TREES: Lakeland park crews are busy replacing two kinds of trees – palms that succumb to a disease carried by tiny planthopper insects and the Oriental sweetgums downtown that snarl underground utilities and buckle sidewalks.

BUSES: Residents will be able to test Lakeland’s revamped bus routes for free on two Saturdays: May 4 and 18 | Learn more

BANK: Prime Meridian Bank (website) has opened a Lakeland branch, its first outside its Tallahassee base. Its location at at 3340 S. Florida Ave. was home to the former Community Southern Bank, which was founded in 2006 by Michael Micallef Jr., who leads Prime Meridian’s Polk operations.

SOLAR: The head of Polk’s nonprofit solar cooperative says Lakeland Electric’s demand charge is inhibiting Lakelanders from switching to solar.  In an op-ed column, Rick Garrity disputes the need for a demand charge, saying net metering produces benefits for the utility.

PUBLIC RECORDS: Reporter Gary White delves into a Florida phenomenon – local governments, including the city of Lakeland, have pulled hundreds of thousands of documents from their websites in response to letters from two litigious men who want to ensure the records are accessible to the visually impaired.

DOWNTOWN: As the city of Lakeland plans for next year, the Lakeland Downtown Development Authority presses three initiatives:

• Hang overhead string lights above some key shopping/entertainment blocks.
• Reduce the number of street signs while making them more informative and attractive.
• Create parklets, removable platforms that could be place over on-street parking to create outdoor seating for restaurants during certain parts of the day. (Here’s a more complete definition.)

• Reporter Sara-Megan Walsh writes about plans to transform a portion of the public library on Lake Morton into a history and culture center.
• She also profiles artist Josh “Bump” Galletta as Lakeland’s newest CityMaker.
• Gary White explains the neighborhood markers that have been showing up atop street signs since 2017.
• The family of Mayor Bill Mutz remembers patriarch O.U. “Oz” Mutz, a multiple corporate president who died Thursday at age 91.

MUNN PARK: City commissioners are feeling no rush to put something new in the center of Munn Park even as downtown promoters press ahead with plans for a public meeting (info) on whether a carousel or something else should go there.

DINING: The original Uncle Nick’s deli is still serving solid sandwiches and Italian-American fare at Old 37 and Shepherd Road, even as two satellite locations have closed, writes restaurant critic Eric Pera, who dished out 3 1/2 stars out of 5 for food and 3 for service.

ART: “Pink Moon,” a showcase of women’s art opening Friday at Art/ifact Studios, explores “the divine feminine.” | Event page

City commissioners and their senior staff spent the first day of a two-day retreat today looking at plans for the future. Among the stories that emerged:

CAROUSEL: As downtown development honcho Julie Townsend pondered what should go into the now-vacant middle of Munn Park, the idea that swirled in her head was a carousel to draw more families downtown. (In the instant-analysis feedback loop of Facebook, residents threw out many other ideas.) ALSO: LDDA explains the case for a carousel.

POWER PLANT: It’s probably time to close the 37-year-old, coal-fired McIntosh Unit 3 power plant and replace the lost power with a new natural gas plant and an expansion of solar, Lakeland Electric chief Joel Ivy said.

EMERGENCY COORDINATOR: In response to lessons learned during Hurricane Irma, city administrators are budgeting for an emergency operations manager to coordinate disaster response.