Council Highlights – December 6, 2021

Last updated on December 06, 2021

Council Update - December 6, 2021

General Items 

Happy Holidays  

This is our last City Council meeting of the year, which means that the holiday season is here. We hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and were able to spend time with family and friends.  

We were able to gather in person again because of the vaccine and we want to encourage everyone in our community to continue to take action to protect yourself and your loved ones from COVID-19, whether that means getting a booster shot or getting the vaccine for yourself and our children. 

Municipal Equality Index  

Outside of the holidays, another reason to celebrate is once again the City of Orlando has received a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign Municipal Equality Index. This marks the eighth-consecutive year that we have gotten the top score on the index, which reports how inclusive city governments nationally are of LGBTQ+ residents. 

Commissioner Sheehan, thank you for your leadership in this area. We also want to recognize every City of Orlando employee for their continued efforts to create a more equitable, inclusive community for all.  

Items of Note 

A#1 Mayor’s Matching Grant Awards 

On today’s agenda, we will vote to approve funding for 16 grants in the first cycle of the Mayor's Matching Grant Program.  

These grants will support our local nonprofit organizations and schools that offer programs that engage our city's youth in constructive, adult-supervised activities during non-school hours. 

Today’s grant projects include providing critical after-school mentoring programs and increasing access to creative arts, education, culture, career exploration and athletic programs for our city’s youth. 

We have representatives from many of these organizations and members of our grant review panel here today and watching our live broadcast. Thank you for your service and for helping us to shape a brighter, better future for our city. 

B#16 Resiliency Hubs - Community Development Block Grant – Mitigation Grant Agreement 

Also, looking to the future, there is an item that grants the city $2.85 million to transform six of our neighborhood centers into “Resilience Hubs.” One of the goals of our Future-Ready City Master Plan is to develop more resilience hubs throughout our city as these hubs provide services to residents before, during and after a disaster. For example, in the recovery phase of a hurricane, residents may need access to electricity to charge phones, access Wi-Fi, apply for benefits or contact loved ones.  

This funding will allow enhancements to our neighborhood centers to include electrical upgrades, adding generators and improving HVAC systems to ensure these centers can serve as resilience hubs and help our residents weather any future disasters.    

B#17 Downtown Master Planning Services  

Keeping to the theme of the future, today we will vote on an item to further our Downtown Master Planning initative. This collaborative planning effort will build on the 2015 DTOutlook Plan vision, and will look holistically at how we can improve downtown in the areas of “space,” “mobility” and “uses.” 

Things that will be evaluated as part of the process include improving bicycle and pedestrian amenities, increasing parks and open space, recruiting major corporate anchors and high wage jobs, expanding neighborhood associations and housing options, and encouraging architecture that creates a signature skyline in our downtown.