Gambling in Osceola

Who would have ever thought that our elected officials would be the first ones to introduce gambling into our county? The simple truth is that our “leaders” are making speculative land buys and gambling away your tax dollars. Gambling your tax dollars away on a “maybe it’ll fly” mentality. I/we can’t help but wonder if they’d be interested in some land that I/we own in South Florida.

Here are the results of their most recent speculation addictions:

“The Sports Authority Speculation”
The School Board went forward with a project plan to locate a non-traditional school in the old Sports Authority retail building, spending tens of thousands of your tax dollars for project planning. They did this prior to any zoning approvals, only to have it shot down by the Kissimmee City Commission. What of the children now? (0 for 1)

“The Cement Plant Speculation”
The CRA purchased land (again your tax dollars) to relocate Rinker only to have the Osceola County Commission decide that the relocation was not an appropriate use of that land. US antitrust regulators this week cleared a plan by Cemex, the third-largest cement producer in the world, to acquire Rinker Group. Bloomberg News reports that as part of the deal, Cemex has agreed to sell 39 operations in Florida and Arizona to preserve price competition. Since it appears that the Rinker plant in the Kissimmee CRA district will shortly have a new owner (Cemex or otherwise), how might this impact the ongoing attempts to relocate it elsewhere in the county? What of the workers now? (0 for 2)

“The School Board Speculation”
Osceola Landlords this week gathered at a public information session for “The Projects”, a workforce housing proposal. The Osceola News Gazette reports that affordable housing is already available and that several landlords offered to lower their rents for a designated group of workers and waive their rental application fees. St. Cloud Mayor Donna Hart questioned whether the housing is necessary now, given the weak housing market. Since it appears that the School Board’s plans for “The Projects” might not pass zoning changes, how might this impact their ability to proceed? What of the teachers now? (0 for 3)

As you can tell by our elected officials’ odds of losing, gambling with tax dollars is not best when left to the “leaders”. Our elected officials and their staff need to be held accountable for not just gambling away our tax dollars, but also gambling away our future. They need to be held accountable for this speculation addiction that they have.

As citizens, we need to hold them accountable. Land purchase policies need to be instituted requiring that all of the homework is done and approvals have been given prior to spending millions of your hard earned tax dollars.

Perhaps what they need is a good ‘ole fashion election intervention.