Decision delayed in taxing district
I-Drive CRA has been funding transportation
Orange County commissioners delayed a decision Tuesday on extending the 2028 sunset date for a special taxing district that has funneled more than $20 million a year in property taxes into projects that benefit the International Drive tourism corridor.
Known as the International Drive CRA, the district was created in 1998 under a state program that is supposed to help “slum and blighted areas” and has been used primarily to fund big transportation projects — including widening parts of International Drive and John Young Parkway and building a pedestrian bridge between a hotel and the county’s convention center.
The board has been asked to extend the district’s life until 2040 and expand how the money it collects can be spent
Some commissioners favored expanding eligible uses for CRA money to include housing incentives and funding to renovate the former Tangelo Park YMCA into a community center and recreation facility for the predominantly Black neighborhood.
The board will likely be asked to decide those issues next month or in June.
Commissioner Victoria Siplin, whose district includes the 7,315 acres in the CRA, favors keeping it intact through 2040.
But Commissioner Emily Bonilla, an outspoken critic of the taxing district, opposed an extension.
“The CRA is not needed to provide the funding for the projects on our wish list. It only ties our hands from being able to use the money for what we want to use it for,” she said. “I definitely say that the CRA has been used to give corporations taxpayer money.”
Also Tuesday, the board endorsed 20 recommendations proposed by the Citizens Safety Task Force which was charged with suggesting solutions to curb gun and gang violence. Among the ideas are employing “credible messengers” — including former gang members who have turned their lives around — to work with at-risk youths and expanding options for officers to issue civil citations instead of making misdemeanor arrests.
Mayor Jerry Demings, who has formerly served as Orange County sheriff and as Orlando police chief, assembled the 37-member panel last fall after a spate of shootings, including two deadly ones. The violence killed 3-year-old Daquane Felix Jr., fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting the day after Denis “Joshua” Atkinson, 14, was shot to death on a neighbor’s porch.
Deputies said both were innocent victims, unaffiliated with gangs suspected in the shootings.
“This work will not end with the recommendations,” Demings said. “This work should outlive all of us and evolve over time.”
The board previously set aside $2 million to fund the task force’s proposals.
Demings said the county will track results to ensure goals and objectives laid out by the task force plan are being met.
“We will measure the outcomes,” he said.
Rod Love, a co-chair of the task force, said government and law enforcement cannot solve the violence problem.
“The community is going to have to be part of this process,” he said.