THIS IS A PAID POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT: PAID FOR AND APPROVED BY JACK HILLIGOSS CAMPAIGN (NP)
by James Coulter
Mayor Jack Hilligoss has served as the Mayor of Lake Wales since 2022. In that time, the city has seen exciting change and growth. Now, he’s seeking re-election to ensure that the city continues to grow and thrive through the further implementation of the Lake Wales Connected Plan.
In the latest Chattin on the Ridge podcast, Mayor Hilligoss shared his thoughts about how Lake Wales has been positioned to thrive in his first three years and his top priorities in his next term. You can listen to the full podcast on Acast:https://shows.acast.com/chattin-on-the-ridge/episodes/ep-55-lake-wales-re-election-wjack-hilligoss
Here’s a sample of his thoughts on his political career and his expectations for the future:
1. Mr. Hilligoss, tell us about your current term as mayor. You originally started as the pastor of HighPoint Church in Lake Wales. Tell us, what inspired you to go from the podium to politics?
I became involved in August of 2021 when I was asked to accept a temporary appointment to Seat Four, which had been vacated on our commission. Our mayor at the time, Eugene Fultz, had made it clear that he was not wanting to seek a fourth term. When that happened, several local leaders reached out to me and asked me if I would consider running. And in my time on the commission, I become aware of a few pressing issues that I felt demanded some leadership.
I felt like my experience in policy governance (which is the way we run our church, and which is very similar to how the City of Lake Wales is structured to run) helped me address those issues and bring some cohesion between the Lake Wales Commission and the City Staff. So, I prayed about it and consulted with our church leadership and decided that I would throw my hat in the ring to become the mayor. And I won the election in 2022.
2. And since you first became Mayor in 2022, how has your current term been? What have been some of the highlights and accomplishments of your political career?
I would describe my first term with two words: effective and challenging.
I say challenging because it is a steep learning curve for anyone who comes out of civic life, out of private life, and into public service. There are so many layers of government that work together in the City of Lake Wales. We have local, country, state, and federal government all interacting together here in the City of Lake Wales. And there are so many laws that govern how we get to work together. We are required to work with developers. And most of the system understands that. And so, for that reason, I think we receive a lot of criticism for decisions that we do not have any jurisdiction or control over do impact our local community.
It’s also challenging because of the growth. I understand that angst. I kind of share it. I heard a local official say they would be happy if there wasn’t another homebuilding in Polk County. Personally, I kind of share that. But since there is no way that we can stop that from happening, we have to deal with it more realistically.
That leads, I think, to the biggest challenge, which is there is a contingent of people in Lake Wales who play upon that angst with overgrowth by demonizing the Commission and making kind of vague slanderous accusations about corruption with absolutely no evidence and promising that they will stand up to the developers and stop the growth, which they can’t do and they won’t do. And it’s really just a cynical kind of dishonest political ploy.
So those are the challenging aspects of it. But overall, the good outweighs the bad.
3. Tell us about your plans for your next term, if you become elected. One of your main priorities is long-term planning and quality development. I assume, then, that the Lake Wales Connected Plan has been a main priority for you. Tell us, what are your thoughts on Lake Wales Connected? And how successful would you say you have been in helping implement it?
The accomplishment I would say I am the most proud of in the first three years that I have served as the Mayor of Lake Wales is the long-term planning that we have done. And the Lake Wales Connected Plan was only the beginning of that. It was actually initiated by Lake Wales Main Street in 2019. It is a big, bold comprehensive plan for the city. It has 69 actions. We have already completed or enacted over 50 of those 69 action plans. That is important because these kinds of plans often just turn into expensive three-ring binders in some city manager’s office. But we’ve acted on it.
But in order to implement any of that, you have to have the money. So, the City Commission has secured the financing to actually get started with $13 million to get the work done on Park Avenue and the Market Street Plaza. The result of that work has been national recognition and national sources of funding. In the last three years, the city of Lake Wales has received $31 million in grants.
We have created a mixed-use district in Downtown with different forms of housing. We created a historic overlay district for our downtown so we can preserve that historic quality in the area while we were activating it. I think that will activate the Downtown area. So, this is not about business and housing. We have had visits just in the last couple of months from two different investment groups and business groups that are visiting the downtown area and thinking about moving there.
We were also part of Lake Wales Connected. The city put $1 million behind HUD to help them secure, which is a federal organization that manages the Garden Grove Housing, and our $1 million dollars in backing will help secure federal funding for a big renovation and rework of the Garden Grove housing area. We established a 180-utility service area that gives a footprint for our city for the future, it gives us a first right of refusal. When people want to annex, it helps us prioritize zoning.
In my second term, one of my top two priorities will be with economic development. We have a plan for the Central Florida Council on that. Also, we are increasing our quality of life, and the primary way that we are going to focus on that is a Parks and Recreation master plan which call for millions of dollars in investment in our parks. It is an exciting plan. And my priority will be to implement that plan and get that work done.
4. And when it comes to implementing Lake Wales Connected, what have been some challenges. Having watched many city commission meetings, I can tell there have been many local residents who have been quite vocal about it. Have the NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) been somewhat of a stumbling block for you and your fellow commissioners?
I will say there have been many residents who have voiced opposition to this. There have been a few who have shown up persistently and consistently at City Commission meetings and have been critical. But those few I will tell you are just, they have been kind of that way almost about any initiative that the city takes and it seems to be their reason for living sometimes.
And so they have complained about the type of bricks that we use, the type of trees that we planted, and have used every one of these setbacks as kind of an opportunity to criticize. Jesus said these are the kind of people who strain out gnats and swallow camels. And that can be frustrating at time, but it has been a stumbling block.
But outside of that, you know when merchants have voiced legitimate concerns they have had and struggles we have faced, we have been trying to be sympathetic and kind as possible, and I believe they will be able to reap some of the real benefits in this project now that it is done.
