September 17, 2026 CRA Board Meeting — Recap

The September 17, 2026 CRA Board meeting, in the order it happened. The budget and the termination resolution were decided by roll call and appear in the vote table at the bottom. Everything else passed or was tabled on a voice vote.

Who was present

All seven directors were present: Chair Critton, Vice Chair Thomas, and Directors Randolph, Jordan, Mack, Williams and Greathouse. Executive Director Michael Johnson and General Counsel Greg Jackson were also there. The meeting was called to order at 6:31 PM.

Presentations

Neither presentation was given. The first, on the policy manual, was postponed at the Executive Director's request. The second, on the budget, had already been given at the September 14 workshop, so the Board skipped it.

Citizen participation

A two-page letter supporting the agency and its Executive Director had been emailed in by a youth-services partner. Copies were given to the directors and it was not read aloud.

Six residents spoke. One spoke in support of the Executive Director and the agency's work. The others covered these topics:

• The six-home housing project. Speakers asked about the homes' cost and who will buy them, what the redevelopment plan allows, how the construction work was bid, and payments made on the project so far. At least one speaker urged that the CRA be allowed to sunset, meaning to expire on schedule.
• Senior residents. Speakers asked the Board not to forget older residents, and raised a long-running repair complaint.
• Walk-on items and the bylaws. Speakers raised public access to walk-on items, which are added to the agenda after the packet is posted, and the placement of the bylaws on the consent agenda.

Worth noting. Citizen participation comes before any vote. The resolution to fire the Executive Director was a walk-on item, not in the posted packet, and was taken up after citizen participation had closed.

The consent agenda, minus the bylaws

Items on the consent agenda pass together in one vote without discussion. When the chair asked for a motion to approve it, a director moved to take item 5, the amended bylaws (CRA-R-2026-42), off consent and into Board Discussion. The chair described the motion as approving "the agenda" with that change, and it passed on a voice vote. The items left on consent were the March 19 and August 20 minutes, so that vote appears to have approved them. The chair did not announce a result, and no other vote on the minutes was taken.

The bylaws — tabled

The bylaws discussion turned almost entirely on meeting times. Vice Chair Thomas asked that the bylaws bar any meeting or workshop from starting before 6 PM. She said a 5 PM start is hard for directors who work and for residents. Other directors agreed that meetings should be held when residents can come. Some cautioned against putting a fixed time in the bylaws: the Board already meets at 6:30 PM on the third Thursday under its annual calendar resolution, and a written limit could stop it from starting early when it has a long agenda.

The General Counsel drafted language on the spot. It added "no earlier than 6 p.m." to the special-meeting section (§4.2), proposed the same for emergency meetings (§4.3), and created a new §4.11 on workshops. Whether emergency meetings should be covered was questioned and left unclear. A motion to adopt the bylaws with those changes was made. Then a director asked for another amendment: that CRA employees be Town employees. The motion was withdrawn, and a motion to table the bylaws carried on a voice vote. The General Counsel said he would send directors a copy tracking the changes and draft the employee language separately, so the Board can compare the versions.

The bylaws in force are still the version amended April 17, 2025. The bylaws resolution's Exhibit A, which should hold the amended text, was blank in the packet.

The housing RFP — bid amounts released, little discussed

Item 6 was a discussion of RFP 2026-0853, the general-contracting bid for the single-family housing project. An RFP is a formal public call for bids. Directors had a one-page sheet of the bid amounts. It was released after the Board asked for the figures at its workshop. One director noticed that the sheet carried a different RFP number from the agenda, and was told that number was wrong.

When a director asked about the amounts, directors were told the process was still open and should not be discussed in public, under the "cone of silence." That rule limits communication about a procurement while bids are being evaluated. The General Counsel said the Board may discuss the bid amounts but nothing that could lead to a decision on the bids. No decision was on the agenda, and none was made.

The policy manual — tabled

Resolution CRA-R-2026-43, adopting the 2026 policies and procedures manual, was tabled on a voice vote at the Executive Director's request. As the breakdown noted, the manual was not attached to the resolution.

The budget — adopted 6–1 after removing the $892,083.46

Resolution CRA-R-2026-44 came to the Board as a $5,612,448.32 budget for the year starting October 1. It was adopted 6–1 on a roll call after one amendment. The Board removed the $892,083.46 listed as "Due to CRA from Town General Fund" from the revenue side, and removed the matching "Board of Directors Reserves" line from spending. Vice Chair Thomas voted no.

Why the line came out. Directors spent more than half an hour on it. The budget lists the money as owed to the CRA by the Town's General Fund. The General Counsel described it as a debt owed to the agency under state law, which requires each taxing authority to pay its tax increment into the CRA's trust fund by January 1 each year. Several directors said they wanted the debt settled or dropped. One called it money the CRA does not have and cannot budget.

The General Counsel's answers set out where things stand:

• Adopting the budget with the line in it would acknowledge the debt. Asked directly whether it would, he said yes.
• The line does not have to be in this budget. In his reading, a receivable can be added later by budget amendment. As was noted from the dais, taking it out does not make the debt go away. It only means the money is not budgeted.
• The CRA can waive penalties, not the debt itself. He cited Florida Statute §163.387(2)(b). He read it as letting the agency waive the penalties but not the unpaid amount or the interest. The statute says the agency "may waive such penalty payments in whole or in part." Whether "such penalty payments" includes the interest is the question the June 18 breakdown raised when the Board considered waiving both. That waiver failed 2–3.
• Orange County cannot waive it. A director said Orange County had considered the matter resolved. He said the County has no authority to waive the debt. He said the Orange County Comptroller's office made the Executive Director aware of it, and that talks with the County began May 2, 2026. A total of about $4 million including interest was also mentioned from the dais. The recording does not make clear how that figure was reached.
• His recommendation was that the CRA and the Town work out a plan together. That could mean the Town transferring property to the CRA instead of paying the full amount in cash. He warned that a vote simply letting the debt go would not stop the Comptroller or the County from later reviewing how it was cleared, and urged the Board to be careful.

Chair Critton said the budget had to be adopted that night. The Town's second budget hearing is Monday, September 21, and the CRA's budget has to be part of it. After the vote, the chair asked that a resolution and a plan for the debt come back to the Board, prepared in consultation with the Mayor, the Chief Administrative Officer and legal counsel. No vote was taken on that request.

The new totals. As read from the dais, total revenue falls to $4,720,364.86 and capital outlays and reserves fall to $4,257,133.61. The two lines removed are not quite equal. The revenue line is $892,083.46 and the reserves line is $892,086.46, $3 apart. Taking both out in full leaves spending at $4,720,361.86, $3 under revenue. Both totals were spoken during the discussion. The amended schedule has not been posted, so how that $3 was handled is not yet known.

Also on the record. A director asked about the Economic Impact Manager's salary: $70,000 in the budget, against the $65,000 in the resolution approved August 20. The response was that the Board had agreed at the workshop to keep $70,000. The line was not changed.

Worth watching. The debt has not been settled or forgiven. It is no longer in the budget. If a resolution and a plan come back, the General Counsel's warning applies to them: how the debt is cleared could be reviewed by the Comptroller or the County.

The walk-on to fire the Executive Director — failed 3–4

After the budget vote, the chair turned to walk-on items. Resolution CRA-R-2026-45 was one the chair said she believed the Board had received on Monday. As its title was read aloud, it would end Executive Director Michael Johnson's employment "without cause," to pursue a new direction in leadership. It would also set out when the termination takes effect and how agency property is handed over, provide notice to him whether or not he was present, and thank him for his service. It was not in the posted packet. It was moved and seconded.

In the short discussion, one director asked what the "new direction" was and what the plan was. The reply from the dais was that no explanation was owed because the Executive Director is an at-will employee who can be let go at any time. Another director questioned sections of the resolution that assigned administrative duties.

Chair Critton spoke against acting that night. She said the agency is facing a vote on its sunset, is preparing for large grant awards, and has projects the Executive Director's office works on daily. She said an agency without a director looks unstable. The directors who voted yes gave their reasons later, in Board reports.

The resolution failed 3–4 on a roll call. Vice Chair Thomas and Directors Randolph and Greathouse voted to terminate. Chair Critton and Directors Williams, Mack and Jordan voted no.

A second walk-on, CRA-R-2026-46, was described as tied to the termination. It was removed from the agenda after the General Counsel said it was not needed.

Staff reports

General Counsel. Mr. Jackson said he had sat in on high-level meetings with Orange County. He said the County is watching the CRA closely and that a change in leadership now could put the agency's future at risk. He said whether the CRA sunsets will be Orange County's decision, not the Board's. He said there is an "extremely good chance" it will be extended for at least five more years. He credited the Board's work with the Town for the CRA's $22.5 million tourist development tax request, which he described as awarded. The County Commission had not voted on it as of the meeting; see the Executive Director's October 19 date below.

Executive Director. Mr. Johnson gave these updates:

• Chamber annual meeting. Saturday, September 19, 5:30 to 7:30 PM.
• Tourist development tax. He has sent directors an invitation for October 19, 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM, when Orange County will address tourist development tax funding for all twelve projects in this round.
• The CRA's plan. It is set to go before the Orange County Board of County Commissioners on November 10, at a meeting starting at 9 AM.
• The AACH grant. It shows $0 in the budget because it has been closed out, apart from a restrictive covenant a judge must sign and a historic-preservation form for the state.

The County's own position on the sunset, as stated at its August 11 task force meeting, is covered in the tourist development tax brief.

Board reports

Three directors used their reports to explain their votes on the termination.

Director Greathouse said the vote was nothing personal. He said residents had called him wanting new leadership, and that he represents them.

Vice Chair Thomas gave her reasons for the resolution. She said the Executive Director had not done things she asked, had not given the Board adequate information or reports, and had not put on the agenda a resolution she gave him early this year about a repair for a resident. She said her questions about how participants in a heritage tourism program were chosen got partial answers, and follow-up questions got none. She said the agency has little to show for years of spending, and that a board that tolerates this shares the blame.

Chair Critton said she had voted against hiring the Executive Director and against keeping him each time it came up before, but that the work is getting done and there has been more activity in the last two years than in the 28 before. She said the Board has never set the priorities or the evaluation it discussed in the spring. She asked the Executive Director whether he had received any evaluation recommendations. He said no, and that an evaluation model he had offered was turned down and never came back up. She urged the Board to set priorities and a way to measure the director's performance before faulting him, and said it had heard directors' requests to see budget information earlier.

Other directors urged the Board to resolve a resident's long-running repair complaint, and spoke against calls to sunset the CRA. One director announced a memorial on Saturday, September 19, for a former CRA executive director.

The meeting adjourned at about 8:50 PM.

A note on the record

This recap is drawn from the automatic captions on the Town's recording. They garble names and numbers throughout: directors' names come out as "Grey House," "Randall" and "Gordon." Names in this recap are from the roll call order and the Board's membership, and figures appear only where they were stated clearly or could be checked against the packet. The budget figures were checked against the packet's budget schedule (pages 30–31). Quoted words from the meeting are short phrases that came through clearly. The termination resolution was not in the packet, so its description here comes from its title as read aloud, not from a posted document.

One point about the votes. When the chair called for the termination vote, she named it "CRA-R-2026-44," the budget's number. The vote followed the discussion of the termination resolution, and the chair did not announce its result. No minutes of this meeting have been posted.

---

Sources. Meeting recording · September 17 meeting packet · Florida Statute §163.387 · CRA documents

Recorded votes — CRA board

Vote	Critton	Thomas	Randolph	Jordan	Mack	Williams	Greathouse	Result
CRA-R-2026-44 (FY 2026-27 budget, as amended)	✓aye	✕nay	✓aye	✓aye	✓aye	✓aye	✓aye	Passed
CRA-R-2026-45 (terminate the Executive Director)	✕nay	✓aye	✓aye	✕nay	✕nay	✕nay	✓aye	Failed

Recorded votes — CRA board

• CRA-R-2026-44 (FY 2026-27 budget, as amended)Passed
• CRA-R-2026-45 (terminate the Executive Director)Failed

Results reflect the vote as recorded at the meeting; resolutions are subject to ratification.