Signature Crossing IV: From the Ashes

By now all of you know that the Preserve/Signature Crossing Project has reappeared. Much like the character Jason in the Friday the 13th movies, after being left for dead the project has risen from the grave stronger than ever and ready to do more damage to our community. This time the developer, Jonathan Wolf, of Wendover Housing, has completely side stepped that argument he was originally making about helping the local community and has gone straight after the money. This time he has cut out all local boards, because they are subject to the will of the local community, and he has partnered with an Atlanta based 'non-profit' that has experience in forcing communities into building un-needed tax exempt housing projects. While most of the communities that they have established these types of projects in are much larger cities with larger populations of the poor, rural Osceola county seems to be their next target because of the easily accessible local tax money that our school board is all too excited to waste.

We could continue this article by once again explaining the reasons our community cannot afford this project. We could once again explain the fact that the rental prices to be charged are NOT affordable. We could once again explain that this whole project is about politics and not people. But we are not going to explain any of these things. Our readers already know the plot.

We have to confess that the WayneWho staff was actually happy to see the return of the project. Just like in the Friday the 13th movies, each sequel gets worse and has less and less to do with the original. The Preserve/Signature Crossing fiasco is the same. One bad story after another to explain why Wendover Housing should get our state tax money and the residents of Osceola County should get stuck with the bill. What really brings a smile to our face is the political wreckage that this project has created. We have a School Board exposed for their incompetence and for wasting taxpayers money on issues outside of their realm of responsibility. We have a non-profit organization, The Education Foundation, backed by a County Commissioner that has been exposed to the public for its lack of care for our community. And we have a trail of political contributions that light the way for even the tamest of local campaign finance reform. In the eyes of many who have kept up with this project, the process has failed and we can see that it has been hijacked by special interests. While we know that much like the grotesque face of Jason Voorhees under the iconic hockey mask, the nasty underbelly of our local governments is hard to look at, we would remind our readers that we must not turn away. The face of evil may be ugly, but the face of apathy is much worse.

We hope that those who have been working to expose the truth about this project continue to put in the time on behalf of our residents. This is a bad project for our community and will prove to be a drain on our resources for years to come. While we are glad that projects like this and Destiny come around to give all of us an insight into how our government really works, we find it sad that more often than not even bad projects like these get through. Nonetheless, the WayneWho staff is looking forward to the 3D version of the Preserve/Signature Crossing series. Thats when you truly know a series has Jumped-the-Shark and is about to finally go away.

The End??