Transportation Conundrum

The WayneWho staff has been having some great debates since the issue of moving the Lynx transfer hub into the downtown area away from Osceola Square Mall. We find it sad the direction that the discussion has taken with the downtown businesses and many of our elected officals, but changes to transportation systems can be emotional. We remember when the issue of Martin Luther King Boulevard finally came before the commission as a real issue out of the design phase and how upset those residents were that they were going to have a road with within feet of the homes that were owned in that area. One church and another person's home on John Young Parkway were going to suffer a serious negative impact by the construction of the road, but the commission understood then that there was a greater good involved with their desicsion.

At least that is what we all believed at the time. We all believed that the commission was pushing through the wave of upset residents because they understood the importance to our entire community that a good transportation network becomes. This is what they told "those people" who were in the audience protesting the location of the new road. Their concerns were not important in the grand scheme of our community.

Fast forward to today when the discussions of improving our transportation have become even more serious because of gas prices that have risen to record levels, and residents looking for public transportation alternatives. With all of this going on, most would have assumed that improving public transportation would be a priority with a commission that has already shown committment in this area. This time there seems to be a snag. There is a different group of people protesting this change so now the project is in jeopardy.

The question that should be asked is what are the differences in the projects? Both are improvments and both will benefit the entire city. After hearing remarks from some on the commission, we have to wonder if the only difference is the neighborhood and not the need.

The WayneWho staff believes that improvements in public transporation are not only necessary, but that they should also be a priority to our elected officials. Times, they are a changing, and we need to make sure we are changing with them.

Pot Bellied Pigs - Loved by Celebrities, Hated by Commissioners

As we went over the week's events and entries during our WayneWho staff meeting, we found ourselves once again caught up in the drama of Kissimmee vs. those cute, adorable, cuddly little pigs. We wondered what the pigs had done so wrong to make Commissioners want to take their rights away. After some careful research, we were happy to learn that while Kissimmee Commissioners have a prejudice to pigs, celebrities do not. After reading an article about George Clooney's affection for one pig, we believe we have come up with the solution for Ms. Piggy's owner. Direct your calls for pig rescue to Mr. Clooney. Apparently, he has many celebrity friends who will love the pigs too... and whose rights haven't been infringed on by their local government.

Those People...

It is sad that the issue of race will again take center stage during this year's election cycle. Last night WFTV Channel 9 ran a story on a former Kissimmee City employee who was fired from his position at the Civic Center for speaking Spanish to clients at the Civic Center. The City of Kissimmee does have an English only policy that they had put into action over a year ago, but that was originally supposed to be to streamline communications between employees and management. One of the highlighted comments the City of Kissimmee used as a reason to let this employee go was, "We, the city, pay our employees in dollars, not pesos." If the dollar gets any weaker, this may not be the case for long.

This reminded us of a comment from last weeks City of Kissimmee Commission meeting from commissioner Jerry Gemskie. During the heated discussion on moving the Lynx hub from the Osceola Square Mall into Downtown Kissimmee, Commissioner Gemskie made an interesting assertion. He explained that moving the hub away from where "those people" lived and away from where "those people" who would ride a bus are used to getting on it would actually be worse for "those people". At one point during his rant someone actually tried to stop him from his racial and/or class based arguments, but he ignored the interruption and continued in his divisive line of thinking. We can only hope that his true character shows through to the voters of this community during this election year. One thing we will agree to was that his argument was an interesting turning point in the Lynx debate because it showed that the resistance to moving the hub into downtown may be more about the downtown residents and business owners not wanting "those people" coming through the downtown rather than any other issue.

The WayneWho staff was left wondering if these different incidents are part of a pattern of behavior inside the city. Are racial and/or class biases dictating policy with our elected officials? If a group such as the downtown residents and business owners come together and demand that "those people" should not be allowed in their area, will government follow the pattern it has been establishing or will it duly represent the community as it has sworn to. This year's election will probably answer many of those questions.

Our advice to Lynx, pull out of this before you get pulled into this dirty fight. Talk to the county to see if you can put the hub on Osceola Parkway near the Wal-mart. This area would make a perfect light-rail and bus station that would serve many of "those people" without subjecting them to the public policy of those within the city. The City of Kissimmee will only continue to waste your time and the federal grants that are available, so pull the plug on your talks with them. Maybe if we can relocate the station to Osceola Parkway then you can create an "our people" route that can get people to and from the downtown area.

Dead Idea File

The WayneWho archival staff reached back a couple months into the "hot issues" file and want to know...what happened to the discussion over the consolidation of fire/rescue departments?

Here at WayneWho HQ, we continue to believe that the idea was a non-starter. Perhaps "those who know" quickly found that out as well, and pushed it aside. Either that, or perhaps it's waiting in the wings, waiting for the good citizens of Kissimmee, St. Cloud, and Osceola County to be wrapped into their summer schedules before it sneaks its way back onto the local agendas.

In a time when companies can go over the books and decide in days, if not hours, whether it makes sense to buy another company, don't we think that, if this deal had any merit, we would have heard about it within weeks of Kissimmee's City Commission giving the City Manager authorization to have discussions with the county?

After all, local governments are desperate for ways to save money, right? So why hasn't anyone called for a progress update?

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled distraction issues

Planned Parenthood for Pigs

The City of Kissimmee Commission entered uncharted territory at this past week's commission meeting. As we had mentioned in a previous article, the city was working a way to again erode the rights of citizens by limiting the numbers of specific types of pets that a resident may legally own. The city already has an ordinance that limits the number of overall pets you may own to five, but when it comes to pets of the pot-bellied pig persuasion, one is enough according to the commission. And all of this discussion while buildings continue to crumble on Vine Street.

Ignoring the logical and reasonable arguments brought forward by the pro-pig advocates, the commission decided to move forward with the limiting ordinance. Before its final passage, Commissioner Grieb decided to expand the role of government, and possibly government itself, by adding into the ordinance a "Planned Parenthood for Pigs" amendment. Not only will owners of single pot-bellied pigs be forced to have them spayed or neutered, but the porcine parental hopefuls will have to under go counseling to make sure they understand the rigors of pig parenthood. This will hopefully open the doors to the free veterinary clinic to handle the huge herds of pot-bellied pigs (some that are now adding to the gang violence in our area) that have surged in recent years in our community, but as with any government function we will now have to listen to elected officials whine about how they cannot afford any of this because of the stupidity of the voters in passing Amendment 1. Until then, just remember that makin' bacon leads to increased responsibility.

Sign of the Times...There is a Free Lunch

While driving along Emmett St. one Friday not long ago, the WayneWho staff noted a realtor's "Open House" sign. Nothing new there, but right next to it was a sign that said "Open House 11 - 1. Free Lunch." It's the first time we've seen this type of marketing approach for an open house, and it led us to wonder...would you go for a free lunch if you had no intention of buying a house? Or would the free lunch make you more willing to break away from your business lunch hour (this was on a workday after all) to go look at this house, separating it from the rest of the "For Sale" pack?

Kudos for creativity to the realtor who tried this, and we're wondering what other kind of unorthodox marketing campaigns we'll see locally in the coming months.

Porcine Problems

History can be a great teacher if one has the ability and acceptability to learn the lessons being taught. Tonight's Kissimmee City Commission meeting presents us with a rare opportunity to see an example of history working hard to teach a lesson that most in the audience, and on the bench, will not recognize as a lesson because of the silly subject matter. That subject is of course pot-bellied pigs, which even the WayneWho staff thought was a desperate grab for ratings by our Access Osceola public information department.

For those of you who do not remember this issue from the last time it came before the commission, let us set the stage. Several years ago the owner of a Vietnamese Pot-bellied Pig, Ms. Piggy, was brought before the commission because of complaints by neighbors about the owners choice of a swine as a live-in companion. The commission at that time sluggishly took action and decided to hear the issue. During that commission meeting swine-pet advocates stepped forward and explained the advantages of pigs as pets. They described the porkers as loving, smart and clean animals that required very little attention. The pro-pork advocates then brought out their secret weapon to finish off the terrified commission, a crying little boy who explained the mutual respect he and his pet pig shared. The commission buckled like a cheap pig-leather belt and the pro-pork advocates won the day.

How could anyone fall for the cute cuddly piglet to grown up aggressive, smelly, and destructive hog bait and switch routine? Personification. Personification is the act of giving human traits (qualities, feelings, action, or characteristics) to inanimate objects or abstract ideas (things, colors, qualities, or ideas). The farm animals were given human characteristics which then afforded them protection under our ordinances instead of a trip to the meat packing plant. The commission's only action at the time was to recognized the animals as domestic pets and turn Kissimmee into a swine sanctuary city. Now this commission is left to deal with the results of the last commission's inaction.

Which brings us to the lesson that history is trying to teach us. (Yes, we are using personification to give the idea of history human qualities.) The Lynx Transfer station is also on the agenda again tonight. Commissioner Irizarry requested last week that this item be brought back before the commission again, even though he has given his approval on the preliminary work twice along with the rest of the commission. He requested this because he has fallen victim to the personification of evil the opponents of the transfer station have created. "The station 'creates' loitering and litter" and "The station 'violates' the lakefront master plan" are just two of the arguments against the station that give it bad human qualities to again scare the commission into inaction.

And therein lies the lesson. Inaction, or limited action, ensures that an issue will come back to haunt the commission and the public in the future, usually with larger, smellier, and more painful consequences. Inaction is almost always the preferred course during election seasons, which is why so many of the same issues reappear right before elections. While voting down the transfer station may seem like plausible action, we hope that commissioners realize that this means they are voting against the transportation concepts that previous commissions have approved. This means this commission would be voting to support inaction for the near-future transportation needs of our community. Commissioners voting against the transfer station need to make sure they explain their views on our future transportation needs and exactly how they intend to improve them if the public transportation is not part of their plan. Voting 'no' does not fix the problem. Worsening gridlock and skyrocketing gas prices smell far worse than our friends of the porcine persuasion and need to given some serious discussion before the politically safe route of inaction is taken.

History teaches us well.

Economic Lack of Development

Last night at the Kissimmee City Commission meeting, our economic development warrior (EDW) was on the agenda to give a quarterly update. At first we were concerned that some of you might not have been able to stay awake through the meeting to make it to that part, but with the exciting return of Pot Bellied Pigs we were confident that this nail-biter of a meeting would hold your interest.

The EDW’s rambling journey started with discussion on the enterprise zone and how we have already given $30,000+ this year, not to attract new businesses, but just as a special thank you to those who are already in the zone. She also heralded that the economic development committee helped two daycares in the zone to get out of paying their property taxes. We have to ask the question, how does this benefit the city? Were the real revenue losses this past year truly because of Amendment 1 or were they from “Economic Development”?

Next we were enlightened on how the EDW gave incentives to a foreign company to locate here as part of a plastics cluster all in the name of creating 38 jobs which “are typically higher paying”. No mention of whether those jobs were filled by locals or what “typically higher paying” is defined as.

As we continued the game of cloak and dagger complete with secret code names for businesses that may or may not be coming to our area, we learned the exciting news that “Project Hammer” (yes that really is their code name) is being moved from out of the zone to the zone complete with an impact fee rebate with no new or additional jobs.

While the EDW refuses to give the commission the names of any of the companies that she feels confident will relocate here, the WayneWho staff has been able to do some investigative work and uncover what we believe is possibly one of our newest big players, Project Space. As you drive throughout Osceola, clustered on 192 is a huge corporation in appearance based on all of their satellite locations. This company, “Space for Lease” is catching on like weeds in an unmaintained lawn. It seems now that they have even rivaled the growth of the Amscot corporation. We can only hope that this new Space for Lease company will provide many high paying jobs.

Sympathy Pay Cut

According to the Osceola News Gazette from Saturday, Kissimmee Utility Authority President Jim Welsh proposed a "sympathy pay cut" for KUA's employees to help the City of Kissimmee meet its financial obligations. The one time offer of $661,068.00 would have been used to prevent job losses from the city and would be accomplished by a salary freeze to all KUA employees. Supposedly Jim Welsh made this offer at last week's monthly KUA board meeting because the city had just enacted a 90 day severance policy. The WayneWho staff is still trying to connect the dots on how a severance policy created a need for KUA's president to make such a bad business decision, but we assume it has less to do with saving jobs than it does with helping an old buddy run for re-election.

To bolster our assumption we would point to the financials of KUA itself. Strong profits, solid growth, and no forecast budget shortfall predicted in the years to comes are not indicators that cutback are necessary. As a matter of fact the company is working to expand its power generation capabilities, meaning more employees will be needed to handle all of the new homes being added to our inventory. KUA also has other areas where this amount could be drawn from including its reserves, but that suggestion was not taken seriously when it was made at the board meeting. Mr. Welsh indicated that KUA employees should suffer along with the city employees, which sounded to us like they want to spread the punishment for the passage of Amendment 1 as far as they possibly can. We also would point to the fact that Mayor Swan and Jim Welsh were the only two who seemed briefed on this discussion item. From audience accounts of the discussion, the other board members were surprised and stunned that the issues was in front of them. In the end, there is no sound basis in the business world for this decision to be made.

From the e-mails of those in the room that night we can tell you that the meeting was more heated and emotional than was described in the Gazette's article. Something more seemed to be at stake than just letting the city continue to operate a bloated government and Jim Swan was very upset when it was not approved. With tough re-election bids for a few sitting commissioners who have talked tough about cutting government without actually doing so, finding a way to save the day and allow big government to continue as-is would make for a great press release. While commissioners have made a few motions to support cutbacks, very few cutbacks have actually been made. Last week the commission even supported funding a non-profit downtown event organization while still being faced with possibility of laying off employees. Mismanagement maybe? Out-of-touch? Is this what you are asking KUA employees to sacrifice for?

We have to ask if the KUA board members and the city commission are going to look into the possible ethics violation that may have just happened. Did the Mayor of Kissimmee try to force our local utility into giving money to the city to help in a re-election bid? If this was to 'save' jobs at the city, then was this move made to ignore the will of the people who have told government to cut back and trim down its size? We also have to question Jim Welsh's ability to make solid business decisions. Was this decision based on any factual data that indicated that this wage freeze would help KUA or its ratepayers? Would handing over this money to keep people on the payroll at the city possibly compromise our safety during this year’s hurricane season?

Of course we will never know the answers to any of these questions because the questions will never be asked and government will continue to operate in an ethical gray area that most people don't understand or want to know about. This is why we must look at reforms that spell out the ethical boundaries elected officials should operate within. If we had ethics reforms then a decision such as this could be discussed from a practical sense and the community would know that their best interests were being looked after instead of those of a re-election campaign.

Ethics 101

A couple of weeks ago, in the midst of our complaint driven shutdown we had received a copy of a 'Letter to the Editor' that was being sent to the Osceola News Gazette. It was from a County Commission candidate in District 5, Jonathan Harrell. Our first reaction was to catch ourselves before we fell out of our chairs, because our little un-news blog had received its first communication from a campaign that was not a threat of one kind or another. We have received press releases before, but normally they are from PIO's just trying to spread the good word about their quasi-governmental employers. We hope that other candidates will also begin to include us in their campaign communications realizing the point that we are an un-news site and that we intend to never become a press release distribution service like our other local media outlets. We feel there are already enough of those, but we still welcome the conversation from all of the campaigns.

The topic of the e-mail that we received, which has since been reprinted in the local media, was on ethics reform in local governments. Our first reaction was one of laughter, but as the discussion wore on, changed to a more serious tone. As we look back through many of our own posts, we realized we were talking about ethical issues. Threats from school board members, threats to cut public safety over a tax cut, hand-picked charter review committees designed to further a governmental agenda, shady campaign contributions, and the list goes on. We had to ask ourselves if ethics might not really be the big issue on our local level?

Not long after that our un-news site received approval from blogger.com and we got back to writing, forgetting about the conversations we had in the previous days when we could not post more luring comments from our favorite school board member grabbed our attention. Then, towards the end of the week, the e-mails started pouring in on two issues. One was the resurgence of the 'Preserve' housing project that had found new life because of more lies told to the state to manipulate them into circumventing the will of our local residents. The other was the gift Mayor Swan was trying to bring to the general fund of the City of Kissimmee from the coffers of KUA with out ever discussing the topic with other commissioners. At least as far as we know, there were no discussions between commissioners. Both of these issues are breaches of public trust. Both of these issues require an investigation or audit into possible 'ethics' violations. Our shock over these two incidents set off a flurry of discussion at WayneWho HQ, and then we remembered the letter.

Ethics are that branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions. This is a high level concept when you look at our local political playing field, and an idea that is usually buried as a childish understanding of politics. It is often noted between politicians and the special interests groups that control them that those who speak of ethics don't have the experience to get things done for their constituents. Voters are told this same message and that it is who a candidate knows that improves their electability. Maybe ethics and electability should be more closely tied to a candidate than contributions and electability. Our maybe it is just a fools dream to believe our system is capable of operating on this level.

While this is probably not the glowing review the Harrell campaign was hoping for, we would remind all candidates that we do not endorse candidates. We may endorse issues held by candidates, including those who are already sitting in elected positions, but we will leave the endorsement of candidates to the local media and remote bloggers who would rather apply their California values litmus test to qualifying potential candidates. We hope that ethics becomes a discussion topic during this election cycle. We hope that it every candidate will stand up and state their intentions for ethics reform as well as the issue being discussed by the Osceola News Gazette, campaign finance reform. We would also like to challenge all of the candidates to do more than just talk about these issues. Writing a letter is a good start, but we believe that actions speak louder than words. What are you going to do is the question that must be answered next.

It's for the Kids...and the Retirees

We all know the argument: you can never spend too much money on kids and school programs.

We think the Orlando Sentinel recently published yet another reason why Joe and Jane Taxpayer no longer believe that argument to be true.

It seems that Commissioner Betty Wyman of Orlando retired from her City Council position last week, and then moved right into another office in City Hall as President, Chief Executive Officer, and Executive Director of After School All Stars. As the Sentinel notes, "As a commissioner, she led the same program as a volunteer."

While serving on the City Council, receiving a salary of $46,540, she handled these tasks as a volunteer, even though it was noted that this program was her main focus during the last few years on the City Council.

So we suppose you could argue that hiring someone to fill this position would be roughly worth the $46,540 annual salary, even though Wyman was supposed to be addressing not just this program as a City Council member.

What's Wyman's new salary for this position, the same thing she was volunteering to do while being paid to be a City Council member? $75,000, or $101,000 including benefits.

Some times the numbers just don't add up. Perhaps we need an after-school program, not for kids, but for those who hire for these positions.

Equal Time

We opened our Sunday Orlando Sentinel to find a 8.5" x 13" Spotlight article on perpetual candidate/activist Armando Ramirez, complete with a 5.5" x 9" statesman-like photo. Since the Sentinel, in the article, acknowledged that Mr. Ramirez "is again running for office," we're looking forward to a weekly Spotlight article on all of the candidates running in Osceola County. That should fill up the Sunday paper up to, or perhaps beyond, this year's elections.

The Color of Politics

The WayneWho staff is rarely surprised by statements that are made by our local elected officials, but even we were surprised at the childish comments offered by Jay Wheeler in his weekly rambling manifesto. Not only does he continue to gloat on what he believes is a national acceptance of his verbal attacks of the middle and low income members of our community, but now he his making rude comments about the skin color of our governor, Charlie Crist.

In this week's edition of the Wheeler Manifesto, Osceola County School Board Member Jay Wheeler starts with his usual obsessive compulsive outline of his public activities. Of course we never see the entries on topics such as "5/5 Attended a secret lunch with a developer looking to use a state law to force Osceola County into build a housing project in a neighborhood that cannot physically handle the traffic. I told him, 'hey, my good friend developer, you are the expert and these residents are too busy chain smoking and drinking alcohol to know what is best for them. I will support your project.' I then made my way to the bank to deposit a donation to my campaign that I just happened to find in my napkin. It was a good day." Maybe we do not see these entries because those type of events don't happen in Mr. Wheeler's day to day meandering, but we still have to question his unusual level of support for the Preserve housing project in St. Cloud. The question of which school board member threatened candidate Tom Griffin last year during the St. Cloud special election if he did not support the housing project has also never been answered. These kinds of issues show that while our itinerary may not fit in Mr. Wheelers day, other unscheduled events probably are.

His manifesto continues with Mr. Wheeler's declaration of his intention to run for re-election for his school board seat. He is doing this because of the national attention he received from the Fixed News network on his cowardly comments against the working class in our community. It seems that campaign donations have been pouring in because of his attacks and he needed to open an account to deposit all of them. The WayneWho staff can't wait until the next campaign finance report comes out so we can verify his claims of support. We would like to remind Mr. Wheeler that he might want to be nicer to the people that a clone of Preserve housing project in another location is going to have as residents, at least until they move in.

From this point his manifesto slips into a school yard name calling battle of wits with the a fictional opponent who would probably not allow Mr. Wheeler to serve him a glass of water. Mr. Wheeler ends his piece in the following manner: "On another note regarding budget cuts, I did go on the record at today's school Board meeting saying that Florida Governor Charlie Crist needs to provide leadership towards solutions instead of working on his tan and his next election. We have real problems now, and will fall further behind other states in K-12 public education due to the current crisis that Governor Crist is absent from. Maybe we will have a new Governor soon that will provide solutions towards improving public education, instead of a poster boy for Copper Tone."

We are glad to see that School Board Member Wheeler is openly admitting the problems that exist in our school system that our current school board does not seem capable of handling. Laying the blame for these problems on our governor because of his skin color is a sad statement of representation in our community. Is Mr. Wheeler suggesting those with darker skin color than his are lazy? Or is it that they duck responsibility? The voters of Florida demanded tax relief and Governor Crist fought to make it happen. He also fought for insurance reforms. He made campaign promises and he stuck by them. Attacking him because of his natural skin color because you do not like the fact he fought for citizens is short sited and shows that local officials are more willing to blame others for the problems that they have created than look for real solutions. And of course he is absent from our local issues. Is Mr. Wheeler saying that Governor Crist should come down and fix local issues as well? It may come to that if local officials don't start working on our problems instead of creating more.

Again we find ourselves asking for Mr. Wheeler to apologize for his charged comments and we suggest that other elected officials and candidates denounce his remarks. The politics of division will not help our community get out of the mess that it has been left in and we believe that the call for true leadership needs to be at a local level. The only color of politics we should be talking about are the proud colors of red, white, and blue.

Besides, have a good tan is just Florida style.

Government off the Tracks

On the same week that Metro Orlando made the Top Ten list published by Forbes Magazine of worst commutes, and the Sentinel was publishing articles on how the Tampa area and the Orlando area were melding together into a super-metro area, the Florida Legislature tore themselves away from trying to outlaw baggy pants and Truck Nutz long enough to play their favorite game, "what's in it for me," and killed the Central Florida commuter rail project.

Much has been written already about how this action will damage Florida's standing in future attempts to secure federal transportation funding, and how the legislature bent over to the trial lawyers' special interest group. Let's talk about what it means here in Osceola County.

First, since our county economic development effort at bringing high-paying professional jobs to Osceola County ranks right up there with our school district delivering A-grade schools, those in our community who want those professional jobs will continue to commute to Orange County and Orlando for the foreseeable future. And now they will continue to do so in the line of cars on I-4.

Downtown Kissimmee businesses will not see the potential bump in morning and evening rush traffic as passengers embark and disembark from the train. The same can probably be said for the businesses that were planned to locate at Tom Chalifoux's latest business plaza, planned right across the street from the Poinciana rail station.

We think the Kissimmee City Commission can back away from their theory that they were going to be able to engage in some public/private partnership to redevelop Toho Square into 2-3 levels of parking with 2-3 levels of mixed use development above it (ala City Center). They're going to have a hard enough time dealing with the KUA Hansel Plant white elephant for the coming years.

And to Senator Dockery, we say this: have you noticed that CSX Transportation has been running a major national marketing campaign for the last few months touting how much more efficient rail is for hauling freight? In light of the fuel price situation, wouldn't it be a bummer if Lakeland started seeing more trains, and more lengthy trains anyway? After all, CSX owns the tracks.

The Establishment Strikes Back

The WayneWho staff would like to start off by apologizing for that lack of posts of the past week. We were the victim of an alleged attempt to be removed from cyberspace by those who find our brand of un-news past the line of what many Americans would call "Freedom of Speech". It seems that the establishment enjoys being able to apply more control to the process of educating the public with veiws that it approves. WayneWho does not seem to fit into this category.

On the morning of April 30 as we were about to post on the boring city commission meeting, we discovered that the WayneWho blog had been locked and would not allow us to post new articles. We were still able to post comments, but that was all. It seems that complaints about our blog had been received by Blogger (Google) which takes all complaints seriously and locked down the WayneWho blog for further review. Yes, someone had complained that our un-news was just too much for the clean and pristeen Internet audience (especially those in Osceola county) to handle.

The review process itself was simple even if it was slow moving. Blogger asked for some evidence and the WayneWho staff provided the requested information using sources where needed. Interestingly enough during this review process, the views to our YouTube videos jumped by quite a bit, but we heard little about the review. We waited, and hoped we would be able to continue providing our fans the un-news that they had come to expect over the past year.

During our cyber time-out we wondered who could have launched an investigation like this? Was it a School Board Member who refuses to apologize to the working class of our community, who now thinks he is county commission material? Was it a certian developer with his school board member chimp on chain that will stop at nothing to build his government subsidized housing project somewhere in this community? Could it be other advertising based local media outlets that continue to republish any press releases received from local governments? Or maybe it was a remote blogger that once lived in our community who now seems to work as a spokesperson for many campaigns in the area? We may never know who or what triggered the lockdown or why. We do know that as long as there are those who seek an un-news source, there are those of us who will work to provide it.

And then as unexpectedly as the embargo begain, it was lifted. Control was returned to our blog and the message of a pending review disappeared. Blogger it seems realized that the claims were false, or that un-news is what is needed to add balance to what some refer to as news. Regardless of the larger scope of the establishment complaints about the WayneWho brand of un-news, we are just glad to be able to post once again. We would dare say the time out has allowed us time to dig even deeper into issues we were having a hard time covering. Without this break, we probably would not have had the time to do the necessary research, so we would like to thank those who gave us this extra time and motivation.

To wrap this one up, we would like to again thank our loyal readers.