,” he said. “And those increases were about between 5% and 8% [each].”

Those increases led to the already-approved $11.4 million most likely losing purchase power every year nothing is done in regard to a new or renovated building. 

“It never gets cheaper,” he said. “It’s not going to happen.”

Council’s take

During the discussion about the survey results at their Dec. 16 meeting, City Council members and city staff reflected on the answers.

“In reading all of those responses, the thing that was a little bit frustrating to me is that many of the concerns that were voiced were things that, in my opinion, weren’t actually true,” council member Alan Ott said. “I think the thing that’s difficult is that the residents don’t appear to agree on the facts with many people in this room who were here for the town halls and things like that. So, I mean, the things that were mentioned, like, that it was perceived that there was no plan, that there was not enough transparency, that there was no estimated cost, that we should use the mall, what are we doing with the $11.4 million that we already have?

“There was a plan and there was transparency and there was an estimated cost and there was a reason to not use the mall, and those things were discussed in here as part of the town halls and the work sessions and all that other kind of stuff,” he said. “But apparently those things weren’t reaching the residents.”

City and police officials laid out their pitches for the need for the building in an Oct. 4 forum, prior to the election. About a dozen people attended the meeting.

“We had two town halls and if we had 30 [people attend], I think that’s stretching it,” council member Jeff Boddiford said.

In 2022, Florida updated statute 106.113, which prohibits local governments from using public funds for communications to voters about specific issues or for advocating for or against issues in communications such as on social media, websites and mailers. The city can put out factual information – and did, on Facebook and the city’s website – but cannot do more than that. City officials expressed their feelings about the statute and its effect on the referendums clearly.

“Our hands are tied by state law,” City Attorney David Hall said. “We can’t go out and promote it and say this is the greatest thing in the world.”

While a number of responses did say they didn’t have enough information, or were not provided with clear details about the police building and its plans, the majority were focused on the price tag. And that is something the city must now overcome.

But how?

“It’s very hard to get a consensus of people when you’ve got such disinformation [about the proposal] floating around on social media,” council member Keith Britton said. “I think it’s our job to go out there as a united front and try to correct those discrepancies when they come up. It doesn’t seem like we’ve done a very good job with that.

“Something’s missing in the message. We used to be able to trust the people to trust us and vote for these things and now that’s not there,” he said. 

A number of ideas for how to move forward with some semblance of a plan were discussed in the Dec. 16 meeting, though no consensus was reached.

On using only the $11.4 million:

“If we can’t get to the point that we can build for the future, what is the need now and how much is that going to be? Is it going to be the $11.4 [million]? Is it going to be more?” Council member Jeff Boddiford said. 

Cobb said the latest estimates put a complete renovation of the existing building at around $12.8 million. But that does not solve the space issue officials have said the current building has for a force of Oviedo’s size.

He said that in addition to a renovation, he would like to have the safety and security of the area addressed, as well as build a garage or parking structure that could include storage.

A renovation also brings other complications with a building the age of this one, which the department moved into in 1990, such as ADA accessibility requirements.

“The contractor told us if they touch the bathroom, they’ve got to bring it up to [ADA] code,” he said.

A renovation could be just a temporary solution to a long-term problem, however.

“It’s not going to be a Band-Aid fix, but it’s also not going to be a permanent fix,” Deputy Mayor Teuchert said. “We’re not going to be able to build for the capacity we need in the future. That’s just a given if we don’t have more money. But if we can at least get the building back into a habitable form, and potentially add some office space by re-doing the part of it that used to be a fire department, we can [solve the short-term issue].

“But we’re no longer looking for the solution that is a 20-year solution,” she said.

On using money from the one-cent sales tax:

Mayor Megan Sladek brought up the possibility of using money from the city’s allotment of the county’s One Cent Local Government Infrastructure Surtax. The so-called “penny sales tax” was re-approved by 73 percent of voters last month, a stark contrast with the referendum result.

“We have upwards of $55 million expected to roll in in the next 10 years [through the sales tax],” Sladek said. “We’ve got $11.4 million that we could issue now and have that amortized against future property taxes. So it’ll be partially from property taxes and then the remainder, which we should actually click down from what we asked [for] in the past to something more humble, could be with the sales tax.”

Using money from that pool, though, could have major impacts on already-planned projects throughout the city.

“I’m not in favor of using our penny sales tax for the police department,” Teuchert said. “It is our voter, voted-upon funding to fix sidewalks and pave roads and that’s exactly what we use it for.

“It would gut our maintenance budget,” she said. “I don’t think voters went out to vote on the penny sales tax to gut that for all of our maintenance needs for the city for the next 10 years.”

On yet another referendum:

“A referendum is really the best way to solve it because it spreads the costs out for the folks that are here,” Britton said. “If you move away, you’re not paying for a building that’s already paid for. You pay for it as time goes on and you spread it out over the lifetime of the facility, and if you need to expand then you expand at a later time.”

While, in theory, it may be the easy way to solve the issue, could City Council realistically ask voters for money for a third-straight year? Especially after they roundly rejected it two years in a row?

“I think it’s a waste of time,” Teuchert said. “We’re at the point where we can’t wait anymore.”

Cobb plans to provide further direction to the council at a future meeting, most likely in February.

Whatever decision the city ultimately comes to, they now have a clear directive from voters and a ticking clock as costs continue to rise.

”We’ve got more work to do, is all I have to say,” Britton said.