Remarks by Alison Strange
161 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 6 of 7
- Play at 3:37:21
“Foot, bike, scooter, golf cart. I did put golf cart.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:37:35
“Any of those qualify. So if staff comes to us with a plan and they can say, okay, the people in this area need a golf cart. So let's say, for example, Let's just use Verde Ridge as an example. There are no public parks in the northeast section of the city. There's the National Training Center, so that's cool. There's The View, so that's cool. So they have access to some recreation, but there are no public parks currently. Now there's a group here who wants to give us land, so that makes it interesting because there's no public parks in the northeast corridor. But if I live in Verde Ridge and…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:39:23
“You can't drive. That's not part of the policy. Not driving.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:39:33
“Yeah, but you can get there by scooter or golf cart. In places that have golf carts, that would work.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:39:45
“I mean, we could make it walk, but it's going to be much tougher for staff.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:40:54
“Yes. I wanted to say 100, but I thought that might be too much for staff.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:41:13
“Well, I do want to be clear. I'm not author. I'm not proposing that we authorize staff to spend the money. I'm looking for them to bring us projects that collectively would be 60 percent. So they would have to bring that to us, not move forward with the projects. So this is this is policy, not other than the specific items. This is a policy so that they can bring us back ideas.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:42:13
“Yes, so that's actually bullet point number one under staff obligations to provide by October 15th is a city map that identifies all parks and designating them as active, natural, or neighborhood. I think identifying the acreage would be great. It might be too much on the private parks, though.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:43:05
“Yeah, that's the point of bullet point number one.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:43:19
“Well, that was my suggestion at the workshop as a potential target, but I didn't feel like we had an agreement, so I thought I'd take a stab at a whole policy instead.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:43:36
“I would not suggest that. I would suggest those two processes proceed simultaneously. And now that you say it, I do think an intended aspiration of meeting the NRPA requirement of parks at an A or B level would be that all parks meet an A or B level for NRPA standards would be a great aspirational goal.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:44:54
“Well, they did not give us a task list. They just identified everything. So that's why I'm looking for us to identify what we think we want to direct staff to do. I mean, we have the funds and the impact fee. So I guess my question to all of you would simply be, you know, how do we feel about the intended and aspirational outcomes? Because at the end of the day, that's where the policy is going to be driven from. And do we feel like these are good goals for staff? I do think, at least I'm speaking for you, that we would like some sort of direction on where to move with some parks, you know,…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:46:27
“Yeah, so the last I saw was an assessment, not a recommendation or a master plan for parks. Are they working on a master? They were just updating the assessment from our last meeting, right?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:46:47
“So they did the assessment. And so what I'm doing is I'm looking at the assessment and saying, okay, where do we want to go? What do we do now that we know where we are? Where do we want to go? So my suggestion is that we look at the city holistically and a very I mean, we could talk. We could negotiate. You can negotiate me to 10 minutes where everyone has access within 10 minutes walk or 10 minutes bike. I mean, those are details that. I think, but the point would be, does everybody have access by bike, by scooter, by golf cart, safe access? And then what is safe access? We're in Florida.…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:49:14
“You know, I couldn't have predicted 42 acres at Lake filter. No, I couldn't have predicted it. So, you know, there's, there's a lot of land around in the city, around the city, um, that we wouldn't even necessarily know unless we are seeking it out. I mean, people like to donate people. There are people who love this community who might leave us land that we didn't expect if they know that this is the vision for the city, um, There might be people who say, I want to write a check. We don't know if we don't publish and say, this is our goal. And as far as allocating the 60%, you touched on…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:51:00
“Well, it's certainly between those locations, yes.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:51:21
“So, yeah. So active parks definitely can. I mean, if you look at Hancock park, there's no doubt that's a community park. It supports, I think 250 kids in softball and something like 400 kids in soccer. And yet it's also the number one economic driver outside of waterfronts festival park, or what I call festival park in the city. So. A well-designed park can satisfy both recreation and tourism needs.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:52:26
“Yes, our existing comprehensive plan, you might look at it as a 15,000-foot view to say 10 acres for every 1,000 residents. This is saying, yes, we still want to do that. But getting down even closer, we want to say we want the parks located in equitable distribution. And so we still want at least 10 acres per 1,000 residents, right? And the lakes can qualify for that. But we're saying if people in one section of the city don't have access to any parks, then maybe a conversation might be had about where we should be spending our money. Mm-hmm.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:53:31
“Yeah, that's the target. That's the aspirational goal. And I'm open to discussion on what might be more reasonable, but why hold on to the money? I mean, this $11 million was paid in $5,000 chunks.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:53:59
“Yeah, and that's why each park has to have a programming and maintenance plan adopted 60 days prior to opening. So we could change that to prior to approval by council. But I mean, that would be but the goal I 100% agree with you. I think that we need to have a complete picture before we approve parks. This is just giving staff direction to go seek parks programming. Activation. And to bring it back to us.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:55:02
“Yeah, and it's not going to be easy. That's why the sooner we get started, the better. But when you think about like Main Street, for example, we already have a willing partner stepping up and saying they want to help. I don't want to commit them, but Live Well Foundation is another local grant provider. There are different grants. You heard the caller who said that there's different programs for parallel parks. I love that name. I'm going to continue to use that. So I think that if staff knows what the target is, it allows them to seek those relationships and grants.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:57:03
“It's actually fiscal year 2027 specific projects item number three.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 4:02:17
“So what if I work with our attorney to come up with, as I acknowledged, I'm not a policy writer, but what if we work on coming up with a better policy so that we can give staff direction for fiscal year 27 so they have action items for fiscal year 27? I mean, is that something we... Yeah, I think our job is to...”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 4:04:02
“Yeah, so how do you feel about the intended outcomes and aspirations on page one?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 4:05:51
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Council · Sep 8, 2026