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.
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11 comments:
He just voted to put school children at risk on a dangerous road in St. Cloud. What whould you expect?
Great article. But like all the other great articles you guys write, it doesn't mean a thing until the voters start to educate themselves on the issues facing our community today.
I know that there are a couple of candidates out there wanting to run on good intentions but you have to know a little something about Government. Get involved in the community, read the Land Development Code, get with the people, look over the proposed budget for 2008 and most of all don't think you know it all or more than the tax payers! A good person would make a good candidate but a good person with some knowledge is even better. It is a shame when you talk to those throwing their money behind an incumbent only because they are afraid of the repercussions they may face by that incumbent if they were to be re-elected. What does that tell you about the incumbent? And what does that mean for our community when the most intimidating and not the most qualified candidate wins? Keep this in mind for the next election...Voters, it was your vote that put these people in office and it will take your vote to get them out. Supporters, it was your money that put these people in office and it will take your money to get them out. It is that simple.
I thought that Mr. Shipley's claim that Mr. Ferentinos main reason for calling out the commission on raising the gas tax is because he runs a car lot is just stupid. Since you just called Mr. Ferentinos a corrupt politician, maybe someone should check into the Lane Construction vehicles on Kissimmee Park Road. Or maybe the ties between Ken Smith and his job at the Education Foundation, and all of the county money that finds its way over their. And of course we all know about the great TicketGate scandal with Mr. Owen. Politicians in our community have done very little to make us feel that we can trust them. I would say the free pass is over. Local government needs to be accountable.
With a name like Mr. F, maybe he should be running for the School Board. It would be more fitting.
The county's only vision is DRI(Destroy Residents Investments). Their vision for light rail is to open up the area for more housing developments. And for Shipley's claim that he wants to bring in more jobs to the area, since when? How long have you been in office, and we are in worse shape economically now that we have ever been. Amazing how people can rewrite history.
The commission vision has been stay behind in building roads, make sure that any roads you do build are toll roads, and now sell of local interest to foreign companies. Write all the hate filled letters you want, because my vote will go towards someone who actually cares about our community.
Ouch!!! Somebody is going to be mad!
In Tony's letter to the editor in the Ad-zette, he calls the 5 cent gas tax a "money grab" which is what Mr. Shipley takes offense to we guess. The funny part is that Wayne Who had showed that a 5 cent gas tax was excessive even to pay for light rail. The math looked pretty solid to me. Maybe Shipley is mad at Wayne Who.
Tony is not the best candidate, and would probably not make the best County Commissioner, but what Shipley did was uncalled for. I am tired of these republican attack dogs going off the deep end. These guys have consistently voted against the people, raised taxes, and spent tax money like druken sailors on shore leave. No matter what you think of Tony, he does not have this commissions record.
I think the Osceola Ad-zette should be ashamed of itself for printing Mr. Shipley's personal attack. If I were to send a letter in like that, they would not print mine. Especially if I had something to say about any of their favored elected officials.
Here is the absolute bottom line.....We have an opportunity to vote out 3 of these "good ol' boys" in 2008. Somewhere in Osceola County there are 3 good people to replace the current regime with. Just imagine a county commission with only 1 member of the old establishment.
Q is a new face and 3 more new faces mean that the "vision" for Osceola county could be one of common sense and accountability. We have the chance to eliminate the status quo. Just like the commuter rail is a "once in a lifetime opportunity", so is booting these pork-barrel freeloaders to the curb. We have had five strikes against us for way too long, we're down to 4, now it's time for a real "three strikes you're out"
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