News & notes

High wage jobs
We've seen a couple of articles coming out of the economic summit of a couple weeks ago. The consultant/speaker suggested a county-established industrial park to bring higher-wage jobs into Osceola County. The associated statistics tell us that 800 high-wage jobs were created in Osceola County from 2001-2005, but the consultant says that the industrial park could support 10,000 high wage jobs. Here begins the numbers game...if we attracted 800 high-wage jobs in a 5-year period (160/year), how do we rev up the economic development machine so that we can attract, say, 1000 high-wage jobs per year to gain 10,000 high-wage jobs over a 10-year period?

Central Florida Commuter Rail Commission
The Central Florida Commuter Rail Commission (hope someone comes up with a easier acronym quickly) met for the first time yesterday. Osceola County's representative is Osceola County Commission Vice Chairman Bill Lane. Orange County has assumed the leadership of the commission, with Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer serving as chairman and Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty serving as vice chairman. Next big step? The CSX Transportation board still has to approve the sale of the tracks to Florida DOT, scheduled for a CSX board meeting in mid-September.

Seen about town
We're wondering about the display truck seen around town, as recently as today, with Commissioner Ken Smith's campaign ad on it. Is the local advertising market that bad, that they haven't had a new customer sign up for the truck, or did Commissioner Smith's campaign pay for a really long advertising contract?

Pimp My Roundabout

The rumors are in from this week's commission workshop (not aired on Access Osceola) and it appears that a discussion of the proposed building of a Vegas style dancing water fountain in the great MLK roundabout will be on the agenda next week. It seems that the Access Osceola team is working in the background on this project. Rumors are circulating that Access Osceola has requested the fountain in an attempt to improve the dropping ratings on their government cable channel.

The first season of shows is rumored to include a series that will be titled "This Olde Roundabout" which will start off with details of roundabout treatments in other areas of the globe. The show will wind down with installation video of Kissimmee's very own roundabout fountain treatment. To get more mileage out of the roundabout fountain, (rumored to cost somewhere over $200,000 - or $1.2 Million United Cities Dollars at today's exchange rate) Access Osceola has developed a second show titled "Pimp My Roundabout" where average everyday roundabouts of the poor are made over by celebrity roundabout designers. We also hear background noises that a third possible Access Osceola show titled "Roundabouts of the Rich and Famous" may also be in the works. One Access Osceola intern was heard to say "with ratings like ours, even a show on fountains in a roundabout will bring them up. Heck our viewers watch the commission meetings, so I think that a show about a water fountain would be a real nail biter for them."

WayneWho salutes the effort to turn every dollar spent (not United Cities Dollars we hope) into at least a dollar. We can't wait for the first season to kick off!

Could this happen?

The recent flood of news about privatizing roads and other traditional public facilities, driven in part by a backlash against lack of highway funding highlighted by the Minneapolis bridge collapse, got us thinking recently.

Osceola Parkway is already a toll road (at least west of Dyer). Arguably, it's an underused resource that has not performed to the level expected when it was built. What would happen if Osceola County signed a 99-year lease with a private investment firm to maintain and operate Osceola Parkway? Much the same deal as has been done with other toll roads, like the Chicago Skyway. Revenues from the lease deal could then be used for other badly-needed infrastructure projects within the county.

Of course, the private operator would undoubtedly want to make moves to increase traffic use along the road. This may include tweaking the toll schedule, perhaps with different pricing for peak and off-peak periods. But we also note that the parkway has a fair amount of right-of-way, and it intersects with the commuter rail line, with a commuter rail stop already planned for Osceola Parkway. Could a private operator implement an east-west mass transit system in conjunction with the north/south commuter rail? Perhaps a combination of bus rapid transit and light rail running from BVL all the way west to the attractions?

Food for thought.

Ghost buildings

You know them. We've all seen them on our drives through town. They're the commercial buildings that time and their owners have forgotten. Maybe they have a real estate sign posted, maybe they're just wearing the former signage of a long-gone tenant. There is no mistaking that they are vacant.

Years ago, Kissimmee started work on minimum maintenance ordinances for commercial and residential properties. Even though the push at the time was for a commercial minimum maintenance ordinance, the residential ordinance came first. There was much hand-wringing and concern at the time that the city would issue violations for a paint chip missing from a house, and outrage that the city would dare to regulate the number of cars that could be parked on the front lawn of a residence. Many of the areas of concern were toned down or eliminated from the final ordinance, and its passage came and went.

Yet there is still no commercial minimum maintenance ordinance. Unfortunately, the buildings that would most be impacted by this type of ordinance are not buildings with short-term problems. They are well-known in the community, having sat in their current state for years.

Property rights are a huge issue, and far be it from us to tell someone how to use their land and buildings. Until their non-use of the buildings starts to negatively impact their neighbors and the community at large. Want to hold a vacant shell of a building for years as some kind of tax strategy? Great, but you at least have to keep the exterior of the building clean and presentable, because your neighbor is actually trying to run a profit-seeking business next door, and your dilapidated building is scaring away their customers.

Straight Talk with Payne Evans - Big Deal

The Chairmen have left the building

This week, both Osceola County Commission Chairman Ken Shipley and Osceola School Board Chairman Tom Chalifoux announced that they would not seek reelection in 2008.

Both men indicated that they looked forward to having the time to pursue other parts of their lives, and that they were making way for new voices on their respective boards.

We wish both of them well and thank them for their service to the community. We hope that the next 14 months will give them the time to move forward on issues that need to be resolved for the benefit of the community, but which would present a challenge for those seeking re-election.

We watch with great interest to see whom in our community will step forward to run for these offices, and more importantly, what their position on and knowledge of the issues will be.

Osceola Idol

We were watching a Gabriel Iglesias comedy special the other day, where he does a bit on voting. "Americans love to vote" he says, "We don't vote for Presidents. We vote for American Idol." He goes on to speculate what would happen if we held a presidential election by letting the candidates go on TV for an hour, and halfway through the show, put up the 800 number to call to vote.

Which got us to thinking. How might life be different if we could get just 50% of our local eligible voters to turn out for an election? Would the current power base(s) shift with that amount of general citizen turnout? Does anyone care about flyers, lawnsigns, ads and debates anymore? Or should we just have a reality show shootout for elected officials? When we consider election changes in the coming months, we think that the focus should be on getting the maximum number of local voters to cast ballots for the final election.

To see a video clip of Gabrial Iglesias' bit, go here:
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/?lnk=v&ml_video=90721
There's a Bill Clinton punchline at the end of the bit that's pretty funny, no matter which side of the aisle you're on.

To the Kissimmee City Commission:

If you weren't at the Chamber's economic development lunch yesterday, by now you've read the coverage in today's Orlando Sentinel. The consultant/speaker they brought in highlighted two things: First, the majority of jobs created in Osceola County in the last 5 years were lower-paying service-industry jobs, which dragged Osceola's average wage to among the lowest in Central Florida. No one should have been surprised there.

Second, the consultant says that in order to attract high-wage employers, the county should consider buying and developing a 500-750 acre industrial/headquarters park. He suggests that publicly owned "job centers" are becoming more popular as private developers don't want to go through years of land-use approvals (sounds familiar, right?)

Well, according to the Sentinel, the "room was buzzing" about the industrial park, and Economic Development Director Maria Grulich was quoted as saying "I want it."

Kissimmee Commissioners: Your 192/Vine corridor consultant suggested much this same use on the airport side of Vine over a year ago. Interestingly, the only site within the city mentioned as possible for this park in the article was "the area around the Kissimmee Gateway Airport."

We hope that the conversation has already started, but if not, we need you to do this for us today. Start calling the county commissioners and the economic development department with this simple message: "City of Kissimmee here...we're in." Tell them to not even bother looking other places...we have developable land around the airport, utilities in place, a commercial strip that is badly in need of repurposing and redevelopment, and, by the way, it's anchored to the airport, which is already an economic development hot spot. Because we all know, that left to a passive search pattern, a greenfield development site out in the middle of the county somewhere will be selected, and if that happens, we're going to pretty much be out of ideas for things to do with Vine Street.

Say it again: "City of Kissimmee here...we're in."

All-America Advertising

Where does the All-America City logo appear for an All-America City winner? We recently found the attached ad (click on the picture to the left to see it full size), featuring Publix Super Markets, from Polk County. The ad ran in Business Facilities: The Location Advisor, a trade magazine targeted at corporate facility managers tasked with the responsibility of finding new locations for their companies.

Some quick statistics: the magazine claims that 81% of their subscribers will expand or relocate their business in the next 3 years. The magazine claims 43,000 decision-making subscribers, with 51.6% of their subscribers representing manufacturing companies.

We wanted to point out the commitment required as our local officials consider another run at All-America City. "Win it and they will come" is not enough. As we wandered out to the ad rate page for Business Facilities, we found out the following: A one-page black and white ad in that magazine costs $8,150. Adding color to that ad (4-color process) adds $2,150 to the ad. Thus, we believe the ad costs approximately $10,300 excluding any discounts they may have gotten. If we commit to competing for All-America City, will we commit to publicizing a win correctly?

Better Neighbors Through Technology

We recently read a Wall Street Journal about new technology inventions to keep people from disturbing each other. One inventor had come up with an electrically-charged coat to keep "gropers" at bay while riding the subway in New York. Another had designed a device which emitted an ultrasonic shriek designed to quiet the neighbor's dog when he starts barking (he disguised it as a birdhouse for good measure). Our "invention with the most potential" was a FM transmitter and iPod combination used to silence noisy radios during taxi and bus rides...the inventor had a track of recorded silence on his iPod, and used the FM transmitter, designed to allow your iPod to play through your car stereo, to inflict a silence track on cabbies playing their radio too loud. We look forward to the next level of this invention, using white noise generators to drown out boom cars and loud mufflers as they pass by your house or business.

They used to say "good fences make good neighbors." Technology may make those fences a lot smaller.

Kissimmee Puppet Commission Theatre - The Fountain

Applying for a Job at the CIA

A few months ago, there was an opening with the CIA for an assassin. These highly classified positions are hard to fill, and there's a lot of testing and background checks involved before you can even be considered for the position. After sending some applicants through the background checks, training and testing, they narrowed the possible choices down to two men and a woman, but only one position was available.

The day came for the final test to see which peson would get the extremely secretive job. The CIA men administering the test took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a gun. "We must know that you will follow our instructions whatever the circumstances," they explained. "Inside this room, you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Take this gun and kill her." The man looked horrified and said, "You can't be serious! I could never shoot my wife!" "Well," said the CIA man, "you're definitely not the right man for this job then."

So they brought the second man to the same door and handed him a gun. "We must know that you will follow instructions no matter what the circumstances," they explained to the second man. "Inside you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Take this gun and kill her." The second man looked a bit shocked, but nevertheless took the gun and went in the room. All was quiet for about 5 minutes; then the door opened. The man came out of the room with tears in his eyes. "I tried to shoot her; I just couldn't pull the trigger and shoot my wife. I guess I'm not the right man for the job."

"No," the CIA man replied, "You don't have what it takes. Take your wife and go home."

Now they only had the woman left to test. They led her to the same door to the same room and handed her the same gun. "We must be sure that you will follow instructions no matter what the circumstances; this is your final test. Inside you will find your husband sitting in a chair. Take this gun and kill him." The woman took the gun and opened the door. Before the door even closed all the way, the CIA men heard the gun start firing, one shot after another for 13 shots. Then all hell broke loose in the room. They heard screaming, rashing, and banging on the walls. This went on for several minutes; then all went quiet.

The door opened slowly, and there stood the woman. She wiped the sweat from her brow and said, "You guys didn't tell me the gun was loaded with blanks. I had to beat the son of a bitch to death with the chair!"

Babysitting Priority

Kissimmee City Commissioner Carlos Irizarry is being quoted in the Gazette today saying "We don’t have to be certified. We don’t need a babysitter that comes in every day or every month just to check. We don’t need to spend additional dollars to have something that we can do without." This comment was given in reference to an environmental certification for the new fire station that is to be built, and the debate on whether the certification is worth the $16,500 price tag or not. This comment takes on even more meaning if you look at it in relationship to several other City Commission decisions.

First we will start with the comment, "We don’t need to spend additional dollars to have something that we can do without." Lets look at a few budget items that we could probably do without - All America City Part 1 and 2, Birthday Celebrations, Round-About Fountains, Cow-less Logo redesigns, $33,000 for personnel at the H.O.M.E. project, money paid to a consultant to address employee pay and benefits that did not include all of the departments of the city, and... well you get the point. Our question is how can you spend tax dollars on all of these things, and then not take a serious look at actually doing something smart with tax money?

As far as the next the comment, "We don’t need a babysitter..." We believe that this comment really begs for a solid debate. We know the commission feels all grown up, and thinks it doesn't need supervision, but trust us, you do. If you are all real good though, we might take you McDonald's Playland to celebrate how hard you are trying. And besides, the county commission boys enjoy the extra babysitting money.

Another great quote in the same article came from our grand Mayor - "I’m just not comfortable with all the repercussions long-term..." Repercussions on building a green building??? We did a quick google search and we could not find any negative impacts because of building "green" structures. We can see repercussions if you were putting in a landfill or a nuclear power plant, but building a green building?? We think you are stretching it on this one.

Who are your advisors?

We were reading through the Kissimmee commission agenda for next week, and noted that the commission is taking up some proposed advisory board rules changes. Many of the advisory boards will allow non-residents who are stakeholders in the city to hold some of the board positions. Stakeholders are defined as non-city residents who own real property or a business within the city. Interestingly, two boards (Board of Adjustment and Parks & Recreation Advisory Board) are proposed to allow two board members to be non-city residents who are not stakeholders within the city. We're scratching our heads over this one...if you don't live in the city, and you don't own property within the city, and you don't own a business within the city, why would you want to be on a city advisory board? Perhaps the stakeholders description should be amended to add "employed by an employer located within the city limits"? Or is the commission really looking to attract advisors who really have no ties to the city?

Internet Utilities

On Wednesday, the Orlando Sentinel wrote about people working out of their local Internet-enabled coffee shop, and the Wall Street Journal wrote about a partnership between DirecTV, an Internet provider, and an electric utility in Texas. Let's tie these together with a local focus, shall we?

In the Sentinel article, mobile professionals (mainly salespeople and small business owners) take up residence in a corner booth at their local Panera, Starbucks, or other coffee shop with wireless Internet. In most cases, this saves the worker either a commute to their office, or office rent. The coffee shop gets to sell their products to the worker and the people they are meeting with, and may charge them for the Internet usage.

Meanwhile, DirecTV announced a deal where they are going to sell high-speed Internet to their customers, initially in Texas. The Internet service will be provided a partner company, and will be delivered over power lines..for which the partner will pay rent to the local electrical utility.

So we reflected on the current public wireless Internet trials around here. The dirty not-so-secret of public wireless is that it doesn't always penetrate building walls very well, as was proven during St. Cloud's initial rollout. And we have yet to see masses of people walking down the sidewalks working on their laptops. And while it may be "free" to the user, someone, somewhere is paying for it through taxes or utility fees, prompting a remark we read that said 'if cities are giving away Internet for free as a necessary service, shouldn't water also be free?'

Here's the tie-in. Businesses use free or pay-per-use Internet as a marketing tool to attract customers. But the business doesn't get the Internet service for free...they pay for it. Perhaps local providers should be focused on using their existing distribution mechanisms to deliver Internet service (and generate revenue from doing so), and then let the business-customer relationship determine how that bill is paid.

And for the government (police/fire/utility) wireless network? If the cost-benefit analysis says that it works out to be more advantageous than paying a monthly bill to a wireless provider, we say go for it. But if you're offering services for free, we'd like to select the one we want.

Comment Commentary

Today's column is kinda-sorta like Comment Corner, except we're not going to insert comments and then reply to them. Think of this as kind of an insight into the head of WayneWho.

Last Thursday, we posted discussing possible annexation within the city. As many of you know, the comments on our site are moderated...that is, someone on the WayneWho staff has to review them and hit the approve button before they appear on the site. Well, several staff members were huddled around the monitor when we looked at the comments list and saw the first six comments that appear under that entry. There was a thread of several comments about the CRA and condos on the lakefront. Now, we haven't seen any officials on the record confirming or dispelling the allegations, but what was interesting to us was that several people had taken the time to write in, independently, before the first mention of the rumor hit our site. It didn't start with us, but it definitely started somewhere. There have been some follow-up comments to this rumor, and, like you, we're looking forward to getting it finally resolved.

Then on Saturday, we posted about a local organization whose members were trying to pay their KUA bills with some private-issue currency. The more we read about that situation, the stranger it becomes. We were pleased to receive a reply comment from Chris Gent of KUA time-stamped less than 2 hours after our post...on a Saturday evening, no less!

Also this week, in response to the puppet theatre, one of the local activists posted a comment that started with "Very good. You are correct" which is a 180-degree perspective change from when we first showed up on this site. After we got up after falling out of our chair, we thought that perhaps everyone should take a trip to out west to gain some perspective. We haven't decided what will happen if we start getting support from other ax-tivists or those who get their guts from a radio microphone.

We've said it before, but you, our audience, really impress us. Without you, we're just some people typing on a keyboard. And the next puppet video is already in the can, so stay tuned, and keep those comments coming.

Speak and Be Scolded

We must say that it took a couple of days for the WayneWho crew to wrap their heads around the letter presented by County Commissioner Shipley in the Osceola News-Gazette on August 11th in response to an earlier letter by Tony Ferentinos. Our initial thoughts of the response held tight through several days of discussions.

We are not shocked by Mr. Shipley's claim that he needs the assistance of a lawyer to trudge through the issues that Mr. Ferentinos addresses in his letter. We wish that his council would have elaborated on the inaccurate content instead of turning the response into a childish school yard name calling session. We reviewed Mr. Ferentinos letter and could not find where he attacked Mr. Shipley personally. Do the barbs fly at the "position" of chairman, yes. But there is no personal attack that rates the berating given by Mr. Shipley.

Since no factual counter argument was given by Mr. Shipley in his tantrum, we are only left to focus on "his" vision of our community. It is a vision where Osceola County has no economy, jobs, or respectable quality of life. The plan to export jobs from our community will lead to residents being forced into paying ever growing property taxes to keep up with infrastructure and governmental needs. By outsourcing our economy and our jobs the burden clearly falls on the residents to pay the tab. Are there ways to make commuter rail a winning solution for Osceola County? Yes, but we have not heard any ideas on this from our local officials. The only vision that has been preached is of getting business professionals to and from their jobs in the Orlando area. Correct us if we are wrong Mr. Shipley, but that has been the only vision shown in the countless meetings that we have attended on this subject. At the end of the debate on this issue is that when it comes to investing the people's hard earned tax dollars, you need to have more than a vision, you need to have a well thought out plan on how this will help our community. Since Mr. Shipley did not discuss this plan in his response, we are to assume that there is no plan, but only vague generalities on how this will benefit Osceola County residents.

The idea that you have to be some type of "insider" to the current administrations to be an effective leader is ridiculous. There are many levels of community involvement that can easily prepare a person for "Public Service." The problem is that for too long those sitting in the positions of power have only given the nod to successors who serve on the same boards, join the same clubs, and make careers of keeping each other elected. We the people, can be a hard concept to grasp, and generally goes against the vision that career politicians have for us.

Finally, we were appauled by Commissioner Shipley's display of what we considered a complete lack of class.

Kissimmee Puppet Commission Theatre - Cow Consultant

Sunday Funny - Making a Fortune

A young man asked an old rich man how he made his money.

The old guy fingered his expensive wool vest and said, "Well, son, it was 1932. The depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last nickel."

"I invested that nickel in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for ten cents."

"The next morning, I invested those ten cents in two apples. I spent the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5:00 pm for 20 cents. I continued this system for a month, by the end of which I'd accumulated a fortune of $9.80."

"Then my wife's father died and left us two million dollars."

Economic times

WFTV reported yesterday on a local organization that has taken to issuing their own currency (sorry, we couldn't find a link on WFTV's website). The story came to light when about a dozen KUA customers tried to pay their utility bills with this organization's currency and/or checks (this was a little unclear, but the video showed currency that looks like it was made with a black & white laser printer). And then they interviewed the leader of this organization, who appeared outraged that KUA wouldn't take this currency and threatened to sue the federal government.

We have to ask, do people really think that they can just show up at a business with what at best is a private promissory note, and expect the business to take that as payment? How many businesses around here accept currency issued by foreign governments, much less a private organization? The whole thing sounds like a scam to us, but we're not sure who the scam is targeted at...the people who are exchanging real money for this currency, or the companies they are trying to pay with it.

Unfortunately, the Orlando Sentinel reported this morning that the Lowe's distribution center in Poinciana laid off 205 employees on Friday, or almost 20% of their workforce. The Lowe's center has been held up as a model of economic development in the county, and it appears that even with the layoffs, Lowe's will exceed the employment goal numbers they promised the county in order to receive economic development incentives. Still, 205 people newly out of work and looking for jobs is a big number. Our best wishes to them that they will find work quickly. And
we wonder if we haven't just seen the beginning of the local ripple effect from the housing industry downturn...first it was those companies directly involved in construction, now it is the companies that supply them.

Are we too smart for our own good?

Red-light running continues to be a problem across the country. Over time, we think that drivers have learned that intersections have a built-in buffer of a few seconds between when one signal turns red, and the other turns green. This learned behavior makes some drivers feel that the risk of running a red light is diminished, although we know that this is often not the case.

So we were interested to read recently about a Israel-based company that is working on a so-called smart traffic light. This light uses sensors and a computer to determine when a driver isn't going to stop at a red light, and delays the green light for the other direction until the red light violator clears the intersection. Obviously, this is technology that has the potential to save lives. But we wonder, will the same drivers who play the risks with red lights today simply learn that a future signal controller will protect them when they charge into an intersection against a red light?

We look forward to "generation 2.0" of this technology, which might be able to determine that one car is waiting at the intersection from one direction, but 40 cars are approaching from the other direction, and set the lights appropriately.

Oh, and the researchers report that the same technology might be able to report drivers who commit traffic violations. But we have that technology today, we just need the laws to support its use.

Swiss Cheese

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Osceola County is ready to negotiate with Kissimmee for the city to annex various county enclaves that are totally surrounded by the city. After seeing a map a few years ago that looked like swiss cheese, with little dots of Osceola County within the city borders, we say the time for this project has certainly come.

Let's get it done quickly, folks. As Martha Stewart would say, "it's a good thing." And we offer congratulations to both governments for moving forward to clean this up.

Landing the big fish

BusinessWeek recently ran a piece titled "The High Cost of Wooing Google"about Lenoir N.C., a small manufacturing town that offered $211.7 million inincentives to lure a Google data center with 210 jobs.

One of the "aha" moments we had while reading the article was the statement that it was the local power utility, Duke Energy Co., who hosted the introductory meeting between the city's representatives and Google's site selection consultants. Why the power utility? They wanted to sell the power to the Google data center. Sounds like a good motivator.

Much like the comments to this blog, some of the more interesting things come up in the responses, in this case, letters to the magazine after the article ran. Some took issue with the BusinessWeek report, saying that the article made it look like the city gave in to every Google demand. But we found this excerpt from one letter very telling:

..."Communities seeking jobs should instead invest in more skillful marketing of what they offer business and in building value to make their product more marketable. In business, price cutting is a desperate last resort after marketing has failed. In government economic development agencies, it is the dominant strategy. Why didn't Lenoir proactively go after multiple companies instead of waiting to be found by Google and giving them the overwhelming advantage in negotiating a deal?"

The shiny ball of short-term solutions

We all know that there are some big issues facing our community. Big issues usually require long-term thinking, and big solutions. Oftentimes, as happens in our own lives, a shortcut appears that, at first blush, allows the perception of a "fix" to the problem, while delaying the bigger long-term solution. We say to our government officials - fight the urge to adopt what we are calling "the shiny ball of short-term solutions." Here are some examples:

Issue: The Vine/192 corridor. Problems include road capacity, overall aesthetics, and the main issue, that the retail and tourist businesses that used to populate the corridor have moved out to be closer to their customers.

Real fix: Some property owners have already been working with the city and consultants for years now on zoning changes that would allow them to create new uses for their property. The vision for the corridor calls for higher density, taller buildings, and a mix of residential, professional, and retail space, along with moving local traffic off of Vine St.

Shiny ball short-term solution: Since you can't rebuild part of the city overnight, some commissioners seem inclined to allow just about anything into the corridor if it will fill an empty building "now." So they look at changing the zoning of a retail building for a school project right in the middle of the portion of the corridor that the consultants have called the most attractive area of the corridor for redevelopment. We still wonder what the response will be if a new tenant is found for the old Publix, Hooters, or (the list goes on) and requests a zoning change.

Issue: Not a lot of new businesses coming into Kissimmee. Retail is moving up to the Osceola Parkway area, where only some of the retail space is within city limits. Businesses in that area tend to associate with South Orlando or Hunter's Creek, rather than Kissimmee.

Real fix: In addition to getting the zoning right for businesses along the 192 corridor, someone needs to market the city to potential businesses. The city pays into the Osceola County Economic Development Department as a partner, but we ask, when was the last time that one of the big Economic Development "wins" located within the city? Perhaps the time has come for the city to retain either economic development staff or a professional services firm to represent the city to prospective businesses. Or, we could turn to KUA, a major economic development player. Most importantly, we have to define the strengths of the city to narrow our focus on the types of businesses we should be proactively marketing to.

Shiny ball short term solution: The commission has been rumored to be talking about a city logo redesign for almost a year now, and it has now come up in the press. We don't know what a logo redesign will do to attract business to the city, but they seem to think that it will. We think that scarce tax dollars could be better spent somewhere else than on new letterhead and decals for city vehicles.

These are just a few of our thoughts, folks. Feel free to contribute your own.

Straight Talk with Payne Evans - Light Rail 2

Sunday Funny - Rats

A tourist walks into a shop in Tampa. Looking around at the items, he notices a very life like life-sized bronze statue of a rat. It has no price tag, but is so striking he decides he must have it. He takes it to the owner: "How much for the bronze rat?" "$12 for the rat, $100 for the story," says the owner. The tourist gives the man $12. "I'll just take the rat, you can keep the story."

As he walks down the street carrying his bronze rat, he notices that a few real rats have crawled out of the alleys and sewers and begun following him down the street. This is disconcerting, and he begins walking faster. But within a couple of blocks, the herd of rats behind him has grown to hundreds, and they begin squealing. He begins to trot toward the Bay, looking around to see that the rats now number in the MILLIONS, and are squealing and coming toward him faster and faster.

Concerned, even scared, he runs to the edge of the Bay, and throws the bronze rat as far out into the water as he can. Amazingly, the millions of rats all jump into the Bay after it, and are all drowned. The man walks back to the shop. "Ah ha," says the owner, "you have come back for the story?" "No," says the man, "I came back to see if you have a bronze Politician."

Saturday Forgiveness

Due to our staff having to attend a mandatory company retreat, where our team building activities consisted of learning to do the YMCA dance together, we were not able to post an entry on Saturday. Apparently the iPhone does not have all of the functionality of a standard desktop. Who knew?

Anyway, we do hope that you can find it in your hearts to forgive us and know that we will be back on track Monday morning with newest installment of the Puppet Videos.

Budget paralysis

We're frustrated, as it seems are you, about the local government tempo. It seems that that 7% (Osceola County) or 9% (Kissimmee) tax rollback has caused complete paralysis on local government being able to move forward with, well, much of anything. Never mind that in a lot of cases, the cuts were almost immediately reversed with the now-infamous "revenue neutral" service fees.

We've listed many of the tax- and budget-related things that struck us as odd in the last few weeks. Unfortunately, we were put off our morning cereal this morning when we were reading the Orlando Sentinel's coverage of how other communities along the new commuter rail line already have at least conceptual plans for developing new communities, or new community features, near their rail stations. What was the big Osceola County news of the day? Now two Kissimmee commissioners want to spend (supposedly precious) budget dollars on reworking the city logo. Progress?

Here's the core of the problem for us: the national business press are now suggesting that Florida's economy will be recession-like until 2009. Most of this local pain was just inflicted by the reaction to the initial property tax change. We are facing the second part of the property tax change in early 2008, plus if the economy is recession-like, sales tax revenues will be impacted, as will fees for self-funding departments, like development and impact fees. What will our local leaders do if those revenue sources are reduced as well, and how will that reaction compare to the rest of Central Florida? Lest we forget, there will be a 2008 election, possibly before the revenue pattern reverses itself.

Logo Re-design

The chatter about Kissimmee potentially redesigning their logo has reached a new higher pitch. According to those who propose the redesign, the city logo is a marketing tool and needs updating.

We say this: the likelihood that a business would choose Kissimmee based on the city logo is more slight than the likelihood that they are looking for "All-America City Finalist" on the city's marketing materials.

When, do you suppose, does a new business moving into Kissimmee first see any materials with the city logo on them?

If the City Commission has $40,000 in available money that they want to invest in beneficial marketing of the city, we suggest that that money be allocated towards economic development, not letterhead.

Change requires trust

We recently saw this quote: "People want progress, but they don't like change."

Change may or may not be progress. Long-time county residents recall wide-open spaces and ranching as a way of local life. Others remember when the 192 corridor was a fresh new tourist attraction, with hotels, amusement concessions, and even the Xanadu house. Orange County remembers when Osceola was merely housing for their service workers. And many remember when Central Florida was an affordable housing area, just a few years ago.

Unfortunately, we can't go back to earlier times. So, as a community we hope that we don't have just change, but progress...positive change. To have progress, we must often trust in our community leaders to make decisions that are best for the community as a whole.

Property tax reform. Fire fee. Gas tax. $250,000/year or $2.1 million for a school in an old store. Business relocation properties purchased without appropriate zoning. Hurricane housing grants for struggling nonprofit projects. Workforce housing that several quasi-governmental organizations want, but no one seems to own. $85,000 (or $109,000?) for a civic award competition. Intergovernmental lawsuits. Charter review appointments. Consultants. Funding lost due to improper documentation.

As Billy Joel sang, we didn't start the fire.

Change is going to come. Who do you trust to make sure that it is actually progress?