07/12/2024
This letter was sent the City stormwater department, Mayor, Commissioners, and Public Services department.
Public record letters to Council and departments are below. The original maintenance records are in emails and in public records, also. The stormwater ponds and drains were cleaned REGULARLY and by CERTIFIED stormwater inspectors who were employees of the City. Mr. Melvin Jones handled and ran the crews cleaning the SW, French drains, and the exteriors of the ponds and Mr. Armando Borjas cleared the wet ponds with equipment as parts of streets division. They kept meticulous records.
The attempted rewriting of history into the public record by Mayor Bryan Nelson for political gain https://www.youtube.com/live/tc3ePMAS-7Y?si=8z0949S-4IcpJ-Eg&t=8089 must be corrected.
There was NOT an “historical lack of inspection and maintenance of stormwater ponds.”
There was NOT an “historical lack of inspection and maintenance of French drain.”
This is defaming and disrespectful to longtime and hardworking employees and residents of the city.
Images inline below
3 Jan 2018—Before Nelson, Borjas and Jones Maintaining 2 Aug 2023--Nelson Administration, no one Maintaining 11 months AFTER I reported the problem Sept 2022, cleaned Mar 2024 17 months late
The ONLY historical period in which the ponds have not been cleaned has been the Nelson administration.
No praise to Nelson. Condemnations only! I wrote, called, texted, emailed, for months and months with no results. I talked to Com. Nick Nesta for the first nine months with no results. Even after I spoke before the Council there was no activity. I presented the Clerk a list of area pond cleaners the night of my presentation for vetting.
Here is the video link, only 6 minutes, that shows, after months of asking for the ponds to be cleaned, me presenting it to the Council. I added full screen inserts of the satellite images for better clarity. https://youtu.be/MzjJMNqr5kA (I do apologize for mispronouncing Mr. Richard Earp as Mr. Earl. I know his name.)
Attached is the chart and follows in text that explains how awful their management is and why it has gone awry.
This chart shows the condition of SOME of the storm water ponds in City of Apopka Government (Mar 2023). It also indicates that the employees don't know what ponds are maintained by what jurisdictions or what departments have been maintaining which ponds. Obviously, since some of the ponds haven't been maintained since 2018 when Melvin Jones left.
Severely Overgrown, damage to outfall structure, heavily overgrown, holes in bottom of pond, damage to MES & outfall, Clogged with silt and trash, Trash in bottom, Inflows and outfalls all overgrown because they are usually too wet to mow
If a DRY pond is always wet-- Inflows and outfalls all overgrown because they are usually too wet to mow--that is because the system doesn't work! FIX IT. The person mowing and their supervisor should have noticed!
Bryan Nelson, Nick Nesta Apopka City Commissioner Seat 4, Diane Velazquez Apopka City Commissioner Seat 2, Alexander Smith Apopka City Commissioner Seat 1, Kyle Becker, hire Melvin Jones and Armando Borjas as consultants to ferret this all out. Their corporate memory fair out way the guessing games that are going on now! They know where the ponds are, who owns them, and what departments are supposed to be maintaining them.
Read each and every line. On https://ocpaweb.ocpafl.org/dashboard you can look at the properties at birds-eye view and search the satellite images over the past four years to see the damage done. Advance the dates on the top left of the screen. Use Google Earth Pro not Google maps. I will gladly demonstrate with Zoom. You will see all of the beautiful clear clean ponds owned by businesses, the County, and HOAs surrounding the City of Apopka.
Shame, shame, shame, especially when Clear Water was admonished for a flooding their pond when their pond had nowhere to go.
The pond near YOUR home might be clear, but in a flood emergency YOU might not be able to get past the flooded roads and businesses north and south of your pond. Or your pond might become flooded because of the others. DON'T be complacent. Your friends and family members, your taxes are being wasted and are going up because of this malfeasance. It is now going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to CORRECT the damages.
Apopka storm water ponds have not been maintained since 2018. They are, at variable levels, severely clogged with aquatic foliage and debris. I have been requesting the inventory of ponds and maintenance preformed since September 2022. It is now June of 2023. After being rebuffed constantly or receiving no response I started searching satellite imagery and the Orange County Property Appraisers website for proof of maintenance and spoke to the former maintenance personnel.
There won't be a maintenance report as satellite proves no maintenance was occurring. I found the progressively worsening eutrophication of the ponds in the imagery for nearly four years verifying what I witnessed in person over the last nine months. I received, after a formal public document request, a copy of an inventory of ponds, with no maintenance report, dated 30 March 2020 listing the retched condition of the ponds just hours before the presentation.
I presented the satellite images and my photos to the council and citizens at the Council meeting 21 June 2023 showing the damage to the ponds by neglect of the people the citizens hired to maintain our city.
Reported storm water pond and drain issues to https://sfrwmd.com [email protected] and Florida Dept of Environmental Protection https://Floridadep.gov [email protected].
If these ponds don't work our streets, homes, and businesses will flood. These people work for US. We hire (elect) them to handle the work of maintaining our community to keep our city functioning. If it isn't functioning properly or being maintained we must seek proper recourse.
To voice your opinion contact: Bryan Nelson, mayor [email protected]
DrO
“Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are those who say: This is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better.” — Studs Terkel
“There is no more neutrality in the world. You either have to be part of the solution, or you're going to be part of the problem.” -- Eldridge Cleaver.
Apopka City Council Budget Workshop 2 of 3 at City Hall on July 9, 2024 at 5:45 PM.Please Note: This meeting will begin following the Apopka Planning Commiss...
