And we mean "REDO"

A few articles ago we stated that the year of 2008 would be the year of the do-over, or to some, redo in our local area, but even the WayneWho staff has been surprised by some of the recent redo trends. In this week's Orlando Business Journal a hard look is given to the Osceola-Kissimmee area including the tourism sector along West 192. For those of you who do not remember, the West 192 area just enjoyed a "redo" less than 2 years ago with a makeover price tag of $30 million. At the time, this makeover was billed as a way to revitalize Osceola County's tourism corridor which would create jobs and growth in our community. In reality it has created a haven for armed robberies, increased drug activity, prostitution, and a drain on the taxpayers of our community. Once again, the 192 tourism corridor has earned a bad reputation.

As a result of these problems, Osceola County officials want to spend more money to once again revitalize the area by encouraging the development of new sports facilities and by partnering with an existing hotel to expand the county's inventory of convention facilities. The head of the tourism arm of the Chamber of Commerce says the county should find a partner to help develop multi-use sports fields between highway 27 and SR 535 because the current sports complexes don't have enough space to meet demand. On further study by the WayneWho staff, the county's current sports complexes are not being used enough to cover the expense that is billed to the taxpayers for having them, so building more makes even better sense to us. Of course the real problem noted in the article is that since they are located on the "EAST" side of town they just don't fit the requirements of many sports organizations that we are trying to attract to the "WEST" side of town.

In the studies done by those who have proposed these ambiguous sports complexes there has been no definition of what type of "sports" would be served by these taxpayer subsidized facilities. We can only guess with the record of success that these redo's have had, that West 192 will soon see its share of Cole Slaw Wrestling, Cup Stacking Competitions, and maybe even Catfish Grabbing from our soon to be built roundabout fountain. With the success of the Osceola County Economic Development team, all we can say is that you need to get your ticket early and bring your poncho, cause the slaw is gonna be flying. Chamber Members receive a 10% discount for all slaw related venues.