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.