Oviedo mayor talks e-bikes, considers festival funding cuts

Two big issues sparking conversation in Oviedo. Mayor Megan Sladek is questioning whether taxpayer dollars should go toward festivals that are centered around alcohol. Things like Oktoberfest. But a majority of city council members voted against her proposal. Meanwhile, new e-bike rules are now in effect in Oviedo. Speeds are now capped at 10 miles an hour on sidewalks and shared paths and riders must slow down within 50 feet of a pedestrian. Also, anyone under age 16 will have to wear a helmet. So we want to bring in Oviedo's mayor this morning to talk more about these issues. Megan Sladek is joining us this morning. How are you? Good to see you. Oh, good seeing you. So, Ms. Mayor, let's talk first about these festivals. And I know you brought this up about, you know, should the city be involved if there's an event that has alcohol served? And first, tell me what your thought was behind proposing this. Well, to be fair, I thought I said it more clearly than I did at the meeting. So, I think my colleagues may not have understood my concern about the subsidized alcohol festival angle of it as much as I had hoped to convey. But we do run a lot of really outstanding festivals that do not recover their full cost to the city. And two of the ones that do not recover full cost are St. Patrick's Day and Bark and Brews, which is coming up November 7th. And they're great festivals but you know they center around alcohol so okay when you talk about they don't recover the cost basically the city is putting money towards security and and you know bathrooms and all these types of things right and then in in return you're not it's basically you're not covering the balance sheet is that what you're saying it's upside down so we are making an investment in a lot of things including in some cases uh beer trucks and we are not breaking even the taxpayers are not breaking even. So we're putting, you know, tax dollars into this. So Mayor Sladek, how do other cities do this? Because obviously these festivals are all over the place, right? Oviedo is just one of many places that has these festivals. Have you looked into how other cities do it so that they aren't in the red and said they're in the black when they run them? Well, most festivals are not in the black, but most festivals also don't have city employees who are sitting at the beer truck pouring the beer. So what people do, if you're going to try to frame it as social capital or social infrastructure, I guess we could call it, to bring people together, one way to include more people in the community at an event that's already not making enough money to cover its cost is to let a charity or let an outside group use it as a fundraiser. So in Winter Springs, they'll have the VFW come in and pour if they'd like alcohol. What about the liability for the city if there are city workers who are pouring alcohol and involved in that? We have all the right insurance to cover that. So liability-wise, we're good. Okay. I want to move on to e-bikes because this is a big deal. A lot of municipalities like you are trying to figure out how to better enforce these rules. We know that kids are getting injured. We know that this is a problem for pedestrians. What do you think about these new rules? Well, one thing to note is that in Oviedo, we actually clicked it from 10 miles an hour to a 15 mile an hour limit, except within 100 feet, or I think it's 50 feet of a pedestrian. So you can go a little bit faster. We're trying to make it just so we know how to be courteous to each other and exist in these spaces that the walkers and regular bike riders have dominated for so long. Yeah, absolutely. And this will be enforced by Oviedo police. Is that right? That is correct. But we are relying on regular people to tip us off if there are places or people or groups who are struggling to be courteous and follow these rules. I hear you. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us this morning, Oviedo Mayor Megan Sladek. Always a pleasure. Well, thank you. Take care. We'll see you soon.