St. Cloud City Council voted Thursday night to continue to suspend operations of Toho Riverboat Adventures until the January 2025 Council meeting, in order to give investors time to buy the business or find someone to buy it.
The tour boat captain, Richard Lawrence, and his fiancé, Frances Fernandez, were arrested last month and charged with sexual battery on a victim between 12-17 years of age and aggravated child abuse. Both are currently held in the Osceola County Jail without bond.
City businessman Bobby Crisp told Council members he is one a group of investors in the company, and that they are working to find a new owner. “I’m willing to write a check for the $1,100 for this month so that that permit, or lease, or whatever the agreement is, does not get dropped,” Crisp said. “Because once we’re able to find new owners, whether that’s the investment group or an outside source, it is in best interest of the City for us to get that boat back up and running, especially [with] the holiday season and the snowbirds here. I’d like to think of it as a shining point of St. Cloud for tourism, for people to come here and enjoy the natural beauty of the lake. The investors all agree that we do not want to have the boat operating until it is in somebody else’s name … to me, that’s common sense. And that’s what we’re pushing forward to do.”
Council members thanked Crisp for working to find a solution.
“This is why I love St. Cloud so much,” said Deputy Mayor Shawn Fletcher. “We’ve got an issue, and we have a group of St. Cloud folks jumping in trying to make it right.”
Also Thursday, the Council voted unanimously to reject a mediated settlement with Hickory Tree Industrial, LLC, and instructed City staff to pursue an injunction to stop the company’s operation.
In November 2023, Hickory Tree Industrial’s application for a future land use change–from commercial to industrial–was denied. The company, which operates a concrete crushing plant on Hickory Tree Road, challenged the denial and entered into mediation with the City with an appointed special magistrate. The company has accrued code enforcement fines totaling $103,876 as of last week.
Residents of two nearby neighborhoods, Live Oak Estates and Hickory Hollow, voiced their concerns about the plant at the meeting.
“The dust has gotten worse. My pool area … I have to clean the filters in my pool every two weeks. I used to have to do it every five or six weeks. You can’t open the windows in our houses,” Wayne Schultz said. “Any of you are welcome to come over and see what I’m talking about. And I think if any of you lived there, you’d all be complaining the same thing. The noise the other morning, at 6 in the morning, dump trucks were banging their gates back there. I could hear it in my house, and my windows are closed with the A/C on. This thing doesn’t belong there. It belongs out there where the garbage dump is, out in Holopaw or somewhere where there’s nothing around it.”
Mayor Chris Robertson thanked the residents for sharing their concerns.
“This is a serious matter. I do believe there is a place in this city for some type of product like this,” he said. “I think recycling concrete is a good thing. … definitely not at that location where it’s at. I do want to respect that Mr. Wright has been here for many years and he is a neighbor of ours in this city. And I do want to work with Mr. Wright on a solution here in the future.”
Fletcher made the motion to reject the proposed settlement and pursue an injunction.
“We all have to abide by the rules,” Fletcher said. “If you want to do something, you should go through the process that’s designed for it. At this point, I don’t think I in any could support this, and I also think that the City should look into injunctive relief to have the machine turned off.”
Thursday, the Council also agreed to use remaining Downtown Revitalization Project funds to pay for other downtown projects, including underground electrical work under New York Avenue, street furniture, an electronic message board and Pennsylvania Avenue property safety fencing and lighting.
It also approved a code change to prohibit public camping or sleeping at public buildings or in public rights-of- way. The change puts the City in compliance with a state law passed in October, which prohibits sleeping or camping at public buildings or in public rights-of-way. Osceola County and the city of Kissimmee have also created similar ordinances in the last week to comply with the new law.
Repeated violations are subject to fines up to $500 and up to 60 days in jail. It does not apply during states of emergency.
