Thursday, October 30, 2008

The Flood Gates Are Open

"Want to build a new city in the pristine and ecologically sensitive areas of Florida? Come on down to Osceola County Florida where we manage growth by letting the floodgates run wide open. Don't worry about the whining of the surrounding communities about the impact your new city is going to have on them because we could care less about what they have to say. Come on down because we can offer you a clean slate to start your new city and tax money we can give you from the surrounding community we refuse to support anymore. Osceola County - Offering a clean slate for the development community."

The WayneWho staff would like to submit this entry to "Floodgates are Open" new city advertising contest being run by the Osceola County Commission and their less than competent Economic Development Department who have decided it would be easier just to start over and build new cities instead of fixing the ones they have already broken. The "Clean Slate" amendment that the Osceola County Commission just passed to our farcical Comprehensive Growth Management Plan that sets the parameters for how developers can force the development of new cities in our county. The "Clean Slate" amendment creates a blueprint on how developers can skirt the law, lock out the public, and give plausible deniability for the County Commission Board serving at the time so the developers can build anything they wish with no regard for the negative impacts for those who live here. And the best part is that this new Amendment puts the taxpayers of this community on the hook for infrastructure costs of these new developments. Our residents will enjoy the additional thrill of paying more in taxes to watch their property values plummet. Sounds like growth paying for itself to us.

A familiar argument for this amendment was stated by outgoing County Commissioner Ken Shipley. Shipley stated, "If we don’t put these policies in place, big propositions like a city, they’ll grow however they’re going to grow,” which is not the whole truth. Under the current comprehensive plan, the commission can tell the builder, "No, we are not going to build here. You can build inside of the urban growth boundary, but not outside of it." If the "Clean Slate" amendment is passed, there will be no part in Osceola County that will be safe from the development community. As a community, we have heard these promises year after year and election after election only to have more and more developments forced down our throats and this amendment will help to continue that trend.

To wrap up an article we had hoped we would never have to write, we would like to include some links so you can start contacting those at the state level who we hope will stop the insanity of this amendment. It is now up to the residents of Osceola County to fight this issue because once again, our Commissioners have sold us out. We would suggest you do your homework and raise your voices to those at the state level. Once again, the public must do the work of those who were duly elected to do so. It is up to all of us to close the flood gates before the damage is done.

Division of Community Planning - http://www.dca.state.fl.us/fdcp/dcp/index.cfm

Office of the Secretary
Thomas G. Pelham, Secretary
Phone: 850-488-8466

James Miller, Director of Public Affairs
Phone: 850-922-1600
E-Mail: james.miller@dca.state.fl.us

4 comments:

GRAFFIX said...

to make sense of this, please go to www.ksib.net and click on carl cricket. then read this;
Wayne,Actually the County Manager and the Chairman set the weekly meeting agenda. Prior to the meeting, if three commissioners, individually, contact the manager and request an item be placed on the agenda it can be put on an agenda. The next way would be for a commissioner in a commission meeting to request an item be placed on the agenda, if it is not an emergency the request would be then set for a future meeting, that would take a second and a vote of three to direct the manger to add it to a future meeting. If an organization, company, individual et. contacted the manager and requested something to be placed on the agenda, the manager would research the item, determine it's validity, discuss with the appropriate staff if necessary, and if he deems it an item for consideration he would place it on the agenda, then it would be discussed in agenda review with staff and with each commissioner individually during the commissioners agenda review. During that review process it may be cancelled, continued for more information, dropped or remain on the agenda. There may be some other ways that an item moves tot he agenda but I think this pretty much covers the issue at hand.As of yesterday, I spoke to the manager about the next three meetings and this item was not on any of those meetings as of that time.It also looks like there may be more on the next three meetings than we can logically in a reasonable time be able to complete. We may need to move some current items out to after the new board is seated. In fact I intend to meet with the manager and look at the next three meetings and better balance the load and look at those items that perhaps the new commissioners should review and make the decision about. Hope you doing OK Ken Shipley (KI4VSM)EmbarqExternal Affairs Embarq Corporation407-301-3086 Wireless1101 East Donegan Av.Kissimmee, Fl 34744County Commission ChairmanOsceola County#1 Court House SquareKissimmee, Fl 34744Residence407-846-0434207 Lind AvenueKissimmee, Fl 34744

Anonymous said...

This was a move to block the next commission from stopping it. The current commission is worried that Paul and Fred are going to lose which could mean Hartford and Harrell would be the votes to stop all of this. They had to move it forward to make sure that Destiny gets built. Hartford and Harrell are our only hope in stopping this.

Anonymous said...

Who on the current commission is against it?

Anonymous said...

Lets build Signature Crossing and put it in Destiny