The WayneWho staff received alot of nasty e-mails some time back when we said that the MyRegion.org and Metro Plan Orlando groups were failures and that Osceola County governments should stop giving money to them. Soon after our comments the 'PR' machines of each group ratcheted up their positive spin that local media organizations were more than happy to reprint with out question. Times have changed and questions are finally being raised. The quasi-governmental agencies are now being looked at as failures, or, at least, past their expiration dates.
In an article in the Orlando Sentinel today the question of success or failure for 'MyRegion' is answered in a simple way. After spending $4.8 million dollars and wasting governments time in regionalistic playtime, the organization has failed to create concrete plans or significantly influence the direction of growth in Central Florida in any positive way. In fact, many critics would say that the developer friendly positions taken by the organization can be directly tied to half-baked plans that have left half built developments with little or no transportation access. Governments who shifted gears to growth based financing of government operations are now finding themselves panicking on how to downsize before the bills come due. $4.8 million to fail seems like an awful waste of taxpayers money.
Where does this leave our community? The WayneWho staff hopes that it leaves all of us with a sense of pending reality. We hope that for all those local elected officials and community leaders out their that still like to say "Osceola County is a growing county," that they will stop using the Magic 8 Ball of quasi-governmental agencies to make decision that affect our community. It is time that our local leaders stop going for High Tea with their Orlando counterparts and spend time eating at Fat Boys and talking to those of us who live in Osceola County and live the reality of what quasi-governmental agency failure means. Maybe if more time was spent focusing on our local financial problems, we would not be in the midst of laying off 300 workers seemingly at random. It is hard to lead from far away when the only information you have is bad. Get on the ground and do your jobs here.
On Monday we will have an article that will raise some questions about a secret battle that is being fought on the proposed budget for County Fire Services. Budgets have been approved and funding sources have been identified, but according to some heated e-mails we have received, the County Commission is looking at ignoring the funding recommendations. We are still working our sources on this un-news story, but it sounds like the proposed fire-fee is set to increase and the development community is not happy about it at all. They do not want to have to pay their fair share and they want the county to either reduce the Fire Services budget (cut Firefighters), or shift the burden to county residents. We just have to wonder if the signal has already been sent that the Commission will protect the developers by the action seen this week of letting go so many Firefighters and the move to close a fire station. We will let you know what we find out on Monday.
In an article in the Orlando Sentinel today the question of success or failure for 'MyRegion' is answered in a simple way. After spending $4.8 million dollars and wasting governments time in regionalistic playtime, the organization has failed to create concrete plans or significantly influence the direction of growth in Central Florida in any positive way. In fact, many critics would say that the developer friendly positions taken by the organization can be directly tied to half-baked plans that have left half built developments with little or no transportation access. Governments who shifted gears to growth based financing of government operations are now finding themselves panicking on how to downsize before the bills come due. $4.8 million to fail seems like an awful waste of taxpayers money.
Where does this leave our community? The WayneWho staff hopes that it leaves all of us with a sense of pending reality. We hope that for all those local elected officials and community leaders out their that still like to say "Osceola County is a growing county," that they will stop using the Magic 8 Ball of quasi-governmental agencies to make decision that affect our community. It is time that our local leaders stop going for High Tea with their Orlando counterparts and spend time eating at Fat Boys and talking to those of us who live in Osceola County and live the reality of what quasi-governmental agency failure means. Maybe if more time was spent focusing on our local financial problems, we would not be in the midst of laying off 300 workers seemingly at random. It is hard to lead from far away when the only information you have is bad. Get on the ground and do your jobs here.
On Monday we will have an article that will raise some questions about a secret battle that is being fought on the proposed budget for County Fire Services. Budgets have been approved and funding sources have been identified, but according to some heated e-mails we have received, the County Commission is looking at ignoring the funding recommendations. We are still working our sources on this un-news story, but it sounds like the proposed fire-fee is set to increase and the development community is not happy about it at all. They do not want to have to pay their fair share and they want the county to either reduce the Fire Services budget (cut Firefighters), or shift the burden to county residents. We just have to wonder if the signal has already been sent that the Commission will protect the developers by the action seen this week of letting go so many Firefighters and the move to close a fire station. We will let you know what we find out on Monday.
10 comments:
For those who are interested on hearing what the commission has to say, this issue will be the first issue discussed at the BOCC meeting on Monday the 24th at 1:30PM.
The cuts to the fire department are BS! They approved a $24 million dollar budget that was supposed to keep Fire Services intact. The commission does not know what they are doing and they do not know ho to run the county, except into the ground. They are playing politics with the safety of our community!
Don't forget the rest of us that lost our jobs Wayne!
I think this goes back to some of you original points about fire services. We going to be at a point where the county needs to hand out garden hose vouchers to every home owner so they can got to home depot, buy a good hose, and protect their own property.
Protecting developers by closing a fire station? I don't understand how the two are connected?
What is going on is that some people are not happy with what the advisory board decided. There is a group that is trying to stop the fire assesment fees from being approved. This would mean that the budget that is already approved would not be accurate. After sitting through many of the advisory board meetings, I know that they did the right thing.
The developers don't want to pay the higher fire fees. The developer on the fire fee board was the only one to vote against it and other people in the development biz have said they don't like the numbers!
This just shows how week the fire union actually is. They could do nothing about this.
speaking on McKinnons Metro link, does it not sound the your friend Doug Guetzloe has been right all along with HIS friend Sally Baptiste? Does Ferentinos say yeah or no, in the past, to Metrolink and rail in Osceola county?
I have spoken to Ferentinos recently on this topic. He's still calling it the choo-choo to nowhere. This he says will "NOT" raise the economic growth and only spend more money foolishly. He says he would rather see a bullet train go from Orlando to Tampa and then Miami before the choo-choo to nowhere. Right now in these poor economic times government should watch every dollar and not be so fast in spending it. The County Commissioners he said should remember the roots that they came from and put people first. He said what ever happened to let's take care of our own. Osceola should always be first. Unfortunately this is not the case with this present Commission.
Post a Comment