Bought and Paid For: Political Sell-Outs in Osceola County

Here at WayneWho headquarters we applaud the Osceola-News Gazette for exposing the special interest garbage that is polluting our Board of County Commissioners and stopping the “As Bill Lane Sees It” ballyhoo. We also applaud St. Cloud in the News for fairly permitting equal time for all of the candidates in District 5 to share their opinions and viewpoints no matter how limited they are in hard facts or evidence. However, we believe that we have to not only expose the special interest garbage polluting the board but the garbage special interests polluting the process.

Today we start our series on “Bought and Paid For: Political Sell-Outs in Osceola County.” The local media has already identified two known offenders on our “sell outs” list: Paul Owen and Bill Lane. But let’s not overlook the others who beat their chest swearing they are not like those; when -in reality- they are potentially worse.

Political sell-outs are bureaucrats turned elected officials who are connected to special interest groups that have bought and paid for their votes. In short, they sell out and do the bidding of special interests at the expense of the American people. They tend to serve on some non-profit boards that are given a heart-warming name to invoke some fuzzy feelings that cloud the judgment of the voting public. Their principles are not established and long-standing. They are bought and easily swayed with their eyes on the prize of the next election cycle.

Part One
We have seen the momentous impact that the Barack Obama campaign is having with the rhetorical slogan of “Change.” Whereas, we do believe Mr. Obama is definitely a change from the current federal administration, we are very aware of a county commission candidate who has “paid his dues” and received the nod from the current establishment but claims that he is different.

Fred Hawkins, Jr. (candidate for District 5) is running on the platform of “change” -how politically convenient. When candidates run at us screaming “change,” we can’t help but ask, “How different are they?”

Mr. Hawkins claims that he is “no stranger to hard work and perseverance and look(s) forward to using (his) years of experience in management and business to assist our county in changing how we "do business." So now the question that needs to be asked is, "How exactly does Mr. Hawkins do business"?

We know that Mr. Hawkins is an “owner” in Omni Waste Management, and in fact holds the position of “Manager for Governmental Affairs” for Waste Services Inc. We know that he sits on the Education Foundation with none other than Commissioner Ken Smith and rubber stamps everything he stands for. We know that he likes to golf with Commissioner Ken Shipley and frequently brags about said recreational activities as well as rubber stamping everything he stands for. How different can his views be from the current administration? Surely they’re not recreating together to bridge their differences.

However, despite his poor choices in personal company, we want to know what have these companies Omni Waste Inc. and Waste Services, Inc. done for the hard-working taxpaying residents? Have these companies been good corporate citizens in not only Osceola County, but in the other counties they have moved into? Can we tell more about Mr. Hawkins' philosophies based on the actions of the companies he is involved with? What has Mr. Hawkins’ experience on the Planning and Zoning Board done for the residents and what do all these things have in common? Has Mr. Hawkins been transparent with the voters?

The answers to these questions and more in Part Two of our series on “Bought and Paid For: Political Sell Outs in Osceola County.”