ORANGE PARK – Orange Park Town Council is getting an early start on its budget process by first looking at what possible capital improvement projects the town needs in the next five years.

Originally called by Mayor Scott Land, the special Feb. 23 meeting was called to assist Town Manager Sarah Campbell in developing a plan of action that leads to a budget and Capital Improvement Plan that reflects the priorities determined by the council and what they believe the interests of Orange Park residents to be.

By the end of the two-hour meeting, it was clear council members, for the most part, found themselves in agreement. Specifically, all council members want to continue waterway management and stormwater drainage.

“We need to pay additional attention to drainage and we need to develop a new plan – I know we are having a report drawn up on some problem areas – and I think we need to continue concentrating on this,” Land said.

While all council members agreed with this, some of them had different ideas on how best to tackle this issue.

“We have got to start somewhere and we have got to get them the money and tools to get it done,” council member Ron Raymond said. “I’m all for the long-term studies but I’m more for saying, ‘okay, what can we do today and what can we do tomorrow?”

Council members Connie Thomas and Alan Watt were more focused on hiring water management specialists to tackle the issue

“Our plan of attack needs to include a study,” Thomas said. “We have to have professionals come in and look at this on its many different levels.”

Watt agreed and added that the town needs to meet with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the St. Johns River Water Management District and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection about the issue that became exceedingly prevalent in the aftermath of flooded town waterways during Hurricane Irma.

Another hot topic of the night was Orange Park’s sanitation system, specifically its contract with Advanced Disposal trash pickup.

Watt referred to this topic as painful because he believes every council member hears more complaints about Advanced Disposal than anything else.

“The problem was not that we privatized the trash service,” Watt said. “The problem is the contractor we hired lied to us, baited and switched us, has no quality control plan and is failing to perform and we are not holding their feet to the fire on the contract.”

Meeks then suggested not renewing the town’s contract with Advanced Disposal and instead, find a different company to manage the town’s trash. He warned that it is likely the town will see the best service from Advanced Disposal that they’ve ever seen in the coming eight months of their contract – which ends in September – as they’ll be looking for a contract renewal. Advanced Disposal did not return phone calls by deadline.

With less discussion than topics such as sanitation and water management, Land suggested that the town continues its road repaving efforts and its focus on cleaning up parks. Meeks agreed about having a continued focus on road.

In other business, Watt and Raymond found themselves at odds in determining what Orange Park should look like in the next 10 years. Watt wants a renewed focus on development in an effort to bring younger people and their families to the town. Raymond referred to the town as a “NORC” town, which he said stands for Naturally Occurring Retirement Community, and that because of that, the town should look at Orange Park’s 10-year plan based around what he believes Orange Park’s demographic – the elderly – to be. The facilitator of the special meeting, town attorney Sam Garrison, reminded Watt and Raymond that this meeting wasn’t necessarily called to discuss 10-year plans. He also suggested holding a public meeting to do that, to which Watt and Raymond agreed, although no formal plan was put into place.