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Residents press council on business friendliness, beautification and policing; chief responds to complaints
Summary
Public commenters urged more business‑friendly permitting and neighborhood beautification; Nell Ratcliffe raised multiple policing complaints and the police chief responded that several complaints were not substantiated after camera review.
Several residents used the public‑comment period at the April 28 meeting to press the council on local priorities and to raise complaints about municipal services.
Rosemary Moring, president of the Katharina Women’s Club, asked permission to install a butterfly garden at town‑owned property near the portable building between Drew Street and the portable; she said the project would cost the club nothing and asked staff to confirm no underground lines were present. Town staff said they would coordinate and check for irrigation and utility lines.
Ted Cook urged the council to make Lantana more business friendly, citing permit delays and economic competition from nearby municipalities. He suggested hiring an economic development specialist to help attract restaurants and small businesses and warned the town could be left behind in county growth. “We gotta become a little bit more business friendly with a balance,” Cook said.
During public comment Nell (Nellie) Ratcliffe, a local business owner and nurse, described repeated problems with tenants and alleged poor police response to incidents at properties she manages; she said she had filed incident reports and felt her reports had not been handled. The chief (identified in the record as Chief Sheller) responded that the department reviews body‑worn camera footage, that some of her complaints were not corroborated, and that there are statutory limits on eviction and police authority. The chief also criticized Ratcliffe’s conduct toward officers and said department staff would not meet with her outside established complaint channels. “The accusations you made against my officers... we review the body worn cameras,” the chief said, and added that some complaints had been discredited by video review.
The meeting record shows staff will follow up on the butterfly garden location and that council requested a future report about beach cleanup and related environmental considerations.
