We would like to acknowledge all of those individuals who gave of their time and effort into the All-America City presentation. Your dedication and community spirit are appreciated and welcomed.
Our feelings on this award, both leading up to the presentation and after, have been mixed at best. Our pride in our community is very strong and although it would be nice to have a title like "All-America City" to brandish, would it really make our community a better place?
Being an All-America City is more than a title, it is a way of life. Do we have less civic pride today now that we have lost this competition? Do we have fewer opportunities for economic development? Should we cheer less for our community and for what she has to offer?
We think not. Not being named a winner should not be considered an obstacle, but instead should highlight the attitude that we need to have from government on down to our citizens.
We offer this note to the City of Kissimmee for when budget time rolls around later this year. The city invested $27,000 in this competition, and we understand that that specific $27,000 was under a Commission Discretionary fund and could not be spent in other areas. But when you look at the budget for 2008, wouldn't it be wise to allocate at least that much to economic development, or an economic development person, instead of trying to spend it on a title that we already own?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I have pride in my governing puppets...
If you are not hiring police and fire department personnel because of a budget crisis, then it seem stupid to spend money to take a trip like this. This is tax money we are talking about. This is not just some money we have lying around. Just stupid.
At least this thing is over now. Government can finally get back to work and maybe focus on getting things done to help the citizens. They seem to have forgotten that is actually why they are sitting up there.
It looks like what you have done is actually create On-Demand Kissimmee Puppet Commission Theatre. This has to be some kind of first, or something for the history books.
I think the puppets run a better meeting!
It is hard to have "All America City" attitude when local government just keeps screwing us over. I don't even think they realize they are screwing us most of the time, but they are. I think they think they are somehow protecting us, but they need to wake up. When you see person after person moving from here, you realized this area is not what they think it is anymore.
I think the quote in the paper last week sums up the the whole idea of this government view of American.
"The City Commission will not allow the committee to discuss changing the city’s structure of government or commissioner salaries." - Osceola News Gazette
The words "will not allow" are key to understanding how VanMeter, Gemski, and Swan think. This is their government, not ours.
Post a Comment